|
|
|
More "Presumption" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not only in scope and spirit, but in form. "It had excited in us apprehensions," wrote Madison to the United States minister in Paris, "which were repressed only by the inarticulate import of its articles, and the presumption that it would be executed in a sense not inconsistent with the respect due to the treaty between France and the United States." It bore, in fact, the impress of its author's mind, which, however replete with knowledge concerning conventional ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Greek mythology, daughter of Aeolus and wife of Ceyx. For their presumption in calling themselves Zeus and Hera they were changed into birds—Alcyone into a diver, Ceyx into a kingfisher. According to another story, Ceyx was drowned and his body cast on the shore. His wife found the body, and the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of substituting manners of my own invention, instead of the genuine costume of the East, almost every traveller I met who had extended his route beyond what was anciently called "The Grand Tour," had acquired a right, by ocular inspection, to chastise me for my presumption. Every member of the Travellers' Club who could pretend to have thrown his shoe over Edom was, by having done so, constituted my lawful critic and corrector. It occurred, therefore, that where the author of Anastasius, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... being very much in want of money, was furious when informed of the circumstance. He immediately despatched Councillor d'Assonleville with other commissioners on a special embassy to the Queen of England. His envoys were refused an audience, and the Duke was taxed with presumption in venturing, as if he had been a sovereign, to send a legation to a crowned head. No satisfaction was given to Alva, but a secret commissioner was despatched to Spain to discuss the subject there. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... She's a great fool. I've no faith in husbands. But one good thing is she ain't going to marry that Henry Jacobs of Markdale. He wants her bad enough. Just like his presumption,—thinking himself good enough for a King. His father is the worst man alive. He chased me off his place with his dog once. But I'll get even with ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Pyramids on the wall of mountains. One of them eminently has this Egyptian shape. It is as accurate a pyramid to the eye as any in the old valley of the Nile, and a good deal bigger than any of those hoary monuments of human presumption, of the impious tyranny of monarchs and priests, and of the appalling servility of the erecting multitude. Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh does not more finely resemble a sleeping lion than the huge mountain on the left of the Notch does an elephant, with his great, overgrown ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... below. Their neighbors below cannot obstruct a stream so as to flow back the water upon, or into, the land above; and where artificial water-courses, as ditches and drains have long been opened, the presumption would be that all persons benefitted by them, have the right to have ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... Apolog. c. 46. See Bayle, Dictionnaire, au mot Simonide. His remarks on the presumption of Tertullian are ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... terrific shout, and immediately after Peetoot performed a violent dance around her, expressive of unutterable joy, and finished off by suddenly seizing her in his arms, after which he fled, horrified at his own presumption. ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... with chagrin at her cool presumption—and would not for worlds have had her see how the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... concerned, I should think, from the very slight opportunity I have had of forming an opinion in regard to her, that she is not readily susceptible of morbific intrusions. Under an unusual exposure to exciting causes, the balance of health has been overcome. If my presumption is correct, we have the steady effort of nature, in co-operation with remedial agencies, working towards ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... ago, on the floor of the United States congress, decried as absurd settlement beyond the Missouri, ridiculed buying half a continent of worthless Northwest wilderness, thanked God for the Rocky mountain barrier to man's presumption, scouted at a possible wagon road, not to say railway, across the continent, lamented the unprofitable theft of California, and cursed the Alaska purchase as money worse than thrown away. In view of what has been and is, can anyone call it a Utopian dream to picture ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft
... always more or less interwoven, must necessarily require a considerable amount of original speculation. To other originality than this, the present work lays no claim. In the existing state of the cultivation of the sciences, there would be a very strong presumption against any one who should imagine that he had effected a revolution in the theory of the investigation of truth, or added any fundamentally new process to the practice of it. The improvement which remains to be effected in the methods of philosophizing (and the author ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... it would be presumption to draw out our young troops into open ground against their superiors, both in numbers and discipline, I have never spared the spade ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... wee be most beloued. But how well the same is done, or how prayse worthy the translation I referre to the skilful, crauing no more prayse, than they shall attribute and giue. To nothing do I aspyre by this my presumption (righte honourable) but cherefull acceptation at your handes: desirous hereby to shew my selfe studious of a frend of so noble vocation. And where greater thinges cannot be done, these small I ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... species, both perfectly fertile severally, produce on crossing a sterile progeny, there is a presumption that the sterility is due to the development in the hybrid of some substance which can only be formed by the meeting of two complementary factors. That some such account is correct in essence may be inferred from the well-known observation that if the hybrid is not totally sterile ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... church, the latter itself has been curtailed; but as it was necessary to reconstruct some sort of entrance, one architect closed the nave by a facade in Greek style; then, perhaps, feeling remorseful, or desiring (a presumption which will be accepted more readily), to embellish his work still further, he afterwards added some columns "which imitate fairly well the architecture of the eleventh century," says the notice. Let us be silent and bow our heads. ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... Virginia, under which this Convention is called, were adopted on the 19th of January last. The resolutions of Kentucky to which I have referred were adopted on the 25th of the same month. It is not only the necessary presumption that the latter were passed with a full knowledge of the action of Virginia, but I understand from their reading that they were adopted in consequence of the proposition of the latter State. I am disposed to favor the line of policy ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... world's laws, defied every foe save him who now rises before me. Yet, believe me, believe me, had I won what I dared to aspire to, you would not have been disgraced by your choice; and the name, for which I thank not my father, should not have been despised by the woman who pardoned my presumption, nor by the man who now tramples on my anguish and curses me ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of German vessels of war should act upon the presumption that the flag of the United States was not being used in good faith and should destroy on the high seas an American or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the Government of ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... passed by Congress, securing to actual settlers a quarter section of the public lands, at twenty-five cents per acre, which was vetoed by Mr. Buchanan. The veto message says: 'The Secretary of the Interior estimated the revenue from the public lands for the nest fiscal year at $4,000,000, on the presumption that the present land system would remain unchanged. Should this bill become a law, he does not believe that $1,000,000 will be derived from this source.' It would thus seem that Jacob Thompson, then Secretary of the Interior, was permitted ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... plantations, they shirked the future and looked only to the "ignorant present," and their policy in South Africa was based upon two principles: that on no account must the boundaries of the Empire be enlarged and new responsibilities incurred, and that in all quarrels between white man and black man the presumption was that the white ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... Thackeray's sensitive nature as revealed through all available means: he conveys the impression of a suppressed sentimentalist, even in his satire. And this establishes a presumption that the same man is to be discovered in the novels, the work being an unconscious revelation of the worker. The characteristic books are of satirical bent, that must be granted: Thackeray's purpose, avowed and implicit in the stories, is that of a Juvenal castigating with a smiling mouth the ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... this by seizing his hand with both of hers. She dropped it again at once, as if guilty of presumption, and stood with her head bent. Hilary, looking down on the little hat which, by his special wish, contained no feathers, felt a lump ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I said, "and without undue presumption, I think I may say that I am worthy of a woman's love. Naturally, after your convincing me that you think differently, I feel humiliated and indignant. Do you know what effect such feelings have on ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... For this is the first time that ever I heard of Mlle. de Caprara. But I am very sure that you draw your inference amiss. You sit in judgment on the King, not knowing him. You push aside the firm trust of us who know him as a thing of no account. And because once, in a mood of remorse at my own presumption, I ascribed one trivial exploit—at the best a success of muscle and not brain—to the King which was not his, you strip him of all merit on the instant." He saw that her face flushed. Here, at all events, he had hit the mark, and he cried out with ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... my presumption," suddenly said M. Leminof, underscoring, so to speak, every word, "I passed LAST NIGHT [and he put a wide space between these two words] in pleading against you the cause of my Slavonians. My arguments seemed to me irresistible. I beat you all hollow. ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... years quite satisfactory. These facts speak loudly in favor of drainage in general. The fact that shoal drains produce results so striking, is a stumbling-block in the progress of a more thorough system. It may seem like presumption to say to those to whom we are so much indebted for their public spirit, as well as private enterprise, that they have not drained deep enough for the greatest advantage in the end. It would seem that they should know their own farms and their own results better ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... among the emigrants themselves; and men, who together had deserted the fire-sides of their forefathers in quest of religious peace, were ere long seen separating their fortunes, in order that each might enjoy, unmolested, those peculiar shades of faith, which all had the presumption, no less than the folly, to believe were necessary to propitiate the omnipotent and merciful father of the universe. If our task were one of theology, a wholesome moral on the vanity, no less than on the absurdity of the race, might be ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Now while he would have been perfectly justified, they said, in asserting that he saw no truth in the things he denied, was he justifiable in concluding that his not seeing a thing was a proof of its non-existence—anything more, in fact, than a presumption against its existence? or in denouncing every man who said he believed this or that which Bascombe did not believe, as either a knave or a fool, if not both in one? He would, they said, judge anybody—a Shakespeare, a ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... that day. It was wrong of me to say it. Yet it was just what ye might have expected from me. But ye'd been so fine to me—a little nobody—all that wonderful month that it's hurt me ever since. And I didn't dare write to ye—it would have looked like presumption from me. But now that ye've come here—ye've found me out and I want to ask yer pardon—an' I want to ask ye not to be ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... a little strange," he said; "but I know I may place implicit reliance on your lordship's word, and proceed in a matter where I own my heart is deeply engaged, without the risk of calling upon myself a charge of gross presumption." ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... considered that there was much room for improvement before she became a worthy member of St. Chad's. The monitress had no sympathy with lawlessness, and preferred girls who upheld the school rules, instead of breaking them. Undue exuberance of spirits during a first term was in her eyes presumption, and not to be countenanced by a monitress who did ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... and she's clever, and she's made fools of better men than you, my boy. I don't say she's a bad lot, because she's too smart for that. But I will say that a dozen men are in love with her to-day. I suppose you'll say that she can't help that. I'm only warning you on the presumption that they don't seem to be able to help it, either. Remember, my boy, you are going out there to offset, not ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... little volume, the views which I now entertain in regard to the claims of foreign lands. To you, my beloved classmates, the book is specially addressed; and if I use a frankness and freedom, which might possibly be construed into presumption, if I were addressing strangers and elder brethren, I am sure that I shall fall under no such imputation when communicating my thoughts to you. I wish to express my thoughts familiarly, as we used to do to each other, and at ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... ever since Bonaparte was made First Consul, have maintained a great ascendency over him, is the present Grand Marshal of his Court, the general of division, Duroc. With some parts, but greater presumption, this young man is destined by his master to occupy the most confidential places near his person; and to his care are entrusted the most difficult and secret missions at foreign Courts. When he is absent from France, the liberty ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... it presumption? But Mrs. Featherstone (you've met her once or twice at our house, you know)—Mrs. Featherstone would not hear of my refusing. Mark, I believe, thinks the part hardly suited to me, but I mean to try and astonish him, even though I may not carry out his ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... myself competent to effect so much, and I am more conscious than my critics how far I fall short of my high aim; but the modest attempt, made with the resolution to accept all criticism offered with courtesy and good faith, does not imply culpable presumption nor excessive vanity. ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... knew that I recognize a tendency to rhyming as a common form of mental weakness, and the publication of a thin volume of verse as prima facie evidence of ambitious mediocrity, if not inferiority. Of course there are exceptions to this rule of judgment, but I maintain that the presumption is always against the rhymester as compared with the less pretentious persons about him or her, busy with some useful calling,—too busy to be tagging rhymed commonplaces together. Just now there seems to be an epidemic of rhyming as bad as the dancing mania, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... trilemma,—that there is an union and interaction of two totally distinct substances, or that matter is but thought, or that thought is but matter,—one of which must be true, and all of which approach as near to the mutual contradictions as can well be conceived,—for the very purpose of rebuking the presumption of man, and of teaching him humility; that He had left these obscurities at the very threshold—nay, within the very mansion of the mind itself,—for the express purpose of deterring man from playing ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... that she had made up her mind to leave Lord Blackadder; more, that she meant to elope with Major Forrester. It was said, but not so positively, that she had met him at Victoria Station; they were seen there together, had travelled by the same train, and there was a strong presumption that they had arrived together at Brighton; one or two railway officials deposed ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... infected with the theories which conducted to their ruin. Knowledge, which in the two last centuries either did not exist at all, or existed solidly on right principles and in chosen hands, was now diffused, weakened, and perverted. General wealth loosened morals, relaxed vigilance, and increased presumption. Men of talent began to compare, in the partition of the common stock of public prosperity, the proportions of the dividends with the merits of the claimants. As usual, they found their portion not equal to their estimate (or perhaps to the public ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... him when he stepped forward had subsided, "for the oath you have sworn to be faithful to me. I pretend not to more wisdom than others, and feel that in the presence of one so full of years and experience as Aska it is a presumption for one of my age to give an opinion; but in one respect I know that I am more fitted than others to lead you. I have studied the records of the Romans, of their wars with the Gauls and other peoples, and I know that their greatest trouble was ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... part or organ developed in a remarkable degree or manner in a species, the fair presumption is that it is of high importance to that species: nevertheless it is in this case eminently liable to variation. Why should this be so? On the view that each species has been independently created, ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... rabbi. "Have not his pride and presumption deserted him even as he hangs helpless on the cross?" And they ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... dignity, a delightful grotesqueness, which make the picture a thing of close truth as well as of fine decorum. You might kiss their hands, but you certainly would think twice before pinching their cheeks—provocative as they are of this tribute of admiration—and would altogether lack presumption to lift them off the ground or the higher level or dais on which they stand so sturdily planted by right of birth. There is something inimitable in the paternal gallantry with which the painter has touched off the young lady. She was a princess, yet she ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... slightest degree useful to you pray command my services. I know the responsibility which you must feel at being left in charge of those two noble boys and your charming little daughter must be well nigh overwhelming, and if you would not think it presumption I would say that any poor advice or opinion which I, who call myself in some degree a man of the world, can give, will be always at ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... pride on our souls? A. Pride begets in our souls sinful ambition, vainglory, presumption ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... Newhaven in the small drawing room, he sat down and talked to them. This was too much for Trix; she had treated him very kindly and had allowed him to amuse her; but it was impossible to put up with presumption of that kind. Difficult as it was to discourage Mr. Ives, she did it, and he went away with a disconsolate, puzzled expression. At the last moment, however, Trix so far relented as to express a hope that he was coming to tennis to-morrow, ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... in his presumption challenged the Muses to a trial of skill, and being overcome in the contest was deprived by them of his sight. Milton alludes to him with other blind bards, when speaking of his own blindness ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... to the Greeks with the sons of Priam (to whom he was high priest), and was afterwards rewarded in Greece. Cassandra, daughter of king Priam, every day foretold the overthrow of the city; but the pride and presumption of the Trojans prevented them from believing her word. Even on the very night that the city was betrayed, she clearly described the treachery and ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis
... attacks on his work, which were then in the ascendant. In the case of many of those pitiful botches one was, in fact, quite at a loss whether more to lament the want of understanding and judgment they showed or to give the greater vent to the indignation one could not but feel at the arrogance and presumption of those miserable scribblers who pooh-poohed Darwin's ideas and bespattered his character. I had then, as on later occasions, repeatedly expressed my just scorn of the contemptible clan. Darwin smiled ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... proof that women have muscle, mind, and soul, as well as men; but it is no proof that they have had, or should have, the same kind of training; nor is it any proof that they are destined for the same career as men. The presumption is, that if woman, subjected to a masculine training, arranged for the development of a masculine organization, can equal man, she ought to excel him if educated by a feminine training, arranged to develop a feminine organization. Indeed, I have somewhere encountered ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... invalid. This godly old man, at once his schoolmaster and his patient, sounded him whether he wished to be ordained priest. When he learned that, as far as lay in Hugh he desired nothing more, he was greatly shocked, and reduced his nurse-pupil to tears by scolding him for presumption; but he presently raised him from his knees and prophesied that he would soon be a priest and some day a bishop. Hugh was soon after this ordained priest, and was distinguished for the great fervour of his behaviour in celebrating the Mass "as if he handled a visible Lord Saviour"—a touching ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... stringing the bow. His request was greeted with a loud cry of contempt and indignation from all the wooers; and Antinous especially was highly incensed, threatening him with dire pains and penalties for his presumption. Hereupon Penelope interposed, and rebuked Antinous for his violence. "Why should not the stranger try his skill with the rest?" asked she. "Thinkest thou that the poor man will win me for his wife if he succeeds? Sure I am that he is not so foolish as to ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... 387.).—The following extract from an Italian newspaper raises a considerable presumption that this word is not now considered in Italy as an Italian one; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... man a coxcomb; a character which, once acquired, is more indelible than that of the priesthood. It is not to be imagined by how many different ways vanity defeats its own purposes. One man decides peremptorily upon every subject, betrays his ignorance upon many, and shows a disgusting presumption upon the rest. Another desires to appear successful among the women; he hints at the encouragement he has received, from those of the most distinguished rank and beauty, and intimates a particular connection with some one; if it is true, it is ungenerous; if false, it is ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... however, affords no ground for mitigation of judgment; and the kindliness with which Mr. Darwin speaks of his assailant, Bishop Wilberforce, is so striking an exemplification of his singular gentleness and modesty, that it rather increases one's indignation against the presumption ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... acquitted of presumption if I say that I cannot agree with Mr. Malone, that our ancestors did not perceive the ludicrous in these things, or that they paid no separate attention to the serious and comic parts. Indeed his own statement contradicts it. For what purpose ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... Madonna of the Palazzo Rezzonico," he commanded, quite as if Vittorio had been his own gondolier. It crossed his mind that he ought to apologise for his presumption, but he was not in the ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... eleming, Grove's fish do. But they might be red herrings for any notice as you take of 'em. You're not yourself, Mr. Douglas, that's what it is. You're ill, Mr. Douglas, and you ought to see a doctor. Excuse my presumption, sir, in making these remarks; but if an old family servant that has nursed you on his knees ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and having thus committed herself, plunged in. "Why don't you give Joe the chance he really wants? You have a lot of land here that is not being developed at all. Give Joe the chance to work it out—some of it, at least, on shares." She paused, breathless, and looked up timidly to see how her presumption fared. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Hopkins may have journeyed to Stowmarket. We do not know how many servants of the evil one he discovered here; but, as he was paid twenty-three pounds[59] for his services, and had received but six pounds in Aldeburgh, the presumption is that his work here was very fruitful ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... disobey? Now hear me— An thou but touch the lips of my beloved, Sweet as the opening blossom, whence I quaffed In happier days love's nectar, I will place thee Within the hollow of yon lotus cup, And there imprison thee for thy presumption. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... monsters stood eyeing each other, while the rage of an instinctive hatred mounted slowly in their sluggish brains. To the King Dinosaur, this stranger was a trespasser on his domain, where no other creatures, unless of his own kind, had ever before had the presumption to confront him. The suddenness of the black apparition, also, exasperated him; and he loathed at once the sickly sour smell, so unlike the pungent muskiness of his own kindred, which now for the first ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to eradicate them. It could only sadden the heart of the Chief Pastor to see the power which ruled in his country and in his stead laboring so strenuously but ineffectually to demolish the edifice of the church, which, for so many ages, had been assailed in vain. It was the height of presumption, surely, when a few modern Italians, a miserable minority of their own nation, undertook a task which defied all the power of Imperial Rome. In a country where liberty is better understood, a powerful voice was raised in condemnation ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... to the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, encourage the presumption, that conduct, as prudent and advantageous as it is just and wise, will soon bring the allies to a happy conclusion of the present war. The British Minister showed a peaceable disposition; he had ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... She looked upon his favorite art of painting as a pastime for amateur and a branch of the house-furnishing trade for professional artists. When he was discussing it among his friends, she would offer her opinion with a presumption which was the more trying as she frequently blundered upon a sound conclusion whilst he was reasoning his way to a hollow one with his utmost subtlety and seriousness. On such occasions his disgust did not trouble her in the least; she triumphed in it. She had ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... made. The story is, that Jupiter made her, and sent her to Prometheus and his brother, to punish them for their presumption in stealing fire from heaven; and man, for accepting the gift. The first woman was named Pandora. She was made in heaven, every god contributing something to perfect her. Venus gave her beauty, Mercury persuasion, Apollo music. Thus equipped, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... at that time, but which expresses also what might be expected of that portion of the future which was more immediately at hand. When Miriam and Aaron said, "Doth the Lord indeed speak only by Moses, doth He not speak by us also?" the Lord immediately, Num. xii. 6-8, reproves their presumption of thinking themselves like unto Moses, as respects the prophetical gift, in these words: "If some one be your prophet,"—i.e., if some one be a prophet according to your way, with prophets of your class,—"I, the Lord, make myself known unto him in a vision, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... would not track, for he was no assassin; but he knew that he would do if he were, and careless. The answer leaped to his suspicious mind like a flash, and he did not care to waste any time in trying to determine whether or not Elkins was capable of such a trick. He acted on the presumption that the trail had been made plain for a good reason, and that not far ahead at some suitable place,—and there were any number of such within a hundred yards,—the maker of the plain trail lay in wait. Smiling savagely he worked backward and turning, struck off in a circle. He ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... Deans had something of a prejudice against Butler, which was, perhaps, in some degree owing to his possessing a sort of consciousness that the poor usher looked with eyes of affection upon his eldest daughter. This, in David's eyes, was a sin of presumption, even although it should not be followed by any overt act, or actual proposal. But the lively interest which Butler had displayed in his distresses, since Jeanie set forth on her London expedition, and which, therefore, he ascribed ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... last-named seems to be of different opinion. In his article, 'My Reply to Mr. Darwin,' published in the March number of the 'Deutsche Rundschau,' he thinks it necessary to read me a severe lecture on my presumption, although he also flatters me by the hint that my custom of criticising the most eminent men only is appreciated, and those whom I criticise feel honored ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... abruptly to the table. His own eyes were wet. These were not idle words that Jason used, or words spoken without a full realisation of their meaning. Jason was offering, and calling it presumption to do so, his life in place of his, Jimmie Dale's, if by so doing he could shield the master ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Mirah's longing roused his mind to a closer survey of details, very disagreeable images urged themselves of what it might be to find out this middle-aged Jewess and her son. To be sure, there was the exquisite refinement and charm of the creature herself to make a presumption in favor of her immediate kindred, but—he must wait to know more: perhaps through Mrs. Meyrick he might gather some guiding hints from Mirah's own lips. Her voice, her accent, her looks—all the sweet purity that clothed her as with a consecrating garment made him shrink the more from giving ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... not presumption and folly on your part to think that there is no danger, when the Church of Rome tells you positively that there is danger, and uses the strongest terms in expressing her uneasiness ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... January 2001, Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a permanent election law; a draft law specifies four-year terms for the state and first-order administrative division entity legislatures; officials elected in 2000 were elected to two-year terms on the presumption that a permanent law would be ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... stopt him there, and bid him not go on; 'Twas merit, he said, and not presumption, Must carry it; at which Ben turned about, And in great choler offered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... way fulfilled the duties of politeness, we can speak our opinions to our listeners when we find an opportunity without a sign of presumption or opinionatedness. Above all things we should avoid often talking of ourselves and giving ourselves as an example; nothing is more tiresome than a man who quotes ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... vain blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt that Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously anticipated him, and presumed to be wiser than he. Inappeasably indignant with her for her triumphant discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he turned this presumption, on the part of a woman in her dependent position, over and over in his mind, until it accumulated with turning like a great snowball. At last he made the discovery that to discharge this highly connected female ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... should not be allowed by Prussia to invade Holland, and that the French garrison in the fortress of Hameln, now compassed about by Prussians, should be provisioned. To both of these requests Haugwitz assented, and pledged the word of his King, an act of presumption which ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... adunco'; that is, to laugh with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you in the manner of the ancients if she thinks fit. But now I come to the most extraordinary of all extraordinary propositions, which is, to take your and your sister's advice in playing at loo. The presumption of the offer raises my indignation beyond the bounds of prose; it inspires me at once with verse and resentment. I take advice! and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... life. In the light of this remark, I shall therefore not hesitate to offer a few suggestions respecting the criterion of human knowledge, undiscouraged by the fact that so many of the ablest men have turned their attention to it. In this there might seem to be presumption, were it not that the advance of the sciences, and especially of human physiology has brought us to a more elevated point of view, and enabled us to see the state of things much more distinctly than was possible for ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... (he said) to be obliged to such a presumption as to name my family in the same leaf with your lordship's; but my father had the honour in one instance to resemble you, for he was a younger brother. He did not indeed think it a happiness to bury his elder brother, though he had one, who wanted some of those good qualities which yours ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... humble student of the present and the past. Here we are only concerned to ask how far the uniformity, the universality, and the permanence of a belief in magic, compared with the endless variety and the shifting character of religious creeds, raises a presumption that the former represents a ruder and earlier phase of the human mind, through which all the races of mankind have passed or are passing on their ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... seems to take him by surprise. And yet what a fool I could make of him if I chose. I saw it before he had been five minutes in the room. I wonder now what he thinks of me!—whether he has the presumption to suppose I could ever allow him to betray what he cared for me. I believe I should rather admire his impudence! It is pleasant to be cared for, even by an inferior; and, after all, this Mr. Ryfe is not without his good points. He has plenty of talent and energy, and I should think audacity. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... than was right. It was a presumption to say: "Thou art with me." All we can say is this: "I must be true to Thee." Even when nothing is left for us, still we have to go ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... decision as to Crocker's fate. Crocker had been suspended;—by which act he had been temporarily expelled from the office, so that his time was all his own to do what he pleased with it. Whether when suspended he would receive his salary, no one knew as a certainty. The presumption was that a man suspended would be dismissed,—unless he could succeed in explaining away or diminishing the sin of which he had been supposed to be guilty. Aeolus himself could suspend, but it required an act on the part of the senior officer to dismiss,—or even to deprive ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Truly it would seem so," sighed Mr Hambly. "A great deal of fervid stuff was uttered in England last Sunday by archbishops, bishops, presidents of this and that Free Church; and the 'religious newspapers' have been full of these utterances. God forgive my presumption that, as I walk the streets of Polpier, I seem to hear all these popular men preaching with acceptance about ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... of course—I can't know—whether you are aware of the wound. But I can't help thinking you must be. It is presumption, I dare say, for a man like me, a mere critic, who couldn't compose a bar of fine genuine music to save his life, to try to dive into the soul of an artist, into your soul. But you are a man who means a lot to me. If you didn't I shouldn't be writing this letter. I believe you know what I ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... have been presumption on his part," he went on slowly; "still such thought can hardly be without some interest for you. No doubt you would render him a ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... restraint, and that even in the field of substantive rights and duties the legislative judgment, if oppressive and arbitrary, may be overridden by the courts."[177] Touching on the same subject a few months later, Chief Justice Stone suggested that: "There may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality when legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as those of the first ten amendments, which are deemed equally specific when held to be embraced within the Fourteenth." And again: "It is unnecessary ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... think, apply to all conversations. In every conversation, every departure must either be a presumption when you talk into your antagonist's special things, a pedantry when you fall back upon your own, or a platitude when you tell each other things you both know. I don't see any other line a conversation can take. The reason why one has to keep up the stream of ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... deliberation was necessary. It was foreseen that his Lordship would have recourse to art. If he was tried as a commoner he might claim to be a peer; if tried as a peer he might claim to be a commoner. Everything was fully considered; the true solid ground upon which he was tried as a peer, was the presumption in favour of the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... The eye-witness of a battle from an unusual point of view may, without presumption, believe that he has something interesting to tell. I therefore send you an account of what I saw in the Gull lightship, off the Goodwin Sands, on the night of Thursday last, when the Germania, of Bremen, was ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... Almighty will not spare us according to his merciful capitulation at Sodom; if his goodness please not to pass over a great deal of bad for a small pittance of good, or to look upon us in the lump, there is slender hope for mercy, or sound presumption of fulfilling half his will, either in persons or nations: they who excel in some virtues being so often defective in others; few men driving at the extent and amplitude of goodness, but computing themselves by their best parts, and others by their worst, are ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the position of many estimable persons when they had read the New Tariff, and found how many commodities were imported of which they knew nothing; like a cautious man of business, he was not going to speak rashly of a raw material in which he had had no experience. But the presumption was, that if it had been good for anything, so successful a man as himself would hardly ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... advised King James to present himself in person before the Protestant stronghold, had not acted altogether, upon presumption. It is certain that there were Jacobites, even in Derry. Lundy, the governor, either despairing of its defence, or undecided in his allegiance between James and William, had opened a correspondence with Hamilton and De Rosen. But the true answer ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... "It's a presumption on royal authority to summon you from the ballroom," he began, after they had seated themselves and filled glasses. "You are ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... appeared to act upon the presumption that there were no such things as enemies in this solitude. Every night they had run their boat in to shore, started a fire, and slept soundly by it until morning, and thus far, strange as it may seem, they had suffered no molestation and had seen no signs of ill-will, if we except the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... certitude, but (if the chambers to which the keys have been found are really "situated promiscuously") with so high a degree of probability that they would be justified in acting upon the presumption until an exception appeared. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... these "Herrnhuters," these "Germans," these "Quiet in the Land," these "Antinomians"? The very names of the Brethren aroused the popular suspicion. If a man could prove that his name was John Smith, the presumption was that John Smith was a loyal citizen; but if he was known as Gussenbauer or Ockershausen, he was probably another Guy Fawkes, and was forming a plot to blow up the House of Commons. At the outset therefore the Brethren were accused of treachery. ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... meanings, purposes and opportunities, for gaining wisdom, which may crown every rightly conducted, harmoniously environed life; making it so busy, so absorbing, and so happy; that there would be no room, for the morbid hallucination of a suicidal desire. This proposition is based on the presumption, that all suicides are possessed with an insanely erroneous idea, regarding the true object and purpose of human life. After the passing of a few generations, under the wide-spread reign of co-operative stirpiculture, with its hosts of mothers' clubs, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... He first, he last, taught to his astonished disciples the new truth—at that time the astounding truth— that no relation exists between the immediate practical events of things on the one side, and divine sentences on the other. There was no presumption, he teaches them, against a man's favor with God, or that of his parents, because he happened to be afflicted to extremity with bodily disease. There was no shadow of an argument for believing a party of men ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... is not to be expected that you should see eye to eye with the Inca. That would be presumption. It is for you to accept without question or demur the assurance of your Inca that the brooch ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... their territories by their overlord. To be sure, France was having much trouble with her Flemish cities, which were in revolt again under the noted brewer-nobleman, Van Artevelde,[18] yet it seemed presumption for England to attack her—England, so feeble that she had been unable to avenge her own defeat by the half-barbaric ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... intimately connected that of their influence upon precipitation, which they may affect by increasing or diminishing the warmth of the air and by absorbing or exhaling uncombincd gas and aqueous vapor. The forest being a natural arrangement, the presumption is that it exercises a conservative action, or at least a compensating one, and consequently that its destruction must tend to produce pluviometrical disturbances as well as thermometrical variations. And this is the opinion of perhaps the greatest number of observers. Indeed, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... them that he might have leave to try; and immediately a clamour was raised among the suitors, because of his petition, and they scorned and swelled with rage at his presumption, and that a beggar should seek to contend in a game of such noble mastery. But Telemachus ordered that the bow should be given him, and that he should have leave to try, since they had failed; "for," he said, "the bow ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... northern provinces of Spain, which occupied a considerable portion of the year 1837, I had accomplished but a slight portion of what I proposed to myself to effect in the outset. Insignificant are the results of man's labours compared with the swelling ideas of his presumption; something, however, had been effected by the journey, which I had just concluded. The New Testament of Christ was now enjoying a quiet sale in the principal towns of the north, and I had secured the friendly interest and co-operation of the booksellers of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Brayne, printed in C.W. Wallace, The First London Theatre, pp. 82, 90. Whether Burbage was going to the Cross Keys as a spectator or as an actor is not indicated; but the presumption is that he was then playing at the inn, although he was proprietor ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... gulps his brandy) or their subs; being a servant of the state, I order you to give that wench the extent of the law. She shall disclose the secret of her escape, or I'll have her life; I'm a man what won't stand no nonsense, I am!" The keeper, rejoining, hopes he will pardon the seeming presumption; but, forsooth, notwithstanding necessity has driven him to seek a livelihood in his repulsive occupation, there is a duty of the heart he cannot betray, though the bread of his maintenance be taken from him. Blowers again assumes his dignity, rises from his seat, scowls significantly ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... which have been drawn respecting the non-increase of the debt, proceed upon the presumption that every part of the public debt, as well that of the States individually, as that of the United States, was to have been honestly paid. If there is any fallacy in this supposition, the inferences may be erroneous; but the error would imply ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... That no suspicious jealousies of any kind whatever be harboured in our breasts, without absolute or good circumstantial evidence; and if conceived upon proof or strong presumption, the same to be communicated to the suspected person, in temper and moderation, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... safely through to General Harrison, who promptly resented what he thought its presumption and sent to remove Major Croghan from his command. Croghan went to explain in person and was allowed to return to his post. The British and Indians appeared in force the next day, July 31st, and on the 2d of August made their first and last ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... joined heartily in misrepresenting me, and fabricating every species of calumny against me. There was no falsehood too gross to serve their turn. They seem to have acted on the old rascally maxim, of throwing as much dirt as possible, in the presumption that some of it will stick. Perhaps, since the invention of printing, no man had ever been so grossly attacked and belied as I was, by the whole of the public press; with the exception of Mr. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... was a broad stone hearth, on which sometimes Maggie would place a few sticks she had picked up in the streets, and light them; but the little fire they made looked just as if it were ashamed of itself for burning in such a great fireplace; and the winds, indignant at its presumption, would rush down the chimney at a more desperate rate than usual, blowing the ashes into Maggie's eyes, as she sat before the little fire, and sending the smoke curling in funny forms about the room. So Maggie would run and cover herself in her poor bed, and say to herself that it was ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... because his memory of his real life obstructed his fancy. Meantime he operated a diversion. He said, "Set a poor fellow an example. Tell me something about yourself—since I have the bad taste, and the presumption, to be interested in you, and can't help it. Did you spring from the foam of the Archipelago? or are you descended from ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... perversities, and believed them to be justified on the simple ground that they were capable of satisfaction, he was not startled at vice, he knew it as one knows a friend, but he was wounded at having served as sustenance for it. If his presumption was right, he had been outraged in the most sensitive part of him. The mere suspicion filled him with fury, he broke out with the roar of a tiger who has been the sport of a deer, the cry of a tiger which united a brute's strength with the ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... both generals and ministers, and to these points should the control of the council be limited; for if it should not only order the general in command to march to Vienna or to Paris, but should also have the presumption to indicate the manner in which he should maneuver to attain this object, the unfortunate general would certainly be beaten, and the whole responsibility of his reverses should fall upon the shoulders of those who, hundreds of miles distant, took upon themselves the duty of directing ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... with a burthen on the shoulders, it must either be thrown off or it will become a cause of decline. Let us endeavour to point out methods by which that may be averted, or at least procrastinated. In doing this, we are either exposing our ignorance and presumption, or doing a ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... he had ever approved. No. He had that, at least, to look back upon; he had seen the whole enterprise as pure presumption, and had said so. Often. The heavens were the heavens, and Earth was Earth. It would have been better—much better for all concerned—if it ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... dear Susy, if I should attempt the stage, I think I may be fairly acquitted of presumption, and however I may fall, that I was strongly pressed to try by Mrs. Thrale, and by Mr. Sheridan, the most successful and powerful of all dramatic living authors, will ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... York there was a splendid entertainment by Cardinal Kemp; but all the 'subtleties' and wonders—stags' heads in their horns, peacocks in their pride, jellies with whole romances depicted in them, could not reconcile the young Scots to the presumption of the Archbishop reckoning Scotland into his province. Durham was at once too monastic and too military to have afforded much opportunity for recruiting the princesses' wardrobe; but York was the resort of the merchants of Flanders, and Christie was sent in quest ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... obliges me to both. Pardon my conceiving that any remembrance of me can give you disquiet; but if I am so gloriously wretched, sacrifice me every way to your relief. Think I never loved you; or think truly how little I deserve you; and learn to scorn me for a presumption which can never be too severely punished.—I am unable to say more.—May guardian angels protect you ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend to no such advantage in the philosophy I am going to unfold, and would esteem it a strong presumption against it, were it so very ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... priuate delight) for the publike profit of others. Wherefore, though I could pleade custome the ordinarie excuse of all Writers, to chuse a Patron and Protector of their Workes, and so shroud my selfe from scandall vnder your honourable fauour, yet haue I certaine reasons to excuse this my presumption: First, the many courtesies you haue vouchsafed me. Secondly, your delightfull skill in matters of this nature. Thirdly, the profit which I receiued from your ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... people's life and subservient to their urgent economic necessities, and which gives free play to the intellectual qualities, while strengthening the moral or industrial character, cannot be held to conflict with any national programme of work, without raising a strong presumption that there is something wrong with the programme. The exclusively political remedy I shall discuss in the next chapter, but here I propose to consider some of the problems which the new movement seeks to solve without waiting for the ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... appear on closer examination that such were exceptions only in appearance. An excess, not a defect, of reverential feeling is often the explanation of such non-manifestation of religious emotion as we may notice. With Goethe, they would appear to feel the presumption of individualising, the great Soul of the worlds by even so much as ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... was a married man, had children of his own, and was not less than fifteen years, younger than his new son. Indeed the bill for making the adoption legal had been before the people for more than a year without making any progress. The Three now took it up to punish Cicero for his presumption in opposing them; and under its new promoters it was passed in a single day, being proposed at noon made law by three o'clock in the afternoon What mischief Clodius was thus enabled to work against Cicero we shall hear in the next ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... Great Britain, and by making very audible remarks on the passers-by. His attention was at length riveted by the appearance on the other side of the street, of a modest-looking young gentleman, who appeared to be so ill at ease in his frock-coat and "stick-up" collars, as to lead to the strong presumption that he wore those articles of manly dress for the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... stock to which these early and ante-Hellenic islanders belonged, the presumption is in favour of its having been the Illyrian; a stock known only in its probable remains—the Skipitar (Albanians, or ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... last place, if moral obligation be constituted by a regard to our situation in another life, how shall the existence of a future state be proved, or even rendered probable by the light of nature? or how shall we discover what conduct is acceptable to the Deity? The truth is, that the strongest presumption for such a state is deduced from our natural notions of right and wrong; of merit and demerit; and from a comparison between, these and the general ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... broad- chested. And he never saw a man of smaller stature than he who was upon the horse. And both he and his horse were completely armed. When he had overtaken Geraint, he said to him, "Tell me, chieftain, whether it is through ignorance or through presumption that thou seekest to insult my dignity, and to infringe my rules." "Nay," answered Geraint, "I knew not this road was forbid to any." "Thou didst know it," said the other; "come with me to my Court, to give me satisfaction." "That will I not, by my faith," said Geraint; "I would ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... government of a mighty nation like the United States must be regulated with sole regard to it. They thought they knew everything in the world when they knew only one thing in it. Their ignorance was equalled only by their presumption." ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... whose workes, that true faith which, not long ago, was tainted with heresie, not onely remaineth vnhurt, but also is more confirmed. For as our deare frend M. Alexander Galoway, Chanon of Aberdon, hath shewed vs, the presumption of the wicked hereticke Patrike Hamelton, which is expressed in this your example, in that you haue cut him of, when there was ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... of literature in which we have nothing to learn of any country.—Our drama is decidedly the first in Europe; for I cannot believe that the English would presume to oppose their Shakespeare to us."—"I beg your pardon," interrupted Mr Edgermond, "they have that presumption."—And after this observation he was silent.—"In that case I have nothing to say," continued the Count, with a smile which expressed a kind of civil contempt: "Each one may think as he pleases, but for my part I persist in believing that we may affirm without presumption ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... always as a Magistrate of yourself, but also very often, as a Suiter and Solicitor to others, of the highest Place. Wherefore, I, as one of the common beholden, present this Token of my private Gratitude. It is Duty and not Presumption, that hath drawn me to the Offering; and it must be Favour, and not Desert, that shall move your Lordship to the acceptance. And so I take humble leave, resting no less willing to serve you, than ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... of recent economic experience spoke for the eight-hour day. It has been adjudged by the thought and experience of recent years a thing upon which society is justified in insisting as in the interest of health, efficiency, contentment, and a general increase of economic vigor. The whole presumption of modern experience would, it seemed to me, be in its favor, whether there was arbitration or not, and the debatable points to settle were those which arose out of the acceptance of the eight-hour day rather ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... noble barons of more modern days, who were all pride and presumption in their iron shells, mounted on their dray horses, but useless when dismounted, did not disdain to add to his knightly accomplishments that of a most skilful archer. This skill saved Rome in a dangerous attack. When the Goths ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... ever be of help again, at any future time, long after the memory of my presumption and my folly is forgotten . ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... among us they were so bright and luminous that we had no difficulty to believe that they came down from the sun. This man told us, that having seen from on high that we did not govern ourselves well; that we had no master; that each of us had presumption enough to think himself capable of governing others, while he could not even conduct himself; he had thought fit to come down among us to teach us ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... said. "It's all we can do to keep the place up. Besides—besides——" And then she stopped and looked out of the window. I saw I had been a fool to be so personal, and I was soon punished for my presumption, for she rose to her feet and said in an altered voice that she would ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... that the boy had heedlessly spread his blanket over the entrance to the home of a colony of large black ants, and the little fellows, angry at his presumption, had attacked him, in the most spiteful manner, through the rents in his trousers. Patsey, awakened out of a sound sleep by their stings, and remembering Ned's adventure in the Organos mountains, had fancied himself ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... polish and correct the Augsburg Confession till immediately before its presentation on June 25, 1530. While, indeed he cannot be censured for doing this, it was though originally not so intended by Melanchthon, an act of presumption to continue to alter the document after it had been adopted, signed, and publicly presented. Even the editio princeps of 1531 is no longer in literal agreement with the original manuscripts. For this reason the German text embodied in the Book ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... her reason flew like lightning, weaving the picture of him she had conceived—a gentleman, a man of her own sort, rather splendid and wise and bewildering. The portrait completed, there was no room for the hint of presumption she had half sensed in the brown eyes' glance that had set her alert; and she looked up at him again, ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... gathering, he might have avoided, bursts over his devoted head. Scared and amazed, he repents his temerity; he calls, but it is then too late; he runs, but it is thunder which follows him! Such is the presumption of man, such at once is the arrogance and shallowness of his nature! And thou, simple and blind! hast thou, too, followed whither Fancy has led thee, unheeding that thy career was too vehement for tranquility, ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... standard. This fixes attention upon what the child has not, and will not have till he becomes a man. This comparative standpoint is legitimate enough for some purposes, but if we make it final, the question arises whether we are not guilty of an overweening presumption. Children, if they could express themselves articulately and sincerely, would tell a different tale; and there is excellent adult authority for the conviction that for certain moral and intellectual purposes adults must become as little children. The seriousness of the ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... is there not something left in the cup which looks uncommonly like the wine of the Kingdom? Are there not visible results of that, as of every earnest effort to carry the message of forgiveness to men, which create an immense presumption in favour of its reality and divine origin? Men reclaimed, passions tamed, homes that were pandemoniums made Bethels, houses of God. Wherever Christ's forgiving power really comes into a heart, life is beautified, is purified, is ennobled; and secondary and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the Mental Sufferings of Christ—the book of the Blessed Battista of Varano, Princess of Camerino, who founded the convent of Poor Clares in that city—a book whose almost blasphemous presumption fired the train ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... mountaineer, Will dare to soil her virgin purity. Yea, there where very desolation dwells, By grots and caverns shagged with horrid shades, She may pass on with unblenched majesty, 430 Be it not done in pride, or in presumption. Some say no evil thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost, That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin or swart faery of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity. ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... would consult their own advantage no longer, but turned away from God's lovingkindness. They had 25 vast arrogance, in that by the might of multitudes they sought to wrest from the Lord the celestial mansions, spacious and heaven-bright. Then there fell upon them, grievously, the envy, presumption, and pride of the Angel who first began to carry out the evil plot, 30 to weave it and promote it, when he boasted by word— as he thirsted for conflict—that he wished to own the home and high throne of the heavenly kingdom to the north. Thereupon God became angered and hostile 35 towards the beings ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... been, had they set me frae the first to caw the pleuch, and cut the corn, and gether the stooks intil the barn—i'stead o' creepin intil a leaky boat to fish for men wi' a foul and tangled net! I'm affrontit and jist scunnert at mysel! —Eh, the presumption o' the thing! But I hae been weel and richteously punished! The Father drew his han' oot o' mine, and loot me try to gang my lane; sae doon I cam, for I was fit for naething but to fa': naething less could hae broucht me to mysel—and it took a lang time! I houp Mr. Robertson ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... have received from the best natured and most bountiful master in the world, and whose kindness alone made my condition these many years supportable, hath enough mortified me as to this world; and that I have not the presumption or the madness to imagine or desire ever to be admitted to any employment or trust again. But I do most humbly beseech your Majesty, by the memory of your father, who recommended me to you with some testimony, ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... haughtiness, fear, cupidity, grief, censure of good acts, loss of memory,—unripeness of judgment, absence of faith, violation of all rules of conduct, want of discrimination, blindness, vileness of behaviour, boastful assertions of performance when there has been no performance, presumption of knowledge in ignorance, unfriendliness (or hostility), evilness of disposition, absence of faith, stupid reasoning, crookedness, incapacity for association, sinful action, senselessness, stolidity, lassitude, absence of self-control, degradation,—all these qualities are known as ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... my friends, and to my shame I must own that I was conquered, and could no longer resist so many prayers; especially when I saw myself accused of want of affection. I have now only to crave my readers' pardon; and if they find rashness and presumption in my attempt, to blame my advisers rather than me, since my own judgment agrees with ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... it was foreign to her nature to make bad worse. The only course at all consistent with her own self-respect was to resign her part. She inclosed it, accordingly, to Mrs. Marrable, with many apologies for her presumption in undertaking a youthful character, at—what a gentleman was pleased to term—her Age; and with what two ladies were rude enough to characterize as her disadvantages of—Hair, and—Figure. A younger and more attractive representative ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... essays are a brilliant and scholarly contribution to the external history of poetical forms: and it would be great presumption in me to attempt a review of his work. But it is so eminently suggestive, and to my mind so valuable as a study for verse writers of the present day, that I have ventured to place this book in the foreground of an ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Jerusalem. The Emperor Frederick and the Landgrave of Hesse embarked at Brundusium in 1227, at the head of forty thousand chosen soldiers. The landgrave, and afterward Frederick himself, fell sick, and the fleet put in at Tarentum, from which port the emperor, irritated by the presumption of Gregory IX., who excommunicated him because he was too slow in the gratification of his wishes, at a later date proceeded with ten thousand men, thus giving way to the fear inspired by the ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... them. For reasons such as these the modern European state has never been able to treat ancient endowments made under the pressure of its own intolerance with the same respect as if the donors had been really free—free to know, and free to act. The presumption that the donor or testator, if he were living now, would have acted far otherwise than he did, and that in altering his destination the State may be carrying out what he really would have wished, is in such cases by no means without foundation. Knox and others ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... art which has lately been aroused by the great and active genius of many of our living, or but lately lost, painters, sculptors, and architects. It may perhaps surprise, but I think it will please you to hear me, or (if you will forgive me, in my own Oxford, the presumption of fancying that some may recognise me by an old name) to hear the author of "Modern Painters" say, that his chief error in earlier days was not in over estimating, but in too slightly acknowledging ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... was faithfully delivered in Holland, but alas! the recipient, with unheard-of presumption, after having read the documents, decided in his own mind that they were not of sufficient importance to be published in London and quietly ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... books, what a progress must this nation have made in it since my head was cut off! A man in my days might offer to dispute de omni scibile, and in accepting the challenge I, as a young man, was not guilty of any extraordinary presumption, for all which books could teach was, at that time, within the compass of a diligent and ardent student. Even then we had difficulties to contend with which were unknown to the ancients. The curse of Babel fell lightly ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... one eternal present; look down upon Thy children, who still wander among the delusions of time—who still tremble with dread of dissolution, and shudder at the mysteries of the future; look down, we beseech Thee, from Thy glorious and eternal day into the dark night of our error and presumption, and suffer a ray of Thy divine light to penetrate into our hearts, that in them may awaken and bloom the certainty of life, reliance upon Thy promises, and assurance of a place at Thy ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh
... nothing with his own weapons alone without help from outside. In the Essay 'On the Folly of Referring the True and the False to the Trustworthiness of our Judgment,' [2] he maintains that 'it is a silly presumption to go about despising and condemning as false that which does not seem probable to us; which is a common fault of those who think they have more self-sufficiency than the vulgar. So was I formerly minded; and if I heard anybody speak either of ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... mode of reasoning by the Founder of our faith. He first, he last, taught to his astonished disciples the new truth—at that time the astounding truth— that no relation exists between the immediate practical events of things on the one side, and divine sentences on the other. There was no presumption, he teaches them, against a man's favor with God, or that of his parents, because he happened to be afflicted to extremity with bodily disease. There was no shadow of an argument for believing a party of men criminal objects of heavenly wrath because upon them, by fatal preference, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... stream of my actions and practical sentiments. The barrier that existed in the present case I deemed insurmountable. This was not even the subject of doubt. In disclosing the truth, I should be conceived to be soliciting my lady's mercy and intercession; but this would be the madness of presumption. Let me impress her with any other opinion than that I go in search of the happiness that I have lost under her roof. Let me save her generous heart from the pangs which this persuasion would ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... of the people was in favor of his election to the chief magistracy. Almost every letter from his friends expressed a desire that he should accept the office when tendered to him, as it surely would be, by the electors chosen by the people; and before the elections were held, so general was the presumption that Washington would be the first president of the United States, that he received many letters soliciting appointments to office. These annoyed him exceedingly; for the subject, he said, never failed to embarrass and distress him beyond measure. The prospect of again being called ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... might have changed the fortune of the day, had not Alexander seasonably returned from the pursuit, and attacked the left in the rear and flank. Then all was lost, and headlong flight marked the Persian hosts. The battle was lost by the cowardice of Darius, who insisted, with strange presumption, on commanding in person. Half the troops, under an able general, would have overwhelmed the Macedonian army, even with Alexander at the head. But the Persians had no leader of courage and skill, and were a mere rabble. According ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... alone or in combination, in large or small quantities, are separate questions. But they are elements belonging to the body, and even in moderate excess will produce little disturbance. There is no presumption against any of this class of substances, any more than against water or salt, provided they are used in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... now become the very sink of sin and seat of hypocrisy, and gulf where true religion was drowned. Here also now reigned presumption, and groundless confidence in God, which is the bane of souls. Amongst its rulers, doctors, and leaders, envy, malice, and blasphemy vented itself against the power of godliness, in all places where it was espied; as also against the promoters of it; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... different schools. One of these children, it was ascertained, had been among those who were playing round the fountain about a fortnight since, although he was not one whom the red-haired tramp had touched, but the other two had not been near the fountain. The presumption was, therefore, that they had contracted the disease through some other source of infection, perhaps at the lodging-house where the man had spent the night after bathing in the water. Also it seemed that, drawn thither by the heat, in all two or three hundred children had ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... chanced to take up one of his early works. There would be nothing surprising again in his losing somewhat of his powers of expression, and becoming less capable of framing language into a harmonious whole. There would also be a strong presumption that if the variation of style was uniform, it was attributable to some natural cause, and not to the arts of the imitator. The inferiority might be the result of feebleness and of want of activity of mind. But the natural weakness of a great ...
— Laws • Plato
... as if Villon, vexed at what he took to be a rebuke for presumption, would have pushed aside La Mothe's protesting hand, but with a shrug of ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... is to me like a strange illusive dream. Ingeborg and I,—we are to belong to each other! Ah, can it be true? So high I never dared let my thoughts ascend;—it seemed to me in the morning that I had been guilty of the greatest presumption if during the night I had dreamed about it.—Hm! I know very well of course that it is not for my sake that Lady Kirsten goes to all this trouble. She has something up her sleeve; she thinks it necessary to break the agreement with Lord Arne, and now that she has noticed that ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... grief, or to raise that in you which is death to me, anger and distaste. Do not then continue to fix your eyes on the earth; raise them on me for I can read your soul in them: speak to me to me [sic], and pardon my presumption. Alas! I am ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... hitherto sneered at woman's incapacity for intellectual attainments, or lectured her roundly for frivolity, heartlessness, and deception, sneered all the more at her presumption in fancying her heart, or head either, required any other cultivation than man, in his wisdom, saw fitting. Any thing at all likely to elevate woman to her proper place of equality with her husband, must be put down at ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... that are becoming quite apparent. Possibly he is exaggerating a little, in order to show us what a great, generous soul he has. For one, I would like to know wherein this superior race of Van Bergs differs from those who have had the presumption to suppose ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... year, for school opens to-morrow (groans). Hereafter, whenever I see a frying-pan I'll think of you and wish you were in it, being fried to a turn. (Laughter.) Don't laugh, it's no laughing matter. I'm on the verge of nervous presumption or whatever you call it, and I'll be glad to get rid of you—every one ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... sustained in this dispensation; but, perhaps, I may be permitted to say that to me the loss is not only a public one, but a private and personal calamity likewise. Both of these distinguished men were my contemporaries, both, I believe I may without presumption say, my intimate friends. It is a singular coincidence that three successive Governors-General of India should have stood towards each other in this relationship of age and intimacy. One consequence is that the burden of governing India has devolved ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... that all his actions were wonderfully nimble for a man of his build. Any stranger who imagined that this squat Hercules was slow and ponderous in movement would be wofully mistaken if he based hostilities on that presumption. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... clear in what region ploughing first began. Probably it was in the comparatively well-watered and well-wooded margin of one of the large grasslands; but whether north or south of the Mountain Zone, or round the discontinuous plateaux within it, is not clear. The presumption of large cattle favours the north, yet Babylonia, and even Egypt, had large cattle from very early times. North Syria seems to dispute with Babylonia priority in the production of wheat. Somewhere in this region we may ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... for a moment as if amazed at his presumption. But she checked herself and only said, "I am afraid you will have to choose some less expensive profession than that. Besides, you would have to pass an examination to enable you to enter the army; and how can you do ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... season our food during the week, and taking it all in a dose on Sunday. By such a system we may make expert shop-boys, first-rate accountants, shrewd and thriving "earth-worms"; but it would be presumption to think of thus making good citizens, still less ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... boys, methinks, do not argue among themselves upon points of doctrine; and I have no fear that John will ever be led from the right path, nor indeed, though it is presumption for a woman to say so, do I feel so sure as our ministers that ours is the only path to heaven. We believe firmly that it is the best path, but others believe as firmly in their paths; and I cannot think, Jabez, that all mankind, save those who are within ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... Harley could lead him to regard the worldly prospects which this last communication from his wife might open to his ruined fortunes,—not, indeed, till Riccabocca had persuaded himself, and half persuaded Harley (for strong, indeed, was all presumption of guilt against the dead), that his wife's protestations of innocence from all but error had ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Machim, an accomplished gentleman, of the second degree of nobility, loved and was beloved by the beautiful Anna d'Arfet, the daughter of a noble of the first class. By virtue of a royal warrant Machim was incarcerated for his presumption; and, on his release, endured the bitter mortification of learning that Anna had been forcibly married to a noble, who carried her to his castle, near Bristol. A friend of Machim's had the address to introduce himself to the family, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... suggested Starmidge. "Now, let us all four take a drawer each and see if we can find any such letter. I'm going on the presumption that this stranger came down to see Mr. Horbury, and that on his arrival he telephoned up to let him know he'd got here. If that presumption is correct, then, in all probability, there'd been previous correspondence between them as to ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... availed our author to have any candour, since, when he declared he did not write for others, it was not credited; as little to have any modesty, since, when he declined writing in any way himself, the presumption of others was imputed to him. If he singly enterprised one great work, he was taxed of boldness and madness to a prodigy;[190] if he took assistants in another, it was complained of, and represented as a great injury to the public.[191] The loftiest heroics, the lowest ballads, treatises ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... the Copyright Office a notice of intent to enforce that person's copyright or exclusive right or may serve such a notice directly on a reliance party. Acceptance of a notice by the Copyright Office is effective as to any reliance parties but shall not create a presumption of the validity of any of the facts stated therein. Service on a reliance party is effective as to that reliance party and any other reliance parties with actual knowledge of such service and of the contents ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... kisse, then sigh, then looke, and thus In that first garden of our simplenesse We spent our child-hood; but when yeeres began To reape the fruite of knowledge, ah, how then Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow, Check my presumption and my forwardnes; Yet still would give me flowers, stil would me shew What she would have me, yet not ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... so undesirable. It would not help us to realize what it is so important that we should thoroughly feel. The very fact then that the history of Creation is divided into days carries with it a strong presumption that those ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... glance, and sought to hide her humbled vanity from his pure and keen perceptions. His very presence was a tacit rebuke to her social dissipation, and she could not endure the mild radiance of his virtues. He never fawned and flattered her, as Julian would; but had even suffered filial presumption (it could not be affection—O dear, no!) to go so far as gently to expostulate at what he fancied wrong; he never gave her reason to contrast, with happy self-complacence, her own soul's state with Charles's, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... intellectual powers, the judgment is that which takes the foremost lead in life. How to form it to the two habits it ought to possess, of exactness and vigour, is the problem. It would be ignorant presumption so much as to hint at any routine of method by which these qualities may with certainty be imparted to every or any understanding. Still, however, we may safely lay it down that they are not to be got 'by a gatherer of simples,' but are the combined essence ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... to me a preposterous piece of presumption that I should flatter myself I could succeed where an older and much more talented officer had failed, but the idea had got into my head, and the more I thought of it, the more sanguine did I become ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... On the presumption that it was an enquiry into their means of locomotion, they pointed sadly to the floating raft. Miss Beasley now came hurrying up, surveyed the situation, and also attempted to converse, but with no better ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... singularly venturesome spirit of thine own, fair sir! Still, we must honor courage, even though it border on rashness, and I rejoice to see that the wrathful mob of Al-Kyris hath yet left thee man enough to deserve my welcome! Nevertheless thou were guilty of most heinous presumption!" Here she extended her jewelled hand. "Art thou repentant? and wilt thou ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... ground, on which the shadow is cast, be not broken and uneven; nor the surface from which the image is reflected, disturbed and confused; a just figure is immediately presented, without any art or attention. And it seems a reasonable presumption, that systems and hypotheses have perverted our natural understanding, when a theory, so simple and obvious, could so long have escaped ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... "This is presumption carried to the last degree," he said. "My own honor and the honor of Mexico will not allow me to ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... for gallant leaders and national deliverers in the hovels of the mean common people. Credit me, that if there be some flashes of martial spirit about this young person, which I am not called upon to dispute, (though I have seldom seen that presumption and arrogance were made good upon the upshot by deed and action,) yet still these will prove insufficient to distinguish him, save in his own limited and lowly sphere—even as the glowworm, which makes a goodly show among the grass of the field, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... she says and does the most brilliant things, such as nobody else could say or do in any condition. 'You say you cannot test it, for you cannot follow me into my dream-world. Well, but it may be as I say; and till you can prove the reverse, I hold that I am entitled to the presumption which my dream-song establishes in my favour.' It must be admitted there is some force in this reasoning. All that her husband can in the meantime say on the other side, is just this: 'Granted the activity and the brilliancy of your sleep-life, it does wonderfully little for me or our ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... could be no doubt that she would attain it, as the book had been a success from the first; but as people had hastily concluded that she was setting up for a social reformer and would fail, they were naturally disgusted. They had been prepared to call the supposed attempt great presumption on her part; but when they found that she had merely her own interests in view, and had not let their moral welfare cost her a thought, they said she was not right-minded; whereupon she observed; "I don't mind having my morals attacked; ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... The preposition in question itself occurs in Irish, in the name given to a Colony which is supposed to have settled in Ireland, A.M. 2540, called Tuath de Danann. (See Lh. "Arch. Brit." tit. x. voc. Tuath; also Miss Brooke's "Reliques of Irish Poetry," p. 102.) These facts afford more than a presumption that the true root of the Composite dhiom, &c., is de, and that it signifies of. It has therefore appeared proper to separate it from do, and to assign ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart
... hat, and said, laughingly: "I hope it is not presumption to imagine a slight personal bearing in your remark. At least, let me prove that I have some claim to the title by seeing you safely home. Will you mount? Put your foot in my hand, and bear your whole weight upon it, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... have too much of her grandmother's conditions to be likely to be a good wife. There was a laugh too, scarce controlled by some of the less well-mannered of the suite, especially as the Earl, wishing to punish his presumption, ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... meeting, unlike a court-martial, might not stand out for legal evidence, if the moral presumption of guilt were strong enough; but Cadet Prescott would not dream of invoking class action unless he had the most convincing proof ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... action was becoming general and bloody, the surgeons of the hospital took possession of the same place as the most convenient for the first care of the wounded. Thus was this lady in hearing of one continued fire of cannon and musketry for some hours together, with the presumption, from the post of her husband at the head of the Grenadiers, that he was in the most exposed part of the action. She had three female companions—the Baroness of Reidesel, and the wives of two British officers, Major Harnage and Lieutenant Reynell; but in the ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... funds for the expedition, was still living at St. Domingo, and Luque's pretensions were explicitly transferred to him. Yet it is unsafe to pronounce, at this distance of time, on the authority of mere negative testimony; and it must be admitted to form a strong presumption in favor of Pizarro's general equity in the distribution, that no complaint of it has reached us from any of the parties present, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... other conditions a different set of terms might have expressed the truth as well as those which have actually been enshrined in the New Testament, the Liturgies, and the Creeds. But the phrases which have been actually adopted surely have a strong presumption in their favour, even if it were merely through the difficulty of changing them, and the importance of unity, continuity, corporate life. It is easier to explain, or even if need be, alter in some measure the meaning of an accepted formula than to introduce a new one. Religious ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... remembered, the Ocean was no mere sea, but a vast and mysterious river encircling the whole land surface of the earth. Its mighty waves, its tides, its furious currents, all made it an object of superstitious horror. To embark upon it was the height of presumption; and even so late as the time of Claudius we shall find the Roman soldiers feeling that to do so, even for the passage of the Channel, was "to ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... expressed by the friends of Sir Humphry Davy at Stephenson's "presumption" in laying claim to the invention of the safety-lamp. In 1831 Dr. Paris, in his 'Life of Sir Humphry Davy,' thus wrote:—"It will hereafter be scarcely believed that an invention so eminently scientific, and which ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... issued from those conventions startled and amused her, and she laughed heartily at the novelty and presumption of the demand. But, on returning home to spend her vacation, she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents and sister, having attended the Rochester meetings, regarded them as very profitable and interesting, and the demands made as proper and reasonable. She was already interested in the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the price of these river hoards decreased, and one day—could you credit it?—a common fellow, who was one of my smiths, came to me wearing a collar of yellow gold on his own common neck. Well, I had that neck divided, as payment for his presumption; and as I promised to repeat the division promptly on all other offenders, that special species of forwardness seems to be checked for the time. There are many exasperations, Deucalion, in governing these ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... of Calvin contributing to swell this tide, I am compelled to pause and examine the subject anew; but my judgment remains the same. We must call no man master on earth; one is our master in heaven. It is not necessarily presumption in one of us to oppose the judgment of the great and good of a former age, especially on such a subject as this. In regard to all the relations between the Church and the civil power, we are in a better position for judging than either the early Reformers ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... of all who long Have watched the workings of the dark hued mind Excepting only such as office seek. Halstrom: My Liege, thy look doth seem to answer woo And my stern schooling bids me to obey, But it were act from gross presumption born To, from my lowly post, advice bestow. Enters Seldonskip: Well Gov'nor, standing just outside the door There are two chaps who loudly make the claim That they are sure expected at this hour To hobnob with ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... itself, from whatever quarter suggested, he turned from it with shame and self-reproof: the thought was in its own nature too unfit. That splendor regard him! From a social point of view there was of course little presumption in it. The marquis of Lossies bore a name that might pair itself with any in the land; but Malcolm did not yet feel that the title made much difference to the fisherman. He was what he was, and that was something very ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... storms that, not without benefit, had convulsed Europe. Every description of political crime had been fearfully avenged and presumption had been chastised by the unerring hand of Providence. At that solemn period, the sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia concluded a treaty by which they bound themselves to follow, not the ruinous policy they had hitherto pursued, but the undoubted will of the King of kings, and, as the ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... the bottom of their own boat, sir, as lively as if they was still in their natural eleming, Grove's fish do. But they might be red herrings for any notice as you take of 'em. You're not yourself, Mr. Douglas, that's what it is. You're ill, Mr. Douglas, and you ought to see a doctor. Excuse my presumption, sir, in making these remarks; but if an old family servant that has nursed you on his knees can't speak free, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... THE PAN. An expressive metaphor, borrowed from the false fire of a musket, meaning to fail of success after presumption. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... specially termed the Son of God is also specially termed the Son of Man. "Dear friends," St. John writes, elsewhere, "we are now God's children, but what we are to be in the future has not been fully revealed to us." I take it, therefore, as no presumption on my part to emphasise in my daily thought my place as a co-heir with Christ, feeling that not only is God's almightiness exercised on my behalf, but that as much of it as I know how to use is placed ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... mode of misrepresentation was this: qualified propositions, the whole meaning of which depended on the qualifications, were stripped of these and taken as absolute. Thus, the attempt to establish a presumption against giving poisons to sick persons was considered as equivalent to condemning the use of these substances. The only important inference the writer has been able to draw from the greater number of the refutations of his opinions which ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... which during the late Queen's reign sailed into the Mediterranean, and happening to be on board a ship which was lost, he with some other sailors, was called to a very strict account for that misfortune, upon some presumption that they were accessory thereto. Afterwards he sailed in a vessel of war which was fitted out against the pirates, and had therein so good luck that if his inclinations had been honest, he might certainly have settled very handsomely in the world. But that was far from his ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... for to my sorrow must I acknowledge that much of the enmity felt towards our family, and the disrepute into which our good old name fell, was caused by the elixir. The majority of Ueberhells were accused of presumption and arrogance, of opiniativeness and pugnacity. Many had made themselves disagreeable to their neighbours by their caustic criticisms and ill-natured complaints, at the same time bringing misfortune upon themselves ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... still in my dream, that they went on until they were come to the place that Simple, and Sloth, and Presumption,[104] lay and slept in, when Christian went by on pilgrimage; and, behold, they were hanged up in irons a little way off on the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of his character, the modesty of his nature, the absence of anything like presumption and ostentation, the unwillingness to obtrude himself, not only upon the great and powerful, but even on those of the scientific world to which he belonged. A more excellent and amiable man in all the relations of life I ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... bell of the Franciscan Monastery; and, some time after, in came Christy Lowrie, puffing and blowing, as if she too had experienced the effects of the thick breath of the fire-imps; and it might have been a fair presumption that her throat, like that of some of her predecessors, had been dried from pre-perceived gusts of Wat Webster's whisky rather than the smoke of the fire-angels, had it not been made quickly apparent, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have ...
— Advice to Young Musicians. Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln • Robert Schumann
... Sambo returning and swinging his net in the narrow space between the two others, set Dan chuckling again. "Doesn't mean to make a target of himself," he said; but his chuckle died out when Sambo, preparing to curl up in the safest place in the camp, explained his presumption tersely by announcing that "Monkey sit down longa camp." Monkey was a law unto himself, and a very unpleasant law, being a reputed murderer several times over, and when he and his followers were about, white ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... our paddles athwart for snatched rest, while he himself kept alert at the bow. With the rash presumption of youth, I offered to take the bow that he might rest; but he threw his head back with a loud laugh, more of scorn than mirth, and bade me nurse a wounded hand. On the evening of the third day we came to the Habitation. Without disembarking, M. de Radisson sent ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... interfere in all the innocent amusements of the village youngsters. He was a loutish tyrant, and Ted had suffered various petty annoyances at his hands for several years. In fact, the boy was looking forward to the day when he might, without presumption, undertake to give the bully a thrashing and deliver the neighbourhood from his thraldom. As Will Hen, however, was about twenty years of age, large, and not unskillful with his fists, Ted saw some ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Wilt thou set men to school When they be old? I may say to you secretly, The world was never merry Since children were so bold; Now every boy will be a teacher, The father a fool, the child a preacher; This is pretty gear! The foul presumption of youth Will shortly turn to great ruth, I fear, I ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... striking-looking man—the very ideal of a picturesque soldier, with a constitution of steel. He talks to you frankly, easily, for there is not two penny-worth of presumption about him. He lives and labours very quietly—he enjoys his days, and a good cigar. He divides his talents between the stage and the brush. His pencil and palette have been with him in far-off places, and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... its walls caused the defeat and ruin of his unsupported, or as might be said his abandoned, ally, who made the best terms he could with Louis; and thus Charles's presumption and obstinacy paralyzed all the efforts of his courage and power. But he soon afterward acquired the duchy of Guelders from the old Duke Arnoul, who had been temporarily despoiled of it by his son Adolphus. It was almost a hereditary ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... gangrene supervene, and the dead portion is delimited by a line of demarcation. If this forms slowly and irregularly it indicates a very unsatisfactory condition of the circulation; while, if it forms quickly and decidedly, the presumption is that the circulation in the parts above is fairly good. The separation of the dead part is always attended with the risk of infection taking place, and should this occur, the temperature rises and ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... this superfluity we might give alms out of it, as it is written, Of what remaineth give to the poor, he replied, that we knew well enough what: we ought to do; but that we did not know what we should do, and that it was always a species of presumption to imagine ourselves able to handle live coals without burning ourselves, seeing that even the Angel in the vision of the Prophet took them up ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... ordinary trails past Collinson's or Skinner's, which would have betrayed his vicinity. But recluses are not usually accompanied by young daughters, whose relations with the world, not being as antagonistic, would make them uncertain companions. Why not a wife? His presumption of the extreme youth of the face he had seen at the window was after all only based upon the slipper he had found. And if a wife, whose absolute acceptance of such confined seclusion might be equally uncertain, why not somebody else's wife? Here was a reason for concealment, ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... is that education perverts the mind; and this is why, after a long spell of learning and reading, we enter the world, in our youth, with views that are partly simple, partly perverted; consequently we comport ourselves with an air of anxiety at one time, at another of presumption. This is because our head is full of ideas which we are now trying to make use of, but almost always apply wrongly. This is the result of [Greek: hysteron proteron] (putting the cart before the horse), ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Men raved about her, declared her irresistible, worshipped at her shrine, but never dared aspire to her love; one scornful glance from her cold blue eyes effectually extinguished any nascent hope, and the cruel beauty punished presumption as relentlessly, and won and flung away hearts with as much nonchalance, as ever did her immortal prototype, the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... relying on the testimony of the Greenwich instruments, asserted their nullity. The dispute, protracted for fourteen years, from 1810 until 1824, was brought to no definite conclusion; but the strong presumption on the negative side was abundantly justified ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... There all alone Argantes took his stand, Defying Christ and all his servants true, In stature, stomach, and in strength of hand, In pride, presumption, and in dreadful show, Encelade like, on the Phlegrean strand, Of that huge giant Jesse's infant slew; But his fierce semblant they esteemed light, For most not knew, or ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... situated on the principal street, but at some distance back, being separated from it by a front yard. Between this yard and the fence, ran a prim-looking hedge of very formal cut, being cropped in the most careful manner, lest one twig should by chance have the presumption to grow higher than its kindred. It was a two story house, containing in each story one room on either side of the front door, making, of ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... towards vs, the chiefest duty is to giue most to him, of whom wee be most beloued. But how well the same is done, or how prayse worthy the translation I referre to the skilful, crauing no more prayse, than they shall attribute and giue. To nothing do I aspyre by this my presumption (righte honourable) but cherefull acceptation at your handes: desirous hereby to shew my selfe studious of a frend of so noble vocation. And where greater thinges cannot be done, these small I truste shall not be contempned: which if I doe ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... his teeth and his hair and perhaps two or three limbs to the grave before him, the presumption should be that, as he knows nothing further of these when they have once left him, so will he know nothing of the rest of him when it too is dead. The whole may surely be argued ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... majesty not ascertained that this marriage had been made in heaven, you would not have ordered it on earth, I presume." Maria Theresa darted a look of anger at the countess, and turning her back upon such presumption, offered her ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Christian spirit. He would endeavour to win over the ungodly; but woe betide them if they should attempt to pit their strength against his. Borrow's own comment upon his journey in the Northern Provinces was, "Insignificant are the results of man's labours compared with the swelling ideas of his presumption; something, however, had been effected by the journey which I had ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... boat-race. And a mere chance tour on a Sunday through our churches would quickly show the lamentably frequent misapprehension of genius by itself; for many a fine genius for the actor's art is spoiled by an imaginary call to the pulpit. The presumption therefore is indeed against the great Tolstoy in his dispute with the great public. Still, I venture to side with Tolstoy. I too venture to think that Tolstoy's greatest work is found not so much in his works of pure art as in his works ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... with him was the most puzzling of questions. To appear constrained in his presence was to disobey his commands, and to spoil his amusement. Yet if his associates were enticed by his graciousness to indulge in the familiarity of a cordial intimacy, he was certain to make them repent of their presumption by some cruel humiliation. To resent his affronts was perilous; yet not to resent them was to deserve and to invite them. In his view, those who mutinied were insolent and ungrateful; those who submitted were curs made to receive bones and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... forsooth!—but you must aspire to ladies of noble birth! Faith, I should not be surprised to hear of your attempting an intrigue with her gracious Majesty, the Queen! Hark'ee, fellow, begone! and thank my moderation that I do not punish you upon the spot, for your infernal presumption! Yet I would scorn to tarnish the lustre of my good sword with the blood of such ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... Edwin, "this is the lesson that was first communicated to my childhood; and my infant heart bounded with the sacred confidence it inspired. But excuse the presumption of a distracted heart. This lesson, to which at another time I could have listened with rapture and enthusiasm, seems now too loose and general for a medicine to my woes. Innocence the Gods have made superior and invulnerable. And, oh, in what have I transgressed? Yet, my father, I am wounded ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... ordinary) ever saw served here—(though the attendance is abominable, as you must have remarked—that rascally Cyprien deserves the bastinado,); but your civility and good manners have introduced you to one, who may, without presumption, affirm that he hath the will, and, it may be, the ability to serve you; if you will only point out ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... joined in his father's laugh; but his laugh was very different from the old man's: it was polluted with a sneer. I watched him, and saw that, as soon as it was over, he looked scared, as if he dreaded some evil consequences to follow his presumption. The woman stood near, waiting till we should seat ourselves at the table, and listening to it all with an amused air, which had something in it of the look with which one listens to the sententious remarks of a pompous ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... certain power of winning gratitude and confidence which is associated among us students (among the humblest of us, most) with Mr. Redlaw's generous name. Our ages and positions are so different, sir, and I am so accustomed to regard you from a distance, that I wonder at my own presumption when I touch, however lightly, on that theme. But to one who—I may say, who felt no common interest in my mother once—it may be something to hear, now that all is past, with what indescribable feelings of affection I have, in my obscurity, regarded him; with ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... perverse girl; 'and I shall tell her so, too—see if I don't,' she added, nodding her head; though, when she came into the presence of that good lady, she had not a word to say for herself, such a charm is there in the manner of some people to overawe presumption. ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... is well. In these relations and reports made by the Audiencia, charge them in the assembly that they try to make them with the exactness and integrity that the case requires. Inasmuch as the importunity and presumption of the parties necessitates at times that unsuitable things be said or done, the remedy for that will be for you to send—in a separate letter, that treats only of this matter—an annual relation of the persons who have had their reports taken ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com
|
|
|
