"Surmise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Herodias had already accused him of cowardice. He spoke only of the Romans, and complained that Vitellius had not confided to him any of his military projects. He said he supposed the proconsul was the friend of Caligula, who often visited Agrippa; and expressed a surmise that he himself might be exiled, or that perhaps his ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert
... to the mother in those first moments of contemplation that, if she were right in her surmise, Charmian could scarcely have set her affections on a man less suited to enter into her life, less likely to make ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... lady with whom he had laid it, and to whose very immediate interest it was that she should win the wager. Messer Simone seemed either to think that Madonna Vittoria was not in earnest, or that she might be neglected with safety. Whichever his surmise, Messer Simone made ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... available province, whose cotton area it would have duly filled had its career escaped its catastrophic interruption. What would have occurred after that completion, without the war, it is interesting to surmise. Probably the crest of the billow would have subsided through the effect of an undertow setting eastward again. Belated immigrants, finding the good lands all engrossed, would have returned to their earlier homes, to hold their partially exhausted soils in ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... to help the child to issue, and to prevent its mother from thrusting grass down her distorted, moaning throat. Meanwhile we cursed one another—she through her teeth, and I in an undertone; she, I should surmise, out of pain and shame, and I, I feel certain, out of nervousness, mingled with a ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... goddess Savitri herself in splendour. Thou must know the cause of this. Therefore, do thou relate it truly! If it should not be kept a secret, do thou unfold it unto us!' At these words of Gautama Savitri said, 'It is as ye surmise. Your desire shall surely not be unfulfilled. I have no secret to keep. Listen to the truth then! The high-souled Narada had predicted the death of my husband. To-day was the appointed time. I could not, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... The Major's surmise proved to be correct, and they were soon sitting happily around a rough galley table, sipping at steaming "mulligan"—a ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... "God, have mercy upon us!" is ever granted. Surely some of the stabs in store for her need not have gone to the knife-hilt. Much information is lacking to make the tale complete, but what follows is enough. Listen to it and fill in the blanks if you can—with surmise of alleviation, with interstices of hypothetical happiness—however little warrant the known facts of the case may ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... produces trance; the spirit is supposed to assist. Then the spirit extracts the sin which caused the suffering, and the illness is cured, after the patient has been awakened by a loud cry. In all this affair of confession one is inclined to surmise a mixture of Catholic practice, imitated from the missionaries. It is also not, perhaps, impossible that hypnotic treatment may occasionally have ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... unproductive. (Polly Perkins "married the conductor of a twopenny 'bus.") Her brilliant appearance suggests a possible relationship with Dr. PERKINS, the famous pioneer of the aniline dye industry; but this, as well as the theory that she was a descendant of PERKIN WARBECK, is mere surmise. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... accompanied by shivering fits, burning fever, and intense pain in the head. The attack was so sudden and extraordinary that all the attendants thought of poison, though none ventured to give utterance to the surmise. For four days she grew worse, with frequent seasons of delirium. The dauphin was almost frantic. The king sat in anguish, hour after ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... not see thee, nay, but I shall know Perchance, the grey eyes in another's eyes, Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise Shall follow and track, and find thee in disguise Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow, When through the scent of heather, faint and low, The weak wind whispers to ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... Mr. Moncrief's surmise turned out to be correct. No further adventure befel them on the homeward journey. Paul learned, by the way, that the man Zuker was a German Jew of great ability and cunning. He was suspected to be a spy in the service of a foreign Government—which Government Mr. ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... then by inflicting a punctured wound upon the calf of the alien's leg, we learned more by inference and deduction than by direct report. That our impending meal would be more than usually unappetizing was never suggested. That was surmise upon our part, pure and simple. The conviction, however, was so strong that the repast was cancelled ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... Asoka, who being sovereign of all India and anxious to spread Buddhism throughout his dominions would be likely to distribute the relics as widely as he distributed his pillars and inscriptions. But later Buddhist kings could not emulate this imperial impartiality and we may surmise that such a monarch as Kanishka would see to it that all the principal relics in northern India found their way to his capital. The bones discovered at Peshawar are doubtless those considered most authentic in ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... the level brow, Lad of the lustrous, dreamy eyes A-stare at Manhattan's pinnacles now In the first sweet shock of a hushed surprise; Within your far-rapt seer's eyes I catch the glow of the wild surmise That played on the Santa Maria's prow In that still gray dawn, Four centuries gone, When a world from the wave began to rise. Oh, it's hard to foretell what high emprise Is the goal that gleams When Italy's dreams Spread wing and sweep into the skies. Caesar dreamed him a world ruled well; Dante ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... a surmise on my part, Frank," replied the Colonel. "We all admit that Jules is a very clever and long-headed rascal. Very well. Don't you suppose that he may regret having given way to sudden temptation, and fired at you boys this morning? He will, on reflection, fear that you ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... could be only a surmise. Perhaps some struggling band of political exiles, fighting their way through summer's tundra swamps and over winter's blizzard-swept hills, had passed this way, or lingered to die here. Who could ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... their surmise was proved shortly afterward when, a little distance ahead, Frobisher caught sight of a pin-hole of light. This presently resolved itself into sunlight shining through the keyhole of another door; and they realised that, since it was now broad daylight, they must have spent ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... London, if promptly mailed, would probably have been delivered at the Union Bank this morning. Of course, as soon as the manager of the foreign department found a draft for a large sum drawn by a stranger and made payable to their correspondent in Berlin, he would at once surmise that a fraud had been committed and undoubtedly would send a telegram to Germany to that effect. The forgery once known in Berlin, the rumor of it, with a thousand exaggerations, might easily fly to every Bourse in Europe, and I feared that by 2 o'clock the story might possibly become known on ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... filched a crown from Autumn. In that first glance, however, I could only wonder instinctively if the tassels yet danced from her boot tops. I saw at once that this might not any longer be known. One could only surmise pleasantly. But straightway was I Atlas, stooping a little, rounding my shoulders under the earth she deigned to ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... I plucked her. She had wreathed some of Madge's garments round her in a way which was quaint and not unbecoming. As I strode heavily up the pathway, she put out her hands with a pretty child-like gesture, and ran down towards me, meaning, as I surmise, to thank me for having saved her, but I put her aside with a wave of my hand and passed her. At this she seemed somewhat hurt, and the tears sprang into her eyes, but she followed me into the sitting-room and watched me wistfully. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was very likely correct in his surmise, and, the ground being open, they again rode forward. Harry especially delighted in a hard gallop. By getting over the ground at an early hour, they might rest during the heat of the day under the shade of the myall trees—from which the creek took its name—and employ themselves in shaping ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... surmise he was perfectly correct. No one of the name of Julius Hoffman was known at the Langham. The Hounslow police made no discovery, and the ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... for the youngest brother, whom he had left with me. I told him what I had done, in my anxiety about himself, and that more than sufficient time had elapsed for his brother's return. His reply was: "They have caught him. The poor fellow is dead." His surmise proved correct; for news soon came that the poor boy had been captured at his father's house, and hanged. The blow to Card was a severe one, and so hardened his heart against the guerrillas in the neighborhood of his father's home—for he knew they were guilty of his brother's murder—that ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... close-up is an interpretation. If, as I hold, the producer is an interpreter, would it not be better to leave this matter of close-ups to him, and write your scene straight, with emphasis on the points that should be brought out most strongly? I don't say that this surmise is right; I merely am wondering. In any event, we do not want to see the close-up overdone. We don't want too much of the Griffith staccato. It leads to what a certain friend of mine once called Tom Lawson's method of muck-raking—'The method ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... interval, by a remarkable paleness of the sun. The sixth return, in the year eleven hundred and six, is recorded by the chronicles of Europe and China: and in the first fervor of the crusades, the Christians and the Mahometans might surmise, with equal reason, that it portended the destruction of the Infidels. The seventh phenomenon, of one thousand six hundred and eighty, was presented to the eyes of an enlightened age. [80] The philosophy of Bayle dispelled a prejudice which Milton's muse had so ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... with a persuasion that the vices we would keep them from, such as lying and breaking one's word, are too shocking to be thought possible. A maxim this worthy of the great Fenelon, his beloved model, and which common tutors do not so much as surmise. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... thinking that this fusion is not primitive, and that there was a time when man trusted to magic alone for the satisfaction of such wants as transcended his immediate animal cravings. In the first place a consideration of the fundamental notions of magic and religion may incline us to surmise that magic is older than religion in the history of humanity. We have seen that on the one hand magic is nothing but a mistaken application of the very simplest and most elementary processes of the mind, namely the association of ideas by virtue of resemblance or contiguity; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... had gone home, and, being weary with her ramble in search of Matilda, sat silent in a corner of the room. Her mother was passing the time in giving utterance to every conceivable surmise on the cause of Miss Johnson's disappearance that the human mind could frame, to which Anne returned monosyllabic answers, the result, not of indifference, but of intense preoccupation. Presently Loveday, the father, came to the ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... with chin on breast gazing with serious speculation at the crumpled figure opposite him. Indy, corroborating his surmise, said ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... "Postmaster" in a preceding chapter, I have told for so many years and to so many people, and with such varied amplifications, that I have long since persuaded myself that they are creations of my own. I surmise, however, that the basis of the "Postmaster" can be found in the corner of some forgotten newspaper, and I know that the "One-Legged Goose" is as old as ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... captain declared that it must be a great blue heron; but he had never seen one thus engaged, nor, so far as I can learn, has any one else ever done so. Its upper parts seemed to be mostly white, and I can only surmise that it may have been a sandhill crane, a bird which is said to have ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... illuminations a little less vivid. The walls, however, were panelled with what seemed to be a sort of dark mahogany, and on the ceiling was painted a great allegorical picture, the nature of which I could not at first surmise. The guests, of whom the room was almost full, were all well-dressed and apparently of the smart world. The tourist element was lacking. There were a few men there in morning clothes, but these were dressed with the rigid exactness of the Frenchman, ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the tops of windmills. American soldier boys, chafing under enforced idleness in trenches and dugouts, would often beguile their time making these miniature calliopes to catch the wind. And it is not out of reason to surmise that many a warrior in the war-torn regions was startled and confounded by the aerial lamentations of these harmless little boxes of wires ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... make his work scientific but it appears that he had not prosecuted this study very far before he found that important facts were lacking and that in making his conclusions and suggestions he would have to rely upon faith that what he may surmise may in the future prove to be true, although some modification may be necessary. Taking up this problem of education, however, he made use of the reports of the government departments, reports of school officials, books, pamphlets, articles in periodicals, statistical and experimental ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... of the rupture between them was a matter only of surmise; but the effect it had on the woman testified clearly to the remarkable power of Reginald Clarke. He had entered her life and, behold! the world was transfixed on her canvases in myriad hues of transcending radiance; he had passed from it, and with him vanished the brilliancy of her colouring, as ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... perfectly correct in her surmise. I do not want the life of this poor drivelling old man: my intentions are much more peaceable, be assured. It rests entirely with this accomplished young lady (whose spirit I like, and whose ready wit ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he could look back of him. A hundred yards away he discerned a second team following in his trail; he saw a shadowy figure running at the head of the dogs, but what there was on the sledge, or what it meant, he could not see or surmise. Mile after mile the two sledges continued without a stop. Croisset did not turn his head; no word fell from his lips, except an occasional signal to the dogs. The trail had turned now straight into the North, and soon Howland could make out no sign of it, but knew only that they were twisting through ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... perceiving the far-reaching consequences that ensue if the phenomena of heredity are considered as phenomena of memory. Thus, when he is dealing with the phenomena of old age (vol. i. p. 538, ed. 2) he does not ascribe them to lapse and failure of memory, nor surmise the principle underlying longevity. He never mentions memory in connection with heredity without presently saying something which makes us involuntarily think of a man missing an easy catch at cricket; it is only rarely, however, that he connects the two at all. ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... aggravation of his crimes. And no prosecution of the supposed assassins was even thought of till eleven years afterwards, on the appearance of Perkin Warbeck. Tirrel is not named in the act of attainder to which I have had recourse; and such omissions cannot but induce us to surmise that Henry had never been certain of the deaths of the princes, nor ever interested himself to prove that both were dead, till he had great reason to believe that one of them was alive. Let me add, that if the confessions of Dighton and Tirrel were true, Sir Thomas More had no occasion ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... twelve-chime bell of this morning, and be upon us ere we are aware; and I say again, there is movement, and warlike movement, too, in yonder army. Are tents deserted, and horses and men collected, for the simple purpose of retiring to rest? Come with me to yon mound, and see if I be not correct in my surmise." ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... others were aware, of course, that they were advancing either to turn the enemy's trenches or to attack them, but they may well have argued from their own formation that they could not be near the riflemen yet. Why they should be still advancing in that dense clump we do not now know, nor can we surmise what thoughts were passing through the mind of the gallant and experienced chieftain who walked beside them. There are some who claim on the night before to have seen upon his strangely ascetic face that shadow of doom which is summed up in the one ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by the "Lutherans," was the cunning device of their enemies, who thus sought to insure the ruin of the innocent. But the king appears not unreasonably to have rejected the suggestion as improbable; although, seven years later, Margaret reminded him of her surmise, and maintained that the sequel ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... Mr. Duke, as you probably surmise from seeing me on Mrs. Duke's porch. She will be back directly. I hope you are not ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... Where dwelled the arch contrivers of the plot, Good Heavens! said she, I well remember now, I've business with a friar here, I vow; 'Twill presently be done if you'll but wait; Religious duties we must ne'er abate. What duties? cried the husband with surprise; You're surely mad:—'tis midnight I surmise; Confess yourself to-morrow if required; The holy fathers are to bed retired. That makes no difference, the lady cried.— I think it does, the husband straight replied, And thither I'll not let you go to-night:— What heinous sins so terribly affright, That in such haste the mind ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... symbol which shall represent in its full complexity this idea of the sons of the universe, and the acceptance of a symbol already supplied by that chaotic mixture of accident and human purpose which we call history is a choice upon which more than we can imagine or surmise may ultimately depend. It is necessary in all matters of this kind, wherein the rhythmic totality of the complex vision is involved, to remain rigorous in our suppression of any particular usurpation of the whole field by any isolated attribute of the soul. It is a most evil usurpation, for instance, ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... conjured up by this array of famous cities offered such scope for endless surmise and speculation that they were surprised at the flight of time when Mrs. Matson smilingly summoned ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... Your surmise that I could not go away from Weymar at present was quite correct. The Altenburg is indeed very deserted, as Princess Marie went away directly after her marriage on the 15th October, and the Princess went to Paris yesterday for several ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... after days of suspense, surmise, and real consternation, the legs of civilization seemed to have been knocked from under it, and the greatest nations of ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... manner," said Mr. Trent, "I surmise that he was not successful in finding the baby's parents, who were undoubtedly lost in the flood. Let us take good care of him, for he has so faithfully fulfilled his duty. We, too, have a duty to perform, for we ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... mind was intent upon his collar; at the next he was stricken with a wild surmise, a terror that even at that instant he would persuade himself was exaggerated. He saw before his clouding eyes a black pit. A strong hand striking him in the middle of his back flung him contemptuously forward into it; a gasping cry of protest and all was ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... of Wilton's sojourn at Saint Winifred's soon arrived. As yet none but the two head boys in the house knew of his detection. The thefts indeed had ceased; but the name of the offender was still a matter of constant surmise, and it was no easy task for Wilton— conscious how soon they would be informed—to listen to the strong terms of disgust which were applied to the yet unknown delinquent. The barriers of his conceit, his coolness, his audacity, were all broken down; he was ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... resolution thought Too much to see their neighbors caught For no crime but false surmise; Forthwith they join'd a warlike band, And march'd to Loudon out of hand, And kept the jailors pris'ners there, Until our friends enlarged were, Without ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... as we can make it out, the Siren passed through the Canal and not daring to land, cruised along the coast where she must have met with rough weather. Of course that is purely surmise on the detective's part. Anyhow, her radio operator broke his arm and had to be replaced by another man so they advertised for some one. Luckily Dacie saw the item in the want column of the New York paper ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... certainty and surmise. The certainty is that the world will pass through catastrophic changes to a perfect world. The grave of uniformitarianism is already covered with grass. He that creates promises to complete. The invisible, imponderable, inaudible ether is beyond our apprehension; it transmits impressions ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... so he sold out Sam and Barnes and left their friends to mourn, Oh, what a scorching Jim will get when Gabriel blows his horn. Perhaps he's got to heaven, there's none of us can say, But if I'm right in my surmise he's gone the ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... here?" he asked. There was wrath in his rough voice, for he could not avoid the surmise that his shrewdly concocted scheme to entrap this woman had somehow been set awry. "What's she doing here, I say?" he repeated heavily. His keen eyes were darting once more about the room, questing some clue to this disturbing mystery, so hateful to ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... < chapter xxv 27 POSTSCRIPT > In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable .. surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his cause —such an advocate, would he not be blameworthy? It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... his surmise was shown later when Bob and Sam turned their craft into the stream which led to Round Lake, and then landed, evidently for ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... [Footnote 971: "The surmise of Plato, that the world of appearance subsists in and by a higher world of Divine Thought, is confirmed by Christianity when it tells us of a Divine subsistence—that Eternal Word by whom and in whom all things consist."—Vaughan, "Hours with the Mystics," ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... manners had included some research in the subject of physiognomy. Now she leaned forward to secure another view of that profile in the front pew. Then she settled back with the contented sigh of an investigator whose surmise has proved correct. Miss More's features certainly expressed an impulsive, reckless and lovable temperament as opposed to Miss Whiton's conscientious and calculating prudence. Oh, yes, there was ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... There seems, therefore, little reason to doubt that the dominant white is a coloured bird in which the absence of colour is due to the action of a colour-inhibiting factor, though as to the nature of that factor we can at present make no surmise. It is probable that other facts, which at first sight do not appear to be in agreement with the "Presence and Absence" hypothesis, will eventually be brought into line through the action of inhibitor factors. Such a case, for ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... presence on shore, unless after many days, would, he believed, endanger the treasure. With his own knowledge possessing his whole soul, it seemed impossible that anybody in Sulaco should fail to jump at the right surmise. After a couple of weeks or so it would be different. Who could tell he had not returned overland from some port beyond the limits of the Republic? The existence of the treasure confused his thoughts with a peculiar sort ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... thought taught him that his surmise was right, and that he was slowly making his way along a narrow glen, whose towering walls had the property of reflecting back any sound; and, though he dared not raise his voice again, he picked up the first heavy stone against which he kicked, and hurled ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... this surprises me, I confess. Who the deuce can have put that bill up, and why...? Ho, faith, I can guess, pretty near, what it means; this cannot possibly proceed but from the quarter I surmise. ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... waterways are almost universally Celtic, as is the name of Thames itself. But it is probable that in the Saxon names which line the river there are many corruptions of Celtic words made to sound in the Saxon fashion. We cannot prove such origins. We can surmise with justice that the "tons" and "dons" all up and down England are Celtic terminations; they are almost unknown in Germany. There is a somewhat pedantic guess, drawn (it is said) from Iceland, that we got this national name ending from Scandinavia; so universal a habit would hardly ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... poor; and that a friend or friends of Mrs. Eddy mended its English three times, and finally got it into its present shape, where the grammar is plenty good enough, and the sentences are smooth and plausible though they do not mean anything. I think I am right in this surmise, for Mrs. Eddy cannot write English to-day, and this is argument that she never could. I am not able to guess who did the mending, but I think it was not done by any member of the Eddy Trust, nor by the editors of the 'Christian Science Journal,' for their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... faith, trust, troth, confidence, presumption, sanguine expectation &c. (hope) 858; dependence on, reliance on. persuasion, conviction, convincement[obs3], plerophory[obs3], self- conviction; certainty &c. 474; opinion, mind, view; conception, thinking; impression &c. (idea) 453; surmise &c. 514; conclusion &c. (judgment) 480. tenet, dogma, principle, way of thinking; popular belief &c. (assent) 488. firm belief, implicit belief, settled belief, fixed rooted deep-rooted belief, staunch ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the story of Tom Swift. Tom's surmise was right. He and the contractors were able to use the main street of Pelone as part of their tunnel, and a good half mile of blasting through solid rock was saved. The flint came to an end at the extremity of Pelone, and the last part of the tunnel ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... incidentally, and from the history of the period, that the Venetian republic endeavoured to stir up enemies to the Turkish empire in the east, being unable to resist its power, now exerted against them in the Morea and the Greek islands; and we may even surmise that Uzun- Hassan was subsidized by the Venetians to make war ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... any speech correspondent with the Gypsies, some have been ready to pronounce it a mere jargon; not considering how extravagant a surmise it would be, that a people rude, uncivilized, and separated hundreds of miles from each other, have invented a language. Others who are better informed on the subject, allow that the language brought into Europe with the Gypsies, was ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... have as yet yielded no account of the events which tended to unite the country under the rule of one man; we can only surmise that the feudal principalities had gradually been drawn together into two groups, each of which formed a separate kingdom. Heliopolis became the chief focus in the north, from which civilization radiated over the rich plains and the marshes of the Delta. Its colleges ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... soon after the opening of the Great War that it is vain to surmise what the effect of that struggle would have been upon his soul. That it would have shaken him to the depths—and perhaps given him the spiritual experience necessary for his further advance—seems not improbable. One of his letters on the subject contains the significant ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... explanations pressed to her lips, but just as they brimmed over, some quick surmise of Ann's shrewd replies choked them back. After all, what had she got out of it? What that she could show? She rose slowly and walked back to her room, where the bath, fresh, uncreased clothes, and Hester's deft ministry waited ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... knowing nothing, but suspecting a great deal, and full of anxiety, repaired to Ion directly after breakfast. Blood-stains on the ground without and within the gate, and here and there along the avenue as he rode up to the house, confirmed his surmise that his friends had been attacked by the Ku Klux the previous night. He found them all in the library talking the ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... walls are silent of men's ends; they only Seem to hint shrewdly of them. Such stern walls Were never piled on high save o'er the dead, Or those who soon must be so.—What of him? Thou askest.—What of me? may soon be asked, With the like answer—doubt and dreadful surmise— Unless thou tell'st ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... was scarcely tenable. They walked farther along the path and found that it was one used by workmen, evidently, leading at last down the steep mountain side and across to the Rattler. They surmised that it must be one made by the timber cutters for the mine, and learned, in later months, that the surmise was correct. ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... meaneth this? A marvel beyond dreams! The face ... 'tis she; Mine, verily mine! Or doth God mock at me And blast my vision with some mad surmise? ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... to his wife, and I noticed that he addressed her as "My dear," very genially, without a trace of resentment at her detention of the child. The quickness of the transition made me vaguely ask myself if he were perchance henpecked—a shocking surmise which I instantly dismissed. Mrs. Ambient was quite such a wife as I should have expected him to have; slim and fair, with a long neck and pretty eyes and an air of good breeding. She shone with a certain coldness and practised in intercourse a certain bland detachment, but she was clothed ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... already been said that an arrangement like that here considered as typical is natural to some flowers in their adult state, and to a vast number in their immature condition. It would be no extravagant hypothesis to surmise that this was the primitive structure of the flower in the higher plants. Variations from it may have arisen in course of time, owing to the action of an inherent tendency to vary, or from external circumstances and varied requirements which may have induced corresponding adaptations, ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... captivity without a murmur, ah, what were such light-as-air trials of true love's faith while she was still Anna Callender, that Anna from whom one breath saying, "I am true," would outweigh all a world could show or surmise in accusation? ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... I surmise, and suppose, and guess, but all to no purpose, while that one look seems to be planted indelibly upon my mind. I would give anything to see her again; I can think of nothing now, for the strange, inexpressible fascination of those eyelids has me entirely captive. ...
— A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters • Charles A. Gunnison
... no man save himself can even surmise," Borrowdean answered. "He told me that he had had information of a state of distress in some of our Northern towns—Newcastle and Hull he mentioned, and some of the Lancashire places—which had simply appalled ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not seldom the case that when a man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that, wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns to them for some reinforcement ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... people, and we may infer that the home life, though of a somewhat rude nature, was genuine, and that the home circle was not without a salutary influence in those times of wandering and war. The mother, as we may well surmise, was the ruler of the home, had the care of the household, deliberated with the husband in the affairs of the tribe, and even took her place by his side in the field of battle when it seemed necessary. In truth, if we may believe the chroniclers, woman was supposed to be ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... below and ask her," said Staniford. "I know she will tell me the exact truth. They always do. Or if you will take a guess of mine instead of her word for it, I will hazard the surmise that she is not at all homesick. What has a pretty young girl to regret in such a life as she has left? It's the most arid and joyless existence under the sun. She has never known anything like society. In the country with us, ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... talk nonsense, when you say I have no heart." That was my father's disposition; to suspect that any one, or anything else could hope for the privilege of making his heart beat, except this natural physical contraction, were a vain and empty surmise indeed. And yet he had been twice married; the question may suggest itself, had he ever loved? I dare say he had analysed his amative propensity thoroughly, and knew to what extent it existed within him, but when a man ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... her black hair was powdered with the damp green growth. Before her a young man was seated on the floor, holding a flint in one hand and a steel in the other. A few sticks of hard wood were piled up in front of him. I could but surmise that these were the ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... noticed, as he passed Judith's home, that the little blue car was parked in front and his surmise was that the girl was going to the ball but had not yet gone. He registered the determination to hurry his own crowd into the skating rink and wait and speak to Judith. This decision had come immediately after his promising himself that he wasn't even going to think any more about the girl, ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... rigging. There was an occasional wonder on board the Harpy what that strange vessel might be, who had turned the corvette and enabled them to capture her, but when people are all very busy, there is not much time for surmise. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... breath, and seemed about to fly, but gathering courage, remained, and said speaking hurriedly and in some confusion: "As I did not suspect it myself I see not how my Lady should have made any such surmise, but indeed it may be so, for she chided me bitterly for remaining so long with you, and made me weep with her keen censure; yet am I here now against her express wish and command, but that is because of ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... "Ma foi!" Said a Frenchman beside him,... "That lucky Luvois Has obtained all the gifts of the gods... rank and wealth, And good looks, and then such inexhaustible health! He that hath shall have more; and this truth, I surmise, Is the cause why, to-night, by the beautiful eyes Of la charmante Lucile more distinguish'd than all, He so gayly goes off with the belle of the ball." "Is it true," asked a lady aggressively fat, Who, fierce as a female Leviathan, sat By ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... near, and, although none of the flying metal struck them, their faces were stung by fine dirt. When John brushed the dust out of his eyes he saw that he was right in his surmise about the crossing in boats, but wrong about probable delays in embarkation. The German machine even in retreat worked with neatness and dispatch. There were three boats, and the first relay of prisoners, including John and Fleury, was hurried into them. A bridge farther ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... accompaniment of brusque orders, together with frequent angry puffing and snorting of the boat. From the quiver of the walls he guessed that the Hannah was stuck on a sandbar. The mate's language gave backing to this surmise. Divided in mind between his obligation to the sleeping passengers and his duty to get the boat on her way, that officer spilled a good deal of subdued sulphurous ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... to suspect something, began to surmise that this young lady had been "raising the wind," as he called it, and to wonder for what mysterious purpose she could want so large a sum as had necessitated the sacrifice of her most valuable jewels; but she seemed in such distress that he ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... cherished friendship, and to ward off the dart of the inexorable foe—be assured there must be a reason for this strange procrastination—there must be an unrevealed cause which the future will in due time disclose and unravel. All the recollections of the past forbid one unrighteous surmise on His tried faithfulness. "Now, Jesus loved Lazarus," is a soft pillow on which to repose;—raising the sorrowing spirit above the unkind insinuation, "My Lord hath forsaken me, and my God hath ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... the district before. When they got to Ballock they enquired of the keeper of the bridge whether a woman, a child, and a dog had passed that way, but he had seen nothing. The apparition had disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. Mr. Stead's article ends here. Of course, one can only surmise as to the nature of the phenomena. No member of the Psychical Research Society could do more—and in the absence of any authentic history of the spot where the manifestations occurred, such a surmise can be of little value. Since the phenomena were seen by three people at the same ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold; Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... days before the chalk, were not our beasts of the field, nor the fowls of the air such as those which the eye of men has seen flying, unless his antiquity dates infinitely further back than we at present surmise. If we could be carried back into those times, we should be as one suddenly set down in Australia before it was colonized. We should see mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, snails, and the like, clearly recognisable as such, and yet not one of them would ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... possessed myself of the Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while with the other I discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation the exact locality of the heart. It was essential that all the aspects of his death should lead to the surmise of self-murder. I calculated the exact angle at which it was probable that the weapon, if levelled by Simon's own hand, would enter his breast; then with one powerful blow I thrust it up to the hilt in the very spot which I desired to penetrate. A convulsive ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... discuss tactics with an inferior, or perhaps he felt unable to refute the specious pretensions I advanced; in any case he turned away, and either slept, or affected sleep, while I strenuously labored to convince my companions that my surmise was correct. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... This was a surmise—a surmise and nothing more; and yet how true it proved! I had a 'tec with me on the following afternoon, and a pretty tale he had to tell. Not, mind you, as he himself declared, that Dolly was really dishonest. She ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... rescue from the Austrian papists of the Hungarian patriot, Martin Kozsta." The captain wisely refused to purchase any needles or thread for me on shore, or any articles of ladies' dress, for fear of the Jesuitical spies, who might surmise something and cause further trouble. But he kindly furnished me with some goods he had purchased for his own wife, and there were needles and silk enough on board, so that I soon cut and made a few articles that made me very comfortable ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... wife was still living, though they gave no credit to the woman who now called herself the Countess. But, in either case,—whether the Italian countess were now alive or now dead,—the daughter would be illegitimate, and the second marriage void, if their surmise on this head should prove to be well founded. But the Italian party could of itself do nothing, and the proposed marriage would set everything right. But the evidence must be brought into court and ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... [58] survey of the early history of the Philippine press published in 1937. There is little that can be added to the evidence uncovered by these modern writers, but the appearance of the book itself enables us to say with certainty some things which they were able only to surmise. However, as regards the authorship and the circumstances and place of printing we are able, from the information given on the title, to carry the investigation ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... Edgar, king and saint. I suspect that my informant was some one who knew more about Elfrida than any mere looker-on, monk or nun, and gossip-gatherer of her own distant day; and this suspicion or surmise was suggested by ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... from a towering bluff, a slave squad was appointed for the work at the top of the chute, while Irish deck hands were kept below to capture the wildly bounding bales and stow them. As to the reason for this division of labor and concentration of risk, the traveller had his own surmise confirmed when the captain answered his question by saying, "The niggers are worth too much to be risked here; if the Paddies are knocked overboard, or get their backs broke, nobody loses anything!"[34] To these chance observations it may be added that many newspaper ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... Worminghurst Shelleys; and it is only quite lately[1] that the affiliation of this branch to the more eminent and senior stock of the Michelgrove Shelleys has passed from the condition of a probable and obvious surmise into that of an established fact. The family traces up to Sir William Shelley, Judge of the Common Pleas under Henry VII, thence to a Member of Parliament in 1415, and to the reign of Edward I, or even to the Norman Conquest. The Worminghurst ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... that this is why the young circumcised Papuans, with whom we are at present concerned, march back to their village with closed eyes; this is why, when bidden to sit down, they remain standing stiffly, as if they understood neither the command nor the action; and this, too, we may surmise, is why their mothers and sisters receive them with a burst of emotion, as if their dead had come back to them from the grave. This interpretation of the ceremony is confirmed by a curious rite which is observed by the Akikuyu of British East Africa. Amongst them every boy or girl ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... it to mankind. No one must know; it was the instinct of self-preservation. The wounded wolf, while his wounds are fresh, avoids the pack lest the pack destroy him. And so with Storri; he would hide until he could command that old-time manner of unclouded ease. He would stifle every surmise, deny every rumor if rumor blew about, of the blow he had received. A few days, and Storri would be himself again. As for immediate money, Storri would extort that from Mr. Harley, who, in his dull-head ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... During the whirl of the previous night, and by reason of the abiding joy of her morning's reverie, she had failed to miss the dapper Frenchman. Once, indeed, she had mentioned him to Isobel, who offered a brief surmise that he might be ill, and keeping to his cabin. Yet, here he was on deck, and possibly on the point of seeking an interview with the lady to whom he had paid such close attention during the early days ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... who lived in Cleveland and manufactured rakes and hoes, wrote her one of his rare letters to the same effect. Lydia thought it likely that he had been moved to this unusual show of interest in her affairs by proddings from her mother and Marietta. If this surmise was correct, and if a similar request had been sent to Henry, the other member of the Emery family, the one who had married the grocer's daughter, the appeal had a strikingly different effect. From Oregon came an impetuous, slangily-worded ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... I seek a fortune? No! Is it to satisfy curiosity and a truant spirit? No! I seek communion with the dead. Can I meet the dead without danger to myself and those who sail with me? I should think not, for I cannot join it but in death. Did they surmise my wishes and intentions, would they permit me to remain one hour on board? Superstitious as seamen are said to be, they might find a good excuse, if they knew my mission, not only for their superstition, but for ridding themselves of one on such an ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the deepening twilight! Miss St. John's face was crimson and radiant with pleasure, and could Graham have seen her at that moment he could not have failed to surmise the truth. ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... forethought and caution, he had succeeded in restoring Elise to her father's house, without her absence having been remarked, or having occasioned any surmise. In the close carriage in which they performed the journey home, they had not exchanged a word; but leaning hack on the cushions, each had rest and repose after the stormy and exciting scenes they had just passed through. Elise's hand ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... Nichols for his second edition of 1782, pp. 225-7, by Mr. Lane himself, which is summarized above. Cunningham seems to have derived his information from the same source; but he strangely transforms it. We can but surmise that he followed Ireland's transcript, in which the highest bid is given as L110, instead of L120—a rather unfortunate mistake, for it appears to have misled ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton |
