"Conjecture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her evidence. For although her heavenly visitants were simply sensorial illusions, there yet remains something unexplained. How came she to foresee the path she was destined to follow? The inquiry would launch us on a broad and wild sea of conjecture, for the navigation of which we have not yet the requisite charts on board, and it grows late—so good-night, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... through paint, but is oblivious that the channels which lead water into wood are open to let it out again. He lays great stress on boiled oil holding water in suspense to cause blistering, which is merely a conjecture. Water boils at 212 deg. F. and linseed oil at 600 deg. F., consequently no water can possibly remain after boiling, and a drop of water put into boiling oil would cause an explosion too dangerous ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... and produce effects none the less important because they are secondary. About these anthropo-geography can reach surer conclusions than regarding direct psychical effects, because it can trace their mode of operation as well as define the result. Direct psychical effects are more matters of conjecture, whose causation is asserted rather than proved. They seem to float in the air, detached from the solid ground under foot, and are therefore subject matter for the psychologist ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... as to the duration of their authority, and the person of the individual who should come after them. The succession of the Roman empire was elective; and consequently there was almost an unlimited scope for conjecture in this question. Among the various modes of enquiry that were employed we are told, that the twenty-four letters of the alphabet were artificially disposed in a circle, and that a magic ring, being suspended over the centre, was conceived ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... and the shortest road took him to the gate, and he was pausing to open it deliberately, that he might walk into the house with an appearance of perfect composure, when Maggie came out at the front door in bonnet and shawl. His conjecture was fulfilled, and he waited for her at the gate. She started violently when she ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Alice Cary was its first president. The story of Sorosis from the beginning is a very interesting one; from the view-point of the press its doings and sayings and business affairs generally have always afforded subject-matter for comment and conjecture. Of its early days Mrs. Croly wrote: "The social events of the first year were memorable, for they were the first of their kind, and practically changed the custom of confining public dinner-giving to men. The first was ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... that Mr. Lowndes supposes the designer of these plates to have been some person distinct from Hogarth; and he was right in his conjecture; but he was ignorant of the name ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... so much owing to the shaking of his hands as to his continual misconceptions. He could see, for instance, that a certain key would not fit the lock, and yet he continued to try and insert it. All on a sudden he recalled a conjecture he had formed on the occasion of his preceding visit: the big key with the toothed wards, which was attached to the ring with the smaller ones, probably belonged, not to the drawers, but to some box in which the old woman, no doubt, hoarded up her valuables. Without further troubling ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... conjecture that the parish church, dedicated in honour of St. AEgidius or St. Giles, and which has ever since retained the name of that patron saint, was erected during the reign of Alexander I. (1107-1124), the founder also of the ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... the larger comprehends the less. But I look at you, and I think to myself, thinks I, 'There is a man—or at least the semblance of a man,—a breathing thing at least, with anthropoid features and dimensions,—who is never, never, never tormented by the feeling—'Now, tell me, what feeling do you conjecture ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... least is a plausible inference. Probus tells us that he used to travel abroad with Thrasea. It is a natural conjecture that these hodoeporica were in the style of Horace's ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... all-wise Father. This principle is wonderfully fruitful in consolations to the bereaved and mourning—it is the joy of all Christian hearts. "The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice." What shall we say of the hopes and prospects of bereaved souls? Is it blind conjecture that there is an existence beyond the shadows? Is there no life to come? No great resurrection? No comforter to arrest the current of mourning ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... to divine the cause of so unexpected a change were as vain as the questions I had first asked. Brigitte was ill, and remained obstinately silent. After an entire day passed in supplication and conjecture, I went out without knowing where I was going. Passing the Opera, I entered it from mere force ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... time Bertie arrived his mother had discussed every possible and improbable conjecture as to his guilty secret; the girls limited themselves to the opinion that their brother had been weak rather ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... possible interval of time would be sufficient to enable the spirit to dematerialize. Consequently, it strikes me, that while the result you suppose is theoretically possible, it could, practically, never occur. Still, the subject is one of mere conjecture at most, and one opinion is, perhaps, ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... were suns, one might conceive that they were masses melted in the sun and thrown out, and that would destroy the foundation of this hypothetical theology. The ancient error of the two principles, which the Orientals distinguished by the names Oromasdes and Arimanius, caused me to explain a conjecture on the primitive history of peoples. It appears indeed probable that these were the names of two great contemporary princes, the one monarch of a part of upper Asia, where there have since been others of this name, the other king of the Scythian ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... conduct of France and Germany in this matter are not fully known. We may safely conjecture that the Republic acted conjointly with the Czar in order to clinch the new Franco-Russian alliance, not from any special regard for China, a Power with which she had frequently come into collision respecting Tonquin. As ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... elegiacal howl. Suddenly there is heard without the sound of a showman's tin trumpet! Whether the actor had got some obliging person to perform on that instrument, or whether, as more likely, it was but a trick of ventriloquism, we leave to conjecture. At that note, an idea seemed to seize the dog. He ran first to his master, who was on the threshold about to depart; pulled him back into the centre of the room: next he ran to the child, dragging her towards the same spot, though ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the monastery. I felt sure that when he had reckoned up a few figures he would be coming round to tear me away from the bread and cheese, so I endeavoured to hasten the consumption with as much speed as I could decently put on. I was right in my conjecture. I had not been seated five minutes, when he came back and ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... gentlemen, am not so charitable as she professed to be; neither do I think you will be, gentlemen. I apprehend that the motive which actuated the taking in, the clothing and the obtaining a situation at Stewart's, was another motive altogether (immoderate laughter). What it was, I will leave you to conjecture. Look a little further. Hemmings is no relation to her, and yet we find her taking him to Saratoga! In what capacity? Why, she tells you, to attend Bethune's horses at Saratoga (laughter). Yes, gentlemen, and this hostler, this stable boy, in the same breath, is introduced by this lady as what—a ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... Jasper's conjecture was rendered a certainty. Maud had walked to Wattleborough, where she would meet Dora on the latter's return from her teaching, and Mrs Milvain sat alone, in a mood of depression; there was a ring at the door-bell, and ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... even if they should be both able and willing, still it would only remain a positive deficit made good, and no new facility would be derived for alleviating the existing burthens. The burthens and distresses must still remain what they were before. He spoke not now upon conjecture, or loose calculation, he had brought his authority with him. These were the records from which he derived his statements—the official returns of the Treasury; and if false, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... all these troubles by giving the regiment a commander who knew nothing about them. I presume that some one said to the Governor about this time, "Why don't you get Sheridan?" This, however, is only conjecture. I really do not know how my name was proposed to him, but I have often been told since that General Gordon Granger, whom I knew slightly then, and who had been the former colonel of the regiment, first ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... emperor, listening to them, since he commonly formed his opinions on vain conjecture, and was always ready to yield his judgment to crafty persons, appointed Arbetio and Florentius, the chief steward, as judges to inquire how it was that the town was destroyed. They rejected the plain and easily proved causes of the disaster, fearing that Eusebius, at that time high chamberlain, ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... a little odd that more than half of a discussion on the origin of inequality among men should be devoted to a glowing imaginary description, from which no reader could conjecture what thesis it was designed to support. But we have only to remember that Rousseau's object was to persuade people that the happier state is that in which inequality does not subsist, that there had once been such a state, and that this was first the state ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... gratified to read this letter and to find that my conjecture was correct that the Baldwin performance was a ...
— Telepathy - Genuine and Fraudulent • W. W. Baggally
... mortification, and consequently, that war had been their object. Dana declared in debate (as I have from those who were present) that we had done every thing which might provoke France to war; that we had given her insults which no nation ought to have borne; and yet she would not declare war. The conjecture as to the executive is, that they received Talleyrand's letter before or about the meeting of Congress: that not meaning to meet the overture effectually, they kept it secret, and let all the war measures go ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... that they meant serious weakness and always ascribed them to my bad habit. That my habit of masturbation had any relation to the rarity of the involuntary emissions would, of course, be a matter of pure conjecture. In passing from the discussion of personal masturbation, I wish to say that my associations with boys as a pupil and as a teacher lead me to believe that the practice is practically universal. When discussing the hygienic evils of prostitution with boy pupils I have noted ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... by experience and the evidence of facts. What length of time this trial may require is impossible to ascertain; yet we have, I acknowledge, some thing of experience here by which we may form a kind of conjecture. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... from impersonal reflection upon the temptations and depravity of large cities, "that it's common enough. I dare say it isn't the first time Ben Halleck has taken a fellow home in a hack." Bartley got so much comfort from the conjecture he had thrown out for Marcia's advantage, that he felt a sort of self-approval in the fact with which he followed it up. "And there's this consolation about it, if there isn't any other: that it wouldn't have happened now, if it ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the designers of even a selection of the best Printers' Marks would be but to embark on a wild sea of conjecture. The initials of the engravers, which occur much more frequently than those of the artists, are of very little assistance to the identification of the latter. Many of them possess a vigour and an originality which would at once stamp their ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... no importance. The one thing certain here, as it is the one thing certain in all other cases, is that, under special circumstances, the bees will treat their queen in a special manner. The rest is all mystery, around which we only can weave more or less ingenious and pleasant conjecture. And yet, were we speaking of man in the manner wherein it were wise perhaps to speak of the bee, is there very much more we could say? He too yields only to necessity, the attraction of pleasure, ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... is (I conjecture, I hope, rightly) to be with you; won't I show her the little ridge in the ruin where one talks to ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... or snow-covered mountain—stood a doubtful freedom, half frozen, beckoning us to her icy domain. This was the good to be sought. The inequality was as great as that between certainty and uncertainty. This, in itself, was enough to stagger us; but when we came to survey the untrodden road, and conjecture the many possible difficulties, we were appalled, and at times, as I have said, were upon the point of giving over ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... opinion that he is a gigantic petrifaction. His proportions are so perfect, and his appearance is so life like. I will add, that every one wants to think so. If he proved to be a petrifaction, what a realm of awe and mysterious conjecture would he open to us. But I, for one, feel convinced that he will prove to be statue, ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... admitted his guilt before the magistrate. If they had any reasonable doubt—and such a doubt might of course be raised by evidence of previous good character—they would of course give it to the defendant and acquit him, but such a doubt must be no mere whim, guess or conjecture that the defendant might not after all be guilty even if the evidence seemed so to demonstrate; it must be a substantial doubt based on the evidence and such a one as would influence them in the important matters of their own daily, domestic and business lives. That was all there ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... that he had to go; why he stayed away so long, so very long, are not really relevant to this story; the facts, stripped of conjecture, were simply these: she was married, and he was not, and there came the time, it always comes in such relationships as theirs, when he had to choose between staying without honour and going quickly. He went. But even the bare facts concerning ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... with our friends, and then going on board. But as soon as they saw us go up the hill instead of returning to the boat, they became very uneasy, and wanted us to turn back. As we had reason, however, to conjecture that the women and children were on the other side of the hill, we went on in the expectation of getting a sight of them before dark. This the Coreans prevented by following us with shouts wherever we went, so as to give warning ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... of the purposes of the Roman Emperor,' I replied, 'but such as is common to all. Though honored with the friendship of Aurelian, I am not a political confidant. I can only conjecture touching his designs, from my acquaintance with his character, and the features of the policy he has adopted and avowed as that which is to govern his administration. And this policy is that which has been acted upon by so many of those who before him have ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... confounded together. If we see isolated species, we may presume the absence of some more closely connected, and which have not yet been discovered. Already there are genera, and even entire orders, nay, whole classes which present this state of things." He then goes on to present, "as a guide to conjecture," what his successors now assert as a fact: "In the first place, if we examine the whole series of known animals, from one extremity to the other, when they are arranged in the order of their natural relations, we find that we may pass progressively, or at least ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... previous day; whence it was clear that Felix had been dismissed within the last twenty-four hours, and perhaps after the delivery of his note to me. Such a coincidence, which seemed no less pertinent than strange, opened a wide field for conjecture; and the possibility that Nicholas had called on me to sound me and learn what I knew occurring to my mind, brought me to a final determination to seek out this Felix, and without the delay of an hour sift the ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... merely given as strong conjecture, not as proof positive amounting to demonstration, of the real difference between the two races—the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... varied forms of one species. In accordance with this view, Cuvier conjectures that since central Asia seems to be the region where the sheep first appeared, and from which it has been distributed, the argali may have been distributed over this continent from Asia by crossing Bering Strait on ice. This conjecture is not so ill founded as at first sight would appear; for the Strait is only about fifty miles wide, is interrupted by three islands, and is jammed with ice nearly every winter. Furthermore the argali is abundant on the mountains adjacent ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... already slicing deer meat for broiling, and making coffee, of which he donated a bowl to Kit, also a cart wheel of a tortilla dipped in gravy. Both were joyously accepted, and after seeing that the men were aroused from the blankets, he returned to the hacienda full of conjecture as to the developments to be anticipated from the night's work. That reserve stock of ammunition might mean salvation ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... last moment, Mrs. Elmore had one of her old attacks. What these attacks were I find myself unable to specify, but as every lady has an old attack of some kind, I may safely leave their precise nature to conjecture. It is enough that they were of a nervous character, that they were accompanied with headache, and that they prostrated her for several days. During their continuance she required the active sympathy and constant presence of her ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... different from that in which I formerly saw you. Don't be alarmed, cheer up, and don't suppose you have fallen in with a tribe of robbers, but with an asylum, where you may be guarded and defended from all the world. A thought strikes me; and if it be as I conjecture, you have been lucky in meeting me above all men. What I conjecture is, that being in love with Preciosa—that beautiful young gipsy, to whom you addressed the verses—you have come in search of her; for which ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... followed each other in rapid succession. It was the great bell, used only on occasions of emergency and importance, the hoarse tongue of which had been silent since the day of Sir William's departure. There was no time to waste in conjecture. Grim rushed from his dwelling. Convinced that some catastrophe was at hand, his intention was to climb the hill behind his little hovel, in order to reconnoitre the premises with greater facility. Sallying forth, he saw numbers ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... His name and calling were poor replies to those questions. Was he naturally cold and unimpressible at heart? or had some fierce passion, some terrible sorrow, ravaged the life within him, and left it dead for ever after? Impossible to conjecture! There was the impenetrable face before you, wholly inexpressive—so inexpressive that it did not even look vacant—a mystery for your eyes and your mind to dwell on—hiding something; but whether vice or ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... Now this conjecture of Mr. Tom's about the cause of Madge's disappearance was only a piece of gay facetiousness. It never did really occur to him that any one—that any creature with a head capable of being broken—would have the wild audacity to ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... and new experiment, and an empire has arisen whose future course, whether we consider its political or its economic, its physical or its mental resources, leaves conjecture behind. The world-stage is set as for the opening of a drama which, at least in the magnitude of its incidents and the imposing circumstance of its action, will make the former achievements of men dwindle and seem ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... pole, for t' other the Exchange; Life, nature, lore, God, and affairs of that sort, He looks at as merely ideas; in short, As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet, Of such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it; Composed just as he is inclined to conjecture her, Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer; You are filled with delight at his clear demonstration, Each figure, word, gesture, just fits the occasion, With the quiet precision of science he'll sort em, But you ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... empress of the world. Even so will it be with England; ere ten centuries have rolled away, her sun-like splendour will illume a western world. Our stately palaces and venerable cathedrals, our public edifices and manufactories, our paintings and sculpture, will be fruitful subjects of conjecture and controversy to the then learned. And a fragment of a pillar from St. Paul's, or a mutilated statue from Westminster, will be as valuable to them as a column from the Temple of Belus, or a broken cornice from the Temple of Theseus, is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... is known, the most essential astronomical theories are too much a matter of conjecture, to give much strength to a theory built up entirely of such conjectural materials. The argument from probabilities can easily be turned against the author, for when a chain of reasoning depends upon a long series of ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... continued. She gave him the latest news of the Benders and the Guerins and handed over the two letters from these friends she happened to have in her purse that he might read and enjoy them at his leisure. In short, Betty poured out much of the pent-up excitement and doubt and conjecture of the last few weeks to Bob, who was as hungry to hear as she was to ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... and walked by her side with a puzzled conjecture at the reason of woman's recuperative powers. Clarice's eyes were as clear, her forehead as sunny, as though she had clean wiped yesterday from her consciousness. The conjecture, however, brought the reality of yesterday only ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... since neither Valla a diligent inquirer after, and a good judge in such things, nor any of the late writers produce any thing upon which I can safely rely; yet what beginning this kind of Poetry {14} had, I think I can pretty well conjecture: for tis likely that first Shepherds us'd Songs to recreate themselves in their leisure hours whilst they fed their Sheep; and that each man, as his wit served, accommodated his Songs to his present ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... Hawthorne himself into the unknown and the unknowable. It is a fragment, and yet it seems complete, for it is impossible to imagine how the story could have been continued beyond its present limits; and Hawthorne left no word from which we can conjecture his further intentions in regard ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... he answered, averting his face. "We can only conjecture about some things. Don't try to think about it. Try ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... changes of this earth, has yet appeared, will, I believe be easily allowed. With regard again to fire as an agent in the mineral operations of this earth, geologists have formed no consistent theory. They see volcanoes in all the quarters of the globe, and from those burning mountains, they conjecture other mountains have been formed. But a burning mountain is only a matter of fact; and, they have not on this formed any general principle, for establishing what may be called a theory of the earth. Those who have considered subterraneous fires ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... my men through the woods to see in what state the Company's shipp lay. At length they told me shee lay a ground neer the shoare, the creek wherin shee was to have layn the Winter being frozen up, which made me conjecture shee would infallibly bee lost. I also sent 2 of my men unto Young Captain Guillem into the Island, which hee had desired of me for his safegard; but I was told by my people that hee intended to deceave me, having, contrary unto his promise of not receaving any into his Fort ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... were in Sicilian waters I thought I could see the summits of the Alps beautifully lighted by the rays of the setting sun. Bonaparte laughed much, and joked me about it. He called Admiral Brueys, who took his telescope and soon confirmed my conjecture. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... as the tithes and tolls of Persia were paid both in money and in kind, it is obvious that the communication between the capital and satrapies of the empire must have been well organized. Such organization implies the existence of main roads radiating from Sousa and Ecbatana. Nor are we left to conjecture only. The establishment of running posts and couriers was a distinguishing feature of the Persian empire; and the speed at which they journeyed from the sea-coast or the banks of the Hyphasis to the seat of government ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... that the first dancers in Aix-la-Chapelle appeared in July with St. John's name in their mouths, the conjecture is probable that the wild revels of St. John's Day, A.D. 1374, gave rise to this mental plague, which thenceforth has visited so many thousands with incurable aberration of mind and disgusting ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... personage on board that Washington Limited than Ken Ward. In fact, Ken was so full of importance and responsibility that he quite divided his time between foolish pride in his being chosen to "size up" the great college teams and fearful conjecture as ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... go" (Vol. ii., p. 45.)—Your correspondent T. S. D. is certainly right in his notion that the ballad of "A frog he would a-wooing go" is very old, however fanciful may be his conjecture about its personal or political application to Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. That it could not refer to "the Cavaliers and the Roundheads," another of T. S. D.'s notions, is clear from the fact, that it was entered at Stationers' Hall in November, 1581; as appears ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... of these words aloud? For the eyes of the clergyman were fixed upon me from his corner, as if he were trying to put off his curiosity with the sop of a probable conjecture about me. ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... world, of the manner in which spirit can operate on spirit, and consequently of the nature of that influence which superior beings are capable of exercising upon others in this world, that we could at best only make a vague conjecture. It is sufficient for all moral purposes to ascertain the fact, that such an influence is possible to evil spirits, and permitted by Providence, that it forms a part of the trial of good men in this state of existence, and often tends ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... possible without derogation to his patrons. All the new documents mentioned have their special value, but too much importance cannot be attached to the recovery of Hariot's Will, for it at once dispels a great deal of the inference and conjecture that have so long beclouded his memory. It throws the bright electric light of to-day over his eminently scholarly, scientific and philosophical Life. By this and the other authorities given it is hoped to add a new star to the joint constellation of the honored Worthies ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... his followers, a school of French poetry invigorated by English understanding, which had predominated from the last century, consisted of prose thoughts translated into poetic language. I was led to the conjecture that this style had been kept up by, if it did not wholly arise from, the custom of writing Latin verses. I began to defend the use of natural language, such as "I will remember thee," instead of "Thy image on her wing, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... perhaps,—the not wholly obliterated markings of a thoughtful and powerful breed of men. His appearance suggested that some explanation of David might be traceable in this quarter. For while we know nothing of these deep things, nor ever shall, in the sense that we can supply the proofs of what we conjecture; while Nature goes ever about her ancient work, and we cannot declare that we have ever watched the operations of her fingers, think on we will, and reason we must, amid her otherwise intolerable mysteries. Though ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... cause of his trembling, God had changed, or disarranged, or mutilated some particular organ in his body, but left the body whole as it was first created, merely adding a visible outward mark, such as the trembling. This conjecture of the fathers contains much probability, but it cannot be proved by any testimony of the Scriptures. The mark might have been of another kind. For instance, we observe in nearly all murderers an immediate change in the ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... dragon flying about, or are the turrets of some castle burning?" questions which the king negatives in the same order. Then comes the positive declaration, "rather they are warriors marching whose armor gleams in the moonlight." —Alt- und Angels. Lesebuch, 1861. Heinzel and B. conjecture, [beorhtor hor]nas byrna nfre. So. G.—Beit. xii. 22; Anzeiger f. d. ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... whether this preciseness, which has been imputed to some Quakers, amounts to an idolizing of forms, can never be positively determined, except we had the power of looking into the hearts of those, who have incurred the charge. We may form, however, a reasonable conjecture, whether it does or not by presumptive evidence, taken from ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... research and conjecture, the origin of the Chinese people remains undetermined. We do not know who they were nor whence they came. Such evidence as there is points to their immigration from elsewhere; the Chinese themselves have a tradition of a Western origin. The first picture we have of their actual history shows us, ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... infinitely better than titled vagabonds of Norman blood. [Applause.] It is almost three centuries since a tiny vessel, not larger than a modern fishing-smack, turned her head to the sunset across an unknown sea, for the land of conjecture. The ship's company, composed of passengers from England, that wonderful nest of human wanderers, that splendid source of the best civilization of the world, cast anchor by chance in a noble bay for which they had not sailed, and settled a colony; not with any particularly ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... his conjecture, for presently Ethne left the group and hesitatingly approached the giant warrior, who was still gazing vacantly at the glassy surface of the water. She touched him timidly on the shoulder. Slowly he raised his head, and still half dazed by his long staring, listened ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... was about seven. He looked older from the venerable whiteness of his head, and it was impossible to conjecture his size, as he always wore clothes apparently belonging to some shapely youth of nineteen. A pair of pantaloons, that, when sustained by a single suspender, completely equipped him, formed his every-day suit. How, with this lavish superfluity of clothing, he managed to perform the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... minister of religion moved quite sharply in his chair when I told him (as he understood it) that I had to run upstairs and do what was wrong, but should be down again in a minute. Exactly of what occult vice they silently accused me I cannot conjecture, but I know of what I accuse myself; and that is, of having written a very shapeless and inadequate book, and one quite unworthy to be dedicated to you. As far as literature goes, this book is what is ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... end of a week that the ship which Barny had hitherto kept ahead of him showed symptoms of bearing down upon him, as he thought, and, sure enough, she did; and Barny began to conjecture what the deuce the ship could want with him, and commenced inventing answers to the questions he thought it possible might be put to him in case the ship spoke him. He was soon put out of suspense by being hailed and ordered to run under her lee, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... from their source, and the end of their journey to which as to their home they returned. It was a curious place. Were you to see first the inside of the house and then the outside, you would find yourself at a loss to conjecture where within it could be situated such a room. It was not, however, contained in what, to a cursory glance, passed for the habitable house, and a stranger would not easily have ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... setting sun; the street-lamps had just been kindled, and ahead of him, massed above the housetops, the blue-grey clouds of evening hung. He watched the faces of the people as they passed, some eager, some jaded, some pleasure-seeking, some smug, and he strove to conjecture their aim in life. At the Circus he paused awhile, breathing deep and filling out his lungs with fragrance of violets and narcissi, which flower-girls clamoured for him to purchase. He bought a bunch and smiled faintly, contrasting the beautiful significance ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... had, he said, been lately in Ireland, and people there who had more knowledge of the subject than he could lay claim to, told him half an acre was too extensive, so he made it a quarter of an acre. It is not hard to conjecture who his ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... him the Cinderella of the continents, the drudge with a destiny worthy of her charms and her good-temper. He is writing a monograph on the Song of Solomon, he tells me. He follows certain scholars in his conjecture that the Shulamite was given back to a humble shepherd by Solomon, when she had conquered the latter by the power of her impassioned chastity. But he has his own theory as well that the true lovers were both of African blood, that she came from the Ophir-land south of the Zambesi, ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... "My conjecture was right," he said. "They intended, no doubt, to keep some large merchantman they had captured, fill her with the contents of their prizes, and then with the papers and manifests of cargo they could go almost anywhere and dispose ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... was in consultation, how to frame the particular charge against that great Duke, he advised to make a generall one, and to accuse him of treason, and to let him afterwards get off, as he could; which befell himselfe at last. I beleive he should make no irrational conjecture, who determined, that his very eminent parts to support a Crown, and his very rugged nature to contest disloyalty, or withstand change of government, made his enemies implacable to him. It was a great infirmity in him, that he seem'd ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... assembled to celebrate this double marriage, and as yet only one of the brides appearing, there was much of wondering and conjecture, but they mostly thought that Ganymede was making a ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... occasioned to so little purpose, the more so as I apprehend an example to be much called for in the 100th regiment. Murray seems sanguine that the regiment will go on better under his rule, and that he knows the men better. I hope his conjecture may prove well founded, but I fear they are too wild a set to thrive ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... Linde,—forsooth, because it appears from Fuller's "Worthies," that in the reign of Henry the Sixth—only eight reigns too early for the birth of our rural beauty—there was one John Linde, a resident in the County of Kent! Not satisfied with this conjecture, Malone suggests that she may have been an Eliza Horden—the z changed, according to Camden's rules, into s, and the aspirate sunk. Malone's foundation for this theory is, that one Thomas Horden ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... it stammers uncertainly. But its earliest pages agree in representing Kapila as the initial religious rebel. Kapila was the first to declare the divine a human and invalid conjecture. The announcement, with its prefaces and deductions, is contained in the Sankhya Karika, a system of rationalism, still read in India, where it is known as the ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... rage rose from the Northmen, who were amazed and puzzled by the appearance of the Saxons, whose attire differed but slightly from their own; and the general belief among them was that this sudden alarm was the result of treachery among themselves. There was no time to waste in conjecture; the three groups of ships were now masses of flame, in the midst of which the lofty towers rose high. The shouts of the sailors in the vessels crowded together in helpless confusion in the stream below rose higher and ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... self-control he had displayed. On the contrary, he was tormented by the wish to know what she would have said or done had he yielded to his impulse; and, for the remainder of the night, his brain lost itself in a maze of hazardous conjecture. Only when day broke, a cheerless February day, was he satisfied that he could not have ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... in part of her conjecture. No grand company was come except the Irwines, for whom the carriage had been sent early, and Arthur was at that moment not in a back room, but walking with the rector into the broad stone cloisters of the old abbey, where the long tables were laid for all the cottage tenants and the farm-servants. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... conjecture the ultimate fate of Abdulla and his family, had not some one who took an interest in the case suggested a final resort to the Syed from Cambay, who some little time ago opened in Goghari street ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... been assured, though as yet it is only a matter of conjecture, that a clandestine intercourse has been renewed between your mother and yourself. Am I doomed again to experience such detestable ingratitude? No! if the tie is to be severed, so be it! By such ingratitude you will incur the hatred ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... your recent experience has been. Moreover, what do you mean by a 'living Reality'? The flesh and blood, bone and substance that perishes in a brief seventy years or so and crumbles into indistinguishable dust? Surely, ... if, as I conjecture from your words, you have seen one of the fair inhabitants of higher spheres than ours, . . you would not drag her spiritual and death unconscious brightness down to the level of the 'reality of a merely human life? Nay, if you would, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... importance to penetrate the councils of an enemy, in order to be prepared beforehand against his designs; we shall therefore be happy to advise Congress of the intentions of Great Britain as far as we conjecture. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... case," said Somerville, carelessly, "you will have to tell me who you are, for it is out of my power to conjecture." ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... twilight brooding dim, And along the utmost rim Wall and rampart risen to sight Cast a shadow not of night, And beyond them seemed to glow Bonfires lighted long ago. And my dark conductor broke Silence at my side and spoke, Saying, "You conjecture well: Yonder is the gate ...
— Last Poems • A. E. Housman
... Lords and Commons will be blown up on the re-assembling of Parliament; and as an assurance that we do not speak upon conjecture only, we beg to subjoin a portrait ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... person whom she had mistaken for Joseph, he was at a loss to guess at the representative of Fanny. He had so little seen or taken notice of this gentlewoman, that light itself would have afforded him no assistance in his conjecture. Beau Didapper no sooner had perceived his mistake than he attempted to escape from the bed with much greater haste than he had made to it; but the watchful Slipslop prevented him. For that prudent woman, being disappointed of those delicious ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... island in the tropical Pacific. Geologists suppose, from the degradation of its ridges, and the absence of any recent volcanic products, that it is the oldest of the group, but so far as I have read, none of them venture to conjecture how many ages it has taken to convert its hard basalt into the rich soil which now sustains trees of enormous size. If this theory be correct, the volcanoes must have gone on dying out from west to east, from north ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... great writers Snorri and Sturla, the one the chief literary light of Iceland in the first half of the thirteenth century, the other the chief light in the second, both of the same family, and with Ari Frodi the three greatest of the certainly known men of letters of the island. Conjecture has naturally run riot as to the part which either Snorri or Sturla may have taken in the sagas not directly attributed to either, but most probably dating from their time, as well as with the personalities of the unknown or little known poets and prosemen who shaped the older ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... work are exactly analogous to those which, as we have seen, are operating to modify the respective modes of speech of the two peoples. What the ultimate effect of either force will be, it is impossible even to conjecture. But it is unpleasant for an Englishman to consider even the remotest possibility of a time coming, though long after he himself is dead, when the people of America will draw awful warnings from the corrupt state of politics in England, ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... looks, her motives, the details of what she said and did. Beneath the satisfaction of her curiosity, of course, there was all the time a pang—a pang not to be silenced. In her flights of idle fancy she had often suspected something not unlike the truth, basing her conjecture on the mystery which had always hung round that Paris visit, partly on the world's general experience of what happened to handsome young men. For, in her heart of hearts, had there not lurked all the time a wonder which was partly self-judgment? Had David, with such a temperament, never ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... conclusion from the first. All inquiry terminated in the same answer. No one had set eyes on "Miss Poole" since the previous evening. The last person to speak with her was the stewardess, who, on finding she did not intend going to dinner, had offered to bring her some, but had been refused. The rest was conjecture—a riddle that only the sea, lying as blue and flat and still as the sea in a gaudy oleograph, could answer. The story had flown round the ship like wildfire, and hardly a soul but felt as if he or she had taken part in a murder. Women reproached each other and ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... accessories, and he created an appropriate atmosphere. With no sense of strain, and no awkwardness of manner, he dealt with episodes strange indeed, but so simply treated as to seem natural, at least for the moment. There is no violence of intrigue or conjecture; indeed Poe strives to suggest a background of the commonplace against which his marvels may seem the more marvelous. In none of his stories is Poe's consummate mastery of the narrative art, his ultimate craftsmanship, ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... assertion this which savors little of legal accuracy. For Chalmers, so far from being the first to suggest that Shakespeare passed his adolescent years in an attorney's office, was the first to sneer at Malone for bringing forward that conjecture.[C] Malone, in his first edition of Shakespeare's works, published in 1790, has this passage, in the course of a discussion of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... has a reason for all His arrangements, and I think it is allowable for us to conjecture what that reason may be; but though we cannot find it out, we may be very sure the ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Esoteric Buddhism," which are alleged to create an "historical difficulty," were not made by Mr. Sinnett's correspondent to bolster a western theory, but in loyalty to historical facts. Whether they can or cannot be accepted in those particular localities where criticism seems based upon mere conjecture (though honoured with the name of scientific hypothesis), is something which concerns the present writers as little as any casual traveler's unfavourable comments upon the time-scarred visage of the Sphinx can affect the designer of that sublime symbol. The sentences, "the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... guessed him to possess. The vigor and rapidity of the action, the vivid sketching of the background, the pregnant characterization, the drollery of the humor give this piece a high place among stories in verse, and lead us to conjecture that, had he followed this vein instead of devoting his later years to the service of Johnson and Thomson, he might have won a place beside the author of the Canterbury Tales. He lacked, to be sure, Chaucer's breadth of experience and richness of culture: being far less a man of the world ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... rapid, this intimacy between the odd assorted pair—the high-bred woman of fervid action and the mild and gawky Colonel born in a travelling circus. Holding the key to his early life, and losing myself in conjecture as to his subsequent career until he found himself possessed of the qualities that make a successful soldier, I could not help noticing the little things, unperceived by a generous war society, which pathetically ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... appeared with a more numerous or splendid retinue, in which Sil{e}nus was the principal person; of whose descent, however, we have no accounts to be relied on. Some say he was born at Malea, a city of Sparta; others at Nysa in Arabia; but the most probable conjecture is, that he was a prince of Caria, noted for his equity and wisdom. But whatever be the fate of these different accounts, Sil{e}nus is said to have been preceptor to Bacchus, and was certainly a very suitable one for such a deity, the old man being heartily attached ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... But the correspondence soon took a different turn. Tisdall paid his addresses to Stella, and charged Swift with opposing his suit. Tisdall's letters are missing, but Swift's reply of April 20, 1704, puts things sufficiently clearly. "My conjecture is," he says, "that you think I obstructed your inclinations to please my own, and that my intentions were the same with yours. In answer to all which I will, upon my conscience and honour, tell you the naked truth. First, I think I have said to you before that, if my fortunes ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture, but a fact proved in our courts of justice, that the intrigues, which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country, have been carried ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute inquiries as to her sensations, and whether the confinement of the rooms, and the temperature of the atmosphere, agreed with her. These questions had such a particular drift, that Georgiana began to conjecture that she was already subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air, or taken with her food. She fancied, likewise—but it might be altogether fancy—that there was a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... land of Don Quixote's exploits, we reverentially visited any known spot which these had rendered famous. Amongst such was the VENTA of Quesada, from which, or from Quixada, as some conjecture, the knight derived his surname. It was here, attracted by its castellated style, and by two 'ladies of pleasure' at its door - whose virginity he at once offered to defend, that he spent the night of his ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... can't force our marriage, it's likely to come to that, I think," I muttered. "I am totally at a loss. I know nothing. I can conjecture nothing. I have not seen her nor heard from her this past year; and now she will say nothing. I pressed her as much, I think, as a fellow decently could. If she had spoken clearly and definitely it would have been different. Whatever statement a woman made to me of any painful facts; or ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... Pass over, for I said it in my game.* *jest Read authors, where they treat of such mattere And what they say of women ye may hear. These be the cocke's wordes, and not mine; I can no harm of no woman divine.* *conjecture, imagine Fair in the sand, to bathe* her merrily, *bask Lies Partelote, and all her sisters by, Against the sun, and Chanticleer so free Sang merrier than the mermaid in the sea; For Physiologus saith sickerly,* *certainly How that they singe well and merrily. And so befell that, as he cast ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... come by Carissimo I had not time to con-conjecture. I called to him. I called his accursed name, using appellations which fell far short of those which he deserved. But the louder I called the faster he ran, and I, breathless, panting, ran after him, determined to ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... notion," but the whole of which he stigmatises alike "as mere monkish or heraldic gossip;" and, finally, he proceeds to unfold his own recondite discovery, "viz. that it comes from the S-shaped lever upon the bit {250} of the bridle of the war steed,"—a conjecture which will assuredly have fewer adherents than any one of its predecessors. But now comes forth the disclosure of what school of heraldry this ARMIGER is the champion. He is one who can tell us of "many more rights and privileges ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... until now. I learnt it from Northumbrian sailors when a very small boy, and have never heard of its use in any other than Blyth and Tyne ships. It may be a Northumbrian air, but from such knowledge as I have gleaned of Northumbrian folk-tunes, I incline to the conjecture that it may have been picked up in more southern ...
— The Shanty Book, Part I, Sailor Shanties • Richard Runciman Terry
... fall, unperceived by him, on the folds of her grey velvet train. He wrote the Bloomsbury address and handed her the leaf torn from the pad. She folded it up, moved away, turning back to smile. As she turned she happened to look downward; then she stooped and picked the card from her dress. A conjecture of horror smote Paul. He made a step forward and stretched out his hand; but not before she had instinctively glanced first at the writing and then at his barren waistcoat. She repressed a slight gasp, regarding ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... can be denied by none. It is the temper that usually spoils all. A collection in any way approaching completeness, of the pamphlets this contention has produced in England, would contain tens of thousands of volumes; full of curious learning and anecdotes, of wide reading and conjecture, of shrewdness and wit; yet these books are certainly the last we would seek to save from fire or water. Could they be piled into scales of moral measurement a single copy of the Imitatio, of the Holy Dying, of the Saint's Rest, would outweigh them all. ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... will probably conjecture that the person in question was no other than Michael Turnbull, who, wounded in the rencounter of the morning, had been left by some of his friends upon the straw, which was arranged for him by ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... be inoperative, he is naturally led to ascribe to their pernicious influence that aggravation of pain of which he has for some time past unfortunately been sensible. I have confirmed him in this conjecture, esteeming it for the interest of science that his anger should fall upon an impudent impostor like thee rather than on a discreet and learned physician like myself. He has consequently directed the principal caldron to be kept boiling ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... are not confined to the great, nay, perhaps are less visible to them, than to those whose eyes are not riveted on the absorbing substances of ambition and power, so I have learned something, I know not how, save that I have listened and reflected. And here, where I have heard what sages conjecture of a world which seems so far off, but to which we are so near that we may reach it in a moment, my interest might indeed be intense. For what is this world to him who came into it ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... began to indulge in conjectures as to how these truths might have been derived from the early Christians who visited the East, while those who were disposed to reject the claims of Christianity have exhausted research and conjecture to find something looking as if Christianity itself might have been derived from the Buddhist missionaries to Palestine and Egypt, both overlooking the remarkable fact that it is only in fundamental truths that the two religions agree, while in the dogmas, legends, creeds and speculations which form ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... even to conjecture how the mind of Ku Sui saw the colossal work that he was doing to aid his most bitter enemies. Even when he was normal there are only moments when, through some recorded speech or action of his, we can ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... evidently was, it could not be so wrong as that. Yet only one other supposition was possible, viz., that we had not come so far south as we imagined, and that we had stumbled upon Roost—a little rocky island that lies about twenty miles to the southward of the Loffoden Islands. Whether this conjecture was correct or not, did not much matter; to go straight away to sea, and lie to until we could get an observation, was the only thing to be done. Away then we went, struggling against a tremendous sea for a good nine hours, until we judged ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... In Cesar Fredericks peregrinations, Benzoin is said to come from Siam and Assi, or Assam, which confirms the conjecture already made, of Langeiannes and the Jangomes ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... asked if I am serious in my conjecture that "the meteor beard" of Hudibras might have given birth to the "Bard" of Gray? I reply, that the burlesque and the sublime are extremes, and extremes meet. How often does it merely depend on our own state of mind, and on our own taste, to consider the sublime as burlesque! A very ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... world; yet I confesse that notwithstanding that great respect that is due to it, I have in some cases lesse regarded it when it did not appear to comply with the capacityes of ordinary men, persuading my selfe that conjecture well fram'd and adjusted by a plausible Air is more rellishing to ingenious persons, then an obscure and fainting truth, of which sort there is a very great number in the ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier
... probable, that what Bouvet took for land, was nothing but mountains of ice, surrounded by loose or field-ice. We ourselves were undoubtedly deceived by the ice-hills, the day we first fell in with the field-ice. Nor was it an improbable conjecture, that that ice joined to land. The probability was however now greatly lessened, if not entirely set aside; for the space between the northern edge of the ice, along which we sailed, and our route to the west, when south of it, no where exceeded 100 leagues, and in some places not 60. The clear ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... urging them on, the three canoes soon approached what appeared to be a low sand-bank, on which the sea was dashing in white foam. But from the tossing of the waves between them and the beach, it was difficult to form a conjecture as to its size. Indeed, at times they could scarcely see it at all, owing to the darkness of the day and the heavy rain which began to fall just as they approached; and more than once Stanley's heart sank when ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... bird of dawn! learn the warmth of affection from the moth; for that scorched creature gave up the ghost, and uttered not a groan: These vain pretenders are ignorant of him they seek after; for of him that knew him we never heard again:—O thou! who towerest above the flights of conjecture, opinion, and comprehension; whatever has been reported of thee we have heard and read; the congregation is dismissed, and life drawn to a close; and we still rest at ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... at present, cousin. 'Tis like when I have an opportunity to be more private—I may break my mind in some measure- -I conjecture you partly guess. However, that's as time shall try. But spare to speak and spare ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... surveys of Robinson and the drawings of Roberts. There is little more left for Biblical research. The few places which can be authenticated are now generally accepted, and the many doubtful ones must always be the subjects of speculation and conjecture. There is no new light which can remove the cloud of uncertainties wherein one continually wanders. Yet, even rejecting all these with the most skeptical spirit, there still remains enough to make the place sacred in the eyes of every follower of Christ. The city stands on the ancient site; ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... misleading the enemy, our men stood discussing the orders, and the counter-orders, and what had happened, and what might happen, from the step. Hooker had credit for the successful execution of his part of the programme. What was wrong below was conjecture then, and does not yet appear ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... on some others, "Machallah! Truly, the sense of the ghiaour doth arrive after the mischief!" But we hold no opinions in common with Hadgi Ismael Bey, who drinketh water, despiseth the Greek, and hateth the Frank. Our own conjecture is, that King Otho has been studying the history of Theopompus, one of his Spartan predecessors who, like himself, occupied barely half a throne. Colleagues and ephori were in times past as unpleasant associates in the duties of government as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... KING.—You conjecture truly. I am so eager to hear the particulars of your friend's history, that I have still another question ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... first lisping, or babbling, consists in the production of syllables with only two sounds, of which the consonant is most often the first; that the first consonants distinctly pronounced are labials; that the lips, brought into activity by sucking, are the first organs of articulation; but this conjecture lacks general confirmation. ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... New Haven in 1650. Mr. Scrimshaw does not say what it was made for, but a conjecture would be that it was the handiwork of Yale students for tactical use in the Harvard game. (Oh, I know that Yale wasn't running in 1650, but what difference does that make in an informal little article like this? ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley |
