"Presumption" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... none of their business, at that. It would have been sheer presumption of them to have butted into any of the other affairs of his life: whether he was losing money or making money; whether he was going to England or to Spain, or going to remain where he was; whether he preferred chops for breakfast, or bread and coffee. Theoretically, then, it was sheer ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... very deep and abstruse: and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous. I pretend to no such advantage in the philosophy I am going to unfold, and would esteem it a strong presumption against it, were it ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... his 74 (I think the Wellesley) H.M. 40th regiment, from Mandivie, in Cutch, to Curachee, a fort on the westernmost branch of the Indus. On approaching the fort, the Beloochees who garrisoned it, taking it for a common free-trader, had the foolish presumption to fire into her; the admiral wore his vessel round, just gave one broadside, down came their fort in one second about their ears,—you may guess how it astonished them: they sent word to say that the English fire a lac of shot in one second. ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... and bloody, the surgeons of the hospital took possession of the same place as the most convenient for the first care of the wounded. Thus was this lady in hearing of one continued fire of cannon and musketry for some hours together, with the presumption, from the post of her husband at the head of the Grenadiers, that he was in the most exposed part of the action. She had three female companions—the Baroness of Reidesel, and the wives of two British officers, Major ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... who stuck very close to the world." The man Temporary who lived in a town two miles off from Honesty, and next door to Mr. Turnback; Formalist and Hypocrisy, who were "from the land of Vainglory, and were going for praise to Mount Sion"; Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, "fast asleep by the roadside with fetters on their heels," and their companions, Shortwind, Noheart, Lingerafterlust, and Sleepyhead, we know them all. "The young woman whose name was Dull" taxes our patience every day. Where is the town which does not contain Mrs. Timorous and her coterie ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... not only in scope and spirit, but in form. "It had excited in us apprehensions," wrote Madison to the United States minister in Paris, "which were repressed only by the inarticulate import of its articles, and the presumption that it would be executed in a sense not inconsistent with the respect due to the treaty between France and the United States." It bore, in fact, the impress of its author's mind, which, however replete with knowledge concerning conventional ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Greek mythology, daughter of Aeolus and wife of Ceyx. For their presumption in calling themselves Zeus and Hera they were changed into birds—Alcyone into a diver, Ceyx into a kingfisher. According to another story, Ceyx was drowned and his body cast on the shore. His wife found the body, and the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of substituting manners of my own invention, instead of the genuine costume of the East, almost every traveller I met who had extended his route beyond what was anciently called "The Grand Tour," had acquired a right, by ocular inspection, to chastise me for my presumption. Every member of the Travellers' Club who could pretend to have thrown his shoe over Edom was, by having done so, constituted my lawful critic and corrector. It occurred, therefore, that where the author of Anastasius, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... being very much in want of money, was furious when informed of the circumstance. He immediately despatched Councillor d'Assonleville with other commissioners on a special embassy to the Queen of England. His envoys were refused an audience, and the Duke was taxed with presumption in venturing, as if he had been a sovereign, to send a legation to a crowned head. No satisfaction was given to Alva, but a secret commissioner was despatched to Spain to discuss the subject there. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... She's a great fool. I've no faith in husbands. But one good thing is she ain't going to marry that Henry Jacobs of Markdale. He wants her bad enough. Just like his presumption,—thinking himself good enough for a King. His father is the worst man alive. He chased me off his place with his dog once. But I'll get even with ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Pyramids on the wall of mountains. One of them eminently has this Egyptian shape. It is as accurate a pyramid to the eye as any in the old valley of the Nile, and a good deal bigger than any of those hoary monuments of human presumption, of the impious tyranny of monarchs and priests, and of the appalling servility of the erecting multitude. Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh does not more finely resemble a sleeping lion than the huge mountain on the left of the Notch does an elephant, with his great, overgrown ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... below. Their neighbors below cannot obstruct a stream so as to flow back the water upon, or into, the land above; and where artificial water-courses, as ditches and drains have long been opened, the presumption would be that all persons benefitted by them, have the right to have ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... Apolog. c. 46. See Bayle, Dictionnaire, au mot Simonide. His remarks on the presumption of Tertullian are ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... terrific shout, and immediately after Peetoot performed a violent dance around her, expressive of unutterable joy, and finished off by suddenly seizing her in his arms, after which he fled, horrified at his own presumption. ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... with chagrin at her cool presumption—and would not for worlds have had her see how the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... concerned, I should think, from the very slight opportunity I have had of forming an opinion in regard to her, that she is not readily susceptible of morbific intrusions. Under an unusual exposure to exciting causes, the balance of health has been overcome. If my presumption is correct, we have the steady effort of nature, in co-operation with remedial agencies, working towards ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... ago, on the floor of the United States congress, decried as absurd settlement beyond the Missouri, ridiculed buying half a continent of worthless Northwest wilderness, thanked God for the Rocky mountain barrier to man's presumption, scouted at a possible wagon road, not to say railway, across the continent, lamented the unprofitable theft of California, and cursed the Alaska purchase as money worse than thrown away. In view of what has been and is, can anyone call it a Utopian dream to picture ...
— Some Cities and San Francisco and Resurgam • Hubert Howe Bancroft
... always more or less interwoven, must necessarily require a considerable amount of original speculation. To other originality than this, the present work lays no claim. In the existing state of the cultivation of the sciences, there would be a very strong presumption against any one who should imagine that he had effected a revolution in the theory of the investigation of truth, or added any fundamentally new process to the practice of it. The improvement which remains to be effected in the methods of philosophizing (and the author ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... it would be presumption to draw out our young troops into open ground against their superiors, both in numbers and discipline, I have never spared the spade ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... wee be most beloued. But how well the same is done, or how prayse worthy the translation I referre to the skilful, crauing no more prayse, than they shall attribute and giue. To nothing do I aspyre by this my presumption (righte honourable) but cherefull acceptation at your handes: desirous hereby to shew my selfe studious of a frend of so noble vocation. And where greater thinges cannot be done, these small I ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... species, both perfectly fertile severally, produce on crossing a sterile progeny, there is a presumption that the sterility is due to the development in the hybrid of some substance which can only be formed by the meeting of two complementary factors. That some such account is correct in essence may be inferred from the well-known observation that if the hybrid is not totally sterile ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... church, the latter itself has been curtailed; but as it was necessary to reconstruct some sort of entrance, one architect closed the nave by a facade in Greek style; then, perhaps, feeling remorseful, or desiring (a presumption which will be accepted more readily), to embellish his work still further, he afterwards added some columns "which imitate fairly well the architecture of the eleventh century," says the notice. Let us be silent and bow our heads. ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... Virginia, under which this Convention is called, were adopted on the 19th of January last. The resolutions of Kentucky to which I have referred were adopted on the 25th of the same month. It is not only the necessary presumption that the latter were passed with a full knowledge of the action of Virginia, but I understand from their reading that they were adopted in consequence of the proposition of the latter State. I am disposed to favor the line of policy ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... world's laws, defied every foe save him who now rises before me. Yet, believe me, believe me, had I won what I dared to aspire to, you would not have been disgraced by your choice; and the name, for which I thank not my father, should not have been despised by the woman who pardoned my presumption, nor by the man who now tramples on my anguish and curses me ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of German vessels of war should act upon the presumption that the flag of the United States was not being used in good faith and should destroy on the high seas an American or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the Government of ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... passed by Congress, securing to actual settlers a quarter section of the public lands, at twenty-five cents per acre, which was vetoed by Mr. Buchanan. The veto message says: 'The Secretary of the Interior estimated the revenue from the public lands for the nest fiscal year at $4,000,000, on the presumption that the present land system would remain unchanged. Should this bill become a law, he does not believe that $1,000,000 will be derived from this source.' It would thus seem that Jacob Thompson, then Secretary of the Interior, was permitted ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... plantations, they shirked the future and looked only to the "ignorant present," and their policy in South Africa was based upon two principles: that on no account must the boundaries of the Empire be enlarged and new responsibilities incurred, and that in all quarrels between white man and black man the presumption was that the white ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... Thackeray's sensitive nature as revealed through all available means: he conveys the impression of a suppressed sentimentalist, even in his satire. And this establishes a presumption that the same man is to be discovered in the novels, the work being an unconscious revelation of the worker. The characteristic books are of satirical bent, that must be granted: Thackeray's purpose, avowed and implicit in the stories, is that of a Juvenal castigating with a smiling mouth the ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... this by seizing his hand with both of hers. She dropped it again at once, as if guilty of presumption, and stood with her head bent. Hilary, looking down on the little hat which, by his special wish, contained no feathers, felt a lump ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I said, "and without undue presumption, I think I may say that I am worthy of a woman's love. Naturally, after your convincing me that you think differently, I feel humiliated and indignant. Do you know what effect such feelings have on ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... For this is the first time that ever I heard of Mlle. de Caprara. But I am very sure that you draw your inference amiss. You sit in judgment on the King, not knowing him. You push aside the firm trust of us who know him as a thing of no account. And because once, in a mood of remorse at my own presumption, I ascribed one trivial exploit—at the best a success of muscle and not brain—to the King which was not his, you strip him of all merit on the instant." He saw that her face flushed. Here, at all events, he had hit the mark, and he cried out with ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... my presumption," suddenly said M. Leminof, underscoring, so to speak, every word, "I passed LAST NIGHT [and he put a wide space between these two words] in pleading against you the cause of my Slavonians. My arguments seemed to me irresistible. I beat you all hollow. ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... years quite satisfactory. These facts speak loudly in favor of drainage in general. The fact that shoal drains produce results so striking, is a stumbling-block in the progress of a more thorough system. It may seem like presumption to say to those to whom we are so much indebted for their public spirit, as well as private enterprise, that they have not drained deep enough for the greatest advantage in the end. It would seem that they should know their own farms and their own results better ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... among the emigrants themselves; and men, who together had deserted the fire-sides of their forefathers in quest of religious peace, were ere long seen separating their fortunes, in order that each might enjoy, unmolested, those peculiar shades of faith, which all had the presumption, no less than the folly, to believe were necessary to propitiate the omnipotent and merciful father of the universe. If our task were one of theology, a wholesome moral on the vanity, no less than on the absurdity of the race, might be ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Now while he would have been perfectly justified, they said, in asserting that he saw no truth in the things he denied, was he justifiable in concluding that his not seeing a thing was a proof of its non-existence—anything more, in fact, than a presumption against its existence? or in denouncing every man who said he believed this or that which Bascombe did not believe, as either a knave or a fool, if not both in one? He would, they said, judge anybody—a Shakespeare, a ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... that day. It was wrong of me to say it. Yet it was just what ye might have expected from me. But ye'd been so fine to me—a little nobody—all that wonderful month that it's hurt me ever since. And I didn't dare write to ye—it would have looked like presumption from me. But now that ye've come here—ye've found me out and I want to ask yer pardon—an' I want to ask ye not to be ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... a little strange," he said; "but I know I may place implicit reliance on your lordship's word, and proceed in a matter where I own my heart is deeply engaged, without the risk of calling upon myself a charge of gross presumption." ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... considered that there was much room for improvement before she became a worthy member of St. Chad's. The monitress had no sympathy with lawlessness, and preferred girls who upheld the school rules, instead of breaking them. Undue exuberance of spirits during a first term was in her eyes presumption, and not to be countenanced by a monitress who did ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... and she's clever, and she's made fools of better men than you, my boy. I don't say she's a bad lot, because she's too smart for that. But I will say that a dozen men are in love with her to-day. I suppose you'll say that she can't help that. I'm only warning you on the presumption that they don't seem to be able to help it, either. Remember, my boy, you are going out there to offset, not ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... little volume, the views which I now entertain in regard to the claims of foreign lands. To you, my beloved classmates, the book is specially addressed; and if I use a frankness and freedom, which might possibly be construed into presumption, if I were addressing strangers and elder brethren, I am sure that I shall fall under no such imputation when communicating my thoughts to you. I wish to express my thoughts familiarly, as we used to do to each other, and at ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... ever since Bonaparte was made First Consul, have maintained a great ascendency over him, is the present Grand Marshal of his Court, the general of division, Duroc. With some parts, but greater presumption, this young man is destined by his master to occupy the most confidential places near his person; and to his care are entrusted the most difficult and secret missions at foreign Courts. When he is absent from France, the liberty ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... it presumption? But Mrs. Featherstone (you've met her once or twice at our house, you know)—Mrs. Featherstone would not hear of my refusing. Mark, I believe, thinks the part hardly suited to me, but I mean to try and astonish him, even though I may not carry out his ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... myself competent to effect so much, and I am more conscious than my critics how far I fall short of my high aim; but the modest attempt, made with the resolution to accept all criticism offered with courtesy and good faith, does not imply culpable presumption nor excessive vanity. ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... knew that I recognize a tendency to rhyming as a common form of mental weakness, and the publication of a thin volume of verse as prima facie evidence of ambitious mediocrity, if not inferiority. Of course there are exceptions to this rule of judgment, but I maintain that the presumption is always against the rhymester as compared with the less pretentious persons about him or her, busy with some useful calling,—too busy to be tagging rhymed commonplaces together. Just now there seems to be an epidemic of rhyming as bad as the dancing mania, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... trilemma,—that there is an union and interaction of two totally distinct substances, or that matter is but thought, or that thought is but matter,—one of which must be true, and all of which approach as near to the mutual contradictions as can well be conceived,—for the very purpose of rebuking the presumption of man, and of teaching him humility; that He had left these obscurities at the very threshold—nay, within the very mansion of the mind itself,—for the express purpose of deterring man from playing ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... that she had made up her mind to leave Lord Blackadder; more, that she meant to elope with Major Forrester. It was said, but not so positively, that she had met him at Victoria Station; they were seen there together, had travelled by the same train, and there was a strong presumption that they had arrived together at Brighton; one or two railway officials deposed ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... infected with the theories which conducted to their ruin. Knowledge, which in the two last centuries either did not exist at all, or existed solidly on right principles and in chosen hands, was now diffused, weakened, and perverted. General wealth loosened morals, relaxed vigilance, and increased presumption. Men of talent began to compare, in the partition of the common stock of public prosperity, the proportions of the dividends with the merits of the claimants. As usual, they found their portion not equal to their estimate (or perhaps to the public ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... him when he stepped forward had subsided, "for the oath you have sworn to be faithful to me. I pretend not to more wisdom than others, and feel that in the presence of one so full of years and experience as Aska it is a presumption for one of my age to give an opinion; but in one respect I know that I am more fitted than others to lead you. I have studied the records of the Romans, of their wars with the Gauls and other peoples, and I know that their greatest trouble was ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... part or organ developed in a remarkable degree or manner in a species, the fair presumption is that it is of high importance to that species: nevertheless it is in this case eminently liable to variation. Why should this be so? On the view that each species has been independently created, ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... rabbi. "Have not his pride and presumption deserted him even as he hangs helpless on the cross?" And they ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... dignity, a delightful grotesqueness, which make the picture a thing of close truth as well as of fine decorum. You might kiss their hands, but you certainly would think twice before pinching their cheeks—provocative as they are of this tribute of admiration—and would altogether lack presumption to lift them off the ground or the higher level or dais on which they stand so sturdily planted by right of birth. There is something inimitable in the paternal gallantry with which the painter has touched off the young lady. She was a princess, yet she ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... slightest degree useful to you pray command my services. I know the responsibility which you must feel at being left in charge of those two noble boys and your charming little daughter must be well nigh overwhelming, and if you would not think it presumption I would say that any poor advice or opinion which I, who call myself in some degree a man of the world, can give, will be always at ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... pride on our souls? A. Pride begets in our souls sinful ambition, vainglory, presumption ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 3 (of 4) • Anonymous
... Newhaven in the small drawing room, he sat down and talked to them. This was too much for Trix; she had treated him very kindly and had allowed him to amuse her; but it was impossible to put up with presumption of that kind. Difficult as it was to discourage Mr. Ives, she did it, and he went away with a disconsolate, puzzled expression. At the last moment, however, Trix so far relented as to express a hope that he was coming to tennis to-morrow, ...
— Frivolous Cupid • Anthony Hope
... in his presumption challenged the Muses to a trial of skill, and being overcome in the contest was deprived by them of his sight. Milton alludes to him with other blind bards, when speaking of his own blindness ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... to the Greeks with the sons of Priam (to whom he was high priest), and was afterwards rewarded in Greece. Cassandra, daughter of king Priam, every day foretold the overthrow of the city; but the pride and presumption of the Trojans prevented them from believing her word. Even on the very night that the city was betrayed, she clearly described the treachery and ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis
... attacks on his work, which were then in the ascendant. In the case of many of those pitiful botches one was, in fact, quite at a loss whether more to lament the want of understanding and judgment they showed or to give the greater vent to the indignation one could not but feel at the arrogance and presumption of those miserable scribblers who pooh-poohed Darwin's ideas and bespattered his character. I had then, as on later occasions, repeatedly expressed my just scorn of the contemptible clan. Darwin smiled ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... proof that women have muscle, mind, and soul, as well as men; but it is no proof that they have had, or should have, the same kind of training; nor is it any proof that they are destined for the same career as men. The presumption is, that if woman, subjected to a masculine training, arranged for the development of a masculine organization, can equal man, she ought to excel him if educated by a feminine training, arranged to develop a feminine organization. Indeed, I have somewhere encountered ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... invalid. This godly old man, at once his schoolmaster and his patient, sounded him whether he wished to be ordained priest. When he learned that, as far as lay in Hugh he desired nothing more, he was greatly shocked, and reduced his nurse-pupil to tears by scolding him for presumption; but he presently raised him from his knees and prophesied that he would soon be a priest and some day a bishop. Hugh was soon after this ordained priest, and was distinguished for the great fervour of his behaviour in celebrating the Mass "as if he handled a visible Lord Saviour"—a touching ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... stringing the bow. His request was greeted with a loud cry of contempt and indignation from all the wooers; and Antinous especially was highly incensed, threatening him with dire pains and penalties for his presumption. Hereupon Penelope interposed, and rebuked Antinous for his violence. "Why should not the stranger try his skill with the rest?" asked she. "Thinkest thou that the poor man will win me for his wife if he succeeds? Sure I am that he is not so foolish as to ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... 387.).—The following extract from an Italian newspaper raises a considerable presumption that this word is not now considered in Italy as an Italian one; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... man a coxcomb; a character which, once acquired, is more indelible than that of the priesthood. It is not to be imagined by how many different ways vanity defeats its own purposes. One man decides peremptorily upon every subject, betrays his ignorance upon many, and shows a disgusting presumption upon the rest. Another desires to appear successful among the women; he hints at the encouragement he has received, from those of the most distinguished rank and beauty, and intimates a particular connection with some one; if it is true, it is ungenerous; if false, it is ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... however, affords no ground for mitigation of judgment; and the kindliness with which Mr. Darwin speaks of his assailant, Bishop Wilberforce, is so striking an exemplification of his singular gentleness and modesty, that it rather increases one's indignation against the presumption ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... acquitted of presumption if I say that I cannot agree with Mr. Malone, that our ancestors did not perceive the ludicrous in these things, or that they paid no separate attention to the serious and comic parts. Indeed his own statement contradicts it. For what purpose ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... Madonna of the Palazzo Rezzonico," he commanded, quite as if Vittorio had been his own gondolier. It crossed his mind that he ought to apologise for his presumption, but he was not in the ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... eleming, Grove's fish do. But they might be red herrings for any notice as you take of 'em. You're not yourself, Mr. Douglas, that's what it is. You're ill, Mr. Douglas, and you ought to see a doctor. Excuse my presumption, sir, in making these remarks; but if an old family servant that has nursed you on his knees ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and having thus committed herself, plunged in. "Why don't you give Joe the chance he really wants? You have a lot of land here that is not being developed at all. Give Joe the chance to work it out—some of it, at least, on shares." She paused, breathless, and looked up timidly to see how her presumption fared. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Hopkins may have journeyed to Stowmarket. We do not know how many servants of the evil one he discovered here; but, as he was paid twenty-three pounds[59] for his services, and had received but six pounds in Aldeburgh, the presumption is that his work here was very fruitful ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... disobey? Now hear me— An thou but touch the lips of my beloved, Sweet as the opening blossom, whence I quaffed In happier days love's nectar, I will place thee Within the hollow of yon lotus cup, And there imprison thee for thy presumption. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... monsters stood eyeing each other, while the rage of an instinctive hatred mounted slowly in their sluggish brains. To the King Dinosaur, this stranger was a trespasser on his domain, where no other creatures, unless of his own kind, had ever before had the presumption to confront him. The suddenness of the black apparition, also, exasperated him; and he loathed at once the sickly sour smell, so unlike the pungent muskiness of his own kindred, which now for the first ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to eradicate them. It could only sadden the heart of the Chief Pastor to see the power which ruled in his country and in his stead laboring so strenuously but ineffectually to demolish the edifice of the church, which, for so many ages, had been assailed in vain. It was the height of presumption, surely, when a few modern Italians, a miserable minority of their own nation, undertook a task which defied all the power of Imperial Rome. In a country where liberty is better understood, a powerful voice was raised in condemnation ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... to the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, encourage the presumption, that conduct, as prudent and advantageous as it is just and wise, will soon bring the allies to a happy conclusion of the present war. The British Minister showed a peaceable disposition; he had ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... She looked upon his favorite art of painting as a pastime for amateur and a branch of the house-furnishing trade for professional artists. When he was discussing it among his friends, she would offer her opinion with a presumption which was the more trying as she frequently blundered upon a sound conclusion whilst he was reasoning his way to a hollow one with his utmost subtlety and seriousness. On such occasions his disgust did not trouble her in the least; she triumphed in it. She had ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... made. The story is, that Jupiter made her, and sent her to Prometheus and his brother, to punish them for their presumption in stealing fire from heaven; and man, for accepting the gift. The first woman was named Pandora. She was made in heaven, every god contributing something to perfect her. Venus gave her beauty, Mercury persuasion, Apollo music. Thus equipped, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... at that time, but which expresses also what might be expected of that portion of the future which was more immediately at hand. When Miriam and Aaron said, "Doth the Lord indeed speak only by Moses, doth He not speak by us also?" the Lord immediately, Num. xii. 6-8, reproves their presumption of thinking themselves like unto Moses, as respects the prophetical gift, in these words: "If some one be your prophet,"—i.e., if some one be a prophet according to your way, with prophets of your class,—"I, the Lord, make myself known unto him in a vision, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... would not track, for he was no assassin; but he knew that he would do if he were, and careless. The answer leaped to his suspicious mind like a flash, and he did not care to waste any time in trying to determine whether or not Elkins was capable of such a trick. He acted on the presumption that the trail had been made plain for a good reason, and that not far ahead at some suitable place,—and there were any number of such within a hundred yards,—the maker of the plain trail lay in wait. Smiling savagely he worked backward and turning, struck off in a circle. He ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... Deans had something of a prejudice against Butler, which was, perhaps, in some degree owing to his possessing a sort of consciousness that the poor usher looked with eyes of affection upon his eldest daughter. This, in David's eyes, was a sin of presumption, even although it should not be followed by any overt act, or actual proposal. But the lively interest which Butler had displayed in his distresses, since Jeanie set forth on her London expedition, and which, therefore, he ascribed ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... last-named seems to be of different opinion. In his article, 'My Reply to Mr. Darwin,' published in the March number of the 'Deutsche Rundschau,' he thinks it necessary to read me a severe lecture on my presumption, although he also flatters me by the hint that my custom of criticising the most eminent men only is appreciated, and those whom I criticise feel honored ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... abruptly to the table. His own eyes were wet. These were not idle words that Jason used, or words spoken without a full realisation of their meaning. Jason was offering, and calling it presumption to do so, his life in place of his, Jimmie Dale's, if by so doing he could shield the master ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Mirah's longing roused his mind to a closer survey of details, very disagreeable images urged themselves of what it might be to find out this middle-aged Jewess and her son. To be sure, there was the exquisite refinement and charm of the creature herself to make a presumption in favor of her immediate kindred, but—he must wait to know more: perhaps through Mrs. Meyrick he might gather some guiding hints from Mirah's own lips. Her voice, her accent, her looks—all the sweet purity that clothed her as with a consecrating garment made him shrink the more from giving ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... not presumption and folly on your part to think that there is no danger, when the Church of Rome tells you positively that there is danger, and uses the strongest terms in expressing her uneasiness ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... January 2001, Bosnia and Herzegovina does not have a permanent election law; a draft law specifies four-year terms for the state and first-order administrative division entity legislatures; officials elected in 2000 were elected to two-year terms on the presumption that a permanent law would be ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... stopt him there, and bid him not go on; 'Twas merit, he said, and not presumption, Must carry it; at which Ben turned about, And in great choler offered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... way fulfilled the duties of politeness, we can speak our opinions to our listeners when we find an opportunity without a sign of presumption or opinionatedness. Above all things we should avoid often talking of ourselves and giving ourselves as an example; nothing is more tiresome than a man who quotes ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... vain blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt that Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously anticipated him, and presumed to be wiser than he. Inappeasably indignant with her for her triumphant discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he turned this presumption, on the part of a woman in her dependent position, over and over in his mind, until it accumulated with turning like a great snowball. At last he made the discovery that to discharge this highly connected female ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... should not be allowed by Prussia to invade Holland, and that the French garrison in the fortress of Hameln, now compassed about by Prussians, should be provisioned. To both of these requests Haugwitz assented, and pledged the word of his King, an act of presumption which ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... adunco'; that is, to laugh with a crooked nose. She may laugh at you in the manner of the ancients if she thinks fit. But now I come to the most extraordinary of all extraordinary propositions, which is, to take your and your sister's advice in playing at loo. The presumption of the offer raises my indignation beyond the bounds of prose; it inspires me at once with verse and resentment. I take advice! and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... life. In the light of this remark, I shall therefore not hesitate to offer a few suggestions respecting the criterion of human knowledge, undiscouraged by the fact that so many of the ablest men have turned their attention to it. In this there might seem to be presumption, were it not that the advance of the sciences, and especially of human physiology has brought us to a more elevated point of view, and enabled us to see the state of things much more distinctly than was possible for ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... (he said) to be obliged to such a presumption as to name my family in the same leaf with your lordship's; but my father had the honour in one instance to resemble you, for he was a younger brother. He did not indeed think it a happiness to bury his elder brother, though he had one, who wanted some of those good qualities which yours ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... humble student of the present and the past. Here we are only concerned to ask how far the uniformity, the universality, and the permanence of a belief in magic, compared with the endless variety and the shifting character of religious creeds, raises a presumption that the former represents a ruder and earlier phase of the human mind, through which all the races of mankind have passed or are passing on their ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... seems to take him by surprise. And yet what a fool I could make of him if I chose. I saw it before he had been five minutes in the room. I wonder now what he thinks of me!—whether he has the presumption to suppose I could ever allow him to betray what he cared for me. I believe I should rather admire his impudence! It is pleasant to be cared for, even by an inferior; and, after all, this Mr. Ryfe is not without his good points. He has plenty of talent and energy, and I should think audacity. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... than was right. It was a presumption to say: "Thou art with me." All we can say is this: "I must be true to Thee." Even when nothing is left for us, still we have to go ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... decision as to Crocker's fate. Crocker had been suspended;—by which act he had been temporarily expelled from the office, so that his time was all his own to do what he pleased with it. Whether when suspended he would receive his salary, no one knew as a certainty. The presumption was that a man suspended would be dismissed,—unless he could succeed in explaining away or diminishing the sin of which he had been supposed to be guilty. Aeolus himself could suspend, but it required an act on the part of the senior officer to dismiss,—or even to deprive ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... Truly it would seem so," sighed Mr Hambly. "A great deal of fervid stuff was uttered in England last Sunday by archbishops, bishops, presidents of this and that Free Church; and the 'religious newspapers' have been full of these utterances. God forgive my presumption that, as I walk the streets of Polpier, I seem to hear all these popular men preaching with acceptance about ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... of course—I can't know—whether you are aware of the wound. But I can't help thinking you must be. It is presumption, I dare say, for a man like me, a mere critic, who couldn't compose a bar of fine genuine music to save his life, to try to dive into the soul of an artist, into your soul. But you are a man who means a lot to me. If you didn't I shouldn't be writing this letter. I believe you know what I ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... have been presumption on his part," he went on slowly; "still such thought can hardly be without some interest for you. No doubt you would render him a ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... restraint, and that even in the field of substantive rights and duties the legislative judgment, if oppressive and arbitrary, may be overridden by the courts."[177] Touching on the same subject a few months later, Chief Justice Stone suggested that: "There may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality when legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as those of the first ten amendments, which are deemed equally specific when held to be embraced within the Fourteenth." And again: "It is unnecessary ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... think, apply to all conversations. In every conversation, every departure must either be a presumption when you talk into your antagonist's special things, a pedantry when you fall back upon your own, or a platitude when you tell each other things you both know. I don't see any other line a conversation can take. The reason why one has to keep up the stream of ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... deliberation was necessary. It was foreseen that his Lordship would have recourse to art. If he was tried as a commoner he might claim to be a peer; if tried as a peer he might claim to be a commoner. Everything was fully considered; the true solid ground upon which he was tried as a peer, was the presumption in favour of the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... The eye-witness of a battle from an unusual point of view may, without presumption, believe that he has something interesting to tell. I therefore send you an account of what I saw in the Gull lightship, off the Goodwin Sands, on the night of Thursday last, when the Germania, of Bremen, was ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... Almighty will not spare us according to his merciful capitulation at Sodom; if his goodness please not to pass over a great deal of bad for a small pittance of good, or to look upon us in the lump, there is slender hope for mercy, or sound presumption of fulfilling half his will, either in persons or nations: they who excel in some virtues being so often defective in others; few men driving at the extent and amplitude of goodness, but computing themselves by their best parts, and others by their worst, are ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... the position of many estimable persons when they had read the New Tariff, and found how many commodities were imported of which they knew nothing; like a cautious man of business, he was not going to speak rashly of a raw material in which he had had no experience. But the presumption was, that if it had been good for anything, so successful a man as himself would hardly ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... advised King James to present himself in person before the Protestant stronghold, had not acted altogether, upon presumption. It is certain that there were Jacobites, even in Derry. Lundy, the governor, either despairing of its defence, or undecided in his allegiance between James and William, had opened a correspondence with Hamilton and De Rosen. But the true answer ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... "It's a presumption on royal authority to summon you from the ballroom," he began, after they had seated themselves and filled glasses. "You are ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... appeared to act upon the presumption that there were no such things as enemies in this solitude. Every night they had run their boat in to shore, started a fire, and slept soundly by it until morning, and thus far, strange as it may seem, they had suffered no molestation and had seen no signs of ill-will, if we except the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... certitude, but (if the chambers to which the keys have been found are really "situated promiscuously") with so high a degree of probability that they would be justified in acting upon the presumption until an exception appeared. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... these "Herrnhuters," these "Germans," these "Quiet in the Land," these "Antinomians"? The very names of the Brethren aroused the popular suspicion. If a man could prove that his name was John Smith, the presumption was that John Smith was a loyal citizen; but if he was known as Gussenbauer or Ockershausen, he was probably another Guy Fawkes, and was forming a plot to blow up the House of Commons. At the outset therefore the Brethren were accused of treachery. ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... meanings, purposes and opportunities, for gaining wisdom, which may crown every rightly conducted, harmoniously environed life; making it so busy, so absorbing, and so happy; that there would be no room, for the morbid hallucination of a suicidal desire. This proposition is based on the presumption, that all suicides are possessed with an insanely erroneous idea, regarding the true object and purpose of human life. After the passing of a few generations, under the wide-spread reign of co-operative stirpiculture, with its hosts of mothers' clubs, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... He first, he last, taught to his astonished disciples the new truth—at that time the astounding truth— that no relation exists between the immediate practical events of things on the one side, and divine sentences on the other. There was no presumption, he teaches them, against a man's favor with God, or that of his parents, because he happened to be afflicted to extremity with bodily disease. There was no shadow of an argument for believing a party of men ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... is not to be expected that you should see eye to eye with the Inca. That would be presumption. It is for you to accept without question or demur the assurance of your Inca that the brooch ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... their territories by their overlord. To be sure, France was having much trouble with her Flemish cities, which were in revolt again under the noted brewer-nobleman, Van Artevelde,[18] yet it seemed presumption for England to attack her—England, so feeble that she had been unable to avenge her own defeat by the half-barbaric ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... intimately connected that of their influence upon precipitation, which they may affect by increasing or diminishing the warmth of the air and by absorbing or exhaling uncombincd gas and aqueous vapor. The forest being a natural arrangement, the presumption is that it exercises a conservative action, or at least a compensating one, and consequently that its destruction must tend to produce pluviometrical disturbances as well as thermometrical variations. And this is the opinion of perhaps the greatest number of observers. Indeed, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... them that he might have leave to try; and immediately a clamour was raised among the suitors, because of his petition, and they scorned and swelled with rage at his presumption, and that a beggar should seek to contend in a game of such noble mastery. But Telemachus ordered that the bow should be given him, and that he should have leave to try, since they had failed; "for," he said, "the bow ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... northern provinces of Spain, which occupied a considerable portion of the year 1837, I had accomplished but a slight portion of what I proposed to myself to effect in the outset. Insignificant are the results of man's labours compared with the swelling ideas of his presumption; something, however, had been effected by the journey, which I had just concluded. The New Testament of Christ was now enjoying a quiet sale in the principal towns of the north, and I had secured the friendly interest and co-operation of the booksellers of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Brayne, printed in C.W. Wallace, The First London Theatre, pp. 82, 90. Whether Burbage was going to the Cross Keys as a spectator or as an actor is not indicated; but the presumption is that he was then playing at the inn, although he was proprietor ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... gulps his brandy) or their subs; being a servant of the state, I order you to give that wench the extent of the law. She shall disclose the secret of her escape, or I'll have her life; I'm a man what won't stand no nonsense, I am!" The keeper, rejoining, hopes he will pardon the seeming presumption; but, forsooth, notwithstanding necessity has driven him to seek a livelihood in his repulsive occupation, there is a duty of the heart he cannot betray, though the bread of his maintenance be taken from him. Blowers again assumes his dignity, rises from his seat, scowls significantly ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... which have been drawn respecting the non-increase of the debt, proceed upon the presumption that every part of the public debt, as well that of the States individually, as that of the United States, was to have been honestly paid. If there is any fallacy in this supposition, the inferences may be erroneous; but the error would imply ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... That no suspicious jealousies of any kind whatever be harboured in our breasts, without absolute or good circumstantial evidence; and if conceived upon proof or strong presumption, the same to be communicated to the suspected person, in temper and moderation, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... safely through to General Harrison, who promptly resented what he thought its presumption and sent to remove Major Croghan from his command. Croghan went to explain in person and was allowed to return to his post. The British and Indians appeared in force the next day, July 31st, and on the 2d of August made their first and last ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... joined heartily in misrepresenting me, and fabricating every species of calumny against me. There was no falsehood too gross to serve their turn. They seem to have acted on the old rascally maxim, of throwing as much dirt as possible, in the presumption that some of it will stick. Perhaps, since the invention of printing, no man had ever been so grossly attacked and belied as I was, by the whole of the public press; with the exception of Mr. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... was a broad stone hearth, on which sometimes Maggie would place a few sticks she had picked up in the streets, and light them; but the little fire they made looked just as if it were ashamed of itself for burning in such a great fireplace; and the winds, indignant at its presumption, would rush down the chimney at a more desperate rate than usual, blowing the ashes into Maggie's eyes, as she sat before the little fire, and sending the smoke curling in funny forms about the room. So Maggie would run and cover herself in her poor bed, and say to herself that it was ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... because his memory of his real life obstructed his fancy. Meantime he operated a diversion. He said, "Set a poor fellow an example. Tell me something about yourself—since I have the bad taste, and the presumption, to be interested in you, and can't help it. Did you spring from the foam of the Archipelago? or are you descended from ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... perversities, and believed them to be justified on the simple ground that they were capable of satisfaction, he was not startled at vice, he knew it as one knows a friend, but he was wounded at having served as sustenance for it. If his presumption was right, he had been outraged in the most sensitive part of him. The mere suspicion filled him with fury, he broke out with the roar of a tiger who has been the sport of a deer, the cry of a tiger which united a brute's strength with the ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... both generals and ministers, and to these points should the control of the council be limited; for if it should not only order the general in command to march to Vienna or to Paris, but should also have the presumption to indicate the manner in which he should maneuver to attain this object, the unfortunate general would certainly be beaten, and the whole responsibility of his reverses should fall upon the shoulders of those who, hundreds of miles distant, took upon themselves the duty of directing ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... with a burthen on the shoulders, it must either be thrown off or it will become a cause of decline. Let us endeavour to point out methods by which that may be averted, or at least procrastinated. In doing this, we are either exposing our ignorance and presumption, or doing a ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... he had ever approved. No. He had that, at least, to look back upon; he had seen the whole enterprise as pure presumption, and had said so. Often. The heavens were the heavens, and Earth was Earth. It would have been better—much better for all concerned—if it ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... dear Susy, if I should attempt the stage, I think I may be fairly acquitted of presumption, and however I may fall, that I was strongly pressed to try by Mrs. Thrale, and by Mr. Sheridan, the most successful and powerful of all dramatic living authors, will ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... York there was a splendid entertainment by Cardinal Kemp; but all the 'subtleties' and wonders—stags' heads in their horns, peacocks in their pride, jellies with whole romances depicted in them, could not reconcile the young Scots to the presumption of the Archbishop reckoning Scotland into his province. Durham was at once too monastic and too military to have afforded much opportunity for recruiting the princesses' wardrobe; but York was the resort of the merchants of Flanders, and Christie was sent in quest ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge |
