"Surmise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... incident last night,' said Saxon, 'of the chest filled, as I surmise, with gold, which I was inclined to take as lawful plunder, I am now ready to admit that I may have shown an undue haste and precipitance, considering that the old man ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this surmise. Not one who saw Farmer Jocelyn's coffin lowered into the grave failed to notice the wreath of "Glory" roses that went with it—"from Innocent";—and her name was whispered from mouth to mouth with meaning looks and suggestive ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... can now always have a peep at the owls, in their habitation on the old ruined gateway, whenever we choose. Confident of protection, these pretty birds betray no fear when the stranger mounts up to their place of abode. I would here venture a surmise, that the barn owl sleeps standing. Whenever we go to look at it, we invariably see it upon the perch bolt upright, and often with its eyes closed, apparently fast asleep. Buffon and Bewick err (no doubt, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... of desuetude. It showed no lights; had not an open window—so far as could be determined by straining sight aided only by a faint reflection from the livid skies. One felt warranted in assuming the premises to be vacant. Encouraging surmise! If such were in fact the case, he might hope soon to be counting his spoils in the ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... and that a friend or friends of Mrs. 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 Science Journal,' for their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... remained only to fall back on something more or less akin to the vagueness of antiquity; to make a virtual confession of ignorance, to deny the ultimate reality of evil, like Plato and Aristotle, or, with Speusippus, the eternity of its antithetical existence, to surmise that it is only one of those notions which are indeed provisionally indispensable in a condition of finite knowledge, but of which so many have been already discredited by the advance of philosophy; to revert, in short, to the original ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... her brother Henry and Joel Bradbury, returned on foot. The two former remembered O'Neil, and, although they had not witnessed his first interview with their father, they knew enough of the family history to surmise his errand. Joel was ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... self-analysis. She did not even know why she was happy; she thought life was good to her. Still, there must have been moments when she perceived that the finer things were not in themselves unattainable, but were kept from her by a social tyranny. This I can only surmise, as in our daily intercourse she never gave ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... respecting him and as it appeared to me; he did not on any one occasion attempt to conceal his person from their observation, I do say, gentlemen, that the means of knowledge of these witnesses are so slight, that if I call witnesses to prove, not by vague surmise, never having seen him before, that he was in their society and company that evening so late, as to render it impossible that he should have been at Dover that night. But supposing that the evidence of alibi should not be satisfactory, it then comes back to the ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... in vain to come across a crust. And, when our God-born WILHELM brings his Huns Here, he will find a few odd skeletons." Such is the tale a Teuton lately writ. How, then, I ask, does London look so fit? This is the reason, mainly, I surmise— We are fed up, of course, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... purple. Looking at him—as he stood there arrayed in his uncle's red night-cap, his own night-shirt, which was also a day-shirt and much too small, and his father's pea-jacket, which was preposterously too large—one could not avoid the alarming surmise that there might be such a thing as juvenile apoplexy, and that that boy was on the point of becoming a living, if not a dead, example ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... was, to have been so long blind!" muttered I; "but it cannot be!—Julia!—my Julia!—no, no!" And I almost cursed myself for the unworthy suspicion. But why dwell longer upon these moments of agony? My first surmise was a correct one. In a week's time all was known. My brother, my brother Harry, for whom I would have sacrificed fortune, life itself, had betrayed my dearest trust, and had become the husband of her I had fondly thought my own. The blow was too sudden and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... 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
... dignity nor deception in it. I have done with being false, and so shall simply act myself and be a true woman. Though my heart break a thousand times, not even by a glance shall I show that it is breaking for him. If he or others surmise the truth, they may; let them. It is a part of my penance; and I will show the higher, stronger pride of one who makes no vain, useless pretence to happy indifference, but who can maintain a self-control so perfect that even Mrs. Alston shall not see ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... dining-club at his house named the Company of the Kettle, also a second club named the Trowel. At one time, Franciabigio being then the chairman of the Kettle-men, Andrea recited, and is by some regarded as having composed, a comic epic, "The Battle of the Frogs and Mice''—a rechauffe, as one may surmise, of the Greek Batrachomyomachia, popularly ascribed to Homer. He fell in love with Lucrezia (del Fede), wife of a hatter named Carlo Recanati; the hatter dying opportunely, the tailor's son married her on ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, Where ranges forth the spirit far and free? Through what strange realms and unfamiliar skies Tends her far course to lands of mystery? To lands unspeakable—beyond surmise, Where shapes unknowable to being spring, Till, faint of wing, the Fancy fails and dies Much wearied with the spirit's journeying, Ere sleep comes down to ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... restoration, just before 1882. He designed the tracery in accordance with what he conceived to have been the date of the church; but when his work was finished a single window, that furthest east in the south aisle, was discovered walled up, and the style of this showed that his surmise had not been far wrong, though the period he had chosen was a little later. The glass in several of the windows is of interest. That at the east end of the south aisle is the Caxton window, put up 1820 by the Roxburghe Club, ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... hand, to entangle Frank into marriage with this foreigner, the squire could never forgive him. On the other hand, if she will not marry him without the dowry—and that depends on her brother's wedding this countrywoman—and that countrywoman be, as I surmise, Violante, and Violante be this heiress, and to be won by me! Tush, tush. Such delicate scruples in a woman so placed and so constituted as Beatrice di Negra must be easily talked away. Nay, the loss itself of this alliance to her brother, the loss of her own dowry, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the bells brought Jimmy to the door, and asking him to stable Pedro and give him something to eat, Jasper accompanied the doctor. He was anxious to find out as soon as possible whether his surmise was correct about the sick man. If so, he had his mind all made up what he would do, and there was no time to ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... offered so panting, so militant a participation in his doings. He doubted too whether Virgilia could ever have felt so extreme an interest in the doings of any other man whomsoever. Certainly it was a fair surmise that Richard Morrell, during the formative period of the Pin-and-Needle Combine, had never so succeeded in enlisting her sympathy and support,—otherwise she would not have turned him off in the summary fashion that had kept society smiling ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... come, as they unto us at present." That, surely, coming from one both by temperament and habit so great an antiquary, has the touch of something like an influence in the atmosphere of the time. That there was any actual connexion between Browne's work and Bacon's is but a surmise. Yet we almost seem to hear Bacon when Browne discourses on the "use of doubts, and the advantages which might be derived from drawing up a calendar of doubts, falsehoods, and popular errors;" and, as from Bacon, one gets the impression that men really have been very much the prisoners ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... writer assails those who have thwarted or injured his hero. But our advice is simply—'Buy and Read!' Conjecture will run wild about the writer. All we can say is that the most romantic or interesting surmise that can possibly be formed will fall far short of ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Graves, 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, and, of course, he might sometimes ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... 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 ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Duckworthy himself was shortly hanged, so that, if his surmise was true, there was 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, ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... said, "it was quite open to the ladies to take up their abode on board, and probably they would be more secure there than on shore; but so far," he said, "all was surmise about the expeditionary party. For all they knew, Captain Horton, Major Sandars, and their men, might have met with the best of treatment, and at the end of a few days they might return, to find the station abandoned ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... put you out of suspense on the subject. I only ask, that some prefatory advertisement in the book, as well as the subscription bills, may bear, that the publication is solely for the benefit of Bruce's mother. I would not put it in the power of ignorance to surmise, or malice to insinuate, that I clubbed a share in the work from mercenary motives. Nor need you give me credit for any remarkable generosity in my part of the business. I have such a host of peccadilloes, failings, follies, and backslidings (anybody but myself might perhaps ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... which, better than from Richmond, our River, the burden-bearer, the road which joins us to New York and Sydney, can be seen for what it is, plainly related to a vaster world, with the ships upon its bright path moving through the smoke and buildings of the City. And surely some surmise of what our River is comes to a few of that multitude who cross London Bridge every day? They favour the east side of it, I have noticed, and they cannot always resist a pause to stare overside to the Pool. Why do they? Ships are there, it is true, but only insignificant traders, ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... arm would come in handy. There was surely enough of them below to do all that was necessary, so that his absence would not count for much. And after all perhaps Joel would prove to be right in his surmise. ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... little time to indulge in idle surmise. All her faculties were bent on mastering the big modern type-writer that presented such different problems from the ancient machine on which she had pounded out her lessons. She didn't like this sensitive, temperamental ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... feelings of that heart as well, Nay, with more candour than the tongue could tell. Though this fair lass had with the wealthy dwelt, Yet like the damsel of the cot she felt; And, at the distant hint or dark surmise, The blood into the mantling cheek would rise. Now Anna's station frequent terrors wrought, In one whose looks were with such meaning fraught, For on a Lady, as an humble friend, It was her painful office to attend. Her duties here were of ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... reaching in its sensitiveness, was solitary, sad, thoughtful, yearning, prescient of an early death; yet, by the whole impression of her being, she gave birth, in those who lovingly looked on her, to the surmise that she was mysteriously self-sufficing and happy. Bettine writes to her, "I begin to believe thy feelings are enthroned beyond clouds which cast their shadows on the earth; while thou, borne on them, art revelling in ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... The only surmise was that some squirrels had carried it up a tree. It was a ridiculous assumption, but the ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... surmise of Bob proved correct. There was a lonely little house—more of a cabin, or shack—set in the midst of what had been a garden, but now ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... murmured, "that a discussion like this is scarcely in the best possible taste? We cannot surmise what he wants—what he is going to do. Let ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... slaves at this festive season was supposed to be an imitation of the state of society in Saturn's time, and that in general the Saturnalia passed for nothing more or less than a temporary revival or restoration of the reign of that merry monarch, we are tempted to surmise that the mock king who presided over the revels may have originally represented Saturn himself. The conjecture is strongly confirmed, if not established, by a very curious and interesting account of the way in which the Saturnalia ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... observed on the small streams. Though these occur sometimes in little groups, the court-yards are not connected so as to form a defensive village. Small inclosed surfaces, with no evidence that a house ever was connected with them, were also observed. Mr. Bandelier could only surmise that these were garden-plots, something like the ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... Eleanor's surmise proved to be correct. At the door of the station house, Grace's father awaited them, and they were conducted into the court room, where the first thing that caught Grace's attention was the eyes of the prisoner, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... things that were no concern of his. The shrewd guesses which he was making, and the terrible mosaic that he was piecing together out of such stray fragments as he could pick up—and he was always picking them up—were hidden from her; and she understood nothing of the mingled surmise and certainty which made his interest in her partly retrospective and partly prophetic, as he fitted in bit by bit that hidden thing in the past or foresaw the discovery that must come in the future. She only thought him tiresome and inquisitive, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... will do next in their freaks it is difficult to surmise; but it requires very little more to show that patriotism, taste, and self-esteem, are not the leading features in the character of the inhabitants of ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... If his surmise were correct, and this should prove a blockade-house, he would take the garrison, though it consisted of only half-a-dozen men, attack the Gang, and smash the boat ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... change! semper eadem! Women will be wanting a change of air in Paradise; a change of angels too, I might surmise. A change from quarters like these to a French hotel would be a descent!—'this the seat, this mournful gloom for that celestial light.' I am perfectly at home in the library here. That excellent fellow Whitford and I have real ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to the drama as an actable play is that three of the four main episodes are fragmentary. We know nothing of the fate of Luigi: we can but surmise the future of Jules and Phene: we know not how or when Monsignor will see Pippa righted. Ottima and Sebald reach a higher level in voluntary death than they ever could ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... still living, though they gave no credit to the woman who now called herself the Countess. But, in either case,—whether the Italian countess were now alive or now dead,—the daughter would be illegitimate, and the second marriage void, if their surmise on this head should prove to be well founded. But the Italian party could of itself do nothing, and the proposed marriage would set everything right. But the evidence must be brought into court and further ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... Paul himself did not know the secret of that one day. He could only surmise. Even Vasili did not know. The Boy had cleverly managed to have the day, as he had the preceding one, "all to himself," as he had informed Vasili, and Opal had been equally skillful in escaping the attendance of her maid. ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... perceived 'L'Actualite' upon the Prince's table, he saw that his surmise was only too correct, and he was furious with himself ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... doubt and perplexity of spirit had vanished in the simple sense of her nearness. The throb of her hand in his was like the heart-beat of hope. He felt himself no longer a drifting spectator of life but a sharer in its gifts and renunciations. Which this meeting would bring he dared not yet surmise: it was enough that he was with Fulvia and that love ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... men and this woman, were in league with him whose rivalry I feared, and whom I had intended to supplant on the morrow. It was a wild surmise, but was it any wilder than to believe I was held here for a mere whim, a freak, a joke, as this bowing, smiling man before me would have ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... lovers of Gautier's Le Capitaine Fracasse will see in that but a charmingly boyish desire to translate a beloved dream into a reality—though his creditors probably did not take that view. Neither, one can surmise, did those gentlemen sufficiently appreciate his passion for amassing amazing waistcoats, of which some seven hundred were found in his wardrobe at his lamented death; or strange and beautiful walking sticks, a like prodigious collection ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... know the worst at once; but she had no means of reaching it at present. Her feet could not yet bear to be touched to the ground, and she dared not wake Hannah and ask for it. Such an unusual request at this time of night would arouse wonder and surmise, even if Hannah could be induced to bring her the letter and give her sufficient light to read it. The old nurse would think her crazy or delirious, perhaps run and call her aunt and uncle. No, no; that was not to be thought of, the poor child said to herself as she lay and reasoned ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... occasionally to advise him. Finally he took a rope, and began skipping like a girl, the other still gravely observing him. As you may think, I was utterly puzzled as to what these people could be, and could only surmise that the one was a doctor, and the other a patient who had submitted himself to some singular method ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not listen to any one who brings such an accusation nor investigate it. It is disgraceful to believe that any one has wantonly insulted you who are doing no wrong and benefiting all. Only those who rule badly will credit these reports. Because of their own conscience they surmise that the matter has been stated truthfully. It is a shame to be angry at complaints for which, if true, one had better not have been responsible, and about which, if false, one ought not to pretend to care. Many in times past ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... wrong in my surmise. Aunt Agatha looked a little pale and subdued, as though she had been shedding a few tears over my delinquencies, but Uncle Keith was simply inscrutable; when he chose, his face could ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... branch was termed the Worminghurst Shelleys; and it is only quite lately[1] that the affiliation of this branch to the more eminent and senior stock of the Michelgrove Shelleys has passed from the condition of a probable and obvious surmise into that of an established fact. The family traces up to Sir William Shelley, Judge of the Common Pleas under Henry VII, thence to a Member of Parliament in 1415, and to the reign of Edward I, or even to the Norman Conquest. The Worminghurst ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... same species as any of those now in existence. The beasts of the field, in the days before the chalk, were not our beasts of the field, nor the fowls of the air such as those which the eye of men has seen flying, unless his antiquity dates infinitely further back than we at present surmise. If we could be carried back into those times, we should be as one suddenly set down in Australia before it was colonized. We should see mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, snails, and the like, clearly recognizable as such, and yet not one of them ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... child's hymns; now he was laughing over the downfall of Mr Bickers; now he was making a speech at the debating society. It was impossible for the listener to follow all his wild incoherent talk, it was all so mixed up and jumbled. But if Railsford harboured any doubts as to the correctness of his surmise about the picture, the circumstantial details of the outrage repeated over and over in the boy's wild ravings effectually ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... inexplicable! the only thing she could surmise, with any semblance of probability, was that the whole was some frolic of Lady Honoria Pemberton, who had persuaded Delvile to send her the dog, and perhaps assured him she had ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... as plain, my dearest creature, said he, that you, who know not of any such faults, but by surmise, are equally ready to condemn me.—Will not charity allow you to infer, that their charges are no better grounded?—And that my principal fault has been carelessness of my character, and too little solicitude to clear myself, when aspersed? Which, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... inclined to seek the neighborhood of man, rather than to come out here away from him. They make very good American rooks. So I am led to think it is their love of "neighboring" that brings them about the hawk's nest. If this surmise is correct, then the presence of two families of English sparrows among them might account for there being only eight nests now, where a decade ago there ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... rode with Ramon into the patio of the hotel, where I had been arrested by the alguazils of the Spanish governor, a man came forward to greet me, so strikingly like the ancient posadero that I felt sure he was the latter's son. My surmise proved correct, and I afterwards heard, not without a sense of satisfaction, that the father was hanged by the patriots ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... flschlich in den ersten Kampf gesetzt ist, wo es ganz unbegrndet steht, statt in den zweiten, wo es allein motiviert erscheint."[110] But this is not the correct explanation. The author of the rmur for some reason, such as a wish to rationalize the story, but which, however, we can only surmise, decided to make radical changes in it. In the first instance he substitutes a wolf for the dragon, but otherwise, considering the material he is going to use in the story of the fight with the bear, retains as ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... slippery kelp Decking your shaggy forehead, those brave eyes Shine true—shine deep of love's divine surmise As hers who gave you—then a Titan whelp!— I think you know my danger and would help!— See how I point to yonder smack that lies At anchor—Go! His countenance replies. Hope's music rings in Gelert's eager yelp! [The dog swims swiftly away ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... cunning, caution against skill, against quacking hordes of wild-fowl in the tulares, against pronghorn and bighorn and deer. You can guess, however, that all this warring of rifles and bowstrings, this influx of overlording whites, had made game wilder and hunters fearful of being hunted. You can surmise also, for it was a crude time and the land was raw, that the women became in turn the game ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... up by this array of famous cities offered such scope for endless surmise and speculation that they were surprised at the flight of time when Mrs. Matson smilingly summoned them ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... that his service was true—that she, who despised nothing human, would be neither disgusted nor contemptuous nor wrathful if, from a great way off, at an awful remove of humility and worship, he were to wake in her a surmise that he dared feel toward her as he had never felt and never could feel toward any other? For would it not be altogether counter to the principles he had so often heard her announce and defend to despise ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... 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
... see thee, nay, but I shall know Perchance, the grey eyes in another's eyes, Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise Shall follow and track, and find thee in disguise Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow, When through the scent of heather, faint and low, The weak wind whispers to ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... luncheon under the dripping eaves of a boat-house. In the bows of the boat there were two fish, so insignificant that we would not weigh them, though we afterwards found that they were each about 2 lb. We shrugged our shoulders on the surmise that either there had been no run of sea trout during these propitious moonlight nights, or that they were by one consent in one of their non-taking humours. Sea trout, however, are notoriously capricious, and not being likely to get any moister than I already was from ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... hither to lecture is taken as a settled point by all your friends here; and for my share I do not reckon upon the smallest doubt about the essential fact of it, simply on some calculation and adjustment about the circumstantials. Of Ireland, who I surmise is busy in the problem even now, you will hear by and by, probably in more definite terms: I did not see him again after my first notice of him to you; but there is no doubt concerning his determinations ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... his mind was intent upon his collar; at the next he was stricken with a wild surmise, a terror that even at that instant he would persuade himself was exaggerated. He saw before his clouding eyes a black pit. A strong hand striking him in the middle of his back flung him contemptuously forward into it; a gasping cry of protest and all was over. Had ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; 10 Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... 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
... Everyone could surmise where Joe Butler was, but no one voiced the supposition. Warren, handsome in his skirted coat, knee breeches, and ruffles, disappeared from the room, and the dancing went on. The scene was unbelievably brilliant, the hot, bright air sweet with flowers and perfume, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... her mind full of that faint gossipy surmise that surges so quickly up in the thoughts of village dwellers, her hands for an instant motionless among the linen. It might be the doctor, or Mr. Paton, or Mr. Grove. Those names flashed upon her; but an instant later were drowned again in a kind ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... as I first saw it inscribed on the front of the Credit Lyonnais at Bayonne. It looked so beautifully regular, so scholarly, so Latin, so sister to both Spanish and Italian, so richly and musically voweled, and yet remained so impenetrable to the most daring surmise, that I conceived at once a profound admiration for the race which could keep such a language to itself. When I remembered how blond, how red-blond our sinewy young porter was, I could not well help breveting him of that race, and honoring him because ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... for you, Doctor Mack," said the housekeeper, as she entered the plain room used as a library and sitting-room by her employer, Doctor Ezekiel Mack. "It's from Walter, I surmise." This was a favorite word with Miss Nancy Sprague, who, though a housekeeper, prided herself on having been a ...
— Walter Sherwood's Probation • Horatio Alger
... Brahman. Do the Sutras indicate anywhere that their author held /S/a@nkara's doctrine, according to which the jiva is in reality identical with Brahman, and separated from it, as it were, only by a false surmise due to avidya, or do they rather favour the view that the souls, although they have sprung from Brahman, and constitute elements of its nature, yet enjoy a kind of individual existence apart from it? This question is in fact ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... that to see Tavish had become his one great mission in the North. What adventure lay beyond that meeting he did not surmise. All his thoughts had centred in the single desire to let Tavish look upon the picture. To-night, after the Missioner had joined Mukoki in the silk tent buried warmly under the mass of cut balsam, he sat a little longer beside the fire, and asked himself questions ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... warlike preparations of the French, resolved to guard the Missisippi, imagining they would be attacked on that side. In vain they attempted to surprise M. le Blanc's convoy, which got safe to the Arkansas, where the gun-powder was left, for reasons no one can surmise. ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... face, and knew him for the stranger who had occupied the chair in which he had expected to find Daly. He thanked the clerk and went back thoughtfully to his place, because it looked as if Daly had been there and the other had helped him to steal away. If this surmise was correct, they might be trying to follow Featherstone; but he was, fortunately, out of their reach, and Foster decided that he must not exaggerate the importance of the matter. After all, Daly might have come to Montreal on business, and the rotunda of a Canadian ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... most ancient, as it is of the actual geography of South Africa (i.e., from primeval times to the present day), does, or does not, extend into Northern Africa. Looking at that much broader portion of the continent, we have some reason to surmise that the higher mountains also form, in a general sense, its flanks only."—President's Address, Royal Geographical Society, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... term "the only Shake-scene" may be one of those curious coincidences which do occur. The presumption lies rather on the other side. I demur, when Mr. Greenwood courageously struggling for his case says that, even assuming the validity of the surmise that there is an allusion to Shakspere, {143a} "the utmost that we should be entitled to say is that Greene here accuses Player Shakspere of putting forward, as his own, some work, or perhaps some parts of a work, for which he was really indebted to another" ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... But this surmise soon proved wrong, for the first persons to appear were two armed horsemen, who turned their heads as nimbly as their steeds, now to the right and now to the left, scanning the thickets along the road distrustfully. After a somewhat lengthy interval the tall figure of an elderly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Tongatabu on the last day of September. As soon as the anchor was let go a fleet of canoes appeared, and the occupants made the most friendly demonstrations towards Captain Pendleton and his officers. In the leading canoe was a man whom the captain took to be a Malay, and upon being questioned this surmise proved to be correct In broken English he informed Pendleton that the ship would be provided with plenty of fresh food, water, and wood, if the ship's boats were sent ashore. The captain's boat was thereupon swung out and lowered, and manned by six men, the ...
— The Adventure Of Elizabeth Morey, of New York - 1901 • Louis Becke
... devoid of foundation the notion was. If she could have a new cloak as Sylvia was going to have, then, indeed, there might be a chance! Until some such good luck, it was as well to laugh and blush as if the surmise of her having a lover was not very far from the truth, and so she replied in something of the same strain as the lame net-maker to his joke about ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... retorted the detective sharply. "I am quite sure that Mrs. Barnes doesn't even know her husband Thomas is one of the lot. I don't care if she does give warning either, if your surmise is correct. All our men are round the house, and if any of the gang escape we can ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... think of the situation in a different light. True, he believed that Burk was a crook, and that it was he who was conspiring to rob the house, but he had authority on his side, while Ted's belief, after all, was based on surmise, and he would have difficulty in proving anything criminal against the marshal. At the same time, he did not fear for his own part in the affair, because behind him was the brother of the ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... radiant figure in white, with black hat and black chiffon boa, and a deep red rose in her bosom. The maitre d'hotel, in the pride of reflected glory, conducted her to a table near the window. Septimus trailed inconclusively behind. When he seated himself he stared at her silently in a mute surmise as the gentlemen in the poem did at the peak in Darien. It was even a wilder adventure than the memorable drive. That was but a caprice of the goddess; this was a sign of her friendship. The newness of their intimacy smote him dumb. He ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... he does not endeavour to explain. We are left to surmise who these Watchers of the Living may be, or, if they are indeed the Dead, why they should so closely and passionately watch a world they have left for ever. It may be—indeed to my mind it seems just—that, when our life has closed, when evil or good is no longer a choice for us, we may ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... in 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 commencing to ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... divine or sacred animal. In the Diasia we find the old superhuman snake, who reappears so ubiquitously throughout Greece, the regular symbol of the underworld powers, especially the hero or dead ancestor. Why the snake was so chosen we can only surmise. He obviously lived underground: his home was among the Chthonioi, the Earth-People. Also, says the Scholiast to Aristophanes (Plut. 533), he was a type of new birth because he throws off his old skin and renews himself. And if that in itself is not enough to show his supernatural ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... the bench, and I could imagine with what elation of mind he put out his hands to remove the coffin-lid. As well as if his soul had been transformed into a book conceived for my amusement did I surmise the exultant mood that then possessed him. He had tricked Filippo; he had out-witted us all—Madonna herself, included—and he was leaving no trace behind him that should warrant any so much as to dare to think that this vile ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... house together, a happy, noisy group, Rachela had left her chair and was going hurriedly upstairs to tell the Senora her surmise; but Jack passed her with a bound, and was at his mother's side before the heavy old woman had ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... her chin into her neck. She would tell her surmise to no one but Johnnie, who had persuaded Mr. Fotheringham to lift him from horseback, where he was never at ease with any one but papa. He looked up smiling: 'Helen thinks it must be Uncle Martindale, because papa ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... are true or false, and that is the test of experience. That alone can settle the question whether the thing actually does or does not act in the way, or display the qualities alleged. If it proves in our experience to act in the way, or to display the qualities, which our reflection led us to surmise, then our conception of the thing is both corrected and enlarged, that is to say, the thing proves to be both more and other than it was at first supposed to be. If experience shows that it is not what we surmised, does ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... joyous wise Where runs the road 'neath gentle skies— How should his canine heart surmise That where the red-roofed towers rise The blood is red upon the slab? His way is warm with sunlight yet, He knoweth not the sun must set; And he hath in the roadway met The Ladye of ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... probably had not read at thirty. So now of her budding maturity she was not the wonder-woman of fiction, causing by her brilliance her hearers, like Cortez's men, to stare at each other with a wild surmise. No, nothing so unlikely. But she was intelligent and she was ardent; and there are not boundaries to the distance one may go with that equipment. She was admirable and she felt that she was effective. She had a consciousness of confidence amounting almost to a feeling ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... appointment on the Council of Plantations and Trade seems to have lapsed before this time, for no further mention is made in his diary of Council meetings, and he seems to have resided chiefly at Sayes Court, gardening and spending his time in scholarly leisure and recreation. This surmise is borne out by what he says in 1683, 'Oct. 4th. I went to London, on receiving a note from the Countesse of Arlington, of some considerable charge or advantage I might obtaine by applying myselfe to his Majesty on this signal conjuncture of his Majesty entering up judgment against ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... to another girl, don't you surmise it might kind of come home to her there were healthier spots for you than the end of her apron strings? Maybe she thought the other lady's apron strings 'ud be suffering ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... was for the youngest brother, whom he had left with me. I told him what I had done, in my anxiety about himself, and that more than sufficient time had elapsed for his brother's return. His reply was: "They have caught him. The poor fellow is dead." His surmise proved correct; for news soon came that the poor boy had been captured at his father's house, and hanged. The blow to Card was a severe one, and so hardened his heart against the guerrillas in the neighborhood of his father's home—for he knew they were guilty of his ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... a cay better answering to my conchologist's description of Short Shrift Island. Its situation and general character, too, bore out the surmise. On landing, also, we found that it answered in two important particulars to Tobias's narrative. We found, as he had declared, that there was good water there for passing ships. Also, we found, in addition to the usual scrub, that cabbage-wood trees grew there very ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... of the rupture between them was a matter only of surmise; but the effect it had on the woman testified clearly to the remarkable power of Reginald Clarke. He had entered her life and, behold! the world was transfixed on her canvases in myriad hues of transcending radiance; he had passed from it, and with him vanished the brilliancy of ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... comic contradiction with his published doctrines. We are therefore perhaps justified in concluding that he worried Shelley, the one enthusiastic and thorough-going follower he had, into marrying his daughter in spite of his disciple's protestations; nor shall we be far wrong if we surmise that Godwin congratulated himself on Mary's having won the right to bear the name of ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... say what he was? To this day I can only surmise many things of him. He was a Scotchman born, and I know now that he had a slight Scotch accent. At the time of which I write, my early childhood, he was a frontiersman and hunter. I can see him now, with his hunting shirt and leggings and moccasins; his powder horn, engraved ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... that day, but, whether they made any real progress, or whether they went back or around in a circle, they could only surmise. They tried to keep ascending the mountain, and this was the only means they had of telling which ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... and even supply the want of it. It is remarkable, that being obliged by my profession to see a number of young girls, I do not recollect one at Chambery but what was charming: it will be said I was disposed to find them so, and perhaps there maybe some truth in the surmise. I cannot remember my young scholars without pleasure. Why, in naming the most amiable, cannot I recall them and myself also to that happy age in which our moments, pleasing as innocent, were passed with such happiness together? The first was Mademoiselle de Mallarede, my neighbor, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the Book at once. For we know only what it tells. The rest is surmise. The only authoritative statements about Satan seem to be these here. Turn ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... concentrated on me, as if to read from the expression of my face whether the news was good or bad. Colonel Michler of General Miles's staff was there, and if we should happen to be together talking, the women would surmise that the news was bad; and many times their surmises were just about right. One sweet little black-eyed woman always said she could tell from my face whether I was bluffing or not. July 1st, 2nd, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... gratitude; and behold! I have found thee, and thee alone, punish my valour sharpliest. But I forbear all vengeance, and am satisfied with the shame within thy heart—if, after all, any shame visits the thankless—as expiation for this wrongdoing towards me. I have a right to surmise that thou art worse than all demons in fury, and all beasts in cruelty, if, after escaping the snares of all these monsters, I have failed to ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... sorrowful emotion she was endeavouring to suppress. His conception of Milvain's character made it easy for him to form a just surmise as to the reasons for this postponement; he was gratified to think that Marian might learn how rightly he had judged her wooer, and an involuntary pity for the girl did not prevent his hoping that the detestable alliance was doomed. With ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... not convinced, she was evidently silenced, while Harry was left to wonder and surmise, as best he might. Both quitted the subject, to watch the people of the brig. By this time the anchor had been lifted, and the chain was heaving in on board the vessel, by means of a line that had been got around its bight. The work went on rapidly, and Mulford observed to Rose that he did not ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... guess at his purpose. The chairman referred to it in his concluding remarks. 'I am in a position,' he said, 'to bear out all that the lecturer has said. I can go further. I can assure him on the best authority that his surmise is correct, and that Vienna's decision to send delegates to Stockholm was largely dictated by representations from Berlin. I am given to understand that the fact has in the last few days been admitted ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... them before in 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
... was removed it was found that the whole contents were covered with a thin layer of sweepings. The Khansama (the servant who serves at the table) looked at Mr. Anderson and Mr. Anderson at the Khansama "with a wild surmise"; the cover was replaced and the dish taken away. Nothing was ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... do without him Hardly can we venture to surmise; Delegates who would not dare to flout him Manifest their joy without disguise. Freed from his relentless catechizing WILSON goes out golfing all the day; Printers, save for common advertising, Sadly put their pica ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... fact though, the preposterous surmise about him being in some description of a doldrums or other or mesmerised which was entirely due to a misconception of the shallowest character, was not the case at all. The individual whose visual organs while the above was going on were at this juncture ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and surmise. The certainty is that the world will pass through catastrophic changes to a perfect world. The grave of uniformitarianism is already covered with grass. He that creates promises to complete. The invisible, imponderable, inaudible ether is beyond our apprehension; it transmits impressions ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... Ireland!" the bailiffs were conducted to Father Letheby's house. Lizzie, half crying, half laughing with delight for having escaped arrest and capital punishment, prepared dinner with alacrity; and then a great hush fell on the village—the hush of conjecture and surmise. Would the bailiffs remain or depart? Would they recognize the deep hatred of the villagers under all the chaff and fun, or would they take it as a huge joke? The same questioning agitated their own minds; but they decided to go for ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... house in the Strand on the day before the eve of Christmas, Cuthbert saw, by the stir and bustle and liveliness of the courtyard, that the family had plainly returned. On making inquiry he discovered that his surmise was correct, and he walked home resolving to lose no more time in delivering his letter, and wondering if he could contrive to take Cherry with him when he paid the visit, to secure for her a sight of the gay streets and a peep into Lord ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... formed to speak a name but she caught herself up sharply—"through which he is passing I'm gratified that he has your companionship. I want you to promise to be kind to him, and to protect him so far as possible. I only know vaguely—I am afraid to surmise—how he spends his time; this is my first glimpse of him in a year, and for half a dozen years I have met him only in some such way as this. You have probably questioned his sanity; that would be only natural, but there is no such excuse for ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... for a few moments, your serious attention. A regard for your happiness, and the security of your posterity, are the only motives that could have induced me to occupy your time by an epistolary exhortation. How far I may fall short of the object I have thus in view, becomes me not to surmise. The same claim, however, has he to praise (though, perhaps, never equally rewarded) who endeavors to do good, as he who has the happiness to effect his purpose. I hope, therefore, no views of acquiring popular fame, no partial or circumstantial motives, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... not apt to interfere with each other's foibles unless they threaten their pockets," her father replied. "It is more probable that Gregory has borrowed money of Hunting, and been compelled to pay it against his will; and yet I have no right to surmise anything of the kind." ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... out soon. I first recognised him on that occasion, noted several chapters back, when my unguardedly-fixed attention had drawn on me the mortification of an implied rebuke. Subsequent observation confirmed, in every point, that early surmise. I traced in the gesture, the port, and the habits of his manhood, all his boy's promise. I heard in his now deep tones the accent of former days. Certain turns of phrase, peculiar to him of old, were peculiar to him still; and so was many a trick of eye and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... in her, that made him hasten as soon as Captain Dunham had announced himself, to introduce her particularly by name. To forestall in the jolly sailor the natural interpretation of their appearance together at this hour and occasion, he had to lend himself to the only other reasonable surmise. If they were not, as he saw it on the tip of the good captain's tongue to propose, newly married, they were in a hopeful way to be. The consciousness of himself as accessory to so delightful an arrangement passed from the captain to Peter with almost the obviousness of a wink, as he surrendered ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... Stafford, John Stafford's father. The issue of that act of infidelity was a child, Lois, who afterward was adopted by Caruthers, partly out of friendship for Stafford, partly because he had no children of his own. So much, at least, I surmise. I surmise, too, that that adoption cost him his wife's love and trust. Perhaps, ignorant of the child's real parentage, she believed the worst, perhaps there were other causes—be it as it may, in ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... colourless face, his sunken cheeks, his wild black eyes, and his long black hair. The first question he asked me about himself, when he could speak, made me suspect that I had been called in to a man in my own profession. I mentioned to him my surmise; and he told me that I ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... absence of many links necessary to form a connection, we can at present only surmise conclusions, which otherwise might have been ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre |
