"Conjecture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intrigue with some unknown woman. The identification of the young man of the first seventeen sonnets with other friends who are praised in later sonnets is not certain, though in some cases probable; and much research and conjecture have entirely failed to make clear the relations between the poet, the rival poet, the lady, and the friend. The Sonnets furnish us with no knowledge of Shakespeare's personal affairs, and only a meager basis even for gossip ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... his purpose. He was tried and condemned. They made every effort to induce him to explain the reason which led him to such an act, or, if he was employed by others, to reveal their names; but he would reveal nothing. He was executed for his crime, leaving mankind to conjecture that his motive, or that of the persons who instigated him to the deed, was a desperate determination to save Scotland, at all hazards, from falling under ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... by the government agents. The death of this noble Indian was the signal for the commencement of hostilities; the Indians immediately abandoned all their towns, and, concealing their trail, removed their families to a place of safety, which has ever since baffled all conjecture as to its whereabout, and its secrecy been a subject ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... direction, and to work in another. Many men of broad brow and great intellect lived in the days of ancient Greece, but for lack of the accident of a lens, and of knowing the way to use a prism, they could but conjecture imperfectly. I am in exactly the position they were when I look beyond light. Outside my present knowledge I am exactly in their condition. I feel that there are infinities to be known, but they are hidden by a leaf. If any one says to himself that the telescope, and the microscope, the ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... contemplation of it, Jensen, who was the bolder spirit of the two, hazarded the conjecture that the language was either Latin or ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... may be as well to silence all conjecture at once, by stating that I am a woman of——no, I won't say how old, because everybody will date me from this time forward, and I shall not always be willing to tell how old I am! I am not very young now, it is true; I am more than sixteen and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... influence was potential with Mr. Sumner, and it is not an over estimate of that influence to assume that he was responsible in a large degree for the defection of Mr. Sumner. Following that election, Mr. Bird became a member of the Democratic Party, but upon what ground it is not easy to conjecture. His whole life had been a protest against that party, and much of his public career had been directed to its defeat. During the war and the period of reconstruction, he had been its earnest and even bitter antagonist. Mr. Bird was ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... not been, in other words, any discovery of the right Principles upon which the affairs of mankind should be conducted in reference to their mutual relationships; and hence, there is no real knowledge, but only conjecture, of what are the right relations. Might has always been the accepted Right and the only Standard of Right in the regulation of Society. The opinions of the Ruling Power give tone to human thought and action. While Kings and Oligarchies ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... that the gold-horned cow was gone, lost no time in wonderment and conjecture; she started forth to find her. "I will not tell father till I have searched a long time," said she ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... said this morning be correct,' remarked Atlee, 'conjecture is unnecessary. She told Dick and myself that every Irishman is ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... which they support with great vehemence and obstinacy, and perhaps ingenuity, but the ignorant and curious traveller is only perplexed with their noisy and discordant assertions. They will insist upon knowing everything, whereas there are many things here which are so doubtful, that they can only conjecture about them; but when once they have published a theory they will not hear of its being erroneous, and oppose any fresh discovery likely to throw discredit upon it. After his lecture in the Forum we went ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... said, "I smell thee by some passive divination, I am satisfied with insight of the measure of thine house; What had happened I conjecture, in a blank and rhythmic passion, Had the aeons thought of making thee a man, and ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... more patient dupe in Rosenburg, a nobleman of considerable wealth at Trebona in the kingdom of Bohemia. Here Dee appears to have remained till 1589, when he was sent for home by Elizabeth. In what manner he proceeded during this interval, and from whence he drew his supplies, we are only left to conjecture. He lured on his victim with the usual temptation, promising him that he should be king of Poland. In the mean time it is recorded by him, that, on the ninth of December, 1586, he arrived at the point of projection, having cut a piece of metal out of a brass warming-pan; and merely heating ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... 'l'usage des canons bombes, dont les atteintes ont un si prodigieux effet,' will prevent our blockading ships from approaching the shores of France, and that thus their steam-vessels might escape unobserved during night, even with sailing-vessels in tow. This is no vague conjecture, but a consequence which assuredly will follow any hesitation on our part to counteract the system extensively adopted, and now under the consideration of the National Assembly, of arming all batteries with projectiles, whereby to burn or blow ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... added to page Susy obscurely but surely perceived that each one corresponded with a hidden secretion of energy, the gradual forming within him of something that might eventually alter both their lives. In what sense she could not conjecture: she merely felt that the fact of his having chosen a job and stuck to it, if only through a few rosy summer weeks, had already given him a new way of ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... in my resistance by a sense of continuity, inherited, as it were, from the earlier part of the struggle. Somehow I found myself in the shelter of the corridor that led to the apartments of the Prince, his sister and his guest, and, for some reason I could not with my dizzy head conjecture, I was alone. I looked down the corridor, which was in gentle light, but saw nothing; it was as silent as though it had been plunged in the profound peace and slumber of the night. Without, the racket ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... 33. The conjecture that Novius Flautius, the artist who worked at this casket for Dindia Macolnia, in Rome, may have been a Campanian, is refuted by the old Praenestine tomb-stones recently discovered, on which, among other Macolnii and Plautii, there occurs also a Lucius Magulnius, son of Haulms ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... his conjecture, for the new arrival was Paymaster Bullen. His canoe, which he had requisitioned at Oswego, was of the largest size, and in addition to six Indian paddlers was provided with a square sail, for use before ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... carelessness is characteristic despite the proverb, "In repetition is no fruition." I quote Torrens (p. 60) by way of variety. As regards the anemone (here called a tulip) being named "Shakik" fissure, I would conjecture that it derives from the flower often forming long lines of red like stripes of blood in the landscape. Travellers in Syria always ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... better than Tigranes, in spite of all his pomp and grandeur; for I am sure there is not one of the young gentlemen that went home to-day can read as well as Harry Sandford, or has half his understanding." Mr Merton could hardly help smiling at Tommy's conjecture about Sophron's reading; but he felt the greatest pleasure at seeing such a change in his sentiments; and, looking at him with more cordiality than he had done before, he told him that he was very happy to find him so sensible of his faults, and hoped he would be ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... look to her face. He had seen her in danger before, had tested her coolness under fire. This meant something altogether different. What? Could it be that Gaskins had wronged the girl, had insulted her, and that she, in response, had shot him down? In the darkness of conjecture there seemed no other adequate explanation. The two were intimate; the rumor of an engagement was already circulating about the garrison. And the stricken man had endeavored to shift the blame on him. Hamlin could not believe this ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... near the grave of Chaucer, and his funeral was at the charge of the Earl of Essex. Beyond this we know nothing; nothing about the details of his escape, nothing of the fate of his manuscripts, or the condition in which he left his work, nothing about the suffering he went through in England. All conjecture is idle waste of time. We only know that the first of English poets perished miserably and prematurely, one of the many heavy sacrifices which the evil fortune of Ireland has cost to England; one of many illustrious victims to the madness, the evil ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... welfare until the second morning, when Loving's horse came into camp, whinnying for his mates. There were blood-stains on the saddle, and the story of a man who was cautious for others and careless of himself was easily understood. Conjecture was rife. The presence of the horse admitted of several interpretations. An Indian ambush was the most probable, and a number of men were detailed to ferret out the mystery. We were then seventy miles below Sumner, and with orders to return to the herd at night six of us immediately ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... hand across her shoulder, and smiling kindly, said she would not allow her to utter words that she would have to eat. "You saw my chasseur step up to me this evening, my Laura? Well, not to torment you, he wished to sound an alarm cry after Angelo Guidascarpi. I believe my conjecture is correct, that Angelo Guidascarpi was seen by Major Weisspriess below, and allowed to pass free. Have you no ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ice; the blood has curdled in my heart; that word compromise has a bad savor when truth and right are in question." When the Civil War came, in her seventieth year, she had "an intense desire to live to see the conclusion of the struggle," but could not conjecture "how peace and good neighborhood are ever to follow from this bitter hate." "It is delightful to see the gallantry of some of our men, who are repeating the heroic deeds that seemed fast receding to fabulous times." Some of these young heroes were very near to her. Maj. William ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... but, if the playwright was young and inexperienced, we can hardly wonder that his strength failed him at this supreme moment. Surely the wonder should rather be that we find so many noble passages throughout this anonymous play. Who the writer may have been I dare not conjecture. In his fine rhetorical power he resembles Chapman; but he had a far truer dramatic gift than that great but chaotic writer. He is never tiresome as Chapman is, who, when he has said a fine thing, seems often to set himself to undo the effect. His gorgeous imagination and his ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... says, with a grateful exultation, that Mrs. Eddy is enormously rich, but he stops there; as to whether any of the money goes to other charities or not, he is obliged to admit that he does not know. However, the Trust is composed of human beings; and this justifies the conjecture that if it had a charity on its list which it was proud of, we ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... impossible and unprecedented, the writer may mention that in the museum of the city of Mexico, he has seen the desiccated body of a young woman, which was found immured in the walls of a religious building. With it is the body of an infant. Although the exact cause of her execution remains a matter of conjecture, there can be no doubt as to the manner of her death, for in addition to other evidences, the marks of the rope with which her limbs were bound in life are still distinctly visible. Such in those days were the mercies ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... the trail of a drink, his voice held a most unctuous solicitude. He was exceedingly annoying to some people and was a source of constant delight to others. At one time he had formed the habit of being robbed, and later on he was drugged; but no one could conjecture what he would next add to his repertory. His troubles were amusing, his difficulties were humorous, his failures were laughable, and his sorrows were the cause for jest. He had a growing paunch, and when he stood he leaned back slightly ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... we call "Achter Col," there is a great deal of waste reedy land; the rest is full of trees, and in some places there is good soil, where the savages plant their maize, upon which they live, as well as by hunting. The other side of the same small river, according to conjecture, is about 20 to 23 leagues broad to the South River, in the neighborhood of the Sancicans, in so far as I have been able to make it out from the mouths of the savages; but as they live in a state of constant enmity with those tribes, the ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... things, having called a council, and summoned to it the centurions of all the companies, he severely reprimanded them, "particularly for supposing that it belonged to them to inquire or conjecture, either in what direction they were marching, or with what object. That Ariovistus, during his [Caesar's] consulship, had most anxiously sought after the friendship of the Roman people; why should any one judge that ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... varieties is partly due to such occasional and accidental crosses, and their fleeting existence to changes of fashion; or again, whether the varieties which arise after a long course of continued self-fertilisation are weakly and soon perish, I cannot even conjecture. It may, however, be noticed that several of Andrew Knight's varieties, which have endured longer than most kinds, were raised towards the close of the last century by artificial crosses; some of them, I believe, were ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... a-wooing 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 by the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... of the Caesars on the Palatine are a grandiose ruin that stirs the artist and makes the philosopher think; but if one sets himself to measure them, to conjecture from the remains the proportions of the entire edifices, he does not conjure up buildings that rival large modern constructions. The palace of Tiberius, for example, rose above a street only two metres wide—less than seven feet,—an alley like those where to-day in Italian cities live only ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... to him the Cinderella of the continents, the drudge with a destiny worthy of her charms and her good-temper. He is writing a monograph on the Song of Solomon, he tells me. He follows certain scholars in his conjecture that the Shulamite was given back to a humble shepherd by Solomon, when she had conquered the latter by the power of her impassioned chastity. But he has his own theory as well that the true lovers were both of African blood, that she came from the Ophir-land ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... legislation with regard to the regulation of business is now virtually complete. It has been put forth, as we intended, as a whole, and leaves no conjecture as to what is to follow. The road at last lies clear and firm before business. It is a road which it can travel without fear or embarrassment. It is the road to ungrudged, unclouded success. In it every honest man, every man who believes that the public interest is part of his ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... of peace and restraint has brought us to a position in which we can only assert our place among the Great Powers and secure the conditions of life for the future by the greatest expenditure of treasure and, so far as human conjecture can go, of blood. We shall be compelled, therefore, to adopt, without a moment's delay, special measures which will enable us to be more or less a match for our enemies—I mean accelerated ship-building and rapid increase of the army. We must ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... 