"Taken for granted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... every one. There is no quality that does more to gain a good name for an individual, and inspire the confidence of his fellow-men, than this one of punctuality. It is so generally found in company with other excellent traits of character, that it seems to be taken for granted, usually, that the punctual person is worthy in other respects. This quality contributed to the renown and influence of Lord Brougham, of whom it is said, that, when he was in the zenith of his glory, presiding in the House of Lords ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... arrival in London, attempted to hurt the General I do not know, but it could be always taken for granted that Rhodes could be a very bad ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... but it soon had matters more worth its buzzing. Pressing the heels of one another there came two amazing surprises. The city had taken for granted the nomination of Kennedy for mayor, but the convention's second ballot declared Blake the nominee. Blake had given heed to Mr. Brown's advice and had decided to take no slightest risk; but to the people he let it be known that he had ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... these. The home life is more ordinary and needs less descriptive detail, but there are some features that must be considered. The decencies, not to say refinements of eating, sleeping and washing are taken for granted: there is often a bath-room and always a kitchen. The father's occupation may be local, but a good many fathers will go to town; there is generally a family holiday to the sea, or less often to the country. In the house ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... certainly have written and told you all about it at once, if I had not taken for granted that grandfather had informed you of his intention, as was certainly his place to do. And even if I had written to you on any other occasion, I should assuredly have alluded to the marriage. But, you see, I never wrote to any one while away," ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... is brought the sense of comradeship. This is effected partly by having much of the actual training done in groups. Another element is the public recognition and rewarding of skill in this, woman's most elementary service to the world, usually taken for granted and ignored. ...
— Educational Work of the Girl Scouts • Louise Stevens Bryant
... society; and if any one of such persons should be asked, "Changes from what?" his answer will be, if he knows how to express himself, "Changes from the things presented to him by his first remembered experiences, and by him taken for granted," such as the teaching, religious or otherwise, received by him, and the general constitution of society as revealed to him by his own observation and the ways and conversation of his elders. These are the things which provide the child's life with its starting point, and these are determined ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... would so sink into the minds of members of Parliament, of writers of leading articles, and of the active public generally, as to admit of certain established axioms being taken as established, and placed, as it were, beyond the procrastinating power of debate. It might, for instance, at last be taken for granted that a decimal system was desirable,—so that a month or two of the spring need not be consumed on that preliminary question. But this period had not as yet been reached, and it was thought by the entire City that Mr. Palliser ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Gladstone's habit, we are told, to discuss all sorts of questions with his children, and nothing was ever taken for granted between him and his sons. 'He could not understand,' says the illustrious one among them, 'nor tolerate those who, perceiving an object to be good, did not at once and actively pursue it; and with all ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... and with the air of brushing aside what was taken for granted before considering more doubtful ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... we are to act in accordance with Right Reason is a general maxim, and may for the present be taken for granted: we will speak of it hereafter, and say both what Right Reason is, and what are its relations ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... morning that a third trooper was "plugged" somewhere in the course we have covered. If we are bound for Marseilles, which it is taken for granted is our destination, we are not taking the direct route. I am Orderly Officer for the day and having to inspect the men's breakfast I was up early—even earlier than was needful, but I was flooded out ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... said; but then, as Shalem practically owns and controls that paper, its favourable opinion might be taken for granted." ...
— When William Came • Saki
... course was possible in the absence of the persons concerned. He reasoned that a very plausible explanation of the unexpected appearance of the three strangers in the Albert Gate mansion on Monday night had been given to Jack Talbot. This young gentleman, it might be taken for granted, had not been selected by the Foreign Office to carry to a successful issue such an important and delicate matter as that entrusted to him, without some good grounds for the faith in his qualities exhibited by his superiors. Brett thought he could ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... brightly polished, and brass and silver too, windows gleaming, and window curtains spotless, meant constant care on somebody's part, and hard work too. She was beginning, though, to learn the value now of many things that she had taken for granted before. ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the benevolence which goes into one's kitchen, sending thence to the sick-room those dainties which, after all, are so much too good to be eaten. It seems to be taken for granted that sick persons eat a great deal, and that most of them might share the experiment of Matthews, who began the diary of an invalid and ended with that of a gourmand. I fear that these kindly geniuses would sometimes feel a twinge of chagrin at seeing their elaborate delicacies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... part in the matter, and that of his family, had been taken for granted, all around. An hour later, however, Mrs. Kinzer's first reply to her son, after listening to a calculation of his, which almost made it seem as if Dick would make money ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... road very slowly for the first two days, not exceeding seven or eight miles a day. At night, in winter, they should be put into an open court, and supplied with hay, water, and a very few turnips; for, if roots are suddenly withdrawn from them,—since it is taken for granted that these have formed a staple portion of their food,—their bellies will become shrunken up into smaller dimensions—a state very much against favorable appearance in market. After the first two days they may proceed faster, say twelve or thirteen ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... to return presently with the tidings that Murty would play "wid all the pleasure in loife." Boone was away at work, but his acquiescence could be taken for granted. ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... often he carried written messages, handed to him by staff officers, to the room in which three telegraph operators were hard at work. Generally speaking, he was there to do odd jobs and make himself generally useful. Luckily, he was taken for granted. Everyone seemed assured that he was one of the village boys, pressed into service because he happened to be the first ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... loving Father in heaven. For he who "finds love full in his nature" cannot doubt that in this, as in all else, the Creator must far surpass the creature.[394] Since, then, in knowing love we learn to know God, and since the object of life is to know God (this, the mystic's minor premiss, is taken for granted by Browning), it follows that love is the meaning of life; and he who finds it not "loses what he lived for, and eternally must lose it.[395]" "The mightiness of love is curled" inextricably round all power and beauty in the world. ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... the war may last for some time. At first it seemed to be taken for granted that it could not last long, as the financial strain would be too great and the damage done so enormous that one side or the other would have to ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... given a direction to his curiosity; but there are many subjects upon which the whole village may be supposed to be getting ideas. Shackleton and the South Pole are probably household words in most of the cottages; it may be taken for granted that the wonders of flying machines are being eagerly watched; it must not be taken for granted at all that the villagers are ignorant about disease germs, and the causes of consumption, and the spreading of plague by rats. Long after the King's visit to India, ideas ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... a doctrine which is in some sense a truism may not be a highly important doctrine. One of the ablest of the old Economists, Nassan Senior, after laying down his version of the theory, observes that it is "so nearly self-evident" that if Political Economy were a new science, it might be taken for granted. But he proceeds to enumerate seven different opinions, some of them held by many people, and others by writers of authority, with which it is inconsistent. And, without following his arguments, this statement suggests what I take to be a really relevant defence ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... is the difference of religion taken for granted, which was never proved on one side, though in the king of Navarre it was openly professed. Then the pope, and the three estates of France had no power to alter the succession, neither did the king in being consent to it: or afterwards, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... which but recently had penetrated to its shady retreat. A thousand times had Tarzan of the Apes witnessed the beauteous miracle; but now it aroused a keener interest, for the ape-man was just commencing to ask himself questions about all the myriad wonders which heretofore he had but taken for granted. ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... simple terms. The historical order in which these two problems have arisen is the inverse of their logical order. For while in logical order the two problems would stand thus—Is the Will an agent? If so, is it a free agent?—in actual discussion it was long taken for granted that the Will is an agent, and hence the only controversy gathered round the question whether the Will is a free agent. Descartes, indeed, seems to have entertained the prior question with regard to animals, and there are passages in the Leviathan ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... this little girl (it is taken for granted that she is a good little girl) will not make the plaything the business of her whole day, the object of all her thoughts; she will not forget everything for it, she will leave it unhesitatingly when her mamma calls her. Neither will she wish to be alone in her enjoyments, ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... and found myself in a minority of one, and I could not help saying to them that this would be very interesting on the other side of the water, that the only Southerner on this conference should deny the right of secession. But nevertheless it is instructive and interesting to learn that this is taken for granted; that it is not a covenant that you would have to continue to adhere to. I suppose that is a necessary assumption among sovereign states, but it would not be a very handsome thing to withdraw after we had entered upon it. The point is that it does rest upon the good faith of all the ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... no adequate hint of the contradictory inner man. By turns the most lovingly kind and the most violent, the most generously magnanimous and the most vindictive of the unreconstructed minority, Caspar Dabney was rarely to be taken for granted, even by those who knew him best. Of course, Ardea adored him; but Ardea was his grandchild, and she was wont to protest that she never could see the contradictions, for the reason that ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... Congress passed the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Act,[392] which provided accident compensation for those workers who could not validly be compensated under State statutes. This time it seems to have succeeded, the constitutionality of the 1927 statute being apparently taken for granted.[393] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... their claim of saintship without some degree of qualification. How they seemed to their Dutch neighbors at New Netherlands, and their French ones at Nova Scotia, and to the poor Indians, hunted from their fisheries and game-grounds, we can very well conjecture. It may be safely taken for granted that their gospel claim to the inheritance of the earth was not a little questionable to the Catholic fleeing for his life from their jurisdiction, to the banished Baptist shaking off the dust of his feet against them, and to the martyred Quaker ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the necessity of proving title against one who is in an unlawful position. But to this it was well answered by Bruns, in his later work, that it assumes the title of disseisors to be generally worse than that of disseisees, which cannot be taken for granted, and which probably is not ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... is taken for granted only by the inexperienced. Without doubt editors love to surround themselves with an atmosphere of mystery, aloofness, and sovereignty, but in truth they are human beings, and may be so treated. The invisibility of editors is mainly ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... a voluble animal, and always mastered by his imagination, he painted the prospects of the trip and the joys of the open life and the roadside in such glowing colours that the Mole could hardly sit in his chair for excitement. Somehow, it soon seemed taken for granted by all three of them that the trip was a settled thing; and the Rat, though still unconvinced in his mind, allowed his good-nature to over-ride his personal objections. He could not bear to disappoint his two friends, who were already deep in schemes and anticipations, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... only to have him rejected would do great harm, and the confirmation cannot, by any means, be taken for granted. I believe it is possible to select some well-known man, who has carefully studied the subject of revenue collection, and could bring to the task executive skill, experience, and sound business and political sagacity, and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... not to be thwarted or crossed in any way, and as for being punished such barbarity is not to be thought of. If detected in naughtiness they are to be reasoned with only, and if the naughtiness is persisted in it is to be taken for granted that the small sinners are ill, and must be gently nursed into good ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... figured, must conduct all rays of light to the same focus, provided all rays experienced equal refraction in passing through the glass. Until Newton's discovery of the composition of white light, it had been taken for granted that the several rays in a white beam were equally refrangible. No doubt if this had been the case, a perfect telescope could have been produced by properly shaping the object glass. But when Newton had demonstrated that light was by no means so simple as had ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... general dangers that will certainly materialize unless safeguards are set up in time, for estuaries are delicate, immensely productive, and still somewhat mysterious aquatic environments that have been and still are too much taken for granted. ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... give everything, flinging it away; but to have all your sacrifices taken for granted, your tastes ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... most trusty confidant. See State Trials, vol. i. p. 81. In the conferences between the duke, Secretary Lidington, and the bishop of Ross, all of them zealous partisans of that princess, the same thing is always taken for granted. Ibid. p. 74, 75. See, further, MS. in the Advocates' library, A. 3, 28, p. 314, from Cott. lib. Calig. c. 9. Indeed, the duke's full persuasion of Mary's guilt, without the least doubt or hesitation, could not have had place, if he had found Lidington or the bishop of Ross of a different opinion, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... allowing for his kindly cynicism, than that prevalent in the talk where she had lately been! How sincere and hearty and free ran the personal currents in this little neighborhood! In the very fact that the daily love and affection for her and interest in her were taken for granted she realized the difference between her position here and that among newer friends who showed more ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... We should have again the Malthusian doctrine of the multiplication of labour up to a certain standard; and the fact that scarcity means dearness and plenty cheapness. These doctrines at least are taken for granted; and it may perhaps be said that they are approximations which only require qualifications, though sometimes very important qualifications, to hold good of the society ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... and thou'll never need to know about it, only to spend money,' said the millionaire, purposely, as his son believed, talking in such broad Yorkshire as is not often heard nowadays, and so broad as to be unintelligible to the reader of this tale, for which reason it must be taken for granted, as perhaps his wife's cockney ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... or shall hereafter be newly erected by imperial authority, let the arrangement of ecclesiastical parishes follow the political and municipal forms"). These metropolitan bishops were common in the East before the end of the 3rd century, and the general existence of the organization was taken for granted by the council of Nicaea (see canons 4,6,7). In the West, on the other hand, the development ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... carved oak of this time; it was lent to the writer by its present owner, in whose family it was an heirloom since one of his ancestors married the Protector's daughter. The ornament has no particular style, and it may be taken for granted that the period of the Commonwealth was not marked by any progress in decorative art. The above illustration, however, proves that there were exceptions to the prevalent Puritan objection to figure ornament. In one of Mrs. ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... received opinion, a thing taken for granted, an axiom in horticulture, that melon seed is the better for being old. Mr. Marshall says, that it ought to be "about four years old, though some prefer it much older." And he afterwards observes, that "if new seed only can be had, it should be carried a week or two ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... who has been concerned in a transaction will not write it fairly; and a man who has not, cannot. But notwithstanding all this uncertainty, history is not the less necessary to be known, as the best histories are taken for granted, and are the frequent subjects both of conversation and writing. Though I am convinced that Caesar's ghost never appeared to Brutus, yet I should be much ashamed to be ignorant of that fact, as related by ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... qualifications for a trustee of a public library—a fair education and love of books being taken for granted—are: sound character, good judgment, common sense, public spirit, capacity for work, literary taste, representative fitness. Don't assume that because a man has been prominent in political business or social circles he will make a good trustee. Capacity and willingness to work are more ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... burnt wing of the hotel should have sufficiently cooled to render a search practicable. Even then, if no other measures were taken, the fact might never be absolutely substantiated. If nothing more was ever heard of Harvey Farnham, it would probably be taken for granted that he had met his death in the fire at the Santa Anna Hotel, even though no actual traces of his body were forthcoming. His heirs, whoever they might be, would doubtless claim their inheritance, and even assurance money, if such there were to be had, before ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... away from the trimmer and the sycophant without recognition. This treatment was greatly censured at the time, and when Marion rose in the Senate, to speak on the subject of the petition of the man whom he had so openly scorned, it was taken for granted that he would again give utterance to feelings of the sort which moved him then. The miserable offender, who was himself present, grew pale, trembled, and gave up his cause as lost. What was his surprise and delight to hear the venerable patriot advocate his application! ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... It was simply taken for granted that the two women in question were hopelessly cut off from all communication with their friends in the field, and utterly helpless and incapable of ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... ultimate attainment depends entirely on the human will. For the advance might at some point be arrested by an insuperable wall. Take the particular case of knowledge, as to which it is generally taken for granted that the continuity of progress in the future depends altogether on the continuity of human effort (assuming that human brains do not degenerate). This assumption is based on a strictly limited experience. Science ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... was not the cause of that; while others personified the required agency, and fancifully invented an Evil Principle, the question of whose origin indeed involved all the difficulty of the original problem, but whose existence, if once taken for granted, was sufficient as a popular solution of the mystery; the difficulty being supposed no longer to exist when pushed a step further off, as the difficulty of conceiving the world upheld by an elephant was supposed to be got rid of when it was said that the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Kings of France, for such a designation, though apparently not unknown, was not a title of dignity. Accordingly they came forward as aspirants to universal empire. Their motive has been greatly misapprehended. It has been taken for granted by recent French writers that Charlemagne was far before his age, quite as much in the character of his designs as in the energy with which he prosecuted them. Whether it be true or not that anybody is at any time before his age, it is certainly true that Charlemagne, in aiming at ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... peas-sticks? Flung on the fire, happen they'd crackle and blaze: But I'm hot enough, to-day, without you frizzling. Still, "thieves" sticks in my gullet, old heel-of-the-loaf. Yet I'm not particular, myself, at times: And I've always gathered from your dutiful son Manners were taken for granted at Krindlesyke, And never missed: so I'll overlook the word. You've not been used to talking with a lady, Old scrag-end: still, I'm truly honoured, sir, In making your acquaintance: for I've heard Some pretty things about you from ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... or not he was on intimate terms or flirting with little Miss Argles, or with little Miss anybody. He was not even to look at any woman except herself, that was arranged between them now and understood. They were side by side, with hands clasped as a matter of course, things taken for granted that he formerly never dreamt of. The signs of emotion in her face he attributed of course to the morning's contretemps, knowing ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... things themselves are seen or thought to be different. Where, then, is the absolute criterion? Fourthly, if we examine things fairly, we see that in point of fact all knowledge depends on certain hypotheses, or facts taken for granted. Such knowledge is fundamentally hypothetical, and might well be accepted as such without the labour of a demonstration which is logically invalid. The fifth trope points out the impossibility of proving ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... may be taken for granted that in addition to the Government and the Opposition there is at least one party of Rebels. Generally there are more, since each section has its own rebels, down to the tiniest. In the eighties the rebels were Communist ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... sometimes wished he were not so much so. He felt that too much or not enough was taken for granted. Ruth had met him, when he first came, with a cordial frankness, and her manner continued entirely unrestrained. She neither sought his company nor avoided it, and this perfectly level treatment irritated him more than any other could have ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... It may be taken for granted that all these authors allude to the same tree, but what tree is meant has sorely puzzled the commentators. Some naturally suggested the Ebony, and this view is supported by the respectable names of Archdeacon Nares, Douce, Schmidt, and ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... respect to its bodily effects. It is not so much affirmed as taken for granted that opium does, or can, produce intoxication. Now, reader, assure yourself that no quantity of the drug ever did, or could, intoxicate. The pleasure given by wine is always mounting and tending to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... have been said as for mere frilling and finish. Her lover, whose life affected her as a picture, of high price in itself but set in a frame too big and too heavy for it, and who therefore might have taken for granted any amount of gilding, yet made his reflexions on it now; he noticed how a manner might be a very misleading symbol, might cover pitfalls and bottomless gulfs, when it had reached that perfection and corresponded so little to fact. What he had wanted ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... certain lines "because there were not even sufficient passengers to fill the mail-coaches." They did not realize the truth—which now seems obvious to us—that travellers do not produce railways, but, conversely, railways produce travellers, the latent demand, of course, is taken for granted. ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... tois allois Theois]. But the Persians, from whom this history is presumed to be borrowed, could not mean by these terms Dii Patrii: for nothing could be more unnecessary than to say of a Persic prince, that the homage, which he payed, was to Persic Deities. It is a thing of course, and to be taken for granted, unless there be particular evidence to the contrary. His vows were made to Mithras, who was styled by the nations in the east Pator; his temples were Patra, and Petra, and his festivals Patrica. Nonnus gives a proper ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... commonly taken for granted than that there are certain PRINCIPLES, both SPECULATIVE and PRACTICAL, (for they speak of both), universally agreed upon by all mankind: which therefore, they argue, must needs be the constant impressions which the souls of men receive in their first beings, and which they ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... it may be taken for granted, is able to grasp the thought that one may be a very fair, and even copious, letter-writer, and yet show nothing like diffusiveness in writing to an ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... loneliness as long as he could, turning over and over again in his mind the old questions to which he had found no answer. Most of all, one question was insistent. Had he been just to her, to Constance, in allowing himself to accept her alleged conduct as a motive for his own actual conduct? He had taken for granted much—all—and upon what manner of testimony? The babblings of a half-witted herder! He had asked the men of Heart's Desire to hear both sides of his own case. The men of Heart's Desire had heard both sides of the railroad's ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... behind the author of the ‘Pensées,’ or the defender of Port Royal. Some might even say that his writings are now more admired than studied. They have been so long the subject of eulogy that their classical character is taken for granted, and the reader of the present day is content to look at them from a respectful distance rather than spontaneously study them for himself. There may be some truth in this view. Pascal is certainly, ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... tell perhaps, for it might be taken for granted that there was some urgent reason for his remaining here with no possible object to gain when his cargo was stowed and the ship homeward- bound. The seamen could make nothing of it, however; and there was much grumbling forwards at this unlooked-for hitch in their departure from the ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... interrupted; "a detective's motives must be taken for granted. It is not distrust that causes me to ask this favor; I could not tell you my reason without unraveling a long web, and it is not time to begin the process; I am still in the realm of conjecture. So you won't help me to the result of Mr. Belknap's investigation, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... counsellor and stimulus of mankind. Throughout this book I try to bring to bear the same simple standards of form, composition, mood, and motive that we used in finding the fundamental exhibits; the standards which are taken for granted in art histories and schools, radical ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... after the whole subject has been incessantly discussed, it is difficult to realize the effect produced by the sudden and unexpected onset of that redoubtable champion. Free Trade had been so long taken for granted that the case for it had become unfamiliar; what remained was an academic conviction, and against that Chamberlain arrayed an extraordinary personal prestige backed by a boldness of assertion to which his position as a business man lent authority. To meet an onset so sudden ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... but the writings of Jefferson, who dominated his party throughout this period, take the place of such. His inaugural address of 1801 is a famous statement of democratic principles, which to-day are taken for granted only because, through the party organized by him to secure their success, they became universally accepted as the ideal of American institutions. In all the colonies, says John Adams, "a court and a country ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... with his kit, and he was sentenced to three hundred more lashes, of which strange to say he received every one without crying out. He seemed to be a man without any feeling, for it may be pretty well taken for granted that the drummers did not fail in their duty towards such a man as this, for there is no one they feel more strongly against than ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... Rose were in constant attendance at the Minories, and Thekla came with them several times, her charge being the children, so that Esther might be entirely free to wait on her sick mistress. The subject was not discussed again, but from this date, on both sides, it appeared to be quietly taken for granted that Robin and Thekla henceforward belonged to each other. The Underhills, too, were very kind, Mrs Underhill undertaking to sit up with her invalid ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... last it being taken for granted we had run away, and Lycas becoming uneasie for want of us, fell desperately foul on his wife, whom he suppos'd to be the cause of our departure: I'll take no notice of what words and blows past between them; I know not every particular: I'll only say, Tryphoena, the mother of mischief, had put Lycas ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... shouted, and we ran to meet the old man who was coming toward us. Antonia reached him first, took his hand and kissed it. When I came up, he touched my shoulder and looked searchingly down into my face for several seconds. I became somewhat embarrassed, for I was used to being taken for granted by my elders. ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... the Sword-World feudal system to them. It was hard, he found, to explain something you have taken for granted all your life to somebody who is quite unfamiliar ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... matter, although he says little on the subject. Its existence however, as a real entity, is everywhere taken for granted. ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... with cushions in the bottom of the boat and sang and chattered the twilight out. They played golf and tennis, and the blood leaped in their veins, for whatever they did, they did it with heart and soul. As for their relations with one another, these were taken for granted, and what they meant, not one of the three stopped to question. It was enough that they were sweet ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... became an invalid and did not live long. His second wife was also a native of Norfolk. Thus he was not only a Southerner himself, but his wife was a native of that section. When, therefore, civil war came and it became fashionable for people to express secession sentiments, it was taken for granted that Farragut would cast his fortunes with the South; but upon being approached he indignantly replied: "I would see every man of you damned before I would raise my hand against that flag!" Being told that it would be unsafe for him to remain in ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... which march'd all Night along the Foot of the Mountains, arriv'd two Hours before Day under the Hill of Monjouick, not a Quarter of a Mile from the outward Works: For this Reason it was taken for granted, whatever the Design was which the General had propos'd to himself, that it would be put in Execution before Day-light; but the Earl of Peterborow was now pleas'd to inform the Officers of the Reasons why he chose to stay till the Light appear'd. He was of opinion that any Success would ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... strategical principles it is, then, assumed that both players will follow them, and it is taken for granted that if one player deviates from these principles and thereby weakens himself at some point, the other player is expected to exact the full penalty for this deviation with any means at his disposal. It will always ...
— Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership • Edward Lasker
... of all missed opportunities entirely taken for granted, Sir William's existence flowed peacefully and prosperously on. It was with an agreeable consciousness of his dignity and prestige that he sat once or twice in the week at the board meetings of one or two governing bodies to which he belonged. They figured in his scheme of existence as ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... all the tide of circumstance, would soon have gone down the stream and been heard of no more.—No, I am too much a lover of genius, I sometimes think, and too often get impatient with dull people, so that, in their weak talk, where nothing is taken for granted, I look forward to some future possible state of development, when a gesture passing between a beatified human soul and an archangel shall signify as much as the complete history of a planet, from the time when it curdled to the time when its sun was burned out. And yet, when a strong brain ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... she had watched his evolution from the clay sketch, and in Pleydon's mind, to the final heroic proportions; and she had taken for granted that a grateful world would see him in her light. A woman, she decided, had made the trouble; and she hated her with a personal ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... beginning at the bottom, as Bob was doing; close application; accuracy; frugality; honesty; fair dealing. The homiletic magazines omitted idealism and imagination; but perhaps those qualities are so common in what some people are pleased to call our humdrum modern business life that they were taken for granted. If a young man could not succeed in this world, something was wrong with him. Can Bob be blamed that in this baffling and unsuspected incapacity he found a great humility of spirit? In his fashion he began to remember trifling significances ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... laws for their government not in opposition to the laws of England, and they could punish by fine and imprisonment all offenders against these laws. 8. Nothing is said in the original charter of the powers of offence and defence, alliance and military organization; but these were probably taken for granted, as they were so generally used by merchants and navigators at the time, and were, as a matter of fact, exercised without limitation by the company ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... came near he was astonished first at the stature and dark colour of its members, and he realized, with a sudden fury, that the outcome was not so assured as he had taken for granted it would be. Perhaps he would never see camp, after all! Then he was further astonished to note that one of the pack-leaders looked like a dog. He shouted, in a voice of angry command; and the onrushing pack hesitated, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... herself seriously; was it such fun? When house and maids and children, garden, car, table-linen and clothes had all been brought to the standard of Marlborough Gardens, was the result worth while? Who enjoyed them, who praised them? It was all taken for granted here; the other women were too deep in their own problems to note more than the satisfactory fact; the Bradleys kept the ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... demonology of the books of the New Testament is an essential and integral part of the revelation of the nature of the spiritual world promulgated by Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, if the historical accuracy of the Gospels and of the Acts of the Apostles is to be taken for granted, if the teachings of the Epistles are divinely inspired, and if the universal belief and practice of the primitive Church are the models which all later times must follow, there can be no doubt that those ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... The picture shows the Masters on the bank at Cuckoo Ware, while one small natational Candidate is still in a punt shiveringly awaiting the command to jump in again and swim the regulation distance. From the title, it may be taken for granted that this ARTHUR did "pass" after all. Poor ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various
... escort of your charmer. A pretty woman finds it troublesome to travel alone in these parts. When you slapped your friend on the back and bawled out his name—a name known from one end of the kingdom to the other—the plan of action was immediately formed. You were necessary, for it was taken for granted that you knew too much. You had also promised your ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... appointment. She had never known him to fail before. What could have caused the failure now? Had he kept his tryste they would now have been safely housed at Old Field Cottage. Perhaps Thurston, seeing the clouds, had taken for granted that she would not come, and he had therefore stayed away. Yet, no; she could not for an instant entertain that thought. Well she knew that had a storm risen, and raged as never a storm did before, Thurston, upon the bare possibility ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... enough with all his powers to find a God, and to worship a God, he can worship himself. It is because the poetry of machinery is the kind of poetry that does immeasurable things instead of immeasurably singing about them that it has been quite generally taken for granted that it is not poetry at all. The world has learned more of the purely poetic idea of freedom from a few dumb, prosaic machines that have not been able to say anything beautiful about it than from the poets of twenty centuries. The machine frees a ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Dudley's treatment of cystocele, Montgomery's round ligament operation, Chorio-epithelioma of the Uterus, Passive Incontinence of the Urine, and Moynihan's methods in Intestinal Anastomosis. Nothing is left to be taken for granted, the author not only telling his readers in every instance what should be done, but also precisely how to do it. A distinctly original feature of the book is the illustrations, numbering about one thousand line drawings made especially under the author's personal ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... vaccines and other products of the biologic laboratory is almost an obsession today. Their curative and preventive values are taken for granted. Most of the time the children are strong enough to throw off the poisons without showing prolonged or pronounced effects, but every once in a while a child is so poisoned that it takes months for it to regain health and too often death is the end. Sometimes the death takes place a few minutes ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... said, "to a question couched in these terms, our answer can be taken for granted. But no solemn promises bind us to the commander ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... she was now passing through, and—as all highly organized natures like her own are, especially in youth, very sensitive to those more exquisite vibrations of pain and happiness that leave minds of a coarser fibre comparatively unmoved—it may be taken for granted that she was ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... watch the goings-on of the young ones? You want our Carette. Of course you do. And you've taken her for granted ever since you were so high. Now here's a word of wisdom for you, mon gars. No girl likes to be taken for granted after she's, say, fourteen,—unless, ma fe, she's as ugly as sin. If she's a beauty, as our Carette is, she knows it, and she's not going to drop into any man's mouth like a ripe fig. Mon Gyu, ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... be taken for granted, I presume, that all dogs have this time-sense in a greater or lesser degree, and not only all dogs, but other animals also, for there are sufficient proofs to justify this assertion. Sportsmen, in particular, ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... sense: is it surprising that such people are incapable of expressing their religious perceptions, or any perception of internal sense? The conviction that men have of superior powers, in every country where there are words to express it, is so well vouched, that, in fair reasoning, it ought to be taken for granted among the few tribes where language is deficient." The same ingenious author shows, with great strength of reasoning, that the operations of nature and the government of this world, which to us loudly proclaim ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... motives just described were unquestionably preeminent among the causative factors in monasticism, it should not be taken for granted that there were no others, or that either or both of these motives controlled every monk. The personal considerations tending to keep up the flight from the world were numerous and active. It would be a mistake to credit all the monks, and at ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... be the ideal. Here it must suffice, to select the most essential or interesting matters, and to present them with such vividness as the necessary brevity will permit. Very little preliminary knowledge will be taken for granted; the use of Latin or technical terms will be shunned, and every topic will be dealt with, as far as possible, in the ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... semi-consciously, towards a solution of the self-same problems which the philosopher is attempting to solve consciously and of set purpose. That, on the whole, a society has solved these problems in the manner best suited to its existing needs and circumstances may fairly be taken for granted, and, even where the ethical stand-point of the reformer is very superior to the stand-point of the society which he wishes to reform, he will be wise in endeavouring to introduce his reforms gradually, and, if possible, ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... Carinthia Jane looked on the land of her father and mother for the first time under those conditions. There can be no harm in quoting her remark. Only—I have to say it—experience causes apprehension, that we are again to be delayed by descriptions, and an exposition of feelings; taken for granted,—of course, in a serious narrative; which it really seems these moderns think designed for a frequent arrest of the actors in the story and a searching of the internal state of this one or that one of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... from those who pronounce forgiveness impossible stand those who give the second answer to the great question, and calmly assure us that forgiveness may be taken for granted. They emphasise what the others overlooked—the personal character of the relations of God and man. God is a loving Father; man is His weak and unhappy child; and of course God forgives. As Heine put it, c'est mon metier, it is what He is for. But ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... thousand pounds were allotted as a subsidy to the king of Poland, and twenty thousand to the elector of Bavaria. These gratifications met with little or no opposition in the committee of supply; because it was taken for granted, that, in case of a rupture, France would endeavour to avail herself of her superiority by land, by invading his Britannic majesty's German dominions; and therefore it might be necessary to secure the assistance ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... she cried, when she had drained it, 'this is the judgment day for some people in the village! You see, Gryb and Orzchewski had always taken for granted that the colonists wouldn't come, and they had meant to drive a little bargain between them and keep some of the best land and settle Jasiek Gryb on it like a nobleman, and he was to marry Orzchewski's Paulinka. You know, she had learnt embroidery from the squire's wife, and Jasiek ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... exclusion. If everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must accept of the object itself or nothing as causes. But it is the very point in question whether everything must have a cause or not, and therefore, according to all just reasoning ought not to be taken for granted. [40:1] ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... exaggerated sense of his own importance, His Majesty, as a corrective, may recall to mind the Persian fable of 'Ushter wa Diraz-kush,' from the 'Baharistan' of Jaumy." In ordinary times an explanation might be vouchsafed of what the said fable is, but none was given in the present instance, it being taken for granted, during the shah's visit, that the Baharistan of Jaumy was as familiar to the average Englishman as Mother Goose. Upon the whole, our country has not been wholly unfortunate in not seeing the shah. Horace's famous "Persicos odi, puer, apparatus," has a very close application in the "Persian ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... the last notice was eclipsed by the seriousness of the other two. It had always been taken for granted that the captain of Willoughby was also the Speaker of the House, and a contested election for that office was without precedent. Now, however, the old rule was to be challenged; and as the members waited for the clock to strike six they ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... went into the whirlwind of the world-vision, a stupendous force upsetting, up-rooting, overturning, demolishing, almost erasing and contradicting everything that Joe had taken for granted, and in the wake of the destruction, rising and ever rising, a new creation, the ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... he was far from considering himself under obligation to do so. He had not the least idea that he was in any way a snob, he would have hotly resented being called one, but he accepted his estimate of his own worth as something absolute and certain, to be taken for granted. ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... a minute she marvelled at her own self-possession. Even when he left them to work out the measurements together (and it flashed upon her that henceforth they would often be left together, her immunity being taken for granted), she kept her head bowed over the papers and managed to control her voice to put one or two ordinary questions—until the pencil dropped from her fingers and she felt ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... adorned every gatepost and every wall sufficiently smooth to hold them within a circle of three miles radius around the town. There was some talk beforehand about the meeting. But on the whole the people displayed very little curiosity about General John Regan. It was taken for granted that he had been in some way associated with the cause of Irish Nationality, and one or two people professed to recollect that he had fought on the side of the Boers during the South African War. ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... of fire and smoke, of embers and ashes? In short, what theory underlay and prompted the practice of these customs? For that the institution of the festivals was the outcome of a definite train of reasoning may be taken for granted; the view that primitive man acted first and invented his reasons to suit his actions afterwards, is not borne out by what we know of his nearest living representatives, the savage and the peasant. Two different explanations of the fire-festivals ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... as every reader will have perceived, wanted to know whether he was playing bridge this afternoon at the Poppits. Major Flint and Captain Puffin certainly were, and it might be taken for granted that Godiva Plaistow was. With the Poppits and ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... sensation when we returned to the fold. Everybody wondered so much that they gave us no time to answer their questions, even if we would. But somehow it seemed to be taken for granted that the whole thing was my fault. Perhaps Mrs. East or Sir Marcus had spread the report. I ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... the sedge-like rim of palm-tops, the sameness and smallness of the land, the hugely superior size and interest of sea and sky. Life on such islands is in many points like life on shipboard. The atoll, like the ship, is soon taken for granted; and the islanders, like the ship's crew, become soon the centre of attention. The isles are populous, independent, seats of kinglets, recently civilised, little visited. In the last decade many changes have crept in; women no longer go unclothed ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his death, his daughter Louise left that lodging, and could not be traced. In 1849 official documents reporting her death were forwarded from Munich to a person (a friend of yours, Monsieur). Death, of course, taken for granted; but nearly five years afterwards, this very person encountered the said Louise Duval at Aix-la-Chapelle, and never heard nor saw more of her. Demande submitted, to find out said Louise Duval or any children of hers born in 1848-9; supposed in 1852-3 to have one child, a girl, between four ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... character of these three factors be studied, trust hostility to American labor-unions can be explained in terms of economic measure. One national characteristic, however, must be taken for granted. That is the commercialized business morality which guides American economic life. The responsibility for the moral or social effect of an act is so rarely a consideration in a decision, that it can be here neglected without error. It is not ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... sweeps of the heavens my opinion of the arrangement of the stars and their magnitudes, and of some other particulars, has undergone a gradual change; and indeed, when the novelty of the subject is considered, we cannot be surprised that many things formerly taken for granted should on examination prove to be different from what they were generally but incautiously supposed to be. For instance, an equal scattering of the stars may be admitted in certain calculations; but when we examine the Milky Way, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... civilization and of population in consequence with the same degree of moral restraint (as there exists in England at this present time, for instance) is a good, and not an evil—but this does not appear from the Essay. The Essay shews that population is not (as had been sometimes taken for granted) an abstract and unqualified good; but it led many persons to suppose that it was an abstract and unqualified evil, to be checked only by vice and misery, and producing, according to its encouragement a greater quantity of vice and misery; ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... first by Mr. John Pitts, late Rector of Great Brickhill, Bucks[1], to Mr. Richard How of Aspley, Beds, and is taken for granted successively by Boswell, Malone, and Croker. But no such Greek is, in fact, to be found in Euripides; the words conveying a like ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... of the supposed fact could be procured, the capitoul had recourse to a monitory, or general information, in which the crime was taken for granted, and persons were required to give such testimony against it as they were able. This recites, that La Vaisse was commissioned by the protestants to be their executioner in ordinary, when any of their children were to be hanged for changing their religion; it recites also, that, when the protestants ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... camel—so, when they range alongside, no time is lost in listening to lies. It was not told to me how they navigate themselves across the broken wastes, or by what arts they keep alive in the dust-storms and heat. That was taken for granted, and the man who took it so considered himself the most commonplace of mortals. He was deeply moved by the account of a new aerial route which the French are laying out somewhere in the Sahara over a waterless stretch of four hundred miles, where ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... superfluous scattered observations. The original records are available in Cambridge for any desirous of consulting them. The statistics given refer to the several recorded observations; where these fall short of the total number it may be taken for granted that as a rule the remainder did not depart markedly from the normal standard of the group in question — the presence of salient characters would ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... The vast majority of English people heard nothing, and knew nothing about it. Consequently when it was proposed to connect the great commercial city of Liverpool with the great manufacturing city of Manchester, forty miles away, by a railway, it was taken for granted that the cars were to be drawn by horses. Nevertheless a tram-road was opposed, first, by the Duke of Bridgewater, who had a canal between the two cities; and, secondly, by those who owned the coaches and the inns. Though proposed in 1821, the opposition was so great that ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... so foolish as to be flattered by our invitation. For, my dear, we weren't asked to a swell dinner at all; we were invited to what was intended for a "Bohemian" affair (but it was only a dull and ungainly one), and it was apparently taken for granted that, as Dick painted and I hadn't millions, we were decidedly eligible. Of course, as you know, there is no such thing as a real ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... employers. The education, even of the most gifted, bore traces of the fact that they had not really come under the influence of refined and intelligent society— (think of Beethoven when he came in contact with Goethe at Teplitz). It was taken for granted that the mental organisation of professional musicians was such as to render them insusceptible to the influence of culture. When Marschner, [Footnote: Heinrich Marschner, 1796-1861, operatic composer; Weber's colleague at Dresden, ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... present fac simile copies of all the plates and figures referred to, but it is taken for granted that those sufficiently interested in this study to examine this paper have access to the published fac similes of ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas |
