"Conjecture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who the dead stranger was, or could even form a conjecture. The pieces of wreck said ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Bangs responded only when he felt like it, and did not scruple to leave an observation, or even a question, permanently suspended in an embarrassing silence. Quin soon found it much more interesting to commune with himself. It was exciting to conjecture what was about to happen, and what effect it would have on his love affair. If he got a raise, would he be justified in putting his fate to the test? All spring he had fought the temptation of going to New York in the hope that by waiting ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... passionate loyalty of the British South African. It would be idle to discuss what might have happened had Mr. Kruger seized his opportunity and let in a considerable section of the then unenfranchised to strengthen the ranks of the Republican party; that can only be a matter of individual conjecture. What is certain, however, is that he did not do so and never intended to do so; wherein his lack of statesmanship ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... 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 ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... with a listlessness that silenced Larcher, who fell into conjecture of its cause. Was it the effect of many failures? Or had it some particular source? What part in its origin had been played by the woman to whose fickleness the man had briefly alluded? And, finally, had the story ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... what was the use of hazarding conjecture when they would soon know for certain? So they held their tongues and watched the approach of the boat with gloomy, louring glances. They were disappointed, and in a savage, dangerous mood, ready to plunge at a ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... I heard some conversation from people of all opinions, in the way of conjecture or inquiry as to whether the blacks would resort to force, but nothing in the way of advising ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... in the darkness. Mr. Damon fumbled at the lock of the door. The key grated as he turned it. The portal swung back, and Tom and his friend found themselves inside the shed which, of late, had been such an object of worry and conjecture to the young inventor. What would he ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... said Abbe was rather a coxcomb; he had a handsome face, and wrote poetry. Madame de Pompadour was the theme of his gallant verses. He sometimes received the compliments of his friends upon his success with a smile which left some room for conjecture, although he denied the thing in words. It was, for some time, reported at Court that she was in love with the Prince de Beauvau: he is a man distinguished for his gallantries, his air of rank and fashion, and his high play; he ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... church shoots up as brilliant, as aerial, as triumphant, as this is low and grave. Really, if one were to give way to conjecture, he might suppose that in these three sanctuaries the architect meant to represent the three worlds; below, the gloom of death and the horrors of the infernal tomb; in the middle, the impassioned anxiety of the beseeching Christian who strives and hopes in this world ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... the cause of so unexpected a change were as vain as the questions I had first asked. Brigitte was ill and obstinately remained silent. After an entire day passed in supplication and conjecture, I went out without knowing where I was going. Passing the Opera, I entered ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... striving for effect in decoration or construction, it looked like a work of Nature, accomplished without effort, and beautiful without design; and the mind brought under its influence, and left free of conjecture, was gently compelled to revel in the peace which harmonious surroundings insensibly produce. Disturbing thoughts vanished as being too common and mean, too human, for such a place, and the spirit was soothed with a sense of repose—of sensuous restfulness, really, for the pleasure, ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... fellow lodger, though there is room in his cabin for three birds at least. Where the female is I can only conjecture; maybe she is occupying a discarded last year's lodge, as I notice there are a good many new holes drilled in the trees every fall, though many of the old ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... hollowed something like a grocer's scoop; a three-pronged caltrop-looking bone, that seems to have formed part of a pelvic arch; another angular bone, much massier than the first, regarding the probable position of which I could not form a conjecture, but which some of my geological friends deem cerebral; an extremely dense bone, imperfect at each end, which presents the appearance of a cylinder slightly flattened; and various curious fragments, which, with what our Scotch museums ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... of indignant protest will avail to conceal the fact that we stand to-day at the porch, that much more probably we have already penetrated far into the vestibule, of a new age. What its character will be, or what its principal products, it is absolutely impossible for us as yet to conjecture. Meanwhile the Victorian Age recedes, and it loses size and lustre as we get further and further away from it. When what was called "Symbolism" began to act in urgent and direct reaction to the aims of those still in authority, the ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the audacious Effrontery of that request! But you—you grew suddenly gracious, And hid your sweet face on my breast. Why you did it I cannot conjecture; I surprised you, poor child, I dare say, Or perhaps—does the moonlight affect your ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... itself as years passed. Among his acquaintances his "Saturday to Monday visits" to continental cities remote or unremote were discussed with humour. Possibly, upon these discussions, were finally founded the rumours of which Dowson had heard but which she had impartially declined to "credit". Lively conjecture inevitably figured largely in their arguments and, when persons of unrestrained wit devote their attention to airy persiflage, much may be included in their points ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of the war in 705 interfered with Pompeius' general plan for the campaign, and particularly what part, in that plan was assigned after the loss of Italy to the important military corps in the west, can only be determined by conjecture. That Pompeius had the intention of coming by way of Africa and Mauretania to the aid of his army fighting in Spain, was simply a romantic, and beyond doubt altogether groundless, rumour circulating in the camp of Ilerda. It is much more likely that he still ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... /cast yourself in:/ throw yourself into a state of. In previous editions of Hudson's Shakespeare Jervis's conjecture 'case' for 'cast' was adopted. The change is unnecessary. Cf. Cymbeline, III, ii, 38: "Though forfeiters you cast ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... answered: "Sir, if your treasure inside the house is stolen by the crows, how do you expect those out of doors to be kept safe?" This was said with a certain intonation that made Somacuel conjecture that there was a ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... 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 who would have counted Warlock's ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... that the comet did not originate in our solar system has been verified, for we find that the globe of which it was once a part revolved around an immense sun which had a retinue of twenty- seven planets of various sizes. Whether this great sun is one of the stars of our firmament we can only conjecture; perhaps in some future state of ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... 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
... that dark and doleful day of Spain. Whether he went down amidst the storm of battle, and atoned for his sins and errors by a patriot grave, or whether he survived to repent of them in hermit exile, must remain matter of conjecture and dispute. The learned Archbishop Rodrigo, who has recorded the events of this disastrous field, affirms that Roderick fell beneath the vengeful blade of the traitor Julian, and thus expiated with his blood his crime against the hapless ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... their being overflowed. So numerous, indeed, are these embankments, and so far beyond the necessities or ability of such a population as the present, to erect, that they are by many of the inhabitants supposed to be natural mounds. This conjecture, however, Mr. Dobell was convinced was incorrect, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... admitted his guilt before the magistrate. If they had any reasonable doubt—and such a doubt might of course be raised by evidence of previous good character—they would of course give it to the defendant and acquit him, but such a doubt must be no mere whim, guess or conjecture that the defendant might not after all be guilty even if the evidence seemed so to demonstrate; it must be a substantial doubt based on the evidence and such a one as would influence them in the important matters of their own daily, domestic and business lives. That was all there was to it! ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... and all other rights due to the estate of a prince; with which dinner the ceremony ended, and every man returned home again. The pedigree of this usage is derived from so many descents of ages that the cause and author outreach the remembrance. Howbeit, these circumstances afford a conjecture that it should betoken royalties appertaining to the ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... suddenly, and again Jasper found himself in the dark, fully understanding now that he was a prisoner, but why, he could not form a conjecture. ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... in Don Bernardino's time is matter of conjecture. Perhaps it was not greatly different from some remote Spanish-American frontier towns some five-and-twenty years ago, save for the groups of Spanish soldiery, with their steel morions, trunk hose and ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... Maxwell and John Knox." The whole of this section indeed is written somewhat hastily, like a scroll-copy, probably by Richard Bannatyne, his Secretary, from dictation; but whether it was merely rewritten in 1571, or first added in that year to complete Book Fourth, must be left to conjecture. ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... as man had the idea of "making" things, he might conjecture as to a Maker of things which he himself had not made, and could not make. He would regard this unknown Maker as a "magnified non-natural man." These speculations appear to me to need less reflection than the long and complicated processes of thought by which Mr. Tylor believes, and probably ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... 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
... surrounded it were broken and gone; and 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 to Coldholme, by a field-path which my host ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... error: for it was my belief that those two notices were designed for two distinct scholars. Accordingly, I revised both passages, and found that I was right in my conjecture. The facts are these:—In the former of the references, "The Rev. John Taylor, D.D.," is pointed out. The other individual, of the same name, was John Taylor, LL.D., a native of Shrewsbury, and a pupil of Shrewsbury School: HIS latinity it is which Dr. Samuel Parr [ut ...
— Notes & Queries No. 29, Saturday, May 18, 1850 • Various
... good or bad, so in the life of Baree the beaver pond was largely an arbiter of destiny. Where he might have gone if he had not discovered it, and what might have happened to him, are matters of conjecture. But it held him. It began to take the place of the old windfall, and in the beavers themselves he found a companionship which made up, in a way, for his loss of the protection and friendship of ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... taken up their position, when, with the sound of hurrying footsteps, came a long-drawn, hissing sound through the air. Before they had time to even conjecture its cause, they saw a knife strike Abdu in the breast, and he fell to the ground with a moan, the weapon still quivering in his body with the ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... wild and desolate ocean and a voice from Forty-second Street! What manner of conjecture was this? I clasped my head in my hands and tried to think. Suddenly a memory came to me: ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... came long after, have long since perished, these ever remain, and in spite of the endeavours of many powerful kings who have a hundred times tried to destroy them, as their historians testify, and as it is easy to conjecture from the natural order of things during so long a space of years, they have nevertheless been preserved (and this preservation has been foretold); and extending from the earliest times to the latest, their history comprehends in its duration all our histories ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... line of foam that stretched out before us, which he fancied to be a channel between the rocks. A few desperate strokes brought us to the spot, when, to our unspeakable joy, we found it to answer the man's conjecture; but, so narrow was the passage, that the oars on both sides of the boat struck the rocks; a minute afterwards we found ourselves becalmed and in safety. The boat being moored, and the men ordered to watch by turns, we lay down to sleep, as ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... viceroy of Peru. *19 [Footnote 19: "Sus huesos encerrados en una caxa guarnecida 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 ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... reject, subject, project, objection, injection, dejected, conjecture, jet, jetty; (2) abject, traject, adjective, projectile, interjection, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... sudden gloom and confusion, had just looked up, unable to conjecture what was the matter. Brigson's crust caught him a sharp rap on the forehead ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... admonition and perhaps more punishment for his evil deeds. Charles was turned out of college the 7th of March, and I wrote on the week after to have him come directly home, but we have heard nothing from him since. Where he is we can form no conjecture. But probably he is five hundred miles distant without money and without friends. I leave you to conjecture the rest. Roswell is left alone at the age of fifteen to get along, if he is permitted to stay ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... of Salisbury, at Saltoun, Scott is not incorrect. He makes Morton, in danger of death, pray in the words of the Prayer Book, "a circumstance which so enraged his murderers that they determined to precipitate his fate." Dr. McCrie objects to this incident, which is merely borrowed, one may conjecture, from the death of Archbishop Sharpe. The assassins told the Archbishop that they would slay him. "Hereupon he began to think of death. But (here are just the words of the person who related the story) behold! God did not give him the grace to pray to Him without the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Another conjecture was that once the notorious Menyhart Orzo, who was supreme under King Rudolph in the castle, played a game of checkers with his neighbor, Boldizsar Zomolnoky. They commenced to play on a Monday and continued the game ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... revolutions of the globe have deposited in the polar regions. If the cedrela, instead of having been cast on the strand of Teneriffe, had been carried farther south, It would probably have made the whole tour of the Atlantic, and returned to its native soil with the general current of the tropics. This conjecture is supported by a fact of more ancient date, recorded in the history of the Canaries by the abbe Viera. In 1770, a small vessel laden with corn, and bound from the island of Lancerota, to Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe, was driven out to sea, while none of the crew were on board. The motion of the waters ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... intervention, and would demand his leadership in peace or war; but under no circumstances is his authority valid qua joint proprietorship. The consent of the numerous joint-owners is even under most favorable conditions a matter of conjecture. ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... planetary masses revolving at various distances round it, each again rotating on its own axis; and, finally, associated with some of these planets we have dark bodies of minor note—the moons. Whether the other fixed stars have similar planetary companions or not is to us a matter of pure conjecture, which may or may not enter into our conception of the universe. But probably every thoughtful person believes, with regard to those distant suns, that there is, in space, something besides our system on which ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... treatment of the character of the cup-bearer. Does he make it his chief care to enhance the character of the Queen? Note the new characters introduced,—Paulina, Antigonus, Autolycus, the clown (in place of the wife in Greene). Conjecture any reason for his different names. The introduction of Autolycus makes the play more amusing on the stage, but is his part as well planned as Capnio's for leading up to the denouement? Greene lets his mariners off alive after they set Fawnia afloat. Shakespeare wrecks his, and ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... merchants traded with the inhabitants of the Peninsula and that a very remote intercourse existed between these and Hindostan, and although there is no substantial proof, no analogies of language, customs or creed upon which to base such a conjecture, neither, as yet, has anything been proved to the contrary whilst many primeval superstitions prevalent amongst the Sakais are still to be found in other tribes living in proximity with believers ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls rise over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things. The men talk as cheerfully as ever; jests are bandied about freely this morning; but to me the cheer is somber ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... so far be only a matter of conjecture," her brother answered, with a shrug. "Of course they might have provided themselves with some sort of ladder, but there are no signs of it. And the height of the window in that top room is decidedly against ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... at the dresses of the two splendid ladies again—a point on which, having risked one conjecture, I think I may risk another. While she was looking at the ladies she was seeing Valentin de Bellegarde. He, at all events, was seeing her. He put down the roughly-besmeared canvas and addressed a little click with his tongue, accompanied ...
— The American • Henry James
... recalled his conjecture that Liputin knew not only more than we did about our affair, but something else which ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... indicates its Phoenician origin; Baal being the name under which they adored that luminary. It is also remarkable that Grian, which signifies the sun in Irish, resembles an epithet of Apollo given by Virgil,[145] who sometimes styles him Grynaeus. St. Patrick also confirms this conjecture, by condemning Sun-worship in his Confession, when he says: "All those who adore it shall descend into misery and punishment." If the well-known passage of Diodorus Siculus may be referred to Ireland, it affords another confirmation. ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... that, owing to all those differences I spoke of, they soon lost the common ground they had at first, and were unable to meet sanely and dispassionately. I fancy too—this is pure conjecture—that he had succeeded in driving Alima beyond her best judgment, her real conscience, and that after that her own sense of shame, the reaction of the thing, ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... moaned through the redwoods, the memory of his visit a whiff, sharp and strong, from the wild outer world. A week later, sea-hammered and bar-bound for that time, had arrived the revenue cutter Bear, and there had been a column of conjecture in the local paper, hints of a heavy landing of opium and of a vain quest for the mysterious schooner Halcyon. Only Fred and his mother, and the several house Indians, knew of the stiffened horse in the barn and of the devious way it was afterward ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... lagoon. His work continued to progress, and as page was 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
... a view of rejoining him anew, where his person should not be known. Jacopo forced his boat from among the crowd at the quay, and having entered the open space between the tiers, he lay on his oar, well knowing that he was watched, and that he would soon be followed. His conjecture was right, for in a few moments a gondola pulled swiftly to the side of his own, and two men in masks passed from the strange boat into that ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... exhibits a local of a very imposing, as well as extensive, appearance. From its extreme length,—which cannot be less than two hundred and thirty feet, as I should conjecture—it looks rather low. Yet the ceiling being arched, and tolerably well ornamented, the whole has a very harmonious appearance. In the centre is a cupola: of which the elder Restout, about ninety years ago, painted ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... John the Baptist divides itself into three distinct periods. Of the first we are told almost nothing, but we may conjecture much. We are told that he was in the deserts till his showing unto Israel. It was a period probably, in which, saddened by the hollowness of all life in Israel, and perplexed with the controversies ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... different; and when she asked 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
... not even conjecture who they were that occupied the little raft. They saw four human beings upon it; but the mist was still thick enough to hinder them from having a clear view of either their forms, faces, or features. Through the filmy atmosphere to recognise ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... 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
... 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
... appearance of Harold Beecham, would make quite a miniature sensation, and form food for no end of conjecture and chatter. In any company he was a distinguished-looking man, and particularly so among these hard-worked farmer-selectors, on whose careworn features the cruel effects of the drought were leaving additional lines of worry. I felt proud of my quondam sweetheart. There was ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... nothing revealed to us on the subject, all is left to conjecture. Whatever the cause was, we know it was a wise and a necessary one; and this appears to me to be the most plausible reason I can assign. Perhaps we may also trace a further purpose in their creation, in compelling by the terror they inspire the inferior animals to submit themselves to man, who is ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... (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 ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... rescued knight then raised the visor of his helmet, and a long white beard fell down upon his breast. The majesty and venerable air of this knight made Tristram suspect that it was none other than Arthur himself, and the prince confirmed his conjecture. Tristram would have knelt before him, but Arthur received him in his arms, and inquired his name and country; but Tristram declined to disclose them, on the plea that he was now on a quest requiring secrecy. At this ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... His eyes followed the more deliberate movements of the man, who slowly descended the broad steps, pausing when once on the gravelled walk to glance curiously back at the house. West thought his interest centred on the open window of the room he had occupied, but this was merely a conjecture, for the delay was but for a moment; shortly after Coolidge strolled on directly toward the summer-house, the blue smoke of the cigarette marking his progress. West stepped carelessly forth from the ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... soon revealed: every one had a conjecture and a commentary: gentlemen in wigs, and ladies powdered, patched, and sacked. Vavasour pondered somewhat dolefully on the anti-poetic spirit of the age; Coningsby hailed him as ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... other at another; but each being unwilling to express his wonder in the presence of his neighbours, they received the objects before them with quite an accustomed air; the lime-burner inwardly trying to conjecture what all this meant, and the dairyman musing that if Jim's business allowed him to accumulate at this rate, the sooner Margery became his wife the better. Margery retreated to the work-table, work-box, and tea-service, which she examined with ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... principal threads of that complicated intrigue which had just culminated in that robbery of twelve millions. But would he be able to make use of them? What were his designs, and his means of action? That is what Maxence could not in any way conjecture. ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... eloquent, but it was 'a priori reasoning, and conjecture versus evidence: yet the applause it met with showed one how happy is the orator 'qui hurle avec les loups.' Taking the scientific preacher's whole theory in theology and science, woman was high enough in creation to be the ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... figure moving through the darkness of the forest. At first, not disposed to fall in with a companion, he remained silent, lest the person, whoever he might be, should choose to enter into conversation with him; then not quite certain whether he was right in his conjecture—for upon casting a second glance upon the object which attracted him, he more than once discovered it to be some stunted trunk or fantastic tree—he became anxious to ascertain whether he was in reality, alone, or if some other midnight wanderer trod ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... that all the Ujiji Arabs who have any opinion on the subject, believe that all the water in the north, and all the water in the south, too, flows into Tanganyika, but where it then goes they have no conjecture. They assert, as a matter of fact, that Tanganyika, Usige water, and Loanda, are one and the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... this Session; all is conjecture and tobacco-smoke. What we know is, not the least effect, except an internal trouble, was produced on the royal mind by the St.-Mary-Axe Discovery. Some Question there might well be, inarticulately as yet, of Grumkow's fidelity, at least of his discretion; seeds of suspicion as ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... explanation of his knowledge of it by suggesting that he had 'come in upon them'; that is, upon the Council in their deliberations. But probably the rendering preferred in the text is preferable, and we are left to conjecture his source of information, as almost everything else about him. But it is more profitable to note how God works out His purposes and delivers His servants by 'natural' means, which yet are as truly divine working as was the sending ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence; and, before we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may, at least, be able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... suffered least. He felt about quickly for the searchlight as he lay on the floor. Before he could recover it the boys heard the outer door slam and knew that someone had passed out of the building after the sudden attack. Who it might have been they could only conjecture. ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... cause of his trembling, God had changed, or disarranged, or mutilated some particular organ in his body, but left the body whole as it was first created, merely adding a visible outward mark, such as the trembling. This conjecture of the fathers contains much probability, but it cannot be proved by any testimony of the Scriptures. The mark might have been of another kind. For instance, we observe in nearly all murderers an immediate ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... the old raja. In the above article, the latter seeks to identify Rajamora or Soliman with the Raxobago of San Agustin, and declares that Rajamatanda and Lacandola are identical. The confusion existing in later writers regarding these names is lacking in Morga, and Rizal's conjecture appears correct. ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... own power to farther or to impede; while, from the demeanour, and indeed the language, of Alice, he had but too much reason to apprehend that her father's favour could only be conciliated by something, on his own part, approaching to dereliction of principle. But by no conjecture which he could form, could he make the least guess concerning the nature of that compliance, of which Bridgenorth seemed desirous. He could not imagine, notwithstanding Alice had spoken of treachery, that ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... last have the same situation in Ptolemy, which is now given to the kingdom of Nubia, where there are certain Christians under the dominion of the great emperor of Ethiopia, called Prester John. From these towards the west was a great nation called Aphricerones, inhabiting, as far as we can conjecture, what is now called the Regnum Orguene, bordering on the eastern or interior parts of Guinea. From hence westwards and towards the north, are the kingdoms of Gambra and Budamel, not far from the river Senegal; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... he says "that after this confession is made, also the little children of about eight years or less should be admitted to the table of Him who says: 'Suffer the little children to come unto Me,'" (433.) The conjecture, therefore, that the tables of Confession and the Sacraments were not intended for children, but specifically for adults, is without foundation. In all its parts the Small Catechism was ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... on his breast are rent, and the action of the figures might suggest the idea of the scene between the Deity and Elijah at Horeb: but there is no suggestion of the past magnificent scenery,—of the wind, the earthquake, or the fire; so that the conjecture is good for very little. The painting is of small interest; the faces are vulgar, and the draperies have too much vapid historical dignity to ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... infinitely better than titled vagabonds of Norman blood. [Applause.] It is almost three centuries since a tiny vessel, not larger than a modern fishing-smack, turned her head to the sunset across an unknown sea, for the land of conjecture. The ship's company, composed of passengers from England, that wonderful nest of human wanderers, that splendid source of the best civilization of the world, cast anchor by chance in a noble bay for which they ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... to read them but to put them aside for him when he should return, because this man was likely to write confidentially about his own affairs. That's all Mr. Brand ever said to me about him—the only time he's ever mentioned the man's name. But I thought maybe—it was just my own conjecture, you know—that maybe this Gordon is some dissipated relative, some black sheep of his family, whom Mr. Brand is ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... the origin of these arts; all is conjecture. They doubtless had their beginning long before mention is made of them in history, but these crafts—spinning and weaving—modified and complicated by inventions and, in modern times transferred largely from man to machine, ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... pieces of wood and a little grass; they consist of a wall three feet high, in the form of a horseshoe, about three feet in diameter inside; the entrances of some had been closed with stones and afterwards partially opened, and I can only conjecture that, as the practice of carrying the bones of their deceased relatives prevails in this part of Australia, it is probable that these erections are used as temporary sepulchres. After crossing this stony ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... Lord Montague journeying northward to escort the Scottish delegates who were coming to York to make terms with Edward of York. Sir Ralph Percy was slain, exclaiming as he fell "I have saved the bird in my bosom"—that enigmatic sentence which has given rise to so much conjecture, but which is generally held to mean that he had saved his honour, by dying at last, after so many changes of front, in the service of that King and Queen to whom he originally owed allegiance. "Percy's Cross," marking the site of his death, may be seen by the side of the railway near Hedgeley ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... time. How his subsequent career might justify the hushed awe with which a proud senate received him if he had devoted himself to the broad and comprehensive questions of imperial jurisprudence, for which he seemed so eminently fitted, it would be idle now to conjecture. Certain it is that no act of his after life, varied and wonderful as it was, realised the promise of that glad and ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... of rodomontade, was an idle truism. The "greatest happiness principle" of the 1st of October is, in the phrase of the American newspapers, "important if true." But unhappily it is not true. It is not our business to conjecture what new maxim is to make the bones of sages and patriots stir on the 1st of December. We can only say that, unless it be something infinitely more ingenious than its two predecessors, we shall leave it unmolested. The Westminster Reviewer may, if he pleases, indulge ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... may be boyish and mischievous, but I acknowledge I have sometimes felt a pleasure in irritating, by the cast of a pebble, those who stretch forward to the full extent of the chain their open and frothy mouths against me. I shall seize upon this conjecture of yours, and say everything that comes into my head on the subject. Beside which, if any collateral thoughts should spring up, I may throw them in also; as you perceive I have frequently done in my Imaginary Conversations, and as we always do ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... seriously propose that a claim for pension should rest upon a conjecture as to what would have caused death if it had not occurred ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... the lawgiver; the happiness of man is the primary object of Nature: hence for youth, Pleasure; for old age, Repentance and Piety, the life hereafter being a respectable conjecture." ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... 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 ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... action occupied scarce a second of time. In the darkness, no one appeared to perceive it, except they were its perpetrators. No one seemed to hear that choking, gurgling cry that accompanied it; or if they did, it was only to shape a half conjecture, that some one of their companions was indulging in ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... Mosaic narrative five points which correspond in order and character to five points in the Geological record; and with reference to two, at least, of these points, we cannot imagine any cause for the coincidence in the shape of a fortunate conjecture, because, so far as we can tell, there was nothing apparent on the face of the earth to suggest to the mind of the writer the long past existence of such a state of things as has been revealed to us by the ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... approaches of the white horse and his rider were dreaded by the trained troops of Britain, and every wound inflicted by Hezekiah needed no repeating. But on reaching Cambridge, the regulars, greatly to their comfort, missed the old man and his horse. They comforted themselves by the conjecture that he had, at length, paid the forfeit of his temerity, and that his steed had gone home with a bloody bridle and an empty saddle. Not so.—Hezekiah had only lingered for a moment to aid in a plot which had been laid by Amni Cutter, for taking ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... they heard all the study-boys running down stairs to the library, and, lost in conjecture, retired to ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... them on their erudition. In fact, they all remained silent. Sully held his peace with the rest; but he looked so knowing, that the king turned towards him, and said:—"Great master! by your face I conjecture that you know more of this matter than you would have us believe. I pray you, and indeed I command, that you tell us what you think and what you know." The coy minister refused, as he says, out of mere politeness to his ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... ago our friend, Mr. Rose, favoured us with an entertaining but fragmentary sketch of the romance in the life of the former professor of this habitation. The few facts that we have learned seem to me to open up a fascinating field for conjecture, for the study of human hearts, for the exercise of the imagination—in short, for story-telling. Let us make use of the opportunity. Let each one of us relate his own version of the story of Redruth, the hermit, and his lady-love, beginning ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... had got another mistress. 2. The second observation is upon the name she assumes, Richard Carr. Commentators are much divided upon this head; why she chose that name in preference to any other. I must confess they talk rather silly on this topic; I conjecture the name was given here because it was a good rhyme to tar; this is no mean or inconsiderable reason, as the poets will all testify. But let the reader decide this at his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... Conjecture may indeed waste its liveliest ardors in seeking to determine what place this nineteenth century of ours will hold among the centuries which have preceded and are destined to follow it. But there is good reason to believe, after all, that in one way it will ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... ourselves, we hold the belief that the Man in the Iron Mask stood on the steps of the throne. Although the mystery cannot be said to be definitely cleared up, one thing stands out firmly established among the mass of conjecture we have collected together, and that is, that wherever the prisoner appeared he was ordered to wear a mask on pain of death. His features, therefore, might during half a century have brought about his recognition from one end of France to the other; ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... "You have no conjecture, then? I wish to find him, much, very much, but cannot put myself upon his trail. He is so what you call peculiar that he writes no letters, leaves no address, and roves here and there ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... another minute, and as he stood with hands clenched on the wheel a little puff of bitter spray splashed upon his oilskins. They had been over it all often before, weighing conjecture after conjecture, and had found nothing in any that might serve to guide them. Now, when winter was close at hand, they had leagues of surf-swept beach to search for three men who might have ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... again face to face with that evil—the lessening or the complete loss of womanly grace and purity. Take away that reverential regard which men now feel for them, leave them to win their way by sheer strength of body or mind, and the result is not difficult to conjecture. Let the condition of women in savage life tell. Towards something like this, although in civilised society not so coarsely and roughly exposed to view, matters would tend if these agitators for women's rights were successful. ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... now," he said, "and he sticks to his story. I fear, too, that I was wrong in my conjecture with regard to his madness. He must have had a temporary madness when he drew up and signed the false report. I suppose we ought ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... of most exciting conjecture what a small boy will do when he sees his father getting licked. If there is an axe handy he is liable to use it. The most cataclysmic catastrophe that cam come into his is to have a father whom some other ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... remarkable magnification, projected through space by some unknown and powerful agent, thousands of times more powerful than electricity as we know it upon Earth. That the shadow on the film had been that of a Martian, I dared not hope. Though my mind continually reverted to this wild conjecture, I impatiently put it aside, as the apparent impossibility of it all would force ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... years old, with a close-cropped beard and spectacles on his nose, and he carried himself heavily and ploddingly. Robin argued to himself that it must be a kindly man who would come out at this hour—perhaps the one hour he had to himself—to visit a poor dependant. Yet all this was sheer conjecture; and, as the old man came near, he saw there was something besides kindliness in the ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... was there found. And now I scrutinized, with a minute scrutiny, the forms, and the methods, and the leading traits of his impertinent supervision. But even here there was very little upon which to base a conjecture. It was noticeable, indeed, that, in no one of the multiplied instances in which he had of late crossed my path, had he so crossed it except to frustrate those schemes, or to disturb those actions, which, if fully ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... great, when, on opening the book, we discovered it to be an old nautical publication of the last century. The title-page was missing, but its contents were chiefly tables of logarithms. It was a thick royal quarto, which led us to conjecture that it was a journal; between the leaves we found a few loose papers of very little consequence indeed; one of them contained two or three observations on the height of the water in the Gambia; one was a tailor's bill on a Mr. Anderson; and another was addressed to Mr. Mungo Park, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various
... puffing violently on his inevitable cigar and toying with the letters and clippings. "We have already held up payment of the half-million dollars of insurance to the widow as long as we can consistently do so. But we must pay soon, scandal or not, unless we can get something more than mere conjecture." ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... away to the smiling dreamer, as the empire of Chaldaea passed to Darius the Median. Why visions so belying the gloomy and anxious thoughts that preceded them should visit the pillow of Randal Leslie, surpasses my philosophy to conjecture. He yielded, however, passively to their spell, and was startled to hear the clock strike eleven as he descended the stairs to breakfast. He was vexed at the lateness of the hour, for he had meant ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... know me," said Lacour, favoring the mistake; "though you have the advantage of me. I cannot possibly conjecture whom I ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... next? The documents do not say. They confine themselves to reporting that that very evening Francis had a vision which decided him to return to Assisi.[8] Perhaps it would not be far from the truth to conjecture that once fairly on the way the young nobles took their revenge on the son of Bernardone for his airs as of a future prince. At twenty years one hardly pardons things like these. If, as we are often assured, ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... languages are now known to improve in proportion to the improvement of society in civilization and intelligence, and as we cannot reasonably suppose the first inhabitants of the earth to have been savages, it seems, I think, a plausible conjecture, that the primeval tongue was at least sufficient for all the ordinary intercourse of civilized men, living in the simple manner ascribed to our early ancestors in Scripture; and that, in many instances, human speech subsequently declined far ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown |
