"Surmise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the passing people, saying In their surmise, "Ah—whose is this dull form that perambulates, seeing nought Round him that looms Whithersoever his footsteps turn in his ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... surmise may be quoted an anecdote which is related of a company of the celebrated Black Watch, which had been exempted during the insurrection of 1745 from serving against their countrymen; more than three hundred of the regiment having brothers and relations ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... Phil do? She was afraid to pick the fawn up for fear she had been mistaken in her surmise. Yet it seemed too cruel to leave the beautiful little creature to perish. If Phil wished to save it, how could she manage it? She already carried their beloved rifle, which, with a supply of ammunition, had been their lucky discovery in the hunting lodge. ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... one in my head. I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had failed, had now reached the point where that had failed, too. Campbell's surmise was correct; with the pretence of asking him to the Cape for a week-end of fishing and sailing I had lured him there to tell him of my discouragement ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... it to wash the baby with as soon as he could get some warm water; but when he went to find it to wash his own face, it was gone. He suspected Tommy, but before long he had terrible ground for a different surmise. ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... played up as a "wizard"; but this fate has dogged him until he has come at last to resign himself to it with a resentful indignation only to be appreciated when watching him read the latest full-page Sunday "spread" that develops a casual conversation into oracular verbosity, and gives to his shrewd surmise ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... important rules in education is to impress children with a persuasion that the vices we would keep them from, such as lying and breaking one's word, are too shocking to be thought possible. A maxim this worthy of the great Fenelon, his beloved model, and which common tutors do not so much as surmise. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... from what he had just seen, that Temple was in league with wicked men in the city, with whom he was engaged in violations of the law, and in this surmise he was correct. ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... fell from the flyer hovering over their heads to the surface of the roof. Raf had already looked that over without seeing any opening. But he did not doubt the truth of Lablet's surmise. Sooner or later the aliens were going to reappear. And it did not greatly matter to the marooned Terrans whether they would drop from the ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... ellipse. How was he to select the object on which so much labour was to be expended? It was all-important to choose a star which should prove sufficiently near to reward his efforts by exhibiting a measurable parallax. Yet he could have but little more than surmise and analogy as a guide. It occurred to him that the exceptional features of 61 Cygni afforded the necessary presumption, and he determined to apply the process of observation to this star. He devoted the greater part of three years to the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... period, with the concerns of her father's household, that she had rarely found leisure for a walk in the city, and a brief and hurried visit to her sister. The young women, therefore, had scarcely seen each other for several months, nor had a single scandalous surmise reached the ears of the secluded inhabitants of the cottage at St. Leonard's. Jeanie, therefore, terrified to death at her sister's appearance, at first overwhelmed her with inquiries, to which the unfortunate young woman returned for a time incoherent and rambling answers, and finally fell into ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... perceived 'L'Actualite' upon the Prince's table, he saw that his surmise was only too correct, and he was furious with himself for arriving ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... manner," said Mr. Trent, "I surmise that he was not successful in finding the baby's parents, who were undoubtedly lost in the flood. Let us take good care of him, for he has so faithfully fulfilled his duty. We, too, have a duty to perform, ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... faith, and unsettling the religious convictions of the whole nation. There is no greater crime possible than to introduce among people enjoying all the benefits resulting from a firm belief in holy truth a simple doubt, a simple hesitating surmise, calculated to make them waver in the least in what had previously been a solid and well-grounded faith. But to consider that crime carried to the extent of so sapping the foundation of Christian belief as to bring about the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... it, and to whose very immediate interest it was that she should win the wager. Messer Simone seemed either to think that Madonna Vittoria was not in earnest, or that she might be neglected with safety. Whichever his surmise, Messer Simone made ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... supposed assassins was even thought of till eleven years afterwards, on the appearance of Perkin Warbeck. Tirrel is not named in the act of attainder to which I have had recourse; and such omissions cannot but induce us to surmise that Henry had never been certain of the deaths of the princes, nor ever interested himself to prove that both were dead, till he had great reason to believe that one of them was alive. Let me add, that if the confessions of Dighton and Tirrel were true, Sir Thomas More had ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... Whether it was a resolution of the Latin confederacy, or the clear-sighted genius of some unknown founder, or the natural development of traffic, that called the city of Rome into being, it is vain even to surmise. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... recalled, he did more good to that province, and more to secure the English dominion than could be imagined, and had he not been governor of the province for some time previous to the rebellion, I strongly surmise that it would have been lost to ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... exactly the point, my dear," the Duke explained. "Prince Maiyo is over here on a special mission. We ourselves have only been able to surmise its object with the aid of our secret service in Tokio. You can rest assured of one thing, however. It is of vast importance to the interests of this country that we secure ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... three different directions, and Cuthbert, who knew every path and glade of the forest, was able pretty accurately to surmise those by which the various bands were ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... something. He was looking fixedly in Henry's direction. Boughs and stumps of every sort often floated down the Ohio. He might have caught a glimpse of Henry's head. He would take it for a small stump, but he would not stop to surmise. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... save himself can even surmise," Borrowdean answered. "He told me that he had had information of a state of distress in some of our Northern towns—Newcastle and Hull he mentioned, and some of the Lancashire places—which had simply appalled him. He was determined ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... possession knowledge of some missing link or defective title, which would throw a great property away from its owner, but which, by his death, would again be buried from the ken of men. This, of course, is only surmise; but Weed indicates that property prompted the crime, and that the heirs of the murderer profited by it. Lansing was in his seventy-sixth year when the fatal blow came, yet so vigorous that old age had not set ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... satisfaction of seeing the tall figure in the fur coat approaching down the dimly lighted street. He ascended the steps of 545, let himself in with a night-key, and a moment later the gas in the upper front room was turned on, showing Mr. Rosenbaum's surmise to be correct. For an instant the flaring flame revealed a pale face without the dark glasses, and with a full, dark beard tinged with gray; then it was lowered and the window blinds were closely drawn, precluding the possibility of further observation. ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... their striving, A small flock of terrified victims, and there, With an I-turn-the-crank-of-the-Universe air And a tone which, at least to my fancy, appears Not so much to be entering as boxing your ears, Is unfolding a tale (of herself, I surmise, 1210 For 'tis dotted as thick as a peacock's with I's), Apropos of Miranda, I'll rest on my oars And drift through a trifling digression on bores, For, though not wearing ear-rings in more majorum, Our ears are kept bored just as if we still wore ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... O be not blinded with a false surmise, For least my tongue should faile to end the tale Of our untimely fate-appointed death, Know young Allenso is as innocent As is Fallerio guiltie of the crime. He, he it was, that with foure hundredth markes, Whereof two hundred he paide presently, Did hire[30] this damn'd villaine and my selfe ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... India and anxious to spread Buddhism throughout his dominions would be likely to distribute the relics as widely as he distributed his pillars and inscriptions. But later Buddhist kings could not emulate this imperial impartiality and we may surmise that such a monarch as Kanishka would see to it that all the principal relics in northern India found their way to his capital. The bones discovered at Peshawar are doubtless those considered most authentic ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... disparaitre parmi les nuages la tete de ce bon vieillard qu'on appelle Dieu"—"I had seen the head of that good old man called God disappear amongst the clouds." His naive material conception of the Eternal had dissolved—and dissolved into nothingness. May we not surmise that nine times out of ten this is precisely what has happened when we hear the question asked, "But how can God ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... Eddy mended its English three times, and finally got it into its present shape, where the grammar is plenty good enough, and the sentences are smooth and plausible though they do not mean anything. I think I am right in this surmise, for Mrs. Eddy cannot write English to-day, and this is argument that she never could. I am not able to guess who did the mending, but I think it was not done by any member of the Eddy Trust, nor by the editors of the 'Christian ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... but he had not his wife's and daughters' gifts; his lies were always of the cowardly and uninspired kind that seldom serve any purpose. Julia did not believe him, and set to work cross questioning him so that soon she knew what she wanted. It seemed that her surmise was correct; he had met some one at the "Dog and Pheasant"; a veterinary surgeon who had come there to doctor a horse. They had struck up an acquaintance—the Captain had the family gift for that—and the surgeon had asked him to come to his house on the other side ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... returned by the honest Bannacks, yet it was always after the lapse of several days, and in a very gaunt and jaded state; and always with the remark that they had found him a long way off. The uncharitable were apt to surmise that he had, in the interim, been well used up in a buffalo hunt; but those accustomed to Indian morality in the matter of horseflesh, considered it a singular evidence of honesty that he should be brought ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... very low, as he always did, and taking the cigar out of his mouth—Bill always smoked cigars when he could get them, and not very cheap ones either; 'well, then, I surmise you're lettin' her think quite contrairy, and there's bound to be a muss if you don't hide your tracks and strike a ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... "I can only surmise that fear was in every case the key, as I might say, which opened the senses to the presence of the Woman. The policeman was a highly-strung man, and when he became frightened, was able to see ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... find out whether the system of high transoms extended to all the rooms, including that in the left wing: for another I wanted to determine the "lay of the land" on that blank side of the house. I found my surmise correct as to the transoms. As to the blank side of the house, that looked down on a wide, green, moist patch and the irrigating ditch with its stunted willows. Then painstakingly I went over every inch of the terrain about the ranch; and might just as ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... that he must have a look and again he switched on the light. Yes, his surmise had been correct. The safe was filled with silver. There was a small steel drawer in the middle of it. He had a broad bladed jack-knife in his pocket and at the risk of snapping the blade he forced the lock and drew out the drawer. It was filled with papers. He lifted the first one and ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... be added that Duckworthy himself was shortly hanged, so that, if his surmise was true, there were now only three left alive of all that wicked crew that had successfully carried to its completion the greatest adventure which any pirate in the world had ever, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... fencing amused Addison and Theodora very much; and I began to surmise that good-humored as grandmother habitually was, she yet had a will of her own and was determined to regulate her domain indoors in the way she ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... presence may inspire others with reverence? But alas for the times! Piety seems dead; or, with the faith that inspires it, it lives, but in a few, who will soon disappear, and religion with them. Whose forms are these, Lucius? concerning one I can now easily surmise—but the other, this stern and terrific man, who ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... refer the origin of the lunar craters to some ancient epoch in the moon's history. We have no moans of knowing the remoteness of that epoch, but it is reasonable to surmise that the antiquity of the lunar volcanoes must be extremely great. At the time when the moon was sufficiently heated to originate those convulsions, of which the mighty craters are the survivals, the earth must also have been much ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... As you may surmise, the situation between England and Germany was peculiar. The secret treaty of the Black Forest was awaiting ratification by the heads of the two governments. Of course the mass of subjects—indeed not ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... her eternal crops and politics and populations. Mrs. Hanway-Harley, while she grievously suspected from Storri's sigh—which little whisper of despair still sounded in her ears—that he had met reverses, would not voice her surmise. She would treat the affair as commencing with Storri's request. But she would watch Dorothy; and if she detected symptoms of failure to appreciate Storri as a nobleman possessing wealth and station,—in short, if Dorothy betrayed an intention to refuse his exalted hand,—then ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... mollified, and indeed seemed on the point of adding a word when of a sudden he came to yet another halt and eyed his friend more reproachfully than ever—no, not reproachfully save by implication: with bewilderment rather, and helpless surmise. ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and the whites will, sooner or later, come to open strife in the Southern States of the Union? But if it be asked what the issue of the struggle is likely to be, it will readily be understood that we are here left to form a very vague surmise of the truth. The human mind may succeed in tracing a wide circle, as it were, which includes the course of future events; but within that circle a thousand various chances and circumstances may direct it in as many different ways; and in every picture of the future there is a ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... actress said to Amaryllis, "my husband's emissary, Aquila, was a pagan. He had with him, on our journey, this woman and her old deformed father who fled when the plague broke out among us. She hoped, I surmise, that we should all die on the way. Even Samson gave up secrets to Delilah, and this Aquila was no better ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... No woman, however guiltless, could divorce her husband and remain a member of that vigilant court. It was all or nothing. If a married woman were clever enough to take a lover undetected and merely furnish interesting surmise, there was no attempt to ferret out and punish her; for no society can ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... first surmise, the person I have supposed would be apt to pursue his conjectures a little further. He would naturally say to himself, it is impossible that all this vehement and pathetic declamation can be without some colorable pretext. It must needs be that this people, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... "It is only a surmise on my part, Frank," replied the Colonel. "We all admit that Jules is a very clever and long-headed rascal. Very well. Don't you suppose that he may regret having given way to sudden temptation, and fired at you boys this morning? He will, on reflection, fear that you may guess who ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... ground he took was one of nauseating morality, but I inferred that he is trying to force Vetch to agree to this general strike, and that he is prepared to threaten him with some kind of exposure if he doesn't. This, however, was mere surmise on my part. The fellow is as shrewd as ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... is a long time. Do you think, now that my son is found, and that son like John Ardworth (for there can be no doubt that my surmise was right), with genius to make station the pedestal to the power I dreamed of in my youth, but which my sex forbade me to attain,—do you think I will keep him a month from his inheritance? Before the month is out, you shall replace what you have taken, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... understandable. Remained only the object of an expedition of this peculiar character. Sam Bolton knew that the Indian would satisfy himself by surmises,—he would never apply the direct question to a man's affairs,—and surmise might come dangerously near the truth. So he proceeded to impart a little information in ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... business with a friar here, I vow; 'Twill presently be done if you'll but wait; Religious duties we must ne'er abate. What duties? cried the husband with surprise; You're surely mad:—'tis midnight I surmise; Confess yourself to-morrow if required; The holy fathers are to bed retired. That makes no difference, the lady cried.— I think it does, the husband straight replied, And thither I'll not let you go ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... a trifle, and he hesitated before he said, "I am not questioning your judgment, Captain, but you and I have camped out enough to know that a good camp-mate is about the scarcest article to be found. If we take in a stranger on this trip, which I surmise from the outfits is going to be a long one, the chances are more than even that he will turn out a quitter or ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... had awakened to new life. There were groups at every corner, and little knots of folk at doors, and men in twos and threes on the pavement, and it needed no particular stretching of his ears to inform him that everybody was talking of the murder of his cousin. He caught fragmentary bits of surmise and comment as he walked along; near a shadowy corner of the great church he purposely paused, pretending to tie his shoe-lace, in order to overhear a conversation between three or four men who had just emerged from the door of an adjacent tavern, and were talking ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... expectation &c (hope) 858; dependence on, reliance on. persuasion, conviction, convincement^, plerophory^, self- conviction; certainty &c 474; opinion, mind, view; conception, thinking; impression &c (idea) 453; surmise &c 514; conclusion &c (judgment) 480. tenet, dogma, principle, way of thinking; popular belief &c (assent) 488. firm belief, implicit belief, settled belief, fixed rooted deep- rooted belief, staunch belief, unshaken belief, steadfast belief, inveterate belief, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... "'My surmise proved correct. I have never been more petted than I was by "Toady," as the village boys had dubbed him. My present guardian is foolish enough over me, goodness knows, but she has other ties, while "Toady" had nothing else to love, not even himself. He could hardly ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... they perceived their surmise had been correct. A dilapidated old wagon it was, standing beside the road. To it were hitched two mules. There was ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... c'etait le comble de l'absurdite." It is, we suppose, irrelevant to remark that we find not the faintest trace of this sense of absurdity. The disciples, he says, had no choice between hopelessness and "an heroic affirmation"; and he makes the bold surmise that "un homme penetrant aurait pu annoncer des le samedi que Jesus revivrait." This may be history, or philosophy, or criticism; what it is not is the inference naturally arising from the only records we have of the time spoken of. But the force of historical imagination ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... fair supply of dried vegetables. Then after we had had a feed, Richards and Wild went down the bay and killed a couple of seals. I gave a good menu of seal meat at night, and we turned in about 11 o'clock, full—too full, in fact. As there is no news here of the ship, and we cannot see her, we surmise she has gone down with all hands. I cannot see there is any chance of her being afloat or she would be here. I don't know how the ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... of drums and dolls and skates and bags of candy and jumping-jacks and toy lambs and whistles and such infantile truck. And what do you think he's goin' to do with them inefficacious knick- knacks? Don't surmise none—Cherokee told me. He's goin' to lead 'em up in his red sleigh and—wait a minute, don't order no drinks yet— he's goin' to drive down here to Yellowhammer and give the kids—the kids of this here town—the biggest Christmas tree ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... held many unspoken things as he looked at her. Once she had overheard him say to Cecilia: "She looks like an over-ornamented pie!" Cecilia had laughed, and Mrs. Rainham had passed on, unsuspected, her mind full of a wild surmise. They would never dare to mean her—and yet—that new dress of hers was plastered with queer little bits of purposeless trimmings. She never again wore it without that terrible sentence creeping into her mind. And she had been so pleased ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... made a discovery. The man he pursued was wounded. Something in the manner of the fellow's riding had suggested this to him, but a drop of blood splashed on a stone that happened to meet his eye made the surmise a certainty. ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... I confess. Who the deuce can have put that bill up, and why...? Ho, faith, I can guess, pretty near, what it means; this cannot possibly proceed but from the quarter I surmise. ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... thousands of adjectives in the dictionary I selected those two to fit the case. What could be more delightful than an abstruse problem in algebra? You never know along what charming paths of the mind it will lead you. Moreover there is over it a veil of mystery. You can't surmise what delightful secrets it will reveal later on. What will the end be? What a powerful appeal such a question will always make to a highly intelligent and imaginative mind like mine! No poetry! No beauty! Why every algebraic problem from the very nature of its being is surcharged with it! It's ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... lengthening reveries, Could not escape the gentle Julia's eyes; She saw that Juan was not at his ease; But that which chiefly may, and must surprise, Is, that the Donna Inez did not tease Her only son with question or surmise: Whether it was she did not see, or would not, Or, like all very clever ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... "There is something about this house he is afraid may be found out, and he is afraid you will find it out. Unless I am greatly mistaken, a great deal depends upon the secret being preserved intact. At present we can only surmise its nature; but I mean, in the course of a few days, to know more of Mr. Harringford's antecedents than he might be willing to communicate to anyone. What is the matter with you, Hal? You look ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... worthy drover's fireside for the purer and holier melodies of another inspiration.[87] As a pendant to this creditable account of the bard's principles, we are informed that he was a frequent guest at the presbytery dinner-table; a circumstance which some may be so malicious as to surmise amounted to nothing more than a purpose to enhance the festive recreations of the reverend body—a suspicion, we believe, in this particular instance, totally unfounded. He died in 1778; and he has succeeded to some rather peculiar honours for a person in his position, or ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that the Tsarskoe Selo will touch at Tilbury on Tuesday next, the 10th. I shall land there, and immediately go up to London by the first train I can get. If you like, you may meet me at Fenchurch Street Station, in the first-class waiting-room, in the late afternoon. Since I surmise that after thirty years' absence my face may not be familiar to you, I may as well tell you that you will recognize me by a heavy Astrakhan fur coat, which I shall wear, together with a cap of the same. You may then introduce ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... revert is not connected with the type of the hybrid, but is apt to occur in some rare individuals of every type. But since most of the sterile hybrids are only known to us in a single individual and its vegetative offspring, this surmise offers an explanation of the rare occurrence ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... importance of the case considered, I must repeat, that you are too nice. Don't they already think that your non-compliance with their odious measures is owing a good deal to my advice? Have they not prohibited our correspondence upon that very surmise? And have I, but on your account, reason ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... tenantless. Mildred had become so much attached to the motherly widow and her son, that she would not allow the servants to do anything for her. So, without any definite agreement, their relations continued. By-and-by the village gossips began to query and surmise. At the sewing- society the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... in splendour. Thou must know the cause of this. Therefore, do thou relate it truly! If it should not be kept a secret, do thou unfold it unto us!' At these words of Gautama Savitri said, 'It is as ye surmise. Your desire shall surely not be unfulfilled. I have no secret to keep. Listen to the truth then! The high-souled Narada had predicted the death of my husband. To-day was the appointed time. I could not, therefore, bear ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... kittens, or other animals, power to torment whom has been given them. It was after prison hours—the men had been already locked in their cells, and the warden and deputy had gone home. It was left to the subordinates to put the fear of God in our hearts; we could only surmise how far they would go in that instruction. We did not then know that their power was limited only by their good pleasure. But it is an accepted and reasonable principle with them that the sooner one begins to take the nonsense ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... to surmise that either the farmer was playing him false, or else his honest credulity had been imposed upon by evil-minded persons. At any rate, he regarded the message as a decoy, and for half an hour refused to credit ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... by the horns when the president's caution was about to turn victory into defeat. What was said or done after the young man drew Mr. Colbrith into the private committee-room at the bank and shut the door, Ford and Kenneth, who were excluded, could only surmise. But whatever was done was well done. When the two, uncle and nephew, came out of the room of privacy, the old man was shaking his head and the young one was smiling serenely. So it came about that between eleven and twelve o'clock, when Ford, grimly battling to the last, fought as one without ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... her keenly. Something in her eyes as she gazed after the retreating couple told me that Silvia's surmise was right, and that Miss Frayne might be just the little punch needed to send ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... elegancies. More than that, that there are books of poetry and history lying around, showing that the woman who inhabited it was above her station; a fact which the housekeeper is presently brought to acknowledge. You notice also that the wild surmise of her abduction by means of the window, has some ground in appearance, though the fact that she went with entire unwillingness is not made so apparent. The housekeeper, however, insists in a way that must have had some special ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... plumages; The conscious sacramental trees Which ever be Shaken celestially, Consentient with enamoured wings, might know my love for thee. Yet is there more, whereat none guesseth, love! Upon the ending of my deadly night (Whereof thou hast not the surmise, and slight Is all that any mortal knows thereof), Thou wert to me that earnest of day's light, When, like the back of a gold-mailed saurian Heaving its slow length from Nilotic slime, The first long gleaming fissure runs Aurorian Athwart the yet dun firmament of prime. Stretched ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... where the parents of his betrothed lived, in Third Street in Vassilyevsky Island. He knocked some time before he was admitted, and his visit at first caused great perturbation; but Svidrigailov could be very fascinating when he liked, so that the first, and indeed very intelligent surmise of the sensible parents that Svidrigailov had probably had so much to drink that he did not know what he was doing vanished immediately. The decrepit father was wheeled in to see Svidrigailov by the tender and sensible mother, who as usual ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... had a vision, whose force was such that she could not continue to talk of such things. She had flashed her eyes upon him vividly for a moment, but was compelled to turn them away. He read in them a wild surmise; he thought that she understood him and was perturbed—perturbed, but not displeased. The bustling entry of Chevenix, unannounced, prevented ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... breast gazing with serious speculation at the crumpled figure opposite him. Indy, corroborating his surmise, said ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... coast. The slave-trade was freely discussed; and the subject had a peculiar interest, under the circumstances, because this identical Frenchman, at table with us, is suspected to have some connection with it. It is merely a surmise. The French captain speaks a little English; but, after dinner, as a matter of courtesy, we all adopted his native language. Our friend Colonel Hicks, as usual, did most of the talking; he is as shrewd, agreeable, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... resolution thought Too much to see their neighbors caught For no crime but false surmise; Forthwith they join'd a warlike band, And march'd to Loudon out of hand, And kept the jailors pris'ners there, Until our friends enlarged were, Without fraud or ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... in this city whose business it is, at least so I judge, to corrupt, morally and physically, young school and messenger boys, as you will surmise by a conversation which took place this very morning, and it is not her first offense. She called for her party, and as I could not get them at once, I asked for her number, so as to be able to call her as soon as I could. Presently I succeeded, ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... head. 'It's only a surmise,' I said, hesitating. 'I'll tell you about it later. I've had time to think while I've been coming back in the train, and I've thought of many things. Mount guard till I return, and mind you don't let Lord ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... beginning" are their unknown ancestors from a dateless past, men as human as ourselves, but men concerning whose psychical, mental and moral condition we can only form conjectures. Among them religion arose, in circumstances of which we are necessarily ignorant. Thus I only venture on a surmise as to the germ of a faith in a Maker (if I am not to say "Creator") and Judge of men. But, as to whether the higher religious belief, or the lower mythical stories came first, we are at least certain ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... those forest scenes, And to sleep in the tents of the Tarratines; But now it is better sitting here Within four walls, and without the fear Of losing our hearts to Indian queens; For man is fire and woman is tow, And the Somebody comes and begins to blow." Then a gleam of distrust and vague surmise Shines in the father's gentle eyes, As fire-light on a window-pane Glimmers and vanishes again; But naught he answers; he only sighs, And for a moment bows his head; Then, as their custom is, they play Their little gain of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... indulging in it diminishes in proportion. If Miss Penrhyn is capable of anything wider and deeper and higher than her average sister, I have met her too late to be inspired with anything beyond passing curiosity. In fact, I doubt if I could be capable of so much as indulging in the surmise had I never known my grandmother. There was a woman unique in her generation. So strong was her individuality that I was forced to appreciate it, even in the days when I used to make her life a burden by planting her silver spoons in the rose-garden and re-setting ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... be a one-sided artillery engagement, and the Germans soon had their artillery in action. They trained it on their enemies' trenches, believing from the size of the bombardment that an assault was soon to be made and that the trenches would be filled with troops. Their surmise was correct, but the Allies had suspected their opponents would reason thus, so the French and British infantry were in covered positions. Of course the Germans did not know how well their opponents were ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... his back and he noticed that the masked rustler was fastening them tightly but with a rotten rawhide. This peculiar circumstance caused a wild thrill to flash all through Larkin's being. Perhaps, after all, here was the weak link in the rustler's chain. The surmise became a certainty when the man, unobserved by his companions, sawed Bud's arms back and forth, showing him the quickest and easiest way to work ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... number is the number of a play. Over thirty, it means nothing. Your second digit of your second number is your runner. The second digit of the third number is the hole. The fourth number, as you doubtless surmise, is also a fake. Now, then, sir! 65—47—23—98! ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... had deliberately gone contrary to his wishes in disclosing where Adrien had spent the fateful twenty-second of May, she could not but doubt that Vermont would make use of the mysterious power which he had hinted he held over her. What this power was she could only surmise, for, of course, she was in ignorance of Jasper's connection with "Harker's Ltd." But she had an uncomfortable feeling that Adrien's freedom had been purchased at considerable danger to herself, and the thought ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... given no expression, in any official or registered form, touching the policy outlined by Mr. Johnson. He was the duly-elected Vice-President. He had come to the magistracy in presumed sympathy and close affiliation with the Republicans whose suffrages he had received. All beyond these facts was surmise or inference. No one knew any thing with precision respecting the new ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... as the country before us was tolerably level, we struck camp and pushed homewards. Although we occasionally saw Indians in the distance, none came near us. It was, however, pretty evident that our movements were closely watched, but for what object we could not surmise, as we were allowed to proceed ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... of matter so difficult to handle. The poem is a mere incident, such as happens every day: we are permitted to overhear a scrap of trivial conversation; but this very triviality does but deepen the effect of what we surmise, a dark obstruction, underneath the "babbling runnel" of light talk. A study not entirely dissimilar, though, as its name warns us, more difficult to grasp, is the fourth of the Bad Dreams: how fine, how impressive, in its dream-distorted picture ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... dressed in the costume of an Elizabethan peasant, is pottering and doddering among the pots and dods. He is an old man, well past the prime of life, no longer young, From the fact that there is a burr in his speech and that he has absent-mindedly put on his coat wrongside out, we surmise that he is either above or below the ordinary superficialities ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... at a certain woman's feet, she has joined herself with black Delrose, his enemy of years, is my surmise, and I think the denouement will ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... good judgment in some matters is still unimpaired, I see," he observed, tapping the little gilded band which had told him the cigar was an old favorite. "As to other matters, however,—you're wrong again, my friend, in your surmise. I am not sick, and I ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... doesn't score anything, but it helps. The scrub has to pass that line down there before it can score. What they're trying to do now is to get down there, and Joel's helping. You watch him now. I think they're going to give him the ball again for another try around end." West was right in his surmise. Kicks were barred to-day save as a last resort, and the game was favoring the scrub as a consequence. The ball was passed to the right half-back; Joel darted forward like an arrow, took the ball from right, made a quick swerve as he neared the end of the line, and ran outside of the Varsity ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... seemed to surmise what had occurred, and, in spite of his wound, throwing himself on my horse and calling on the Indians to follow, he galloped along the rocky height. The eye of love at once recognised the person of the fugitive. It was his own Nita. We all hurried after him, and even Don Gomez seemed anxious ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Middle Age. For if such were the dreams of its noblest and purest genius, what must have been the dreams of the ignoble and impure multitude? But had he seen this lake, how easy, how tempting too, it would have been to him to embody in imagery the surmise of a certain 'Father,' and heighten the torments of the lost beings, sinking slowly into that black Bolge beneath the baking rays of the tropic sun, by the sight of the saved, walking where we walked, beneath cool fragrant shade, among the pillars of a temple to ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... alas! only too common nowadays, that deal with peculiarities of grammar, how supremely repulsive they are! It is impossible to glean any sense from them, as the Editor mixes up Nipperwick's view with Sidgeley's reasoning and Spreckendzedeutscheim's surmise with Donnerundblitzendorf's conjecture in a way that seems to argue a thorough unsoundness of mind and morals, a cynical insanity combined with a blatant indecency. He occasionally starts in a reasonable ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... behind which they had left their horses, and as they ran the scream which had curdled the blood of Randall Byrne rang through the night. In a thousand years he could never have guessed from what that yell issued; his nearest surmise would have been a score of men screaming in unison under the torture. But Mac Strann and Haw-Haw Langley knew ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... creature who had attached himself to him in his new career; and when the door opened, the friend of his youth—the man whom he had so deeply injured—stood before him. Henri, in his anxiety to find out the truth of Chapeau's surmise, had energetically and, as it turned out, successfully pursued the object of his search; but he had not for a moment turned over in his mind, what he would say to Denot if he found him; how he would contrive to tell him that he forgave ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... what occurred. At any rate, the letter dedicatory was bisected, the greater part of it being transferred to the beginning of the First Book, while a mere morsel came to be printed at the beginning of the Third Book. This surmise may serve till a ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... stanzas, I believe, but these are all I can remember. My notion is, that the verses in question form part of a collection of nursery songs and rhymes by Charles Lamb, published many years ago, but now quite out of print. This, however, is a mere surmise on my part, and has no better foundation than the vein of humour, sprightliness, and originality, obvious enough in the above extract, which we find running through and adorning all he wrote. "Nihil ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... no secret that Germany was desperately anxious to curry favour with the United States, and it was scarcely likely, therefore, that houses would be sacked and burnt, civilians executed and women violated under the disapproving eyes of the American representative. This surmise proved to be well founded. The Germans did not want Mr. Whitlock in Brussels, and nothing would have pleased them better than to have had him depart and leave them to their own devices, but, so long as he blandly ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... which we shall show that the popular notions upon this subject are wholly erroneous. Their general acceptance has been due, without doubt, to the strong natural bias in their favor. It is an easy matter to believe what agrees well with one's predilections. A bare surmise, on the side of prejudice, is more telling than the most powerful logic on ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... embarrassed. She knew if she went back to the group with the trinket hanging round her neck, every one would know at once that Kenneth had given it to her, and they would surmise far more than the simple, truth. And she was especially conscious that Mr. Hepworth would notice it, and would think it meant all Kenneth had wanted it to mean, which was far more than she had accepted it ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... his mother. "It seems to me that you may be a trifle too punctilious; still, it is best to err on the safe side, and, after all, these are new people; we know very little about them, after all." Nothing was further from Mrs. Anderson than the surmise that, even had she called, no invitation would have come from these unknown new people to the village grocer and his mother. Mrs. Anderson, even with her secret and persistent dissent to her son's giving up his profession ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... "Your surmise is correct, my young friend," said the taller man, lightly. "We are the gentlemen who were forced to leave ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... correct in their surmise was proved shortly afterward when, a little distance ahead, Frobisher caught sight of a pin-hole of light. This presently resolved itself into sunlight shining through the keyhole of another door; and they ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... it is not rash to surmise that the much-debated word katharsis, 'purification' or 'purgation', may have come into Aristotle's mouth from the same source. It has all the appearance of being an old word which is accepted and re-interpreted by Aristotle rather than a word freely chosen by him to ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... fingers were lifted deprecatingly. "You must not be angry with me, my children. I am not here to judge you. I have no knowledge of your temptation, of your difficulties; you have met and loved in a wild and difficult land. I was not even sure of my surmise. Now, however; your silence and your anger confirm my opinion. I want only to offer you my services. Will you continue in your life and love as I have seen them to be, or will you, if only for the sake of other lives not yet your responsibility—perhaps, will ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... correct in your surmise, Miss West. Your niece and I will hunt up Ambrose Pare's diary when we get to Paris, and see what he says about the case. If you are right, I'll take you into my office ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... It was nearly all surmise, but judging from the number of camels, which were certainly double those that the Baggara had before during their stay by the fountains, they had been engaged in some successful foray, for as the light grew stronger the baggage animals seemed to be ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... dignity to discuss tactics with an inferior, or perhaps he felt unable to refute the specious pretensions I advanced; in any case he turned away, and either slept, or affected sleep, while I strenuously labored to convince my companions that my surmise was correct. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... however, expresses his belief that this is a groundless surmise. "Mr. Shenstone," he adds, "was too much respected in the neighbourhood to be treated with rudeness; and though his works, (frugally as they were managed) added to his manner of living, must necessarily have made him exceed his income, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... his mistress and her agent at this dying interview Paul could not surmise, but he believed that it concerned himself. He perceived that Mrs. Everett treated him more considerately afterward; and many times, as he looked up from a long silence, he found her regarding him inquisitively. She asked him strange questions once, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... cautiously out of the ravine to reconnoitre, and found his surmise correct. There was not a wolf to be seen. They had stolen away through the tall grass to their abiding-places, and the prairie showed no sign of any living creature ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... also he is involved, nor even that he makes any approach on the whole towards the loosening of the toils. The spectre of world-destruction, as Whitman says of Carlyle, was always before them. And I wish to ask later on if we may not surmise definite reasons in their own history for this recurring note of discouragement. But let us first look at the positive side, and first in Plato. Plato came to his system by several lines of thought, and to understand it we ought to ...
— Progress and History • Various
... child. And, as he very rarely made any allusions to his own personal affairs, every thing relating to his origin, life, and employments, previous to his appearance in this region, was a matter of mere conjecture, and many a dark surmise, also, we should add, respecting his true character. For the last few years, however, he was known to have followed, at the appropriate seasons of the year, the business of trapping, or trading for furs with the Indians, around the northern lakes. He had several times passed through ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... MS., to the country of the Tzendals, or a part of it. The words chi uinic would mean, "men of the shore," and might be a local name applied to a clan on the coast. But in default of the original text we can but surmise as to the precise ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... were two ways of viewing the gentleman, doubted whether she ought to express her opinion. It was Flora's disposition, and the advantages of the match, that weighed most upon her, and, in spite of her surmise having been treated as so injurious, she could not rid ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... the public walk, struck off across a little waste patch of ground, and entered the open door of the Aldborough Hotel. The light in the passage, falling full on his face as he passed it, proved the truth of Captain Wragge's surmise, and showed the stranger to be Mr. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... asked Henry, knowing well that, whatever the offer might be, Timmendiquas was the head and front of it—and despite his question he could surmise its nature. ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... direction? It is a mistake every way, injurious to you, his child; and should you happen to die during your sojourn under your uncle's care, it would woefully defeat the testator's object, and raise such a storm of surmise and inquiry as would awaken all England, and send the old scandal on the ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... play. Instead of exposing what had been done, she destroyed the bonnet received from New York, and made an effort to keep what had occurred a secret. But Kitty's appearance at church in such an elegant affair, naturally created some talk. One surmise after another was started, and, at last, from hints dropped by the milliner, and admissions almost extorted from Mrs. Claudine, the truth came out so fully, that all understood it; nor was Mrs. Ballman long left in ignorance on ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... regained some composure, she said, "You have not offended, Arthur. Your surmise was just and natural, and could not always have escaped you. Connected with that word are many sources of anguish, which time has not, and never will, dry up; and the less I think of past events ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... from bed and work upon the Pieta, wearing a thick paper cap, in which he placed a lighted candle made of goat's tallow. This method of chiselling by the light of one candle must have complicated the technical difficulties of his labour. But what we may perhaps surmise to have been his final motive for the rejection of the work, was a sense of his inability, with diminished powers of execution, and a still more vivid sense of the importance of the motive, to accomplish ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... my life. They was about as old as he. Well, by and by one of them stood up in the boat. I surmise he had been drinkin'. Then, a minute afterward, I saw the boat upset, and the three was strugglin' ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... these men of the same time, who so coolly killed their wives and sisters for acts of infidelity, were touched in some dim way with the same feeling, to which, alas! they gave but sorry expression, if the surmise be true. ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... person who has averred that a 'fetish' is a 'totem,' inhabited by 'an ancestral spirit.' To myself it seems that you might as well say 'Abracadabra is gas and gaiters.' As no reference was offered, I invented 'a wild surmise' that Mr. Max Muller had conceivably misapprehended Mr. Frazer's theory of the origin of totems. Had our author only treated himself fairly, he would have referred to his own Anthropological Religion (pp. 126 and 407), where the name of the eccentric definer is given as that of Herr Lippert. ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... may easily understand incidentally, and from the history of the period, that the Venetian republic endeavoured to stir up enemies to the Turkish empire in the east, being unable to resist its power, now exerted against them in the Morea and the Greek islands; and we may even surmise that Uzun- Hassan was subsidized by the Venetians to make war upon ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... whirl of the previous night, and by reason of the abiding joy of her morning's reverie, she had failed to miss the dapper Frenchman. Once, indeed, she had mentioned him to Isobel, who offered a brief surmise that he might be ill, and keeping to his cabin. Yet, here he was on deck, and possibly on the point of seeking an interview with the lady to whom he had paid such close attention during the early days of the voyage. Perhaps Mrs. Somerville had told him of the fainting fit, and he was ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... loud and bold; Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... than her wont, and her countenance grew even more wan and colorless as she submitted to the embrace of the beautiful Neapolitan. 'But how camest thou, Nydia,' whispered Ione, 'to surmise so faithfully the danger I was exposed to? Didst thou ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... followed, though at a longer interval, by a remarkable paleness of the sun. The sixth return, in the year eleven hundred and six, is recorded by the chronicles of Europe and China: and in the first fervor of the crusades, the Christians and the Mahometans might surmise, with equal reason, that it portended the destruction of the Infidels. The seventh phenomenon, of one thousand six hundred and eighty, was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age. [80] The philosophy of Bayle dispelled a prejudice which ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... With this surmise of Barbican's, his companions appeared rather disposed to agree, though, of course, it gave rise to ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... I have made all needful arrangements for your going off to-morrow. It is too late to-day. Sit down and let me explain; and, above all, bear in mind that this may turn out to be a wrong scent after all. Of course you may surmise that we lawyers obtain our information from many and various sources. The source whence the information concerning your matter has come is peculiar, namely, a lay-missionary who is going to visit the ship to-morrow—having some friends on board. Happening to meet the man the other day, I mentioned ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne |
