"Conjecture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has received the doubtful credit of having laid this pretty snare for the Huguenot chiefs, but with what reason it is beyond my ability to conjecture. The same brain could scarcely have indited the bitter reply to the petition of the triumvirs, and devised the cunning project of entangling their opponents. Evidently the Bishop of Valence has received some honors to which he is ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... it that he left the paternal roof while yet a child (he was probably not more than nine years old), and was apprenticed, as above stated, in Perugia—though to what artist Vasari does not tell us. Here, therefore, conjecture is rife, and Buonfigli,—that delightful decorator of the Perugian Palazzo Pubblico,—Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, and even Niccolo da Foligno himself have been assigned by various critics as his teacher. Personally, I incline to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, whose easel ...
— Perugino • Selwyn Brinton
... But, for the tolerably delicate enterprise that he had in hand, there were the preliminary steps which could only be hastened slowly and anything slower than the Metropolitan on a Sunday night, it was beyond him to conjecture. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... "Probably conjecture is all that can now be expected respecting the rise and progress of these changes. It is, indeed, beyond all doubt, that by the constitution, even as subsisting under the early Normans, the great council shared the legislative ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... crock, cradle, darn, dainty, mop, pillow; barrow (a funeral mound), glen, havoc, kiln, mattock, pool. It is worthy of note that the first eight in the list are the names of domestic— some even of kitchen— things and utensils. It may, perhaps, be permitted us to conjecture that in many cases the Saxon invader married a British wife, who spoke her own language, taught her children to speak their mother tongue, and whose words took firm root in the kitchen of the new English household. The names of most rivers, mountains, lakes, and hills are, of course, Keltic; ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... shouted, prayed, cursed, fled across the Park, but he was absolutely powerless; the apparition stopped within a few steps, and leered on him with a ghastly mimicry of the defiant stare with which pugilists strive to cow one another before combat. For a time, which he could not so much as conjecture, he was held in the fascination of that unearthly gaze, and at last the thing, whatever it was, on a sudden swaggered close up to him with extended palms. With an impulse of horror, Larkin put out his hand to keep the figure off, and their palms ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... were the suppositions as to the present scheme, and the reserved intent. How, at the very threshold, so unlooked for a catastrophe overturned all, or rather, what was the conjecture here, is now to be ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... he addressed her as "My dear," very genially, without any trace of resentment at her detention of the child. The quickness of the transition made me vaguely ask myself whether he were henpecked,—a shocking conjecture, which I instantly dismissed. Mrs. Ambient was quite such a wife as I should have expected him to have; slim and fair, with a long neck and pretty eyes and an air of great refinement. She was a little cold, and a little shy; but she was very sweet, and she had a certain ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... MacKay are very liberal toward charitable purposes. They were especially complimented by Pope Leo XIII for their charitable deeds. As Mr. MacKay is but about fifty years of age, it is hard to conjecture his possible future. While many features in his career seem to justify the belief in "luck," still, to the close observer, it is manifest that had he not possessed great endurance, and known no such thing as fail, the world would never have known of John ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... path. More than once a snow-owl fluttered over their heads; but they took no notice. Twice the man in advance stumbled and fell; but though Ben paused he spoke no word. Like a soldier of the ranks on secret forced march, ignorant of his destination, given only conjecture as to what the morrow would bring forth, ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... Any more probable conjecture as to the origin or meaning of this custom, or any account of its occurring elsewhere, will ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... this she was trying to do in her own way. That there was something suspicious about Anderson, she knew; but whether the cause lay in his manner of action or in the possession of documentary evidence, she could not so much as conjecture. What more apt method could be employed than to associate with him in the hope that at some time or other important information might be imparted to her? She did not intend to play the part of the spy; still if that was the role in which she hoped to find ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... of the Bible Advocate and yourself are aiming at the one object, viz. the abolition of God's holy Sabbath, and the treading down God's truth seeking children; he is approbating and upholding you in your disguise; we are therefore left to conjecture. From some marks which I have seen under your two coverings, I am very strongly inclined to believe that your real name is Jacob Weston of New Ipswich, N. H. If I am wrong, then what I am about to state will not apply to Barnabas. If I am right in the real character, then I shall discharge ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... his marriage the miseries of life lost half their bitterness, nor had it returned at her death. Instinctively he felt that outsiders, those even who respected him as an honest man, believed that, somehow or other, they could only conjecture how, he must be to blame for the circumstances he was in—either this, or providence did not take care of the just man. Such was virtually the unuttered conclusion of many, who nevertheless imagined they understood the Book of Job, and ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... it. Yet this made no difference to Ashby. He did not desire to make any new acquaintances or talk small-talk with strangers. He preferred to be left to his own thoughts, dismal as they were. He was in no mood for conversation, for his mind was full of material for meditation, conjecture, wonder, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... found to throw upon it the faintest shade of improbability. At first sight it might perhaps appear strange that the exact time of the birth as well of Henry of Monmouth, as of his father, two successive kings of England, should even yet remain the subject of conjecture, tradition, and inference; whilst the day and place of the birth of Henry VI. is matter of historical record. A single reflection, however, on the circumstances of their respective births, renders the absence of all precise testimony ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... mercenary army of Rome pointed to the mode in which any future commander could avoid the friction and unpopularity which often attended the enforcement of liability to service. The innovation of Marius was sufficiently startling to attract comment and invite conjecture. Some held that the army had been democratised to suit the consulship, and that the masses who had seen in Marius's elevation the realisation of the vague and detached ambitions of the poor, would continue to furnish a sure support to the power which they had created.[1093] It is not ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... Hazleton had been induced to leave the seclusion of the Parsonage, and become the guest of Mrs. Gleason. It must have been a strong motive that tempted her from the hallowed shades, which she had never quitted since her husband's death. Reader, can you conjecture what that motive was? ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... where this army was assembled, though said to be very nigh to Hereford, was only so with reference to the great distance from which some part of the forces came; as they were gathered from all England. They met, I conjecture, on the memorable spot called "Harold's Cross", near Cheltenham, and thence proceeded, as here ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... continued to conjecture and imagine till Phyllis finally exclaimed: "Why, there are Father and Ted back already! Fishing must have been poor this morning. Thank goodness we got out of that place when we did! But that reminds me, I ought to go to the village and order some supplies. The grocer doesn't come here again ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... cock. The incident was insignificant in itself, but it recalled the word of his Master; it made Peter conscious of his disgrace but it called him to himself, and then as he turned toward the palace, for a moment he caught sight of his Lord. We may be unable to conjecture what was expressed in the face of Jesus as at that moment he "looked upon Peter." There may have been something of rebuke, but probably there was more of unutterable sorrow and of tender sympathy. We read that as "Peter remembered ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... Matteo saw similar instruments at Peking, or rather the same instruments, so exactly alike were they, insomuch that they had unquestionably been made by the same artist. And indeed it is known that they were cast at the period when the Tartars were dominant in China; and we may without rashness conjecture that they were the work of some foreigner acquainted with our studies. But it is time to have done with these ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... mean that, on the date named (which, it may be observed, is not Mr. Peacock's date), Fielding, "aged twenty, was entered as litterarum studiosus at Leyden." In this case it would follow that his residence in Holland should have come after February 16th, 1728; and Mr. Swaen went on to conjecture that, "as his [Fielding's] first play, Love in Several Masques, was staged at Drury Lane in February, 1728, and his next play, The Temple Beau, was produced in January, 1730, it is not improbable that his residence in Holland filled up the interval or part of it. Did the profits ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... troubling you with these lines is an apprehension that my late communication has not been understood by you; for there is something in the tone of your reply which has made me rather unhappy, though I can easily conjecture that at the time you wrote it you were labouring under a considerable pressure of business. Had you paid a little more attention to my letter, you would have perceived that it was written unwillingly on my part, but ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... depressions in the subtending older rocks, had been in that condition during an enormously long period. I have recently been enabled, through the apposite discovery of Dr. Kirk, the companion of Livingstone, not only to fortify my conjecture of 1852, but greatly to extend the inferences concerning the long period of time during which the central parts of Africa have remained in their present condition, save their degradation by ordinary atmospheric agencies. ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... at that place; whether, if so, it were carried off at night by those who had buried it; or whether it still remains there under the guardianship of gnomes and spirits until it shall be properly sought for, is all matter of conjecture. For my part, I incline to the latter opinion, and make no doubt that great sums lie buried, both there and in other parts of this island and its neighborhood, ever since the times of the buccaneers and the Dutch colonists; ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... get this introduction over. I was very anxious, too, about my dear Miss Marion; for I knew that some weighty reason alone prevented her from answering my letter, though what that reason could be, it was impossible for me to conjecture. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... beginning of 1788, and, if he did pass through Torres Strait, and come round to this coast, as was his intention, it would probably be about the middle or latter end of that year, or between thirteen and fourteen years before the Investigator. My opinion is not favourable to this conjecture; but I have furnished all the data to enable the reader to form his own opinion upon the cause which might have prostrated the woods ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... him was a haunting fear of the sights which Perkins would show him on the morrow's night. He had seen enough for himself to conjecture of what nature they would be. He did not want to see more, and yet how could he avoid it? He might plead illness, but that would be a lie; and then there would be other nights to follow, so it would only be a postponement of what must ultimately take place or be boldly rejected. Once he decided ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... treasures, the vegetable forms, and the varied aspects of nature, man in the different phases of civilization, filled the mind with entirely new sets of ideas, that changed the habitual current of thought and stimulated it to indefinite conjecture. The eagerness to explore the wonderful secrets of the new hemisphere became so active, that the principal cities of Spain were, in a manner, depopulated, as emigrants thronged one after another to take their chance upon the deep.2 It was a world of romance that was thrown open; ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Mystery of Threshold," "The Initial Effort," "The Meaning of Pain," and "The Secret of Strength." Instead of speculating upon mysteries that lie at the very end of man's destiny, and which cannot be approached by any manner of conjecture, the work very sensibly takes up that which lies next at hand, that which constitutes the first step to be taken if we are ever to take a second one, and teaches us its significance. At the outset we must cope with sensation and learn its nature ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... The conjecture of Major Heyward was true. When they reached the spot where the Indian stood, pointing into the thicket that fringed the military road; a narrow and blind path, which might, with some little inconvenience, receive one person ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... ended, on the site of a dismantled public-house, in a circular shaft, which may have been that of a well, or that of a cesspool. The passage, so far as it was traceable, was 24ft. long, 7ft. high, and 4-1/2ft. wide. As to its use before it was severed by the sewerage of Lease Lane, the conjecture is that it afforded a secret means of communication between two houses separated above ground by that thoroughfare, but for what purpose must remain one of the perplexing puzzles of the past. That it had no connection with ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... Favraud interrupted further conjecture, for at the sound of those emphatic boots the stranger turned, and for one moment the splendor of his large dark eyes, in their iron framing, met my own, then passed recognizingly on to rest on the face of Major Favraud, and advancing ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... encountered folding doors half way up, locked across the stairs. The Inspector managed to get over them and unlock them from the inside, and on they went, and paused to listen beneath the trap door. They did not hear A-Kan's voice, and did not know whether he was there. They had only the conjecture of the woman across the street to proceed upon, nevertheless they had forced their way into this private abode occupied by women, knowing nothing whatever about the place, whether it was respectable ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... therefore, should not always be mild. Nor should he always be fierce. He should be like the vernal Sun, neither cold nor so hot as to produce perspiration. By the direct evidence of the senses, by conjecture, by comparisons, and by the canons of the scriptures. O monarch, the king should study friends and foes. O thou of great liberality, thou shouldst avoid all those evil practices that are called Vyasanas. It is not necessary that thou shouldst never ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... heart-burnings and vendettas. There was scarcely a man there without friends or foes. Raymond alone had neither. To the others he was a strange, silent, unknown creature whose very address was a matter of conjecture; a man who did not drink, did not smoke, did not talk; who ate four bananas for his lunch and invariably carried a book in the pocket of his shabby coat. It was said of him that once, during a terrible blizzard, he had been the only clerk to reach the office; that he had worked ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... not with the appreciation of the expert, but with the pleasure in agreeable tones and textures that was one of her inmost susceptibilities. Suddenly her expression changed from desultory enjoyment to active conjecture, and she turned to ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... arose about the same time,) possess, along with external and internal diversities, the most striking features of affinity, the attention even of the most thoughtless cannot but be turned to this phenomenon; and the conjecture will naturally occur, that the same, or, at least, a kindred principle must have prevailed in the development of both. This comparison, however, of the English and Spanish theatre, in their common contrast with every dramatic ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... if I am not mistaken, I come to relate the conclusion of Mr. Crutchley's most extraordinary summer career at Streatham, which place, I believe, he has now left without much intention to frequently revisit. However, this is mere conjecture; but he really had a run of ill-luck not very inviting to a man of his cold and splenetic turn ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed the silent progress of his work, and marked its reputation stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current, through fear and silence. I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... welcome; and addressed a Discourse to them," devout and yet human, true every word of it, enough to draw tears from any Fassmann that were there;—Fassmann and we not far from weeping without words. "Thereupon they ranked themselves two and two, and marched into the Town," straight to the Church, I conjecture, Town all out to participate; "and there the two reverend gentlemen successively addressed them again, from appropriate texts: Text of the first reverend gentleman was, And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... done for Birmingham it is impossible to conjecture had he remained longer our local leader. But he was called up higher. Perhaps this was lucky for him. The great enterprises, or at least some of them, were only fairly started when he relinquished his grasp of them, and it remained to be seen whether they were to prove all they ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... through a course of history, if the science were comprised in a set of chronological tables? No: it is the hearts of men we should study. It is to their actions, as expressive of disposition and character, we should attend. But by what is it that we can be advanced thus far, but by specious conjecture, and plausible inference? The philosophy of a Sallust, and the sagacity of a Tacitus, can only advance us to the regions of probability. But whatever be the most perfect mode of historical composition, ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... signs of a kind of trial, to which I and other prisoners have been subjected this day, tell me that I am the victim of the treacherous calumny of a few aristocrats, patriots so called, of this house. The mere conjecture that this hellish machination will follow me to the tribunal of the revolution gives me no hope to see you again, my friend, no more to embrace you or our children. I speak not of my sorrow: my tender solicitude for you, the heartfelt affection which unites ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... in the whole territory of ancient Egypt; and whether that one was long or short, built of stone or of wood, supported on arches or boldly flung across the stream from bank to bank, we cannot even conjecture. This bridge, close under the very walls of Zaru,[4] crossed the canal which separated the eastern frontier of Egypt from the desert regions of Arabia Petraea. A fortified enclosure protected this canal on the Asiatic side, as shown in the accompanying illustration (fig. 42). ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... conjecture was, perhaps, a result of the dread of mothers-in-law inculcated by all reputable authors; but it was none the less confident on that account. And now it only remained for Cousin Hans to discover, in the first place, where she lived, in the second place who she was, and ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... from science, that there were two currents, one of which comes round in a curve and effects the exit for the other which the window had driven in; just as in the Straits of Gibraltar there is manifestly an upper current setting one way, which you therefore conjecture to argue a lower current setting the other, and thus redressing the equilibrium. Here the smoke corresponds to bits of chip or any loose suspended body in the Gibraltar current. What answers to the current of water is the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... room o' the house, with a towel in his hand, crying, Where's La-Foole? Who saw La-Foole? and when Dauphine and I demanded the cause, we can force no answer from him, but—O revenge, how sweet art thou! I will strangle him in this towel—which leads us to conjecture that the main cause of his fury is, for bringing your meat to-day, with a towel about you, ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... her safety, or message from her at all ever arrive). And it was even so: from the day she left the Mersey until this day no word of the City of Glasgow has ever been heard. It was the opinion of those best able to offer a probable conjecture at the time, that she must have come into contact with an iceberg, and instantly gone ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... sensibility. "Corinne," said he, "is indubitably the most celebrated woman of our country, and nevertheless it is only her friends who can properly delineate her; for we must always have recourse, in some degree, to conjecture, in order to discover the genuine qualities of the soul. They may be concealed from our knowledge by celebrity as well as obscurity, if some sort of sympathy does not assist us to penetrate them." He enlarged upon her talent for extemporisation, which did not resemble any thing of that description ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... end of the hawser, I should observe, we found a light rope. This was evidently sent that we might get another stout one on shore. We found on trying it that we were right in our conjecture, and hauling away as before, we got a second strong rope united to the vessel and the land. Mr Sedgwick now wanted us to go back to the house, but we could not think of leaving the shore till our friends were ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... in any kind of fluid, as oil, &c. I use the same apparatus described above, and having poured into the tube as much of the fluid as I conjecture I can make the electric spark pass through, I fill the rest with quicksilver; and placing it inverted in a bason of quicksilver, I ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... swooning in his arms. Even yet her olive face was beautefully pale. The cheerful parlour now rung with confusion, servants bustled about in fright, the youthful family shrieked in fear, the father sought to restore the fond mother, as Montague chafed her right hand in his. Let us leave to the reader's conjecture a scene his fancy may depict better than we can describe, and pass to one more pleasant of results. Some half an hour had transpired, when, as if in strange bewilderment, Clotilda opened her eyes and ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... to baffle pursuers. Apparently the blacks had just wandered off aimlessly in obedience to a whim of the moment. There was nothing but conjecture to support the opinion that the decampment had anything to do with the disappearance of Soosie. Probably the blacks were aware, in advance of ourselves, that she had stolen away. If so, they would inevitably get her, having, possibly, the advantage of hours of start and being ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... in my conjecture," Thornton thought, as he took his leave of Mrs. Meredith who could not face Anna then, but paced restlessly up and down her spacious rooms, wondering how much Thornton had suspected and what the end ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... facing Germany and building none on the French frontier, in exchanging ideas with English military experts as to how best her neutrality could be defended, Belgium was preparing for the inevitable. This inevitableness is no longer a matter of moral conjecture. It is ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... of happiness for the French nation. "The revolution which has taken place with you," he wrote to Lafayette in October, "is of such magnitude, and of so momentous a nature, that we hardly yet dare to form a conjecture about it. We however trust, and fervently pray, that its consequences may prove happy to a nation in whose fate we have so much cause to be interested, and that its influence may be felt with pleasure by future generations." To the Count ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... his life. He had assiduously diverted the attention of the latter to indifferent topics, but was still, on every theme, as eloquent and judicious as formerly. Why he had assumed the garb of a rustic, Pleyel was unable to conjecture. Perhaps it might be poverty, perhaps he was swayed by motives which it was his interest to conceal, but which were connected with consequences of the ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... immense field of conjecture opened by this reflection, the elder Mr. Weller laid his pipe on the table, and stirred the fire ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Thus far shalt thou go and no farther, seems to be imprinted on every great fact of creation. There is a point attained in each and all of our acquisitions, where a mystery that no human mind can scan takes the place of demonstration and conjecture. This point may lie more remote with some intellects than with others; but it exists for all, arrests the ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... in some great and destructive battle first, because they belonged to persons who had attained their full size, whereas in the mound adjoining were found the skeletons of persons of all ages, and, secondly, they were here in the utmost confusion, as if buried in a hurry. May we not conjecture that they belonged to the people who resided in the town, and who were victorious in the engagement? Otherwise they would not have been thus honorably buried ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... I must have got this practice from some external source or other; but I can make no sort of conjecture whence; and certainly no one had ever spoken to me on the subject of the Catholic religion, which I only knew by name. The French master was an emigre Priest, but he was simply made a butt, as French masters too commonly were in that day, and spoke English very ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... accordingly sung. I am thankful to say it was such a one as I never heard before, or expect to hear again; and unless it was composed by the Reverend Saunders Peden in an hour of paroxysm on the moors, I cannot conjecture the author. After this original symphony, tea was discussed, and after tea, to my amazement, more hot brandy-and-water than I ever remember to have seen circulated at the most convivial party. Of course this effected a radical change in the spirits ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... of the note and Mr. Allen's strange action gaining brief eminence by their repeated statements of what they had witnessed and their varied surmises. The role of commentator, if mysterious human action be the text, is always popular, and as this explanatory class are proverbially gifted in conjecture, there were many theories of explanation. Some of the guests had already the good taste to prepare for departure, and when Dr. Mark appeared from the sick room, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... said the lad, interrupting his brother and guessing that the answer he was going to give would confirm his own conjecture. "It ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... caught sight of the latter, he saw a Miami Indian seated in it, apparently waiting and watching for some one. As quick as lightning the meaning of the singular action of the other canoe flashed upon his mind. By some means which he could only conjecture, the Miamis had gained a knowledge of his movements. Perhaps the discovery of his boat was what first awakened their suspicions. At any rate, they had learned enough to satisfy themselves that a rich prize was within their grasp. Leaving one of their number in the strange canoe, they had passed ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... granted that he killed her—we must not mince matters—about twelve o'clock; for after that hour, the servants told Lina, there was quiet in the drawing-room. Next, I conjecture, he went upstairs to change his clothes: he could not go forth on the world in an evening suit; and the housemaid says his black coat and trousers were lying as usual on a chair in his dressing-room—which shows at least that he was not unduly flurried. After that, he put on another suit, no doubt—WHAT ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... blazon it all over the country; but if their masters murder them, a trifling fine is paid, and nobody thinks of mentioning the matter. I believe there are twenty negroes killed by white men, where there is one white man killed by a black. If you believe this to be mere conjecture, I pray you examine the Judicial Reports of the Southern States. The voice of humanity, concerning this subject, is weak and stifled; and when a master kills his own slave we are not likely to hear the tidings—but the voice ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... prepared for her future communion with Locke and with Leibnitz. When she was very small, in spite of frequent conferences with learned members of the Church of England, she became persuaded of the truth of Catholicism and joined the Roman communion. We may conjecture that this coincided with the conversion of her kinsman, Lord Chancellor Perth, but as events turned out it cannot but have added to the sorrows of that much-tried woman, her mother. (It should be stated that Catharine resumed the ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... Mina. It seemed like a sort of watchfulness—not a slyness (that would have fitted so badly with the rest of him), but perhaps one might say a wariness—whether directed against her or himself it was too soon for her even to conjecture. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... This is by no means the case, and we may therefore conjecture that Cape St Andrew in Madagascar is here meant, which is of that description, and is in some ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... left," said another,—"and those so pitiful and unable to serve again as I leave to speak further of them, to avoid grief to your heart. A monstrous fault there hath been somewhere." Of what nature the "monstrous fault" was we may conjecture from the language of the Commander-in-Chief. "There can be no doubt of our driving the enemy out of the country through famine and excessive charges, if every one of us will put our minds to forward, without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... written about the chronology of Alexandrian literature and the famous Library, founded by Ptolemy Soter, but the dates of the chief writers are still matters of conjecture. The birth of Apollonius Rhodius is placed by scholars at various times between 296 and 260 B.C., while the year of his death is equally uncertain. In fact, we have very little information on the subject. There are two "lives" ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... of textual criticism—a kind of cleaning and mending—are purely negative. By the aid of conjecture, or by the aid of conjecture and comparison combined, we are enabled to construct, not necessarily a good text, but the best text possible, of documents whose original is lost. What we thus effect is the elimination of corrupt and adventitious ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... particularity what rumour always huddles in general exclamation, or perplexes by indigested[909] narratives; to shew whence happiness or calamity is derived, and whence it may be expected; and honestly to lay before the people what inquiry can gather of the past, and conjecture can ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... these competitors were descended from more remote branches of the royal family; others were even sprung from illegitimate children; and as none of them had the least pretence of right, it is natural to conjecture that Edward had secretly encouraged them to appear in the list of claimants, that he might sow the more division among the Scottish nobility, make the cause appear the more intricate, and be able to choose, among a great number, the most ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... Apostles themselves; some saying that Simon Zelotes, others that Paul was some time in this part of the world; but as this opinion is not supported by proper vouchers, it merits only the regard due to conjecture, not the attention which an undoubted narrative ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... to-day. There was something in his gray eyes which spelled trouble, Tony thought. What was it? Was he worried about a case? Was Granny worse? Was Ted in some scrape? Something there certainly was on his mind. Tony was sure of that, though she could not conjecture what. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... point. Are the fangs actuated by a special ganglion? Are they actuated by fibres issuing from centres exercising further functions? I leave to anatomists equipped with more delicate instruments than I the task of elucidating this obscure question. The second conjecture appears to me the more probable, because of the palpi, whose nerves, it seems to me, must have the same origin as those of the fangs. Basing our argument on this latter hypothesis, we see that the Calicurgus has only one means of suppressing the movement of the poisoned pincers ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... doubt are now flying away; No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn: So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray, The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn. See Truth, Love, and Mercy in triumph descending, And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom! On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending, And Beauty ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... intermediate links have actually been found, but because analogy leads the observer to suppose either that they do now somewhere exist, or may formerly have existed; and here a wide door for the entry of doubt and conjecture ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... the appearance of Arthur and the gossip of Mr. Perkins, to conjecture that one of the rich relations he had attributed to Catherine was arrived. Alas! for her it ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... spirits, three thousand men went over the top, deploying in open order to make their drag-net stretch to its farthest capacity and sweep up the redoubts, whose locations, after all, were largely a matter of conjecture. ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... increased. Most of these temples were covered in. Hypaethral temples, in which the cella was open to the sky, are mentioned by Vitruvius, and it is probable that some of the larger ones at any rate were partly open to the sky. But how the openings were arranged is almost entirely a matter of conjecture. The roof used was of a very flat pitch, one of height to four of base, later it was even flatter, and this dictated the slope of the pediments. This roof covered the whole of the building, that is, both the cella and the colonnades on ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... go" (Vol. ii., p. 45.)—Your correspondent T. S. D. is certainly right in his notion that the ballad of "A frog he would a-wooing go" is very old, however fanciful may be his conjecture about its personal or political application to Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn. That it could not refer to "the Cavaliers and the Roundheads," another of T. S. D.'s notions, is clear from the fact, that it was entered at Stationers' Hall in November, 1581; as appears ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... sister. The hours when he was sure not to come happened to be those which she spent with Miss Young—the hours in which gentlemen are devoted to their business. Margaret thus witnessed all that passed; and if her conjecture about Hester was right, she could have wished to see Mr Hope's manner rather different from what it was. He was evidently strongly attracted to the house; and there was some reason to think that Mrs Grey believed that Hester was the attraction. But Margaret ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... therefore, under the necessity of completing his definition of mind by adding that it is a series of feelings which "is aware of itself as a series;" and, still further, of supplementing this definition by the conjecture that "something which has ceased to exist, or is not yet in existence, can still, in a manner, be present."[242] Now he who can understand how a series of feelings can flow on in time, and from moment ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... left to conjecture on the subject; in a document of extreme interest, which seems somehow to have escaped the notice of his commentators, the preface to the second (1876) edition of Catilina, he has described what the influences were which roused him out of the wretchedness of Grimstad; ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... then was suffered to proceed. Rapidly she flew to her father's room—it was unoccupied, and a glance at his bed showed her that it had not been disturbed. Mary was at no loss to conjecture where she should find her father—but as she approached that room her steps grew slower, lighter—she was treading on holy ground. With difficulty she nerved herself to turn the latch of the door, and in an awed whisper ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... easy ken, and these dense, hardly discernible clusters—hirundine nebulae, as it were—were all these but parts of one innumerable host, the main body of which was passing far above me altogether unseen? The conjecture was one to gratify the imagination. It pleased me even to think that it might be true. But it was only a conjecture, and meantime ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... with bated breath again and again, establishing Partab Singh's character in the minds of his people as a man of the nicest honour. A few years before, the Rajah had slain with his own hand every woman and girl in his zenana, as the result of some discovery, the nature of which no one durst even conjecture, and had since brought home to his blood-stained halls a young bride of purest Rajput descent from beyond Nanakpur, who had borne him a son, commonly reported to be the apple of his eye. There had ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... country, became so discouraged and exhausted by fatigue and famine, that they abandoned the country. Sir Richard Grenville returning shortly afterwards to America, and not being able to find them, and at a loss to conjecture their fate, left in the island another small party of settlers and again set sail ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... he wasn't a Post Office clerk," said Mrs. Duffer, who had seen Lord Hampstead ride up the street; "but who he is, or why, or wherefore, it is beyond me to conjecture. But I never will give up my opinion again, talking to your aunt. I suppose she holds out still that ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... repeatedly if the cottage was ready, and when he was going to take her to see it, in his unhappiness he avoided a direct reply, which, with the ominous silence of the good friends by whom they were entertained, led her to conjecture how matters stood; and one day she lifted the weight in a measure from his heart ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... made of sticks and grass and mud to the height of two or three feet, with a hollow in the middle to hold the eggs. The male is said to assist in the construction of the nest, but this is probably mere conjecture, for I think no one living at the present time has been able to get near enough to these birds to watch their habits, and their nests can be reached only with ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... evidently right as to be resisted by none would naturally advance. Had it been read three times in one day, we should have shown only a becoming readiness to recognize, by protection, the undoubted dutiful behavior of those whom we had but too long punished for offences of presumption or conjecture. But for what end was that bill to linger beyond the usual period of an unopposed measure? Was it to be delayed until a rabble in Edinburgh should dictate to the Church of England what measure of persecution was fitting for her safety? Was it to be adjourned ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... But, in this conjecture, Ham was wrong; for, when something like half an hour later, Mrs. Dickson came out the tent, leaning on her husband's arm and looking very white, but otherwise little the worse for her experience, all the information she could give ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... finished, interested him more than all the rest. Several tubes of colour lay on a chair, and a prepared pallet-board, with some brushes beside it, seeming to have been just now in use, gave reason to conjecture that the occupant of the room ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... tide in, and no sign of Charley's clothes. The other men whom she had besought to come had disappeared, it must have been in some other direction, for she had not met them going away. They, finding nothing, had probably thought her alarm a mere conjecture, and given ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... Nasamonians all returned safe to their own country, and that the men whom they came to were all necromancers." Etearchus also conjectured that this river, which flows by their city, is the Nile; and reason so evinces: for the Nile flows from Libya, and intersects it in the middle; and (as I conjecture, inferring things unknown from things known) it sets out from a point corresponding with the Ister. For the Ister, beginning from the Celts, and the city of Pyrene, divides Europe in its course; but the Celts are beyond the pillars of Hercules, and border ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... That is Moon, Athena (Minerva), and Enyo (Bellona). It is difficult to conjecture what Cappadocian goddess Plutarch means, if it be not the Great Mother. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... of the rotation and revolution of the planets and satellites? If these bodies had penetrated very deeply into this atmosphere, its resistance would have caused them to fall into the sun. We can therefore conjecture that the planets were formed at their successive limits by the condensation of a zone of vapors which the sun, on cooling, left behind, in the plane of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... had worn black stockings instead of her one beloved pair of white, went on in thought, unhappy, humiliated Suzanna. If only—but in conjecture Suzanna was lost. The cramped toe exerting its right, thrust itself through again. One fleeting, horrified glance told the child that two toes now peeped out on a world that would be scandalized ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... the difference was owing no doubt to the greater abundance of the refuse from the cookrooms of the naval squadron most frequented by the birds. Persons acquainted with the economy of the navies of the states in question, will be able to conjecture which fleet was most favored with these delicate attentions. The American gull follows the steamers up the Mississippi, and has been shot 1,500 miles from the sea.] There is a familiar story of an English bird which built ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... of loop-holes removed to a great extent the fear of treacherous shots from the outside, yet in another respect it was an annoyance. The boys could see nothing of their assailants. The sense of hearing and conjecture it lelf were all that were left to inform them of what was going ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... branch, chirped vigorously, no doubt in celebration of the victory. What the emotions of the parent birds were, on seeing their destroyer's head so thoroughly bruised, and a part of their little ones at least spared to them, I can only conjecture; but I imagined the news spread immediately, and that my praises as the deliverer were sung in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... tigress. There is a ruined stupa at Sui Vihar in the Bahawalpur State. The Chinese pilgrims described the largest of Indian stupas built by Kanishka near Peshawar to enshrine precious relics of Gautama Buddha and a great monastery beside it. Recent excavations have proved the truth of the conjecture that the two mounds at Shahji ki dheri covered the remains of these buildings, and the six-sided crystal reliquary containing three small fragments of bone has after long centuries been disinterred and is now ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... shadow!—will say on this occasion, as we have heard him say on some others, "Machallah! Truly, the sense of the ghiaour doth arrive after the mischief!" But we hold no opinions in common with Hadgi Ismael Bey, who drinketh water, despiseth the Greek, and hateth the Frank. Our own conjecture is, that King Otho has been studying the history of Theopompus, one of his Spartan predecessors who, like himself, occupied barely half a throne. Colleagues and ephori were in times past as unpleasant associates in the duties of government as protecting powers now are. Now ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... feign feigning: I had to feign, that is, that I was feigning to keep their confidence, but that in reality that I was betraying it; while to Mr. Chiffinch I had to disclose these precious secrets not as true but as false, and conjecture with him what was the truth. (My evidence, later, was never called upon, nor did my name appear in any way, for that the jury would never have understood it.) I had, therefore, a double danger to guard against; first that which ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... mixture of pleasures, or of pleasure and pain, are a further source of perplexity. Our ignorance of the opinions which Plato is attacking is also an element of obscurity. Many things in a controversy might seem relevant, if we knew to what they were intended to refer. But no conjecture will enable us to supply what Plato has not told us; or to explain, from our fragmentary knowledge of them, the relation in which his doctrine stood to the Eleatic Being or the Megarian good, or to the theories of Aristippus or Antisthenes respecting pleasure. Nor ...
— Philebus • Plato
... yon braving Spaniards wish A counterview of pages and of shields, But what they mean or be, I know not yet. Haply you may by their impresses view, Or I by parley some conjecture give, So please it you your pages and your shields With me to send: their herald comes ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... be. You only conjecture that. It may be her father whom she guards against, or her guardian. Obed Chute is no doubt the man—either her father or guardian, and Lord Chetwynde has to guard against suspicion. But what then? If you die, can he not find some ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... he has lived in Georgia with his only child, Ella, getting such occupation as he could—office work of various kinds, but I suppose his reserved, gloomy ways rendered him unpopular; and even our own people, when it comes to business, prefer an active man who has a ready word for every one. I conjecture much of this, for he is not inclined to talk about himself. Poor as I am, I'm glad they accepted my invitation, and I mean to do all in my power to get him employment here. I have a little influence ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Creation undertaken once and for all, in place of a continuous creative intenention. This book, opposing natural law to miracle, carried complete conviction to the young and eager. Audacious spirits even hazarded the conjecture that primitive life itself might have originated in a natural way: had not, but recently, an investigator who brought a powerful voltaic battery to bear on a saturated solution of silicate of potash, been startled to find, as the result of his experiment, numberless ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... restrain the violence of passion and ardent desires. The innate feeling that our existence is not dependent on our mortal frame, disposes men to search for some information respecting a future state; the heathen system was at once obscure and absurd; the philosophers avowedly spoke from conjecture; but by the Gospel, "life and immortality were brought to light." 7. The influence of a purer faith was discernible in the lives and actions of the first Christians; they lived in an age of unparalleled iniquity and debauchery, yet they kept themselves "unspotted from the world;" those ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... Dorothy was beginning to think that Mr. Burgess was not coming. "I've given him up now," said Miss Stanbury. "I think I'll send and put them all off." Just at that moment there came a knock at the door. But there was no cab. Dorothy's conjecture had been right. The London gentleman had walked, and his portmanteau had been carried behind him by a boy. "How did he get here?" exclaimed Miss Stanbury, as she heard the strange voice speaking to Martha down-stairs. But Dorothy knew better than ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... St. Jean d'Angely took that side. Duke Henry of Rohan and the Duke of Soubise, his brother, supported them in their resistance. Rohan went to Montauban, and, mounting into the pulpit, said to the assembly, "I will not conceal from you that the most certain conjecture which can be formed from the current news is, that in a short time the royal army will camp around your walls, since St. Jean d'Angely is surrendered, and all that remains up to here is weakened, broken down, and ready to receive the yoke, through the factions of certain evil spirits. I have no ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the old fellow, "knew the person who knocked. Her haste to open the door gives rise to this conjecture; what follows proves it. The assassin then gained admission without difficulty. He is a young man, a little above the middle height, elegantly dressed. He wore on that evening a high hat. He carried an umbrella, and smoked a trabucos cigar in ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... it was unintelligible. I sought through all my recollections of ancient and modern impersonations—of mythology, history, Scripture, and poetry—but could find nothing to furnish a solution. The structure and the figure surpassed even conjecture. Velleda, and Lot's wife, according to an old picture in the catechism, were the only resemblances I could recall, but the surroundings evidently ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the outer edge of Keeling atoll were to perish, it is improbable that those of the lower zone would grow to the surface, and thus become exposed to conditions for which they do not appear to be adapted. The conjecture, that the corals on the submerged knolls within the Chagos atolls have analogous habits with those of the lower zone outside Keeling atoll, receives some support from a remark by Captain Moresby, namely, that they have a different appearance from those on the ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... air-ship itself had increased its speed during those few moments of dense obscurity, or whether the madly whirling winds had taken a retrograde movement at that precise time, could only be a matter of conjecture; but the ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... was now already going on I had never seen at any Iroquois feast or rite, and what Amochol had made of this festival I dared not conjecture as I gazed at the Dreamers now advancing into the circle with an abandon and an ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... sent to the country to nurse, I rushed to the conclusion that the royal infant had died, and that his foster-mother, fearful of the consequences, had substituted a child of her own in his place. The literature of the nursery is full of instances that seemed to suggest the probability of my conjecture ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... for the armes of this Society, thus goes on: 'After I had travelled through the East parts of the unknown world, to understand of deedes of armes, and so arriving in the fair river of Thames, I landed within half a league from the City of London, which was (as I conjecture) in December last; and drawing neer the City, suddenly heard the shot of double canons, in so great a number, and so terrible, that it darkened the whole ayr; wherewith, although I was in my native country, yet stood I amazed, not knowing what it meant. Thus, as I abode in despair, either to ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... by local differences previous to organization, and the Governor desired to bridge over all these troubles by giving the regiment a commander who knew nothing about them. I presume that some one said to the Governor about this time, "Why don't you get Sheridan?" This, however, is only conjecture. I really do not know how my name was proposed to him, but I have often been told since that General Gordon Granger, whom I knew slightly then, and who had been the former colonel of the regiment, first suggested the ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... say. Botha and Merriman will, of course, constitute its leading factors. But whether they will attempt a coalition by taking in with them such men as Sir Percy Fitzpatrick and Dr. Jameson, or will prefer a more united and less universal support is still a matter of conjecture. From the outsider's point of view, a coalition of British and Dutch leaders, working together for the future welfare of a common country, would seem an auspicious opening for the new era. But it must be remembered that General Botha is under no necessity whatever ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... No one could conjecture what the next move would be, but the army felt a certainty that Lee would not yield to a drawn battle without, at least, another attempt to break Meade's front. Either the enemy would attempt to take an advantage of our yesterday's repulse ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... first letter—it had a black border, and bore the London postmark. It was not in his wife's handwriting, or in that of any person he knew; but conjecture soon ceased as he read the page, wherein he was briefly informed that Mrs. Barnet had died suddenly on the previous day, at the furnished villa ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... from a trend of profitless conjecture when shortly after breakfast time my 'phone bell rang. It was the editor of the Planet, to whom I had been indebted for a number of special commissions—including my fascinating quest of the Giant Gnu, which, generally ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... rather too paradoxical to be comprehensively true. In another he remarks: "As for style of writing, if one has anything to say it drops from him simply as a stone falls to the ground." We must conjecture a very large sense indeed for the phrase "if one has anything to say." When truth flows from a man, fittingly clothed in style and without conscious effort, it is because the effort has been made and the work practically completed before he sat down to write. It is only out ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man hints as much. There has long been a rumour of some change in the plan of operations, and he seems to be right in his conjecture." ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... In the course of producing a spectacle at one of the theatres, he suddenly filled the place with sea-water so that the fishes and sea-monsters [Footnote: [Greek: ktaenae] of the MSS. was changed to [Greek: kaetae] on the conjecture of Sylburgius, who was followed by Bekker, Dindorf, and Boissevain. (Compare also Suetonius, Life of Nero, chapter 12).] swam in it, and had a naval battle between "Persians" and "Athenians." At the close of it he suddenly withdrew the water, dried the ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... that he had to go; why he stayed away so long, so very long, are not really relevant to this story; the facts, stripped of conjecture, were simply these: she was married, and he was not, and there came the time, it always comes in such relationships as theirs, when he had to choose between staying without honour and going quickly. He went. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... the underwood of the forest came up to the walls, and must have darkened the windows. It was about seven o'clock—not late to my London notions—but, after knocking for some time at the door and receiving no reply, I was driven to conjecture that the occupant of the house was gone to bed. So I betook myself to the nearest church I had seen, three miles back on the road I had come, sure that close to that I should find an inn of some kind; and early the next morning I set off back ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... have been expected. This is enough; and [thanks to] Eternal God our Lord who gives to all those who walk His way, victory over things which seem impossible; and this was signally one such, for although men have talked or written of those lands,[271-1] it was all by conjecture, without confirmation from eyesight, amounting only to this much that the hearers for the most part listened and judged that there was more fable in it than anything actual, however trifling. Since thus our Redeemer has given to our most ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... defile, when, on reaching some high ground, we saw, collected together below us among the rocks, an immense number of lions. There must have been several families, fathers and mothers with their young ones. What could have brought them together to that spot, it was difficult to conjecture. Toko declared that they knew we were about to pass that way, and had assembled for the purpose of attacking us. Of course such an idea was ridiculous; however, there they were, and had we passed close to them, they might have committed ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... certainly not taking the world as he finds it when he devotes his hours of leisure to impart the elements of decency to gutter-snipes, and save drunkards from the pit. He is as much an individualist as I, only his individualism expresses itself in a different way; which confirms my original conjecture that we may be equally right in our own mode of life. Nor, by his own confession, does he really sacrifice his inclinations in his mode of life; he gratifies his sense of altruism in Lucraft's Row, and I my love of Nature in the solitude of lonely hills. The objects which ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... conjectures that it was sent to Fulham because of the record annexed to it of the early births, marriages and deaths, such records being in England always in ecclesiastical custody. But this is merely conjecture. ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... MS. and the Bresl. Edit. (ii. 253), we find the Barber saying that the Caliph (Al-Mustansir) was at that time (yaumaizin) in Baghdad, and this has been held to imply that the Caliphate had fallen. But such conjecture is evidently based ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... designated F1[2]. This we have mainly adopted, unless there exists an earlier edition in quarto, as is the case in more than one half of the thirty-six plays. When the first Folio is corrupt, we have allowed some authority to the emendations of F2 above subsequent conjecture, and secondarily to F3 and F4; but a reference to our notes will show that the authority even of F2 in correcting is very small. Where we have Quartos of authority, their variations from F1 have been generally accepted, except where they are manifest errors, and where ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare
... the occurrences of the morning, a chaise and four drove rapidly into the yard, the postillions decorated with white ribbons, "denoting," said Dashall, "the successful denouement, perhaps, of a trip to Gretna Green." His conjecture was correct; the happy pair just arrived, had been rivetted in the ties of matrimony by the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... was daily celebration; that is, when any one was sufficiently energetic to get up and get into church in time. What happened upon those other days, when the rector was abandoned to the rows of empty pews, was still a matter of profane conjecture. Discussed in whispers, it was agreed to be a subject best left to ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... again, and ceasing his labor stood up leaning on the spade, which was nearly as high as himself, "that many of the seeds which fall upon the ground do not grow, yet, strange to tell, retain the power of growth. I suspect myself, but have not had opportunity of testing the conjecture, that such fall in their pods, or shells, and that before these are sufficiently decayed to allow the sun and moisture and air to reach them, they have got covered up in the soil too deep for those same influences. They say fishes a long time bedded in ice ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald |