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 ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... Benedictine's own conjecture and his mother's affection probably divined facts, which did not present themselves as thoughts in the ordinary way, but took ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... through tall wheat, past walls of Roman brickwork and scattering blocks of the older city, to the tomb of Leonidas. This is said to be a temple, tho there are traces of vaults and passages beneath the pavement which do not quite harmonize with such a conjecture. It is composed of huge blocks of breccia, some of them thirteen ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... force our marriage, it's likely to come to that, I think," I muttered. "I am totally at a loss. I know nothing. I can conjecture nothing. I have not seen her nor heard from her this past year; and now she will say nothing. I pressed her as much, I think, as a fellow decently could. If she had spoken clearly and definitely it would have been different. Whatever statement ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... pedlars?" she asked sharply. And that was all the conversation forthcoming. We began to think we might be pedlars after all. I never knew a population with so narrow a range of conjecture as the innkeepers of Pont-sur-Sambre. But manners and bearing have not a wider currency than bank-notes. You have only to get far enough out of your beat, and all your accomplished airs will go for nothing. These Hainaulters could see no difference between us and the average pedlar. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the money market become excited, under the idea that a change of importance is under discussion; and persons congregate about the doors of the Bank parlour to obtain the earliest intimation of the decision.' And he proceeds to conjecture that the knowledge of the impatience without must cause haste, if not impatience, within. That the decisions of such a court should be of incalculable importance is plainly ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... shifting from conjecture to everyday conditions, "have you thought over what I said to you about this ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... the suicidal tendency is dependent on heat; but June is not the hottest month, nor is December the coldest. Durkheim has tested this conjecture by comparing temperatures with suicides in France, Italy, and Prussia. He finds that, in all three of these countries, suicides reach their maximum in June and their minimum in December, while the temperature does not rise to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... loud baying of a dog sounded like music in his ear, it was during those brief moments, and as he sat there, longing to know what it meant, and whether his conjecture was right that the dog had scented him out, he faintly heard the gruff tones of a voice, and, hastily descending, he went down the slope and made ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... points of the compass; but of what practical avail was his knowledge? Whether he had wandered from the shanty to the north, south, east, or west, was only conjecture. How could that creek have led him astray? He must have crossed the rising ground separating two watersheds—that sloping towards his own lake and towards some other. There flowed the little stream noiselessly, sucked into the swampy cypress grove: of course it got out somewhere at ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... transferred from a show at a fair to Miss Philips warehouse, or whether she had picked them up accidentally, first one and then the other, guided by a fine sense of congruity, as she might match a wineglass or a tea-cup, must be left to conjecture. Certain they answered her purpose, as well as if they had been the size of Gog and Magog; were attentive to the customers, faithful to their employer, and crept about amongst the china as softly as ...
— Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman • Mary Russell Mitford
... their rooms did the girls a world of good, and when the lunch gong sounded they gathered about the table in something like their normal spirits. It is true that none ate very much, but tongues flew fast in comment and conjecture. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... him. More than once that day he went up to the crag and stood and stared futilely at the footprint. Conjecture had license and limitations, too. As the hours wore on he became harassed by the sense of espionage. He was a bold man before the foes he knew, but this idea of inimical lurking, of furtive scrutiny for unknown purposes, preyed ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... malevolence different in kind from the invisible existences that swarmed about him, and superior to them in power. He knew that it had uttered that hideous laugh. And now it seemed to be approaching him; from what direction he did not know—dared not conjecture. All his former fears were forgotten or merged in the gigantic terror that now held him in thrall. Apart from that, he had but one thought: to complete his written appeal to the benign powers who, traversing the haunted ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... respect to the several branches of the royal family have already been observed. To the people at large also, his instability on so momentous a point was harassing and alarming, and they became as much at a loss to conjecture what successor, as what religion, he would ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... had stumbled upon a spot that would have provided pleasure to a geological student. To him it was merely a source of wonder and awe. Some mighty upheaval of nature had created this, and he continued to gaze at it, his mind full of conjecture. ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... as Herbert rode up to her side, "for mercy sake tell me, before I go crazy with conjecture, how it happened that you dropped down from the sky at the very moment and on the very spot where you were needed? and where did you light ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... is generally supposed to be somewhat the later in date of the two most ancient Greek poems which are concerned with the events and consequences of the Trojan war. As to the actual history of that war, it may be said that nothing is known. We may conjecture that some contest between peoples of more or less kindred stocks, who occupied the isles and the eastern and western shores of the Aegean, left a strong impression on the popular fancy. Round the memories of this ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... a small crowd around the door of the "Lugger Inn" when we drove up. It appeared that the coroner had just arrived, and the inquest was to begin at once. Meanwhile, the folk were busy with conjecture. They made way, however, for my uncle, who, being on such occasions a person of no little importance, easily gained us entry into the Red Room where the inquiry was about to be held. As we stepped along the passage, the ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... immolated on the same altar. It has been suggested that some were taken by the spectators who thronged to witness the exhibitions, as manuscripts known to have belonged to this library were found—so the catalogue states—as remote as in a grocer's shop in Nova Scotia. It would be difficult to conjecture which would have caused the greater grief to Mr. Prince,—the desecration of the church, whose construction had been a daily delight, and where he had earnestly labored for so many years, or the sacrifice ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... "Your conjecture is entirely correct," said Adelaide. "She gave vent to her feelings on the subject in her mother's presence, supposing, I presume, as I did, that not being able to speak or move, she was also unable to hear or understand, but it was evident from the piteous expression her countenance ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... age when Sacheverel, with his rampant nonsense, had been a popular apostle, and Swift, with his pungent abominations, had been a church adviser of the cabinet, and when Hoadley was regarded alternately as a pillar and as a subverter of the faith, we may easily conjecture the national estimate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... now—an episode of one of my humdrum holidays in the green country, recalled quite naturally after all the years by our meeting a man who has been a blue-water sailor—this evening confabulation is a dark, inscrutable spot. And we may conjecture what we like. I have no difficulty in imagining that the woman—of forty, and the chief of the enterprise—must have raged at large. And perhaps the other did not rage enough. Youth feels deeply it is true, but it has not the same ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... communication. Bridges were rare. Up to the present time, we know of but one 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 ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... along at a terrible speed to certain death before the eyes of their terrorized and frantic parents. It was said at the depot that it was impossible to estimate the number whose lives were lost in the flood. It will simply be a matter of conjecture for several days as to who was lost and ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... that all our knowledge is conjecture does not simply mean that absolute and exact truth remains concealed from us; but is intended at the same time to encourage us to draw as near as possible to the eternal verity by ever truer conjectures. There ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... not be thought uncharitable, if I advance, by way of conjecture, that Mrs. Grizzle, on this grand occasion, summoned her whole exertion to play off the artillery of her charms on the single gentlemen who were invited to the entertainment; sure I am, she displayed ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... when he stood heedlessly on a ridge looking for a dozen head of lost horses in the draws below. It was all very well to explain missing horses by the conjecture that the Injuns must have got them, but Buddy happened to miss old Rattler with the others. Rattler had come north with the trail herd, and he was wise beyond the wisdom of most horses. He would drive cattle out of the brush without a rider to guide him, if only ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... watch practice enjoyed a sensation, for when the first team came trotting over from the gymnasium, a half-hour later because of a rigorous signal quiz, amongst them, dressed to play, was Don Gilbert! A buzz of surprise and conjecture travelled through the ranks of the shivering onlookers, that speedily gave place to satisfaction, and as Don, tossing aside his blanket, followed the first-string players into the field a small and enthusiastic First Form youth clapped ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... some thirty yards away. Idly he followed and soon recognized the figure as that of a woman hurrying fast. Why a woman should be crossing Nunsmere Common at four o'clock in the morning passed his power of conjecture. She was going neither to nor from the doctor, whose house lay behind the vicarage on the right. All at once her objective became clear to him. He thought of the splash of the stone. She was making straight for the pond. He hastened his pace, came up within a few yards of her and then ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... themselves, and having for the most part, although not all, yet the majority, avoided the (not) falling into ditches and the like incurably at least, came presently to the wooden fence, which I conjecture to be the wall meant by the Delphic oracle. It being then necessary either remaining on the hither side to be driven away from all hope of the prize or leaping to run risks concerning their lives, and the rest having leapt in such ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... moneyed man of oil, in the West African trade, might consider an undesirable acquaintance. But as time wore on, and Bertram's new clothes came home from the tailor's, it began to strike the Civil Servant's mind that the mysterious Alien, though he excited much comment and conjecture in Brackenhurst, was accepted on the whole by local society as rather an acquisition to its ranks than otherwise. He was well off: he was well dressed: he had no trade or profession: and Brackenhurst, undermanned, hailed him as a godsend ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... of Commons and in the country after the reassembling of Parliament, before the Government decide on entering upon the struggle which the carrying through of the measure might entail. It is quite impossible now to conjecture with certainty what that state of feeling and the general political circumstances at home and abroad may be at that time. Possibly the country may be more eager then for the measure—or the War may ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... loss of Cora! Not a girl to play pranks, in spite of some whispers about the hotel, those most concerned knew that Cora Kimball was at least being held a prisoner against her will somewhere; by whom, or with whom, no one could conjecture. ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... question which Basil and Lucien put to each other, not without some feelings of anxiety. Perhaps, thought they, Francois has sprung a deer, or trampled up a flock of turkeys? So the brothers were fain to conjecture; but their conjectures were soon ended by Francois himself, who was heard far off through the woods, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... beautiful pavement was discovered within a few yards of the front door of his parsonage, and appeared (from the site in full view of several hills upon which there had formerly been Roman encampments) as if it might have been the villa of the commander of the forces; at least such was Mrs. W.'s conjecture. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... are right in giving "now present" instead of "then present" as the rendering for [Greek: ton enestekota] (ver. 9). The Epistle alludes, so I should conjecture, to the period of its writing as a time when the sacrifices were still going on, albeit on the eve of cessation.—It seems best to read [Greek: kath' hen], not [Greek: kath' hon], in ver. 9; "in accordance ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... 3: After Christ's birth, to believe in Him, was to believe in Christ's birth at some time or other. The fixing of the time, wherein some were deceived was not due to their faith, but to a human conjecture. For it is possible for a believer to have a false opinion through a human conjecture, but it is quite impossible for a false opinion to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... and convenient place to both parties for this purpose appeared to be at the Trogilian port, near the tower called Galeagra. As they went there several times, one of the Romans, having a near view of the wall, and having determined its height, as nearly as it could be done by conjecture, from counting the stones, and by forming an estimate, in his own mind, what was the height of each stone in the face of the work; and having come to the conclusion that it was considerably lower than ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... among the groups lounging at the bar or in the neighbourhood of the station excitement and discussion ran high. The envelope addressed to Anderson, Anderson's own demeanour since his arrival on the scene—with the meaning of both conjecture ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bonefish, I actually hesitate to give my impressions. No one will ever believe how powerful a bonefish is until he has tried to stop the rush and heard the line snap. As for his cunning, it is utterly baffling. As for his biting, it is almost imperceptible. As for his tactics, they are beyond conjecture. ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... But I look at you, and I think to myself, thinks I, 'There is a man—or at least the semblance of a man,—a breathing thing at least, with anthropoid features and dimensions,—who is never, never, never tormented by the feeling—'Now, tell me, what feeling do you conjecture I mean?" ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... his informants were. [23] Where there was no reason for the suppression or misrepresentation of truth, Caesar's statements may be implicitly relied on. No man knew human nature better, or how to decide between conflicting assertions. He rarely indulges in conjecture, but in investigating the motives of his adversaries he is penetrating and unmerciful. At the commencement of the treatise on the civil war he gives his opinion as to the considerations that weighed with Lentulus, Cato, Scipio, and Pompey; and it is characteristic of the man that of all ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... assumption, assumed position, postulation, condition, presupposition, hypothesis, blue sky hypothesis, postulate, postulatum[Lat], theory; thesis, theorem; data; proposition, position; proposal &c. (plan) 626; presumption &c. (belief) 484; divination. conjecture; guess, guesswork, speculation; rough guess, shot, shot in the dark [coll.]; conjecturality[obs3]; surmise, suspicion, sneaking suspicion; estimate, approximation (nearness) 197. inkling, suggestion, hint, intimation, notion, impression; bare supposition, vague supposition, loose supposition, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Russian imperial throne vacated! Who is there to mount it? whom has the empress named as her successor? No one dared to speak of it; the question was read in all eyes, but no lips ventured to open for the utterance of an answer, as every conjecture, every expression, if unfounded and unfulfilled, would be construed into the crime of high-treason as soon as another than the one thus indicated should be called ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... his conjecture, for it was a quarter to nine ere Spigot appeared with the massive silver urn, followed by the train-band bold, bearing the heavy implements of breakfast. Then, though the young ladies were punctual, smiling, and affable as usual, Mrs. Jawleyford was absent, and she had the keys; ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... pursuit, if not of something sensual for himself, then of something evil in another. He would sit at his club, silent and watching, day after day, night after night, waiting for the chance that should cast light on some idea of detection, on some doubt, bewilderment, or conjecture. He would ask the farthest-off questions: who could tell what might send him into the track of discovery? He would give to the talk the strangest turns, laying trap after trap to ensnare the most miserable of facts, elevated into a desirable secret ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... evident that its spies were here even before the war began, and it is, unhappily, not a matter of conjecture, but a fact proved in our courts of justice, that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... whole problem solved. I have fancied that perhaps there was during long ages a small isolated continent in the S. Hemisphere which served as the birthplace of the higher plants—but this is a wretchedly poor conjecture. It is odd that Ball does not allude to the obvious fact that there must have been alpine plants before the Glacial period, many of which would have returned to the mountains after the Glacial period, when the climate again became warm. I always ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... landscape of the masses of ruins, surmounted by a single tall shaft, is often picturesque in the extreme. The proximity of the tower to the church is so common as to lead writers on Irish antiquities to conjecture that the former was constructed by the monks who built the church; those advocating the Christian origin of the round tower taking the ground that it was built, either as a place of safe-keeping for valuable ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... Therefore let the nativities of children be diligently observed for the future, that is to say, the day, hour, and minute of birth as near as can be, which will be of use to the astrological physician, for the most principal conjecture of the malignity of the disease, whether it be curable, or shall end with death, depends upon the knowledge of the nativity; and very rarely any disease invades a person, but some unfortunate direction of the luminaries or ascendant to the body, or beams of malignant ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... all in one, which was indeed the beginning of the invention in Syrinx, who was made into a pan-pipe, which as a piano became the great musical curse (according to Heine) of modern times, and by which, as I conjecture, the fair Miss Reed or Syrinx revenges herself on male humanity. By the way, the best singer of "Che faro senza Euridice" whom I ever heard was a Miss Reed, a sister of Mrs. ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... and sometimes you could catch the chanting of a little sweet song last sung in Rangoon or Swatow. One of these songs was once translated for me. I should take great delight in printing it here, but, alas! this, too, comes from a land where purity crusades are unknown. I dare not conjecture what Bayswater would do to me if I ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... been frequently asserted that all Caxton's books were printed in a part of Westminster Abbey; this must be mere conjecture, because we find no statement of it from himself: he first mentions the place of his printing in 1477, so that he must have printed some time without ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... of much research and conjecture, the origin of the Chinese people remains undetermined. We do not know who they were nor whence they came. Such evidence as there is points to their immigration from elsewhere; the Chinese themselves have a tradition of a Western origin. ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... dispositions, from a forgotten poem prefixed to the first edition of BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, entitled, 'The Author's Abstract of Melancholy; or, A Dialogue between Pleasure and Pain.' Here pain is melancholy. It was written, as I conjecture, about the year 1600. I will make no apology for abstracting and citing as much of this poem as will be sufficient to prove, to a discerning reader, how far it had taken possession of Milton's mind. The measure will appear to be the same; and that our author was at least an attentive reader ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... decanter and siphon of soda water on it, as though Sir Horace had served himself with refreshments on his return to the house. The tops of the other sideboards were bare, and the presses, use in such a room Rolfe was at a loss to conjecture, were locked up. The antique sombre uniformity of the furniture as a whole was broken at odd intervals by several articles of bizarre modernity, including a few daring French prints, which struck an odd note of incongruity in such ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... a hard shell, every human being is enclosed in a cover of body, dress, and life. Who is man? We may only conjecture. What constitutes his joy or his sorrow? We may guess only by his acts, which are oft-times enigmatic; by his laughter and by his tears, which are often entirely incomprehensible to us. And if we, Russians, who live so closely together in constant misery, understand ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... regarded it as by any means indispensable to those who were perfectly healthy, except during infancy and childhood. The following extract will give us—more than any other, perhaps—his real sentiments, though modestly expressed in the form of a conjecture, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... records a poet's defection from the cause of progress and liberty. Who this poet might be was for some time a matter of conjecture. Wordsworth, Southey, and Charles Kingsley, all of whom had gone from radicalism in their youth to conservatism in their old age, were severally proposed as the original of Browning's portrait. The poem was published in 1845, two years after Wordsworth was made ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... little of his human relationships is one of the blessed facts about him. That we conjecture much is the penalty a nation pays for failing to know her genius when ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... entered thus fully into what I conjecture to be the stages of this early discovery of the law of gravitation, as applicable to the heavenly bodies, because it is frequently and commonly misunderstood. It is sometimes thought that he discovered ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... no doubt that we are quite justified in assuming that evolution has followed the same general laws through the whole duration of life on earth. Only a moment of their lifetime is disclosed to us, but it [710] is quite sufficient to enable us to discern the laws and to conjecture the outlines of the ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... dedicated to Saint George was demolished by Edward the Fourth, its position and form cannot be clearly determined, But a conjecture has been hazarded that it occupied the same ground as the choir of the present chapel, and ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... remembered that these Ortega papers are in abstract only—apparently summarized for the use of the royal council by some clerk, who may have been more familiar with affairs in Nueva Espana than in the Philippines. La Havana is probably his error or conjecture ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... which he gives such well-deserved glory to Newton,[74] of not only accounting for phenomena, but also of measuring the quantity of forces. His conception, therefore, of future progress, however near conjecture may possibly have brought him to the truth, is yet no more than conjecture. The root of it is found in nothing more precise, definite, or quantified than a general notion gathered from history, that some portions of the race had made perceptible advances in freedom and enlightenment, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... proof that Inigo Jones's tomb now occupies its original site. The statement that Chapman was studied on the south side of the church is, I believe, mere conjecture. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... to identify the designers of even a selection of the best Printers' Marks would be but to embark on a wild sea of conjecture. The initials of the engravers, which occur much more frequently than those of the artists, are of very little assistance to the identification of the latter. Many of them possess a vigour and an originality which would at once stamp their designers as men of more than ordinary ability. For ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... commerce or politics to every other part, that it is impossible to meditate on any great and new country without seeking to interpret its tendencies by the experience of other countries, and to conjecture the role it will be called on to play in the world-drama of the centuries to come. I have sought, therefore, not only to make South Africa real to those who do not know it, and to give them the materials for understanding what passes there and following its fortunes with intelligence, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... appearing upon every occasion, can look with such an impartial eye upon himself, as to believe that the imputation thrown upon him is not altogether groundless and unfair? Who, if he were told by men of a discerning spirit and a strong conjecture, of all the evil and absurd things which that false heart of his would at one time or other betray him into, would not believe as little, and wonder as much, as Hazael did before him? Thus, for instance; tell an angry person ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... Cunyngham who fell on Flodden Field. It is true that at the present time he and she mingled in the same society; for he was the pet and plaything of the hour in the fashionable world; but he was not entirely blinded by that favor; he did not wholly mistake his position. And even supposing—a wild conjecture!—that she entertained an exceptional regard for him—that she could be induced to think of marrying him—would she be content that her husband remained on the stage and painted his face every evening and postured before ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... high, but well within 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 another ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... which must have been very numerous, are represented only by the noble structure at Trier (Treves), which is now a single vast hall 180 ft. long, 90 ft. wide and 100 ft. high, commanded at one end by a spacious apse. There is reason to conjecture that this is the basilica erected by Constantine, and some authorities believe that originally it had internal colonnades. In England basilicas remain in part at Silchester (fig. 7), Uriconium (Wroxeter), [v.03 p.0472] Chester (?) and Lincoln, while three others ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... immediately roused herself, and turned to Flora Mac-Ivor. But after a short conflict between his eager desire to believe she was in his neighbourhood, guarding, like an angel of mercy, the couch of his sickness, Waverley was compelled to conclude that his conjecture was altogether improbable; since, to suppose she had left the comparatively safe situation at Glennaquoich to descend into the Low Country, now the seat of civil war, and to inhabit such a lurking-place as this, was a thing hardly to be imagined. Yet his heart bounded as he ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... claimed as heir to his daughter Margaret.[*] Some of 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 ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... so, and believe so. Besides a thousand things concur to lead To this conjecture. In the first place, she Profess'd herself with child by Pamphilus: That proves a falsehood. Now that she perceives A nuptial preparation at our house, A maid's dispatch'd immediately to bring A midwife to her, and withal a child; You too they will ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... only conjecture what those questions might have been, for the director offered no explanation. And this circumstance recalled to mind his former impression of the complexity of the financial and political end of the construction. Warburton took him to dinner and later to a club, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... the future there may be a commercial industry in the north. For the present, however, I believe that conservatism is advisable, and that great harm may be done by misrepresentation. Sound growth of a northern nut industry will be built upon facts and honest experience and not on conjecture, hearsay, or even on enthusiasm, however necessary this may be. I believe that we should encourage people to plant nuts for pleasure, plant nuts as a hobby, plant them for shade and for posterity, but under present conditions ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... [236] Hence we may conjecture that the similar ornaments worn by Mabuiag girls in similar circumstances are also amulets. See above, p. 36. Among the aborigines of the Upper Yarra river in Victoria, a girl at puberty used to have cords tied very tightly round several parts ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... is a thousand to one but that the feeling of four red London walls closing around us for seven, eleven, or twenty-five years, would be a harsh and hard one, and make us cry wistfully to 'get out.' I am sure you will look up to your mountains, and down to your lakes, and enter into this conjecture. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... likely; On the whole, we are meant to look after ourselves; it is certain Each has to eat for himself, digest for himself, and in general Care for his own dear life, and see to his own preservation; Nature's intentions, in most things uncertain, in this are decisive; Which, on the whole, I conjecture the Romans will follow, and I shall. So we cling to our rocks like limpets; Ocean may bluster, Over and under and round us; we open our shells to imbibe our Nourishment, close them again, and are safe, fulfilling the purpose Nature intended,—a wise one, ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... reproached with the intention of removing the empire to Ilium or Alexandria. See Sueton. in Caesar. c. 79. According to the ingenious conjecture of Le Fevre and Dacier, the ode of the third book of Horace was intended to divert from the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... during which time some rain falling, brought down, with the drops, sulphur and dirt; which rendered white paper black, and when burned fizzed like wet gunpowder:[I] and whence such matter could originally be brought, appeared to be past all conjecture, unless it came so far off as from the ...
— Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times • Edward King
... The imprudence of leaving the door so that it could not be closed! He turned, and descended to meet them, his teeth set, his hand on his sword, one conjecture after another whirling in his brain. Was he beset? Was it a trap? Was it a rival? Was it chance? Two steps he descended; and then the voice he had heard before ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... should be eighty-two [3]. It is maintained by others that Tsze-sze's life was protracted beyond 100 years [4]. This variety of opinions simply shows that the point cannot be positively determined. To me it seems that the conjecture in the Sacrificial Canon must be pretty near the truth [5]. During the years of his boyhood, then, Tsze-sze must have been with his grandfather, and received his instructions. It is related, that one day, when he was alone with the sage, and heard him sighing, ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... beyond doubt that a fair percentage of people, sane and healthy, can see vivid landscapes, and figures of persons in motion, in glass balls and other vehicles. This faculty Dr. Parish attributes to 'dissociation,' practically to drowsiness. But he speaks by conjecture, and without having witnessed experiments, as will be shown later. I now offer a series of experiments with a glass ball, coming under my own observation, in which knowledge was apparently acquired in no ordinary way. Of the absence of fraud I am personally convinced, not only ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... part of the town. How much it might have been modified if he had known that the man whose face Miss Farnham had seen at the window was silently tracking him through the tree-shadowed streets is a matter for conjecture. Also, it is to be presumed that much, if not all, of the complacency would have vanished if he could have been an unseen listener in the Farnham sitting-room, dating from the time when little Miss Gilman pattered off to bed, leaving the father and daughter ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... could be determined and compared. Their recognised function, in fact, was that of milestones on the great celestial highway traversed by the planets, as well as on the byways of space occasionally pursued by comets. Not that curiosity as to their nature, and even conjecture as to their origin, were at any period absent. Both were from time to time powerfully stimulated by the appearance of startling novelties in a region described by philosophers as "incorruptible," or exempt from change. The catalogue of Hipparchus probably, and certainly that of Tycho Brahe, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... and published by him, there is a deep and wide opening, completely free from ice. In fact, on this occasion, as well as others of more consequence, to which we shall presently advert, Captain Ross, unfortunately for the accomplishment of the object on which he was sent, contented himself with conjecture where proof was accessible; for all he remarks respecting this sound is, that it seemed to be eighteen or twenty leagues in depth, and the land on the east side appeared to be habitable. When it is ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... not Waller, nor the gardener, for certain; but who it could be, in his excitement, he could not hazard a conjecture. He himself was fugitive and spy, and the only interpretation natural was that this man was hunting for him, ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... divine the cause of so unexpected a change were as vain as the questions I had first asked. Brigitte was ill, and remained obstinately silent. After an entire day passed in supplication and conjecture, I went out without knowing where I was going. Passing the Opera, I entered it from mere force ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... conjecture failed, and it seemed necessary to accept Toby's theory of the ruffians, magic, and the devil. Only one thing was certain: Penn was gone. And, as if to add to the extreme and painful perplexity of his friends, the clothes, which had been stripped from him by the lynchers, which he had brought ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... boats drew near Port Jackson, wore so unfavourable an appearance, that Captain Phillip's utmost expectation reached no farther than to find what Captain Cook, as he passed by, thought might be found, shelter for a boat. In this conjecture, however, he was most agreeably disappointed, by finding not only shelter for a boat, but a harbour capable of affording security to a much larger fleet than would probably ever seek for shelter or security in ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... over this ice, to which it was entirely confined, occasionally covering the top of the island with a dense cloud. The impression made upon our minds at the time was, that it was a frozen lake on which we were now looking; but this conjecture, as it afterward appeared, proved erroneous. The ravine at which we had arrived discharges its waters into a snug cove two or three miles deep, at the head of which we now proposed resting, if a place could be found at which our descent into the ravine could be effected. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... located himself with a young wife and child. And, as he very rarely made any allusions to his own personal affairs, every thing relating to his origin, life, and employments, previous to his appearance in this region, was a matter of mere conjecture, and many a dark surmise, also, we should add, respecting his true character. For the last few years, however, he was known to have followed, at the appropriate seasons of the year, the business of trapping, or trading for furs with the Indians, around the northern lakes. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... which his devotions have been equally divided between the sacred Emperor, his illustrious parents, and his venerable ancestors, the fault cannot lie with him. Of the excellence of his parents he has full knowledge; regarding the Emperor, it might not be safe to conjecture. It is therefore probable that some of his ancestors were persons of abandoned manner and inelegant habits, to worship whom results in evil rather than good. Otherwise, how could it be that one whose chief delight lies in the passive contemplation ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... we wrong in our conjecture, for the first things we came upon were four large dishes of metal, resembling gold; but as they had been rolled up like a scroll by some great force, we did not stop to unroll them to enquire of what metal they really were. ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... I am serious in my conjecture that "the meteor beard" of Hudibras might have given birth to the "Bard" of Gray? I reply, that the burlesque and the sublime are extremes, and extremes meet. How often does it merely depend on our own state of mind, and on our own taste, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... decided adversely, and it looks as if his decision was a wise one. It is interesting to conjecture what would have been his future position had he left college and accepted the school then offered him. He might still have been a teacher, well known and of high repute, but of fame merely local, and without a thought of the brilliant ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... of Miss W—- yet since I wrote to her, intimating that I would accept her offer. I cannot conjecture the reason of this long silence, unless some unforeseen impediment has occurred in concluding the bargain. Meantime, a plan has been suggested and approved by Mr. and Mrs. —- " (the father and mother of her pupils) "and others, which I wish now to impart to you. My friends ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... us now was whether this rock reef communicated sufficiently with the island for us to get to it. Abandoning conjecture; tying very firmly our canoe up to the rocks, a thing that seemed, considering she was jammed hard and immovable, a little unnecessary—but you can never be sufficiently careful in this matter with any kind of boat—off we started among the rock ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... from his private detective, and then got into his chaise, and turned Caustic's head in the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had been suspicious of Dick from the first. He did not like his mixed blood, not his looks, nor his ways. He had formed a conjecture about his projects early. He had made a shrewd guess as to the probable jealousy Dick would feel of the schoolmaster, had found out something of his movements, and had cautioned Mr. Bernard,—as we have seen. He felt an interest in the young man,—a student of his own ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... countenance, was evidently revolving some scheme of benevolence in his mind. The dandies regarded him with blank amazement. They also had seen the gold in the poor widow's hand, and seemed to think that there was more under that shabby surtout than their 'puppy brains' were able to conjecture. That in this they were right ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... published the Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. In the dedication of this novel he left a blank after the word Doctor, which may probably be supplied with the name of Armstrong. From certain phrases that occur in the more serious parts, I should conjecture them to be hastily translated from another language. Some of these shall be laid before the reader, that he may judge for himself. "A solemn profession, on which she reposed herself with the most ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... nothing could have touched it. The bell was then placed upon the other side, still upon the carpet, and it came over to me, and placed itself in my hand. It did the same to Lord Brougham. These were the principal experiments: we could give no explanation of them, and could not conjecture how they could be produced by any kind of mechanism.... We do not believe that it ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... insist on the charm of Herrick at his best—a charm so incomparable and so inimitable that even English poetry can boast of nothing quite like it or worthy to be named after it—the most appreciative reader will be the slowest to affirm or imagine that he can conjecture. This, however, he will hardly fail to remark: that Herrick, like most if not all other lyric poets, is not best known by his best work. If we may judge by frequency of quotation or of reference, the ballad of the ride from Ghent to Aix is a far more popular, more generally admired ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... a guess, I conjecture that Jasper had one of his "filmy" seizures, was "in a frightful sort of dream," and bungled the murder: made an incomplete job of it. Half-strangled men and women have often recovered. In Jasper's opium vision and reminiscence ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... making towards a burn which ran through the grounds before joining a small tributary of Tweed. At best speed mother and daughter followed the boy, who had halted excitedly by the burn side. But what the cause of his agitation might be they could not for the moment conjecture; certainly the burn had no apparent connection with hunting, nor indeed was there sign of horse or hound. What they found was something very different. A mile or so up the rivulet there was a farm-steading, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... as Christmas or Christmas dinners. Whether the turkey which Scrooge gave to Bob Cratchit had experienced a lovelier or more melancholy career than that of less attractive turkeys is a subject upon which I cannot even conjecture. But that Scrooge was better for giving the turkey and Cratchit happier for getting it I know as two facts, as I know that I have two feet. What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of Scrooge and the ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... I conjecture: de morte cognati adolescentis subito tacens tanti criminis descriptione destitit, ne tamen omnino desistere ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... de terciopelo morado con passamanos de oro que yo he visto." Ms. de Caravantes.] Pizarro was, probably, not far from sixty-five years of age at the time of his death; though this, it must be added, is but loose conjecture, since there exists no authentic record of the date of his birth. *20 He was never married; but by an Indian princess of the Inca blood, daughter of Atahuallpa and granddaughter of the great Huayna Capac, he had two children, a son and a daughter. Both survived him; but the son ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... pages, as scribbling paper. Six leaves, apparently blank, were torn out. Several pages are covered with mere vacant scrawling by my boyish hand; whether I threw it away in utter contempt, or concealed it back of the old chimney, in curious conjecture whether some unborn generations, would not at some distant day discover it, and puzzle over it, I cannot tell. I have no recollection of it whatever; except that I had a general impression that we used to have ...
— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman
... rather for the sifting of details than for the acquiring of fresh evidence. The tragedy has been so uncommon, so complete and of such personal importance to so many people, that we are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis. The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact—of absolute undeniable fact—from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... horse, and I found it necessary to instantly remove my glove to avoid blistering my hand. The frenzied floundering of my horse had in the first instance suggested to General Washburn the idea that the under stratum was hot enough to scald him. General Washburn was right in his conjecture. It is a fortunate circumstance that I to-day rode my light-weight pack horse; for, if I had ridden my heavy saddle horse, I think that the additional weight of his body would have broken the turf which held up the lighter animal, and that he would have ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... inside of the cottage, as I entered, confirmed me in the conjecture which the appearance of the outside had already given rise to, that it was not used for human residence, and that this man was only here for a rendezvous. Prolonged moisture had peeled the plaster in ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Harris claims (and Sir James Frazer seems to approve of the suggestion) that the Hebrew word duda-im was derived from dodim, "love"; and, on the strength of this derivation, he soars into a lofty flight of philological conjecture to transmute dodim, into Aphrodite, "love" into the "goddess of love". It would be an impertinence on my part to attempt to follow these excursions into unknown heights ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... conjecture. A fourth was started, and off went Pompo after him. In a few minutes the quick constant bark echoed back. This time we were sure, from the direction, in ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... the boat kept on her course until within half a length of the ship, then she ran quietly up on a flat rock some seven or eight inches under water. They could see now that the captain's conjecture was correct. The ship had broken her back, having, as she was carried in on the crest of a great wave, dropped on a sharp ledge of rocks about amidships. The sea had rushed in through the hole in her side, ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... is truly a matter of conjecture. The more you look at him the more uncertain you become. His droopy carriage and shriveled feature betray you at first sight. The first impression will lead one to believe that he is about one hundred years of age, and later it will appear that he ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... and I now perceived that about two hundred yards before me stood an iron gate and piers, without any hedge or wall on either side; before I could conjecture the meaning of so strange a thing in the midst of a large lawn, I saw the foremost horse, now two or three lengths before the other, still in advance of me, take two or three short strides, and fly about eight feet over a sunk fence—the second followed in the same style, the riders sitting as ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... while the other mourners, panic-struck at the extraordinary circumstances in which they found themselves, turned about and walked in mournful silence back, ruminating on the past with amazement, and full of conjecture for the future. ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... starving 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 in the great pagoda at Rangoon. In the Lahore museum there is a rich collection ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... as a hypothesis that Haeckel formulates his conjecture as to manner of the origin ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... COLLIER have both of them adopted Jackson's conjecture of unawares, and have admitted it to the honour of a place in the text, but MR. DYCE has pronounced it to be "villainous;" and it must be confessed that it has nothing but a slight similarity to the old word ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... said in such an ambiguous manner that it was impossible to conjecture whether he intended or not to act upon Dwyer's exhortation. The conclusion which appeared most natural, was by ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu |
