"Surmise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then one of them will keep watch while the other sleeps. Very likely Tubbs will be the first guard, and, unless I'm mistaken, Tubbs will be dead to the world in fifteen minutes—though, maybe, he's too scared to sleep." Ralston's surmise proved to be ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... it," concluded the other, with unexpected charity. "You know how people surmise the worst. She doesn't care for him, I ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... speculation also. But he has as yet no Orders, and thinks his Business is like to be very slack. Indeed the Rail now begins to creep over the Marsh, and even to come pretty close to the River, over which it is to cross into Beccles. But you, I think, surmise that this Rail will not hurt Wright so much as he fears it will. Poor old Boy—I found him well and hearty on Sunday; but on Sunday night and Monday he was seized with such Rheumatism (I think Rheumatic Gout) in ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... hesitated before he said, "I am not questioning your judgment, Captain, but you and I have camped out enough to know that a good camp-mate is about the scarcest article to be found. If we take in a stranger on this trip, which I surmise from the outfits is going to be a long one, the chances are more than even that he will turn out ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... that he has all those sketches on his hands, and asks me if I am inclined to take them of him. I fear his applying to me, at such a distance, on this subject, is a sign that he is not prosperous or doing well. He is an amiable, clever little man, and I shall feel very sorry if my surmise proves true. My father wishes to have the collection, and I shall write to tell ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... surmise, the person I have supposed would be apt to pursue his conjectures a little further. He would naturally say to himself, it is impossible that all this vehement and pathetic declamation can be without some colorable pretext. It must needs be that this ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... had been different from other women, too. This, forsooth, meant to her what God meant to others. To this she strove to be true, and not to hurt nor vex. And how little she really knew of her mother, and of how much was conjecture and surmise, she was unaware; for it was through many years ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... fain have kept to himself had it been possible. And then, also, he again found for himself a sort of home—or hole rather—in his old original gorse covert of London; somewhere among the Jews, we may surmise, from the name of the row from which he dated; and here, setting to work once more with his usual cunning industry,—for your fox is very industrious,—he once more attempted to build up a slender fortune by means of the "Fitsjerral" family. The grand days in which he ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... 1917, that the Germans were intending to carry out some operations in the Baltic against Russia, and the question of affording assistance was at once considered by the Naval Staff. It was surmised that but little dependence could be placed on the Russian Baltic Fleet (events showed this surmise to be accurate), and in order to keep our control over the North Sea and ensure the safety of our communications with France it was obvious that for any action we might decide to take we should be obliged to divide the Grand Fleet, sending such portion of that Command into the Baltic as could successfully ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... however, I must admit that you were partly correct in your surmise. I almost fell in love last November with a girl who invariably angered me when I was with her, but clung to my mind next day like an unfinished plot. I saw her quite frequently up to February, when I went to the Continent, but have not called ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... was so bland, and his tone so serene, that nobody had the faintest suspicion as to what it was that called him away so suddenly. When he drove off with the stranger, the popular surmise was that it was a wedding or a funeral that called for such haste. These are two events in human life that admit of no delays: people must be buried, ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... place, must give a call of "Smugglers!" This is the signal for the Ins to start on the chase. The object of the Ins is to catch the one player among the Outs who is custodian of the geg. The identity of this player may be a sheer matter of surmise on their part, when they will have to challenge any player whom they may catch. If the player holding the geg can return to the den without being caught, his party wins, and again goes out for the next game. ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... and then trundle along through an area of stones and water-holes toward Adrianople, which city lies I know not how far to the southeast. While trundling along through the darkness, in the hope of reaching a village or mehana, I observe a rocket shoot skyward in the distance ahead, and surmise that it indicates the whereabout of Adrianople; but it is plainly many a weary mile ahead; the road cannot be ridden by the uncertain light of a cloud-veiled moon, and I have been forging ahead, over rough ways leading through an undulating country, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... to another girl, don't you surmise it might kind of come home to her there were healthier spots for you than the end of her apron strings? Maybe she thought the other lady's apron strings 'ud be ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... the company's affairs, only conjecture could be as yet indulged in. In view of the immediate stoppage of business, it was pretty safe to surmise that alarming disclosures awaited the public. No one, of course, would be justified in prejudging the case against the unhappy man who, amid seemingly brilliant circumstances, had been driven to so ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... The surmise was quite right. Much new-fallen timber was now across the channel. They chopped over twenty-five trunks before they reached Eagle's Nest at noon, and, leaving the river in better shape than ever it was, they turned, for the swift, straight, silent ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... dying a mysterious death. It has already been remarked that there can be no such thing as reliance upon historical truth in a country where the Inquisition is in full authority. But it does not follow from this that we ought to adopt the popular surmise that Philip was privy to the murder of his son, or even that he was actually murdered. It may have been a murder, as the inquisitorial assassins were numerous, or it may have been a natural death, as represented in books ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... at every corner, and little knots of folk at doors, and men in twos and threes on the pavement, and it needed no particular stretching of his ears to inform him that everybody was talking of the murder of his cousin. He caught fragmentary bits of surmise and comment as he walked along; near a shadowy corner of the great church he purposely paused, pretending to tie his shoe-lace, in order to overhear a conversation between three or four men who had ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Regent. She's a wonderful woman. Madame du Maine hates Bienville because she can not use him in her dealings with Spain. She has duped the Bretons by the promise of an independent provincial government, but Bienville stands true to his King. So they seek by every means to discredit him. You may surmise from this how unfortunately our affairs here are complicated in the affairs of great personages, where lesser men lose their lives at the first ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... She wished vainly for the letter, that she might know the worst at once; but she had no means of reaching it at present. Her feet could not yet bear to be touched to the ground, and she dared not wake Hannah and ask for it. Such an unusual request at this time of night would arouse wonder and surmise, even if Hannah could be induced to bring her the letter and give her sufficient light to read it. The old nurse would think her crazy or delirious, perhaps run and call her aunt and uncle. No, no; that was not to be thought of, the poor child said to herself as she lay and reasoned this ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... nothing. And all this time he had been away from Mrs. Chepstow. Such an absence was strange, and seemed unlike him, quite foreign to his enthusiastic temperament, if Isaacson's surmise was correct. But perhaps it was not correct. That well-spring of human kindness which bubbled up in Nigel, might ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... 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
... not what to advise; two artless, virtuous young women were ill qualified to contend with Lady Melvyn, especially in an affair which could not be rendered public without hazarding Miss Melvyn's character; for reputation is so delicate a thing that the least surmise casts a blemish on it; the woman who is suspected is disgraced; and though Lady Melvyn did not stand high in the public opinion, yet it was scarcely possible for any one to believe she could be ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... ever loved her. But there was something pricked him which filled him for the instant with serious thoughts. When he had asked the question he wished to see her at his feet. There had come no answer, and he told himself that he was justified in thinking the surmise to be true. He was justified to himself, but only for the moment, for at the next had come her declaration that all was to be over between them. The idea of the lover became buried under the ruins ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... however near the ultimate, abating the advent of the great illumination which breaks like a new dawn upon the internal sense of a favoured few, can you say that the hold of this world upon the spirit is ever renounced. Whether the young man was as happy, we may not venture to say; but this we might surmise, even at this stage of our story, and in reference to the classical proverb, that the bastard might be the beautiful Nisa, and the lawful ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... of the hotel, I could feel forty or fifty pairs of anxious eyes concentrated on me, as if to read from the expression of my face whether the news was good or bad. Colonel Michler of General Miles's staff was there, and if we should happen to be together talking, the women would surmise that the news was bad; and many times their surmises were just about right. One sweet little black-eyed woman always said she could tell from my face whether I was bluffing or not. July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... knows nothing of any experiments in breeding the Lathrodectus for size. Your surmise that specimens of two or three times the normal size would be dangerous to life is undoubtedly correct, and selected breeding to that end should be conducted only under adequate scientific safeguards. A Lathrodectus mactans with fangs ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... between that time and the return of Ragobah, wounded and furious, late in the evening, we can only surmise. He doubtless posted the letter, and went himself to meet Darrow Sahib on Malabar Hill. When he returned home he hobbled into his wife's apartment and then ordered Kandia to be sent to him. His left leg was badly crushed and his face, contorted with pain and fiendish malevolence, ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... was now tremendous: the cutter's boat was going fast, and the second boat was closing up, so that it would be impossible for the smugglers to escape by sea. And now, as they drew nearer, Archy saw that his first surmise was right: Ram was in the boat, and right forward, his red cap showing out plainly in the morning light. Jemmy Dadd was there too, and Shackle, beside the big dark fellow who had tricked the lieutenant, while the rest of the crew were strong-looking ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... of the great risk he ran in affording him shelter, should his concealment be discovered by Mukund Bhim or any of his party. Since the commencement of the disturbances he and his sons had wisely kept to the house, and so he could only surmise, from the reports brought by two or three people who had visited at his house, what was taking place. He believed, he said, that another khan of influence residing on the other side of the city had risen, either with the intention of supporting the rajah or of endeavouring ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... or to reckless adventure, they were summarily dropped. No woman, however guiltless, could divorce her husband and remain a member of that vigilant court. It was all or nothing. If a married woman were clever enough to take a lover undetected and merely furnish interesting surmise, there was no attempt to ferret out and punish her; for no society can ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... away from Mr. Schmitz and his temperament and disposition for three blessed months. Perhaps the daughter, sixteen, had spoken of that phase of the trip to Mrs. Schmitz. Mrs. Schmitz, being a dutiful wife who has stood Mr. Schmitz at least, we surmise, some seventeen years, replied to such comments of her sixteen-year-old ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... have always had a rich pecuniary value. Southey deals with St. Michael's Chair in one of his ballads, which reminds us that St. Keyne, whom he also treated poetically, is supposed to have visited the Mount when she came to Cornwall—to which we must add a surmise that this saint may not have been a woman at all, but was really St. Kenwyn. The Mount is only insular during high tide, yet at such times, exposed to the full force of the sea, the passage sometimes becomes ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... dust, Hoping in vain to come across a crust. And, when our God-born WILHELM brings his Huns Here, he will find a few odd skeletons." Such is the tale a Teuton lately writ. How, then, I ask, does London look so fit? This is the reason, mainly, I surmise— We are fed up, of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... absolute lack of interest in any sort of critical estimate of the whole situation. In breathless suspense, every man is concentrating the whole of his mental energy on the news of the next moment, news concerning which none can make even fairly clear surmise, and about which one fact only is known in advance, that whatever it is, it is sure to be horrible. For relief from this wretched suspense men are looking to dispatches and decisions of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... battle seemed to be concentrated directly upon the hill. He knew that Grant expected to make a general attack in full force, and he surmised that one of the commanders under him was not pushing forward with the expected zeal. His surmise was correct. A general with fifteen thousand men was standing almost passive in front of a much smaller force, but other generals were showing great fire ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... window, which was barred, and almost totally eclipsed by shrubs; but a clout of sky was just visible under the architrave. It was a very gray sky; gray also was Rachel's face in the sudden grip of horror and surmise. Then a ragged edge of cloud caught golden fire, a glimmer found its way into the dust and dirt of the secret chamber, and Rachel relaxed with a slight smile but an exceedingly decided shake of the head. Thereafter she escaped incontinently, ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... therefore, no clue for the labyrinth of surmise: and I went home, more vexed and disappointed with my day's expedition than I liked to ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; 10 Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... that Duckworthy himself was shortly hanged, so that, if his surmise was true, there was now only three left alive of all that wicked crew that had successfully carried to its completion the greatest adventure which any pirate in the world had ever, ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... go 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 ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... know, but shipping records of the colonial period show that boatload after boatload left the southern and eastern shores of Ireland for the New World. Undoubtedly thousands of their passengers were Irish of the native stock. This surmise is well sustained by the constant appearance of Celtic names in the records of ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... good and evil. And, O Savitri, I know thee to be like the 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, therefore, bear to be separated ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... was seeking to find entrance into the room, he could not doubt for a moment; but, on the other hand, it seemed an incredible surmise, because the wall along which the unknown visitor had plainly felt his way was an outside wall, and if there really were any person thus moving, he must be walking along some secret passage in the thickness of ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of ages rolled on. All these were legitimate themes for science; and all of them were opposed to the popular belief at the time—as much so as is the antiquity of man now. And further, we say that the mere suspicion that any such thing may be—the mere surmise of any such fact—the merest inkling which scientific men may get of a secret yet hidden beneath the veil, and waiting to be revealed—is a sufficient justification of those tentative efforts of science which ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... visited, his books and papers were seized, and an inventory was made. Beda was the leader of the authorities in the whole affair. Parliament ordered the books and manuscripts to be examined and reported upon by the theological faculty. What the report would be, it was not hard to surmise. When such works were found in De Berquin's possession as that entitled "Speculum Theologastrorum," and another giving Luther's reasons for maintaining the universal priesthood of Christian believers; when the notes in De Berquin's own handwriting condemned as blasphemous, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... chap I want to see," thought Tom. "I'll have a talk with him." He reasoned that he could get more about the identity of the two mysterious men from the mechanic than from the waiter. Nor was he wrong in this surmise. ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... with great satisfaction. "Those two are going to catch it!" she said to herself; "I am glad I am out of it!" Mr Roberts knew sorrowfully that the surmise was woefully true, but he was rather relieved to find that his sister-in-law was "going to catch it" with him. Her presence was a sort of stick for ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... entangled In the gay waltz) from her bright eyes, Or from the lucciole, that spangled Her locks of jet—is all surmise; ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... "I surmise that the tall Lieutenant did not fall a victim to my wiles as I had at first supposed, but, in some unaccountable manner, one can never tell how these things happen; he was most anxious to be left alone with the coy Miss Dorothy Amhurst, who does not understand how long a time it takes to fall ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... name as lasting as the science he loved so well. To use the words of the writer above quoted, "Till the manner as well as the fact of the first appearance of successive forms of life shall be solved, it is not easy to surmise how any discovery can be made in geology equal in value to that which we owe to the genius ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... observable that those few and faint traces which we have noticed in this play of a faded archaic style trying as it were to resume a mockery of revirescence are not wholly even if mainly confined to the underplot which a suggestion or surmise of Mr. Collier's long since assigned to Haughton, author of Englishmen for my Money, or A Woman will have her Will: a spirited, vigorous, and remarkably regular comedy of intrigue, full of rough and ready incident, bright boisterous humour, honest ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... another an extraordinary amount of luggage, together with a number of footmen and unmistakable ladies' maids. What could be the meaning of this? At last the question occurred to me: Can it be possible that some county ball is impending, and that my dear friends mean to take me to it? My surmise was but too correct. "Why," I asked my hostess, "didn't you tell me? I would have come when this ball was over." "Yes," she said, "I know that. That's why I did not tell you. We sha'n't let you off, don't ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... Baldy, "and showed me. He's got that room full of drums and dolls and skates and bags of candy and jumping-jacks and toy lambs and whistles and such infantile truck. And what do you think he's goin' to do with them inefficacious knick- knacks? Don't surmise none—Cherokee told me. He's goin' to lead 'em up in his red sleigh and—wait a minute, don't order no drinks yet— he's goin' to drive down here to Yellowhammer and give the kids—the kids of this here town—the biggest Christmas tree and the biggest cryin' doll and Little ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... 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 ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... attention. A regard for your happiness, and the security of your posterity, are the only motives that could have induced me to occupy your time by an epistolary exhortation. How far I may fall short of the object I have thus in view, becomes me not to surmise. The same claim, however, has he to praise (though, perhaps, never equally rewarded) who endeavors to do good, as he who has the happiness to effect his purpose. I hope, therefore, no views of acquiring popular fame, no partial or circumstantial motives, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... ceremony. But nobody appeared there who was at all out of the region of commonplace. The people were all quiet and settled; yet he could discern on their faces something more than attention, though it was less than excitement: perhaps it was expectation. And as if to bear out his surmise he heard at that moment the noise of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... time.... The substance of these impressions which affect us we call Nature, and thus Nature stands in an immediate relationship to those functions of our bodies which we call senses. Unknown and mysterious relations of our body allow us to surmise unknown and mysterious correlations with Nature, and therefore Nature is that wondrous fellowship into which our bodies introduce us, and which we learn to know through the mode of ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... standing beside him, appeared to watch him with great attention, and occasionally to advise him. Finally he took a rope, and began skipping like a girl, the other still gravely observing him. As you may think, I was utterly puzzled as to what these people could be, and could only surmise that the one was a doctor, and the other a patient who had submitted himself to some singular method ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the dense fogs of November over this metropolis, till it gradually subsides before the common light of day, I only contend, that the daily conduct of the majority prevails to stamp their character with the impression of truth. Quietly does the clear light, shining day after day, refute the ignorant surmise, or malicious tale, which has thrown dirt on a pure character. A false light distorted, for a short time, its shadow—reputation; but it seldom fails to become just when the cloud is dispersed that ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... be a Russian. Yet in every detail of his appearance he was German. His clothes, his bearing, his every little mannerism, were carefully studied. Fred guessed that this was no servant, but a secret agent of much skill and experience. He was to learn the truth of his surmise ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... started at the abrupt surmise. She looked up for the first time. "Really, my dear! What an extraordinary ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... Truxton's mind was working like a trip-hammer. He was recalling a certain nomad settlement north of the city, the quarters of fishermen, poachers and horse-traders: a squalid, unclean community that lay under the walls between the northern gates and the river. These people, he was not slow to surmise, were undoubtedly hand in glove with Marlanx, if not so surely connected with the misguided Committee of Ten. This being the eve of the great uprising, it was not unlikely that a secret host lay here awake and ready ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... name of Zodiacal Light, has been thought a residuum or last remnant of the concentrating matter of our system, and thus may be supposed to indicate the comparative recentness of the principal events of our cosmogony. Supposing the surmise and inference to be correct, and they may be held as so far supported by more familiar evidence, we might with the more confidence speak of our system as not amongst the elder born of Heaven, but ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... change! semper eadem! Women will be wanting a change of air in Paradise; a change of angels too, I might surmise. A change from quarters like these to a French hotel would be a descent!—'this the seat, this mournful gloom for that celestial light.' I am perfectly at home in the library here. That excellent fellow Whitford and I have real days: and I like him for showing fight ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... text as evident, 'and so let him eat,' because he is worthy. Wherefore he, and he only, that discerneth the Lord's body, he is the worthy receiver, the worthy receiver in God's estimation; but that none discern the Lord's body but the baptized [in water], is both fond and ridiculous once to surmise. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson
... remained near the court, the discoveries made by the Earl of Stair in France, communicated the first surmise of an intended invasion of England. Several seizures of suspected people warned one who was deep in the intrigues of St. Germain, not long to delay the open prosecution of his schemes. The melancholy instance of Mr. Harvey, who was apprehended while he was hawking at Combe, in ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... comforts if not for its elegancies. More than that, that there are books of poetry and history lying around, showing that the woman who inhabited it was above her station; a fact which the housekeeper is presently brought to acknowledge. You notice also that the wild surmise of her abduction by means of the window, has some ground in appearance, though the fact that she went with entire unwillingness is not made so apparent. The housekeeper, however, insists in a way that must have had some special knowledge of the girl's character or circumstances to back it, ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... the worthy drover's fireside for the purer and holier melodies of another inspiration.[87] As a pendant to this creditable account of the bard's principles, we are informed that he was a frequent guest at the presbytery dinner-table; a circumstance which some may be so malicious as to surmise amounted to nothing more than a purpose to enhance the festive recreations of the reverend body—a suspicion, we believe, in this particular instance, totally unfounded. He died in 1778; and he has succeeded to some rather peculiar honours for a person ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... envy but of experience. The vivid scene was now peopled, and I could see him in the old-time garden with Miss Anvoy, who would be certain, and very justly, to think him good- looking. It would be too much to describe myself as troubled by this play of surmise; but I occur to remember the relief, singular enough, of feeling it suddenly brushed away by an annoyance really much greater; an annoyance the result of its happening to come over me about that time with a rush that I was simply ashamed of Frank Saltram. There were limits after ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... was broken; and if Brand was instantly assured that his surmise was correct, he also knew that here was a more pathetic cadence—a prouder ring—than any that Lord Evelyn had thrown into the lines. She read at random—a passage here, a passage there—but always it seemed to him that ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... civilized people; whether this country and that will be content to ease their tempers with bloodless squabbling, subduing the more violent promptings for the common good. Yet I suspect that a century is a very short time to allow for even justifiable surmise of such an outcome. If by any chance newspapers ceased to ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... important. I don't think the girl was in her mistress's confidence, but I leave it to you to find out. If circumstances point to my surmise being inaccurate—you ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... "I surmise," replied the colonel, "that Tilghman, the Confederate commander, is afraid his men may be caught in a trap. We know his troops are merely raw militia, and he has put them where they can retreat in case of defeat. He, himself, with his ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... astonishment and consternation she burst into tears. Mercy tried to comfort her, but did not know how. She had seen for some time that there was a difference in her, that something was the matter, and wondered whether she could be missing Ian, but it was merest surmise. Perhaps ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Everyone could surmise where Joe Butler was, but no one voiced the supposition. Warren, handsome in his skirted coat, knee breeches, and ruffles, disappeared from the room, and the dancing went on. The scene was unbelievably brilliant, the hot, bright air sweet with flowers and ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... the point of adding a word when of a sudden he came to yet another halt and eyed his friend more reproachfully than ever—no, not reproachfully save by implication: with bewilderment rather, and helpless surmise. ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... arranged the young man's disappearance in order the more thoroughly to defraud the creditors. They could not, at any rate, harm a man of whose whereabouts they were unaware and who, for all they knew, might be dead. But the reader is already aware that this surmise on the part ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... means of prefixes: as, gormandise, apologize, brutalize, canonize, pilgrimize, philosophize, cauterize, anathematize, sympathize, disorganize, with z;[117] rise, arise, disguise, advise, devise, supervise, circumcise, despise, surmise, surprise, comprise, compromise, enterprise, presurmise, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the Medium as well as my position would permit, without getting up and bending over the table. I did not have long to wait before an answer came as before, again signed with the initials of the person addressed. How the writing came in the slate I could not surmise. ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... to go and fetch my sextant in order to take an observation so as to ascertain our true position; for, first with the north-easter, and then with the squall from the south, we had been so driven here, there, and everywhere, that it was difficult to form any reasonable surmise as to where we really were—especially as there was a strong current supposed to run round Cape Horn from the Pacific towards the Atlantic ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... this loathsome and unsavorie fume." He admits the popularity of the herb, but expresses his own personal objection to the "detestable savour or smack that it leaveth behind upon the taking of it"; from which one is inclined to surmise that the doctor's first pipe was not an entire success. With an evident desire to be fair, Venner, notwithstanding his dislike of the "savour," refuses to condemn tobacco utterly, because of what he considers its valuable medicinal qualities, and he goes so far as to give "10 ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... ordinary kind, made admirably-coloured eye-glasses, that converted the landscapes around into richly-toned drawings in sepia; and numerous crystals of garnet embedded in mica-schist, that were, I was sure, identical with the stones set in a little gold brooch, the property of my mother. To this last surmise, however, some of the neighbours to whom I showed my prize demurred. The stones in my mother's brooch were precious stones, they said; whereas what I had found was merely a "stone upon the shore." ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... alert and cunning, another trembled on the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his credulity. The neighbor hearkening with white face beside his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the pavement—these could at worst suspect, they could not know; through the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate. But here, within the house, was he alone? He knew he was; he had watched the servant set forth sweethearting, in her poor best, ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... with the vague theism of Central Asia and wished to give his rude Mongols a definite religion with some accessories of literature and manners. Confucianism was clearly too scholastic for a fighting race and we may surmise that he rejected Christianity as distant and unimportant, Mohammedanism as inconveniently mixed with politics. But why did he prefer Lamaism to Chinese Buddhism? The latter can hardly have been too austerely pure to suit his ends, and Tibetan was as strange as Chinese to the Mongols. But the Mongol ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... walking round to see. If it wasn't there he would go back to the hotel at Kensington where he had left his luggage, and come back to-morrow. It was a bore. Perhaps they would let him have a cheque-book, and save his having to come again. Much of this is surmise, but a good deal was the substance of remarks made in fragments of soliloquy. Their maker gave the waiter sixpence and left the restaurant with three shillings in his pocket, lighting a cigar as he walked out into ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... they were watching our movements, might not surmise we knew of their presence near us, I ordered the scouting party and huntsmen not to go out next morning, and all the men to keep within ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... them before in my life. They was about as old as he. Well, by and by one of them stood up in the boat. I surmise he had been drinkin'. Then, a minute afterward, I saw the boat upset, and the three was ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... of the ravine to reconnoitre, and found his surmise correct. There was not a wolf to be seen. They had stolen away through the tall grass to their abiding-places, and the prairie showed no sign of any living ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... surely, coming from one both by temperament and habit so great an antiquary, has the touch of something like an influence in the atmosphere of the time. That there was any actual connexion between Browne's work and Bacon's is but a surmise. Yet we almost seem to hear Bacon when Browne discourses on the "use of doubts, and the advantages which might be derived from drawing up a calendar of doubts, falsehoods, and popular errors;" and, as from ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... visited on the children," he was wont to say, "then surely the good deeds of the children are repaid to the fathers." His marked reverence for his wonderful son spread outwards, and Sabbatai became the object of a wistful worship, of a wild surmise. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... head. 'It's only a surmise,' I said, hesitating. 'I'll tell you about it later. I've had time to think while I've been coming back in the train, and I've thought of many things. Mount guard till I return, and mind you don't let Lord ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... pinned down to an answer," replied Miss Ladd, smiling enigmatically. "I suspect that if I leave you something to guess about on that subject it may sink in deeper. Now, can any of you surmise what ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... tell," replied the witness. "Everything I say upon the question is pure surmise, and I ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... every flower that sad embroidery wears; Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies, For, so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with faint surmise ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... individual blackness of heart to work up a fine promising slander. A surmise made in jest is repeated in earnest, and all the other tale-bearers think they are telling simple facts. Depend upon it, the story did not get off from the Osborns by any means as it came ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lady complied; and a conversation ensued which certainly will neither surprise nor move the reader so much as it did me. Should he ask how I, as a man of honor, could suffer them to remain in the deception of imagining I did not understand them, let him wait till he knows enough to surmise what the emotions were that were in a moment kindled in my bosom. At first, indeed, they were but dark and improbable conjectures: but, dark as they were, they shook my ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... least virtually speaking—that love had come into Pia's life. Love embittered alone could have inflicted the wound she felt Pia to be enduring. And yet the wording of her letter would appear to put that surmise out of the question. Truly it was an ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... that they accumulate as much food as possible, cook it and putting it on their backs follow the creek to its mouth. He had no doubt that it emptied into the river that flowed by Wareville and then by following the stream, if his surmise was right, they could reach home again. It was a plausible theory and Henry agreed with him. Meanwhile they built their fire high again and lay down for another night's rest in the woods. The next day they devoted to the fish trap which was successfully completed, and put in the river, and ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he could never quite break free. She seldom appeared to him twice the same—proving as changeable as the winds, her very nature seeming to vary with a suddenness which never permitted his complete escape from her fascinations, but left him to surmise how she would greet him next. Frank or distant, filled with unrestrained gayety or dignified by womanly reserve, smiling or grave, the changeable vagaries of Miss Norvell were utterly beyond his guessing, while ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... position until the guardian called to her. Harriet then walked slowly back to her trembling companions. Jane and Miss Elting were no more frightened than Harriet. They did not know, however, what had occurred to disturb Janus, and could only surmise. Harriet stirred the fire, throwing on more dry boughs and brush until a crackling blaze had sprung up. She was more disturbed than her expression indicated. In the meantime Miss Elting had satisfied herself that nothing had been taken from the camp, which knowledge served ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... twin slates, exactly alike; but utterly unable to surmise whether or not life would write the same legend on both. They never asked one another during the tender moments of their engagement: Do you love me? They knew quite well that it was impossible, because they did not believe in love. ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... corporal felt it beneath his dignity to discuss tactics with an inferior, or perhaps he felt unable to refute the specious pretensions I advanced; in any case he turned away, and either slept, or affected sleep, while I strenuously labored to convince my companions that my surmise was correct. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... came back from South America, the Great War in Europe broke out. It is but dreaming now to surmise what might have been done in those fearful days of July 1914, when the German hordes were gathering for their attack upon the world. Once before, and singlehanded, this country had made the German ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... the cause of this effect, Or, rather say, the cause of this defect, For this effect defective comes by cause: Thus it remains, and the remainder thus, Perpend.[11] I have a daughter, have, while she is mine, Who, in her duty and obedience, mark, Hath given me this: Now gather, and surmise. ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... fingers were lifted deprecatingly. "You must not be angry with me, my children. I am not here to judge you. I have no knowledge of your temptation, of your difficulties; you have met and loved in a wild and difficult land. I was not even sure of my surmise. Now, however; your silence and your anger confirm my opinion. I want only to offer you my services. Will you continue in your life and love as I have seen them to be, or will you, if only for the sake of other lives not yet your responsibility—perhaps, will you take advantage of ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... between 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, ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... by a flat plain covered with cinders and void of grass, although the flanks of the Mountain were extraordinarily fertile. From what he saw during his visit, Strabo conjectured the Mountain to be an extinct volcano, in which surmise he was destined to be proved partly in the right and partly in the wrong; whilst Vitruvius, the famous architect of the Emperor Augustus, "who found Rome of brick and left it of marble," as well as Tacitus the historian, shared the same opinion. About ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... summing up described as an "absolute surmise" the theory of the accidental discharge of the pistol. He asked the jury to take Peace's revolver in their hands and try the trigger, so as to see for themselves whether it was likely to go off accidentally or not. He pointed out that the ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... the United States ship St. Louis, and his 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 ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... so strange—that I had seen it before; that, in fact, I knew it perfectly. But what was yet more strange, and far more uncommon, was, that, although the feeling with regard to the hall faded and vanished instantly, and although I could not in the least surmise the appearance of any of the regions into which I was about to be ushered, I yet followed the butler with a kind of indefinable expectation of seeing something which I had seen before; and every room or passage in that mansion affected ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... from the first, little known or discussed beyond the immediate circle of the poet's friends; and when, twenty years later, Dante Gabriel Rossetti unexpectedly came upon it in the library of the British Museum, he could only surmise that it had been written ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... "Occidentalism." Nor do I think that the defects of his schools are graver than those of other educational institutions. In my judgment they are less grave because, though perhaps more glaring, they have not had time to become so deeply rooted, and are therefore, one may surmise, less difficult to eradicate. Also there is at least a breath of healthy discontent stirring in the field of elementary education, a breath which sometimes blows the mist away and gives us sudden gleams of sunshine, whereas over the higher levels of the educational ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... writing. Boudinot "hoped that the Secretary of the Treasury might be permitted to make his report in person in order to answer such inquiries as the members might be disposed to make, for it was a justifiable surmise that gentlemen would not be able clearly to comprehend so intricate a subject without oral illustration." The allusion to the intricacy of the subject had the effect of turning against the plan of oral communication some who had favored giving the Secretary the ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... horrified wonder. I had no idea what notion she had of her danger. Some sort of abduction. It was quite possible with the talk of that atrocious old woman. Perhaps she thought she could be carried off, bound hand and foot and even gagged. At that surmise I felt as if the door of a furnace had been opened in ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... last words all excitement seemed to pass from him, and the face of Great Oak assumed that immovable expression which rendered it so impossible to surmise what really were his thoughts or wishes. The murmuring wails of the women in remembrance of War-Eagle and the threatening tomahawks that were shaken at the prisoners, all ceased as slowly the first ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... dress, and had a better one in the back of the buggy. She would cut the Gordian knot with a vengeance. She would not wait to see how they treated her, she would treat them! As for Adam's state, there was only one surmise she could make, and that seemed so incredible, she decided to wait until her mother told her all about whatever ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... conception are also the terse, pithy language which allows us to surmise the unlimited possibilities hidden in the saga literature, and the equally succinct manner ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... thin polish of subtlety. She was now about to give an illustration of the passion of jealousy. But it was not her jealousy that Freeman minded: it was the prospect of Miriam's scorn when she should surmise that he had given Grace cause to be jealous. Miriam was not the sort of character to enter into a competition with any other woman about a lover. He would lose her before he had a chance to try ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... from convincing, and this view seems to be confirmed by all that we know from his own letters of Swift's relations with Stella. It has been suggested that she was pained by reports of Swift's intercourse with Vanessa, and felt that his feelings towards herself were growing colder; but this is surmise, and no satisfactory explanation has been given to account for a form of marriage being gone through after so many years of the closest friendship. There is no reason to suppose that there was at the time any gossip ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... first translation was 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 ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... woman's lore, dropped years ago by her own silly mother, crossed her memory. (They had been outspoken, in the cottage above the beach.) It surprised Mrs. Harry, who answered it before she was well aware, and so stood staring, trembling with surmise. ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... inaccurate, or as referring to another building later erected in the same neighborhood. The so-called picture of the Fortune, printed in Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata, and often reproduced by modern scholars, cannot possibly be that of the playhouse erected by Alleyn. For an interesting surmise as to the history of this later building see W.J. Lawrence, Restoration Stage Nurseries, in Archiv fuer das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... extremely small room. All were perfect strangers to Miss Greenlow and me, but a fancied likeness in one lady present to a picture I had seen of Mrs Beecher Stowe led me to ask if it were she, and I was told that my surmise was correct. ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... below New Orleans the tillable land is nearly a mile in width; below there, it becomes gradually less, until it is lost in the Gulf. Still the accumulations are going on, and it is impossible even to surmise what changes the great river may yet effect in the future geography of this section of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... we may surmise that the tribute of seven youths and seven maidens whom the Athenians were bound to send to Minos every eight years had some connexion with the renewal of the king's power for another octennial cycle. Traditions varied as to the fate ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer |
