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Assume   /əsˈum/   Listen
Assume

verb
(past & past part. assumed; pres. part. assuming)
1.
Take to be the case or to be true; accept without verification or proof.  Synonyms: presume, take for granted.
2.
Take on titles, offices, duties, responsibilities.  Synonyms: adopt, take on, take over.
3.
Take on a certain form, attribute, or aspect.  Synonyms: acquire, adopt, take, take on.  "The story took a new turn" , "He adopted an air of superiority" , "She assumed strange manners" , "The gods assume human or animal form in these fables"
4.
Take on as one's own the expenses or debts of another person.  Synonyms: accept, bear, take over.  "She agreed to bear the responsibility"
5.
Occupy or take on.  Synonyms: strike, take, take up.  "She took her seat on the stage" , "We took our seats in the orchestra" , "She took up her position behind the tree" , "Strike a pose"
6.
Seize and take control without authority and possibly with force; take as one's right or possession.  Synonyms: arrogate, seize, take over, usurp.  "He usurped my rights" , "She seized control of the throne after her husband died"
7.
Make a pretence of.  Synonyms: feign, sham, simulate.  "He feigned sleep"
8.
Take up someone's soul into heaven.
9.
Put clothing on one's body.  Synonyms: don, get into, put on, wear.  "He put on his best suit for the wedding" , "The princess donned a long blue dress" , "The queen assumed the stately robes" , "He got into his jeans"



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"Assume" Quotes from Famous Books



... I got SOME brains around me," he added, inspired by Sam's presence to assume a slight swagger. "They'd have to get up pretty early to find any good ole revolaver, once I got MY ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... held a council of war. It is said that he and they alike were for immediate attack. His enemies declare that he was afraid lest Vaudreuil should arrive and take command; but the Governor was not a man to assume responsibility at such a crisis. Others say that his impetuosity overcame his better judgment; and of this charge it is hard to acquit him. Bougainville was but a few miles distant, and some of his ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... amusing: such is the charm of manner. But all this cannot last: and I should not be surprised to see Frattino, a few years hence, emerge from his foreign frippery, throw aside his libertine folly, assume his seat in the senate, and his rank in British society; and be the very character he now affects to despise and ridicule—"a true-bred Englishman, who rides ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... is about the top price—the material he deals with is about the same value as his time if he is using the cheapest glasses only. If this then is the case when the highest-priced labour is dealing only with the lowest-priced material, we may assume it as the general rule for stained-glass cutting, on the average, that "labour is less costly than the material on which it is spent," and I would even say much ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... beyond science, that is all I can assume," concluded Doctor Bonamy, victoriously. "I will add that we have no convalescence here; health is at once restored, full, entire. Observe the young lady. Her eyes are bright, her colour is rosy, her physiognomy has recovered its lively gaiety. Without doubt, the healing ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... never interfered with the discharge of your official duties, I may assume to be at least as well known to your colleagues as it is to me. It is idle to say that if the post were in my gift you should have it, because you have had, for some years, most of the posts of high trust that have been at my disposal. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... obstacles rise into frowning and insurmountable barriers. Those we would make our beneficiaries often fail to appreciate their position, and turn our good into a worse evil than their own. We may theorize about the human soul, but, to put our theories to the test, is to assume an ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... place its name. Cimarron River, sluggish and yellow, bounded the town on the south. The dominant note of Eagle Butte was a pathetic mixture of regret for glories of other days and clumsy ambition to assume the ways of a city. Striving hard to be modern it succeeded only in ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman

... caused to be uniformly bound; at the choice paintings in their costly frames upon the walls, and many of which had been painted by his own hands; at the numerous pieces of statuary and rare curios which he knew would never assume their familiar aspect in any ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... of the 17th inst. was duly received. I take the liberty of asking your personal advice before I answer your official letter. I assume that all the traditions and impulses of your life lead you to believe that the Republican party has been and is more nearly in the line of liberty than its antagonist, the Democratic party; and I know you desire to advance the cause of woman. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... consuming masses, we are lagging behind in these respects, becoming a camp-follower instead of a leader in the march of progress, because of the influence exerted by a small class, who have grown so powerful through special privileges given to them by the nation that they now assume to thwart beneficent legislation in order that they may continue to grow richer through this vicious form of governmental paternalism, which places the multitude in ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various

... settled. It was exceedingly amusing to witness the exact imitation they gave of the swagger of a certain white with whom they had been dealing, and who had, as they had perceived, evidently wished to assume an air of indifference. Holding up the head and scratching the beard it was hinted might indicate not indifference, but vermin. It is well that we do not always know what they say about us. The remarks are often not quite complimentary, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... the Oak, silencing him. "I do not hear the Animals.... Where are they?... All this concerns them as much as us.... We, the Trees, must not assume the responsibility alone for the grave ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc

... him at the same time so much power and simplicity. He is especially interesting when he stands back a short distance so as to get a better view of his work, and then suddenly goes back as to an attack. He is a very talented sculptor. The shape of my father seems to grow under his hand, and assume a wonderful likeness. It will be not only a portrait, but ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... were already safely back in the corral. If he came, the death-warrant of Alcatraz was as good as signed. But when the third day of waiting ended without bringing Shorty and Perris, as it should have done, the "if" began to assume greater proportions, and by late afternoon of the fourth day she had made up her mind that Perris was gone from Glosterville and that Shorty was on a wild goose chase after him. So great was her gloom that even her father, ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... their brethren could alone make, in consideration of which they entered into a bargain, and received a certain sum of money from the owners. The accatosi deserve mention on account of the cleverness with which they contrived to assume the appearance of captives recently escaped from slavery. Shaking the chains with which they said they had been bound, jabbering unintelligible words, telling heart-rending tales of their sufferings and privations, and showing the marks of blows ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... not pleased to see her, and made no attempt to assume the contrary. He was sitting in his library, moody and melancholy, still in the half-dazed condition into which the death of Christine Manderson had cast him. His face was drawn, haggard, and sickly; his eyes were bloodshot. He looked up at her with a forbidding frown, and ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming

... from the Secretary of the Treasury, dated the 22d ultimo, together with a letter addressed to him by the governor of Alabama, asking that the State of Alabama may be allowed to assume and pay in State bonds the direct tax now due from that State to the United States, or that delay of payment may be authorized until the State can by the sale of its bonds or by taxation make provision for the liquidation of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... principles, and that the greater the infusion of Conservative interest you could make in these new bodies the more that tendency would be counteracted. In my opinion a fallacy lurks under this argument; they assume the certain democratic, even revolutionary, character of the new town councils without any sufficient reason, but if this be so, and if they are correct in their anticipations, I doubt whether the guards ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... you, you would have no more faith in my powers. So with your permission I will assume the virtue of modesty. Call it a conjuring trick, if you like. Many curious things are hidden under that comprehensive term. But that is neither here nor there. Before I go would you like to ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby

... often as my father pressed hard upon him and seemed like to conquer he would escape from him, till my sire was at his wits' end. Every day I was forced to take new form and hue; for, as often as I assumed a shape, he would assume its contrary, and to whatsoever land I fled he would snuff my fragrance and follow me thither, so that I suffered sore affliction of him. At last I took the form of a snake and betook myself to the mountain ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... being nothing in particular—neither a child nor a little girl, neither a baby nor a woman. Having discovered that I was capable of being wicked, I thought it would be better if I could grow up at once, and assume my own responsibilities. It quite demoralized me when people talked in my presence about "innocent ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... Christ in these lands, and to the constitutional liberties of the nation. So far as we can see, but for the singular power and devoted spirit of Renwick, and the firm and unyielding position which the Cameronians through him were led to assume, the cause of truth would have been completely borne down, and Erastianism, and Popery, and Despotism had triumphed. Renwick and his followers were the vanguard "in the struggle for Britain's liberties, and for the Church's spiritual independence." Though, like other patriots born ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston

... waiting, before she should take the step of formally releasing John Mayrant? No, neither of these conjectures seemed to furnish a key to the tactics of Miss Rieppe and the theory that each of these affianced parties was strategizing to cause the other to assume the odium of breaking their engagement, with no result save that of repeatedly countermanding a wedding-cake, struck me as belonging admirably to a stage-comedy in three acts, but scarcely to life ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... is compelled by his work to assume harmful positions, these should be corrected by proper exercises, and by cultivating opposing positions during the leisure hours. Much is to be accomplished through those forms of physical exercise which develop the muscles whose work it is to keep the ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.

... because she was Caesar's wife, and that no canards posted at midnight could affect his faith in his wife or in his friend. He refused to believe that any coup d'etat was imminent, save the one which he himself meditated when he was ready to proclaim the country in a state of revolution, and to assume a military dictatorship. ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... have seen it. My eyes are trained to the forest, and I caught the gleam of running water through the leaves to the west. Running water, of course, means a brook. Black Rifle's trail now leads toward it, and I assume that he was thirsty because he had just eaten well. We are nearly always thirsty after eating. But we shall see whether I am right. Here is the brook, and there are the faint traces made by Black Rifle's knees, when he knelt to reach the water. He started away, but found that ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the decorator. "My daughter is returning from school," she says, "I want her room done." "What style of room?" "After all you are supposed to know that. I am engaging you to arrange it for me." "Your daughter, I take it, is a modern girl?" "You may assume as much." In despair for a hint the decorator steals a look at a photograph of the miss, full-lipped, melting dark eyes, and blue-black hair. Sensing an houri he hangs the walls with a deep shade of Persian orange, over ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... 1801 he returned to Philadelphia, to assume the editorship of Conrad's Literary Magazine and American Review. The duties of this office suspended his own creative work, and he did not live to take up again the novelist's stylus. In 1806 he became editor of the Annual Register. His ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... must run and call others together, so was it in the spiritual city of Christ, if a fire of trouble and affliction should arise. The question as to the composition of such a Council Luther does not proceed to discuss. That he wished, however, the laity to be represented, we may safely assume from the whole context, though it is doubtful how far he may then have thought of a representation of the temporal authorities as such, and, above all, of the Christian body collectively, through its political members. But the main point on which ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... find another hiding place," he agreed. "Then they will assume I survived after all and grabbed you. They'll be scouring the whole island for us. If we haven't been located before dark they'll be spread thin enough to give ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson

... initial declaration, obtains a valuable strategic position whenever his hand justifies an offensive bid (i.e., anything but one Spade); but when he is compelled to assume the defensive, this advantage passes to his opponents. By any declaration which shows strength, he materially aids his partner and places difficulties in the path of his adversaries. A No-trump is naturally his ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

... are willing to assume for a time the character of one of these stage moths, whom rich men of this type pursue and woo, wine, dine and boast about? Will it interfere with your own work? Any salary arranged by Mr. Holloway is agreeable, for ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... worst fear was realized, and that her prayer had been unavailing. The "Lord that dwelt on high" did not seem to have listened. She tried to nerve herself to bear the tidings which Nurse conveyed in as cheerful a tone as she could assume. ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... him the gentle title of "Il Pensieroso." His mother's fond hope was that he should be named a Cardinal, not merely a Papal princeling, nor of course a religious reprobate—as, alas, most of the Cardinals were—but a devout wearer of the scarlet hat, and that one day he might even assume ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... the cross-examination, however, matters began to assume quite a different complexion. The prisoner set out by questioning Sir Charles's identifications. Was he sure of his man? He handed Charles a photograph. "Is that the person who represented himself as the Reverend Richard Peploe Brabazon?" he ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... in London at the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, the very tavern[681] where Falstaff and his joyous companions met; the members of which all assume Shakspeare's characters. One is Falstaff, another Prince Henry, another Bardolph, and so on. JOHNSON. 'Don't be of it, Sir. Now that you have a name, you must be careful to avoid many things, not bad in themselves, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... then, are admitted to have a decided effect upon streams of magnetism, I suppose we may assume that they have also a certain power of determining impressions by themselves, without the intervention of any of the more subtile agencies whatever. The granting of this postulate will put me on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... through his mind during those minutes of gazing upon Lucy Savile's house, the sparrow, the man and the dog, and Lucy Savile's house again. There are honest men who will not admit to their thoughts, even as idle hypotheses, views of the future that assume as done a deed which they would recoil from doing; and there are other honest men for whom morality ends at the surface of their own heads, who will deliberate what the first will not so much as suppose. ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... should have sung that hymn just as you were passing, and that I should have heard her without checking her. The hand of God is in all these things; therefore, do not make yourself uneasy on our account. Magdalene, we have settled that he shall assume the disguise of a young peasant girl, and tomorrow you shall purchase the ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... I believed that "a jealous God," who can brook no rivals, had taken away our loving husband and father; our strong and brave son and brother, because we loved them too much, and I was brought up to think it a great presumption to assume that such a worm of the dust as I, could be aught to the Creator but a ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... lords!" and as he spoke, he flung himself from his horse, and taking Lord Bothwell by the hand, as the eldest of the band, "kneel not to me," cried he; "I am to you what Gideon was to the Israelites-your fellow-soldier. I cannot assume the scepter you would bestow; for He who rules us all has yet preserved to you a lawful monarch. Bruce lives. And were he extinct, the blood royal flows in too many noble veins in Scotland for me ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... Ensal, grasping the young man's hand, "well might the struggling world, writhing up from its low estate, rejoice that your type is now to assume charge of the destiny of the white race in ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... from you at Luchon a month ago, you told me that you were packing up, and then that was all. No more news! I have permitted myself to assume, as the good Brantome would say, that you were at Cabourg! When do you return? Where do you go then? To Paris or to Nohant? ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... silence a little. Outside a misty sunshine lay on the garden and the park and in it the changing trees were beginning to assume the individuality and separateness of autumn after the levelling promiscuity of the summer. The scene was very English and peaceful; and between it and the two young creatures looking out upon it there were a thousand ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... from the generalities of the Newtonian theory), will be found in all, or even in most cases, among truths now known and admitted. We may rest assured, that many of the most general laws of nature are as yet entirely unthought of; and that many others, destined hereafter to assume the same character, are known, if at all, only as laws or properties of some limited class of phenomena; just as electricity, now recognized as one of the most universal of natural agencies, was once known only as ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... but chooses whatever may seem to him the most advantageous. When they pursue any definite extensive trade, such as that of a carpenter, mason, or the like, in large towns, they associate together, and form a sort of trades' association, and the cleverest assume the position of a sort of contractor for the labour required. Thus, if a nobleman should want to build a house, or even a palace, in St. Petersburgh, he applies to such a contractor, (prodratshnik,) lays before him the elevation and plans, and makes a contract with him to do the work required ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey

... amount of the necessaries and comforts of life; or, more simply, that the total of human happiness to be derived from the world's production of wealth should be the greatest possible. Now for our present purpose we may assume that since all men desire wealth, the greater its production, the greater will be the number of human desires gratified. From this it follows that our social organization should be such as to increase to the greatest ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... not for them. From my viewpoint, such men might as well be dead. The men upon whom I am urging the wisdom of taking periods for recuperation are those who have been pulling with the team and keeping their traces taut. And I assume that you who read are one of these worth-while men. Very well! I want you ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... also different from the generality of other malt liquor; your yest should be fresh, smooth, and solid. Begin yesting this ale a few barrels at a time, and when that has caught, add the remainder gradually, in about 48 hours, or from that to 60. This guile of ale will assume a close head of yest, which should be carefully skimmed off as fast as it forms after the first skimming: by this is not meant the first or worty head formed soon after the yest has taken, but the ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... which we assume should indicate reverence to God. We should kneel or stand with folded hands. If we are unable to assume either of these postures, we may pray in any position. We stand in church on Sunday, because it is the day of the Lord's resurrection ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump

... adopted in Rome after the conquest of the Achaean League (B.C. 146), when Greece became a Roman province. It was carried into Carthage B.C. 145, and into Spain and Portugal about B.C. 133, when those countries fell beneath the Roman arms. Whenever this occurred the first act of the conquerors was to assume the ownership of the land. They then leased it on emphyteusis, either to the original occupiers, to their own soldiers, or to settlers ("carpet-baggers"). The rent was called vectigal, and decurions (corporals ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... arrived; and to this rule he kept, and that under far greater difficulties, on the Sunday as well. For Mistress Croale would not sell a drop of drink, not even on the sly, on the Sabbath-day: she would fain have some stake in the hidden kingdom; and George, who had not a Sunday stomach he could assume for the day any more than a Sunday coat, was thereby driven to provide his whisky and that day drink it at home; when, with the bottle so near him, and the sense that he had not to go out to find his ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... ask," I demanded, "what interest you may take in this matter, and by what right you assume the office ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... hardly answered a letter. Before this time it had become increasingly hard for him to do so, and he always postponed and thought he should feel more able the next day, until his daughter Ellen was compelled to assume the correspondence. He did, however, write some letters in 1876, as, for instance, the answer to the invitation ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... enable him or her to train children into models of good behavior. Knowledge alone does not always produce the desired results; nevertheless, an understanding of the child should enable those who have to deal with him to assume an attitude that will reduce in a great measure their annoyance at the various awkward and inconsiderate and mischievous acts of the youngsters. Such a study should make possible a closer intimacy with the child. And, finally, it should make ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... of prosperity attending it, its lord might assume its name, reside in it, and the particle ham would naturally follow. This very probably happened under the Saxon Heptarchy, and the name was no other ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... teachers in your dissentient schools, and to define their duties? How would you like it? Would you think that was keeping faith with the British North America Act? Would you think that was keeping faith with the Confederation partnership? How would you like it if this same Committee, not only would assume to appoint your teachers and your inspectors, and would take good care also to appoint Catholic inspectors in your Protestant schools—how would you like it? Will you not take that suggestion home with you, gentlemen, and ...
— Bilingualism - Address delivered before the Quebec Canadian Club, at - Quebec, Tuesday, March 28th, 1916 • N. A. Belcourt

... of July was drawing to a close when the emperor took his departure for Metz, where he was to assume the post of generalissimo. With him went gayly the young Prince Imperial, then fourteen years old. Their starting-point was the small rustic summer-house in the park of Saint-Cloud, the termination of a miniature branch railroad connecting with the great ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... of the true nobility of the poor gentleman's soul to say this last sentence. 'Otherwise,' he has reflected, 'I shall assume the superior position of having no difficulties of my own, while I know of hers. Which would be mean, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... render practical aid to this class, we must live among them, understand their needs, acquaint ourselves with their desires, their hopes, their aspirations, their fears. We must discover and adopt their point of view, put ourselves in their surroundings, assume their burdens, unite with them in their daily effort. In this way alone, and not by forcing upon them a preconceived ideal, can we do them real good, can we help them to find a moral, spiritual, esthetic standard suited to their condition ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... man of prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to appear in his native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform himself into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human affairs as wide and [v]benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face. Full of faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the people said was true, and that now he was to behold the living likeness ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... a point that is more easily proved?" he asked. "Why not assume that the C-54 crew, the OD, his driver, and the tower operators did know what they were talking about? Maybe they had seen spectacular meteors during the hundreds of hours that they had flown at night and the many nights that ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... the proofs alleged. The very word for "doubtful" or "ambiguous," dubeni or dub'na, is of this description. Is it derived from the Hindu dhoobd'ha, which every Gipsy would pronounce doobna, or from the English dubious, which has been made to assume the Gipsy- Indian termination na? Of this word I was naively told, "If a juva's bori (girl is big), that's dub'ni; and if she's shuvalo (swelled up), that's dubni: for it may pen (say) she's kaired a tikno (is enceinte), and it may pen she hasn't." But ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland

... denuding the worthy alderman, who gave no other sign of life during the operation than an abortive effort to "hip, hip, hurra," in which I left him, having put on the spoil, and set out on my way the the barrack with as much dignity of manner as I could assume in honour of my costume. And here I may mention (en parenthese) that a more comfortable morning gown no man ever possessed, and in its wide luxuriant folds I revel, while I ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... importation of materials for book-making. In a November number of the "Chronicle" of seventeen hundred and sixty-nine, Mein published an article entitled "A State of the Importation from Great Britain into the Port of BOSTON with the advertisement of a set of Men, who assume to themselves THE TITLE of ALL the Well Disposed Merchants." In this letter the London Book-Store proprietor vigorously defended himself, and protested that the quantity of his work necessitated some importations not procurable in Boston. He also made sarcastic references to other ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey

... building and trampled in the dust of the street. Sit still and don't make a noise. We're not doing business that way. If there are any married men here, they had better take their horses and ride home. This community does not assume responsibility for any man's life. You are volunteers. There are four ex-Rangers among you. They will tell you what to do. But I'm going to tell you one thing first; don't shoot high or low when you have to shoot. Draw plumb center, and don't quit as long as you can feel to ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... press-work; so the landlord-apprentice serves as call-boy; then as under-waiter; then as a parlor waiter; then as head waiter, in which position he often has to make out all the bills; then as clerk or cashier; then as portier. His trade is learned now, and by and by he will assume the style and dignity of landlord, and be found conducting ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... with a right to complain that he took his pleasure without her. He lived the life of the human animals frequenting the society of their kind from a gregarious instinct, and for common yet opposing self-ends. He had begun to assume the staidness, if not dullness, of the animal whose first youth has departed, but he was only less frolicsome, not more human. He was settling down to what he had made himself; no virtue could claim a share in the diminished ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... "it's pretty cool of you to assume the girl is in love with you when she knew you were engaged to somebody else ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... characteristic, and the male alone possesses the naked abdomen. The female always remains near the nest while he is sitting, and shows great solicitude upon the approach of an intruder. The adults assume the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [August, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... joy in the gay capital was suddenly extinguished, for in the autumn of the year that, in March, had seen Ferdinand, the Emperor's brother, assume the imperial crown, a rumour came that the recluse of San Yuste had closed his eyes, and a few days ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... know my feeling towards Mr. Darcy, will readily comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume even the appearance of what is right. His pride, in that direction, may be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must only deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by. I only fear that the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... yesterday, compel me to make some further observations. The representative Mr. Richter has said that the whole bill amounted to a subsidy of the big industries. Well, here again, you have an instance of class-hatred, which would receive new fuel if his words were true. I do not know why you assume that the Government cherishes a blind and special love for the big industries. The big manufacturers are, it is true, children of fortune, and this creates no good will toward them among the rest of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... followed, it was almost impious to deny, or even to doubt. Thus, on the first page of my book, I observe, as if it were axiomatic, that, at a given moment, toward the opening of the sixteenth century, "Europe burst from her mediaeval torpor into the splendor of the Renaissance," and further on I assume, as an equally self- evident axiom, that freedom of thought was the one great permanent advance which western civilization made by all the agony and bloodshed of the Reformation. Apart altogether from the fact that I should doubt whether, in the ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... wast told thus: Thou gau'st thine eares (like Tapsters, that bad welcom) To Knaues, and all approachers: 'Tis most iust That thou turne Rascall, had'st thou wealth againe, Rascals should haue't. Do not assume my likenesse ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... Charles Carroll McTavish applied to the Legislature of Maryland for permission to drop his surname and to assume that of his great-grandfather, Charles Carroll. As this request was strenuously opposed by other descendants of the Signer, who regarded it as inexpedient to increase the number of Charles Carrolls, the petition of Mr. McTavish was not granted. Mary Wellesley McTavish, his sister, I remember as a ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... Josephus as "Joe," and of Magliabecchi as "Mag," may be only a new example of that odd law of human nature which constantly prompts people in various relations of life, and not least in literature, to assume most the particular qualities (not always virtues or graces) that they have not. Yet it is fair to remember that Wilson and the Blackwood set, together with not a few writers in the London Magazine—the ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... style suited her. I dare say there are many youthful subalterns, and not the worst-looking too, who resemble Mrs Fyne in the type of face, in the sunburnt complexion, down to that something alert in bearing. But not many would have had that aspect breathing a readiness to assume any responsibility under Heaven. This is the sort of courage which ripens late in life and of course Mrs Fyne was of mature years for all her ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... must have heard that expression used before in Virginia," was the quiet reply, though her cheeks grew a deeper red, and had Mrs. Ashby been present, and occupying the tribunal it is safe to assume that she would have been prepared for something to happen right speedily. Indeed it was a wonder something had not ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... of the letters with an unsteady eye and an agitated mind; his stoicism, however, came in time to his aid—that philosophy which, rooted in pride, yet frequently bears the fruits of virtue. He returned towards his daughter with as firm an air as his feelings permitted him to assume. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... evolutions of the stranger. His smallest change seemed rather anticipated than followed; and his hopes of eluding a vigilance, that proved so watchful, was baffled by a facility of manoeuvring, and a superiority of sailing, that really began to assume, even to his intelligent eyes, the appearance of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... lake, by cutting a lower basin. It seems a mechanical advantage, and great benefit it is to each speaker, as he can now paint out his thought to himself. We pass very fast, in our personal moods, from dignity to dependence. And if any appear never to assume the chair, but always to stand and serve, it is because we do not see the company in a sufficiently long period for the whole rotation of parts to come about. As to what we call the masses, and common men;—there ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... was altogether useless, was forced to hold his tongue, and hunt up another chair with the best grace he could assume, after which Charlie gave an ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden

... the best Utopian precedents, we may take with existing fact. We assume that the tone of public thought may be entirely different from what it is in the present world. We permit ourselves a free hand with the mental conflict of life, within the possibilities of the human mind as we know it. We permit ourselves also a free ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... more wary, he would not have so easily fallen a victim to the deceit of the genial stranger whom he met on the Bowery. He should have been more cautious, and less ready to assume friendly relations with a stranger. His lack of prudence in this respect was almost inexcusable, inasmuch as he had been warned by Bob Hunter to look out for himself. Moreover, his suspicions should have been excited by the two young ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey

... up to 10, often finds himself unconsciously impelled to depart from his strict reckoning by fives, and to assume a new basis of reference. Take, for example, the Zuni system, in which the first 2 ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant

... because you were so busy on your electric car," rejoined Mr. Swift. "But Mr. Damon and I, being both large depositors, were asked to assume office, and, as I was not very busy on ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton

... at him with the face he was wont to assume in scanning the appearance of a confirmed monomaniac. "She will not marry you," he answered slowly; "and you intend to go on living with her in open concubinage! A lady of birth and ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... plausible appearance. The general meaning of this somewhat obscure passage is, Since we have no show or pretext of a cause, no assignable ground or apparent ground of complaint, against Caesar, in what he is, or in anything he has yet done, let us assume that the further addition of a crown will quite upset his nature, and metamorphose him into a serpent. The strain of casuistry used in this speech is very remarkable. Coleridge found it perplexing. On the supposition ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... of the English, it could be done only with the loyal support of his Norman followers; nor is it at all likely that, in a state so thoroughly feudal as Normandy, the suzerain would have ventured to assume so great an increase of rank and probable power without the express consent of his vassals, in disregard of what was certainly the usual feudal practice. The decision of the council was favourable, and William ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... of the slate on which he had to write. And Sophia was not a bit alarmed. She relished instruction from his lips. It was a pleasure to her to learn from that exhaustless store of worldly knowledge. To the world she would do her best to assume omniscience in its ways, but to him, in her present mood, she liked to play the ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... noon on Monday occurred two events destined to assume a paramount importance in the affair which was wringing the withers of Steynholme. As in the histories of both men and nations, these first steps in great developments began quietly enough. For one thing, Furneaux returned to the village. ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... society of the ancient Germans has the appearance of a voluntary alliance of independent warriors. The tribes of Scythia, distinguished by the modern appellation of Hords, assume the form of a numerous and increasing family; which, in the course of successive generations, has been propagated from the same original stock. The meanest, and most ignorant, of the Tartars, preserve, with conscious pride, the inestimable ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... observation can only hold good so long and in so far as the Law of Causality holds good. We must assume a pre-existing state of affairs which has given rise to the observed effect; we must assume that this observed effect is itself antecedent to a subsequent state of affairs. Science therefore cannot go back to the absolute beginnings ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... "Don't assume that I want to mystify you," he added, "but the presence of any one else might jeopardize my plan. I ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... and the example of the senators is boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are continually driving round the immense space of the city and suburbs. Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they assume, on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and maintain a haughty demeanor, which perhaps might have been excused in the great Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these heroes undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in Italy, and procure ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord

... where physical geology fails? Standard writers on paleontology, as has been seen, assume that she can. They take it for granted, that deposits containing similar organic remains are synchronous—at any rate in a broad sense; and yet, those who will study the eleventh and twelfth chapters of Sir Henry De La Beche's remarkable 'Researches in Theoretical Geology', published ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley

... 'I can only assume that you are going mad, Owen,' said he. 'I have long guessed that you were. Nothing else will explain this extraordinary ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... is done by those who assume Christ's name by calling themselves Christians, and yet are hypocrites, and use religion as a cloak. [II Tim. 3:5, ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump

... (as it were) the end of the Yuga to appear, withdraw their forces for the nightly rest. And that foremost of men, Dhananjaya also, having achieved a great feat and won great renown by crushing his foes, and beholding the sun assume a red hue and the evening twilight to set in, and having completed his work, retired with his uterine brothers to the camp for nightly rest. Then when darkness was about to set in, there arose among the Kuru troops a great and terrible uproar. And all said, 'In today's battle ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Lucille more clearly, and the large, hazy outlines of Tode's features were beginning to assume the proper proportions. There was a diabolical leer upon Tode's face, unchanged during the five years since Jim had seen him last, except that it had become more evil, more powerful. The enormous and distorted face that Jim had seen had been simply due to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... accustomed to purchasing in this manner, this method offers great possibilities. The profits are of course higher but the results more uncertain, for it is somewhat difficult to gauge the demands of the public, and the canner must assume the risk ordinarily taken by ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray

... concentrated most of his forces at Chattanooga for the twofold purpose of holding this gateway of the Cumberland Mountains, and to assume a defensive attitude which would enable him to take advantage of such circumstances as might arise in the development of the offensive campaign he knew we must make. The peculiar topography of the country was ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... by a partial or different stimulus, b (in this case the mere stooping to the ground). I term the influences by which such changed reaction are rendered possible, 'outcome-reactions,' and when such influences assume ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... could come down from his pedestal, and offer a cluster of purple grapes to Donatello's lips; because the god recognizes him as the woodland elf who so often shared his revels. And here, in this sarcophagus, the exquisitely carved figures might assume life, and chase one another round its verge with that wild merriment which is so strangely represented on those old burial coffers: though still with some subtile allusion to death, carefully veiled, but forever peeping forth amid ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... unconscious. His pack, "the khaki doll," was still strapped between his shoulders. Unconsciously he was doing that which all wounded men do—that is, to assume the position that is the most comfortable. He was trying to roll ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... Nash; "it's a great make up. This coat of black cord has a lot of turned up and turned down tag ends, the same with the vest, and the soft hat can be knocked into any shape with a dift of the fist. With these, and three collars, and moustache, beard, and whiskers, that I carry in my pocket, I can assume half-a-dozen characters ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... replying to young Bettermann. "And stand to attention! And salute! I told you that I would agree to your terms, and I agree accordingly. Captain that is, Colonel von Specht shall be here, with the whip, as soon as the telegraph and the train can bring him. And then, I assume, the machine." ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... will explain to you the terms of your father's will in case a mining company should be organized," continued Denmead. "Of course, I don't know what they are, but I assume that when you reach your majority you'll be the chief owner of any mine on your land, and a director in the company. Success to the future, Ralph! May health and ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler

... Tokyo during this brief sunset hour. The mongrel nature of the city is less evident. The pretentious Government buildings of the New Japan assume dignity with the deep shadows and the heightening effect of the darkness. The untidy network of tangled wires fades into the coming obscurity. The rickety trams, packed to overflowing with the city crowds returning ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... this awful hour our politics ought to be made up of nothing but courage, decision, manliness, and rectitude. We should have all the magnanimity of good faith. This is a royal and commanding policy; and as long as we are true to it, we may give the law. Never can we assume this command, if we will not risk the consequences. For which reason we ought to be bottomed enough in principle not to be carried away upon the first prospect of any sinister advantage. For depend upon it, that, if we once give way to a sinister ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... is there to assume that if they were found in those chalk deposits, that they must have been ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay

... not desire to assume a position at all hypercritical, but I am directed to say that an utter disregard of provisions of the law can ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... such a tangle in the writings of any philosopher, I ask him to believe that it is not the human reason that is at fault—at least, let him not assume that it is. The fault probably lies ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... him as God manifest in the flesh—view him as voluntarily laying aside his glory, and descending from the throne of infinite majesty, to assume the nature, and expiate the guilt of a ruined race;—and we are struck with the appropriateness of all the attending circumstances. The splendid ceremonials of the Jewish ritual, and the raptured songs of prophets and of angels were well employed ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin

... pleasure, like the soldier in Petronius. Even now in Norway, it is matter of popular belief that Finns and Lapps, who from time immemorial have passed for the most skilful witches and wizards in the world, can at will assume the shape of bears; and it is a common thing to say of one of those beasts, when he gets unusually savage and daring, 'that can be no Christian bear'. On such a bear, in the parish of Ofoeden, after he had worried to death more than sixty horses and six men, ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... however, a second way by which the variations which characterize different codes may come to be relegated to a position of relative insignificance. We may assume that our own code is the ultimate standard by which all others are to be judged, and we may set down deviations from it to the account of the ignorance or the perversity of our fellowmen. So regarded, they are aberrations ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... deepened into certainty with the troubled lad. Something must have happened to the captain. Impatiently the lad waited for daylight, determined to set off at the first break of dawn in search of the missing one. Suddenly, the lad started up from the reclining position weariness had caused him to assume. Full and deep upon the still night air rang out the tolling of the mysterious bell. To the anxious watcher, its tones no longer rang full and sweet as upon the previous evening, but sounded slow and threatening, as if freighted ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... incredulous people. Boswell, I shall not praise your letter, because I know you have an aversion at being thought a genius, or a wit. The reluctance with which you always repeat your Cub,[11] and the gravity of countenance which you always assume upon that occasion, are convincing proofs of this assertion. You hate flattery, too, but in spite of your teeth I must tell you, that you are the best Poet, and the most humorous letter-writer I know; and that you have a finer complexion, and dance better than any man of my acquaintance. ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... Nay, cast my eyes in what direction I may wist, it is the same. If I looked at the stained wall, the indistinct lines gradually form themselves into her profile; if I look at the clouds, they will assume some of the redundant outlines of her form; if I cast mine eyes upon the fire in the kitchen-grate, the coals will glow and cool until I see her face; nay, but yesterday, the shoulder of mutton upon the ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat

... in his calm, passionless voice, that seemed to Morton, however, to assume an unwonted tone of command. "I will go and make the best bargain I can for our furniture, buy fresh clothes, and engage ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... I 'ave a weakness, Miss Susan, it's for the right word in the right place—as the coster said to the devil-dodger as blowed him up for purfane swearin'.—When a gen'leman hoffers me an 'a'penny, I axes him in the purlitest manner I can assume, to oblige me by givin' of it to the first beggar he may 'ave the good fort'n to meet. Some on 'em throws down the 'a'penny. Most on 'em makes it a penny.—But I say, Mattie, you don't want ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald

... talk about us as we talk about our ancestors, and wonder whether we were Christians at all when we could tolerate such things? They creep on gradually, and they need continual watchfulness if they are not to assume the mastery. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... observations, and I cannot be very certain where this range lies. I wanted to reach the 23rd parallel, but as the country looked so gloomy and forbidding farther north, it was useless plunging for only a few miles more into such a smashed and broken region. By careful estimate it was quite fair to assume that we had passed the Tropic of Capricorn by some miles, as my estimated latitude here was 23 degrees 15', and longitude about 119 degrees 37'. I was in such pain that I ordered an instant retreat, my only desire being to get back to the depot ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... certainty, he became the Buddha, that is, the enlightened. Perhaps he was not the first Buddhist. It may be that the historical Gautama, if so he is worthy to be called, merely made the sect or the new religion famous. Hardly a religion in the full sense of the word, Buddhism did not assume the role of theology, but sought only to know men and things. In one sense Buddhism is atheism, or rather, atheistic humanism. In one sense, also, the solution of the mystery of God, of life, and of the universe, which Gautama and his followers attained, was ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... did not assume that he had yet succeeded. He knew how thoroughly the Indians kept watch upon a foe, whom they expected to take, and there must be other sentinels, or at least one, and bearing that fact in mind his progress became ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... take a pride in their profession—assume generally a looseness of style: there may be an appropriateness in this, considering the mercurial contents of their pockets. In walking, a freedom of gait, approaching the swagger, is generally adopted; cigar-smoking at the office door is considered respectable; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various

... people in their political capacity; you shall never find that they have assumed debate for itself, but for something else. Wherefore in Lacedaemon where there was, and in Venice where there is, nothing else for which they should assume it, they have never shown so much as an inclination ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... end. What authority these people can have to do this, we know not; nor can we comprehend how officers of other potentates, (at least as they say they are, yet what commission they have we do not yet know,) can make themselves master of, and assume authority over, lands and goods belonging to and possessed by other people, and sealed with their blood, even without considering the Charter. The Minquas-kil(3) is the first upon the river, and there the Swedes have built Fort Christina. This place is well situated, as ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... Sir Frederick Leighton, despairing of finding a model to assume a sufficiently dramatic expression of wickedness for a picture he was painting of Jezebel, was deploring his difficulty one day, when Henry Greville, who was standing by, said to him, "Why don't you ask her"—pointing to me—"to do it for you?" Leighton ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... so absorbed in watching his seamanship, that I had not been thinking about the stranger. Jake's remark changed the current of my thoughts; and soon the vessel's lines seemed to assume a familiar shape, and I began to realize that I must have seen her before. Then suddenly it flashed upon me—the Water Lily, ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... in order to inform you that, according to the law of my kingdom, I shall myself assume its government. I trust that, by the goodness of God, it will be with piety and justice. My chancellor will inform you ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... I would assume an air of independence and indifference, and quote the price of every article by the dozen, and was sure to mention that it was the wholesale price. Of course almost every one was anxious to buy at wholesale, and I had no ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to ...
— The Declaration of Independence of The United States of America • Thomas Jefferson

... please, it is the same picture a little more brilliant in its colouring, and put into a handsomer frame. My friend MARCUS is a very dragon in this department of book-collecting: nothing being too formidable for his attack. Let the volume assume what shape it may, and let the price be ever so unconscionable—he hesitates not to become a purchaser. In consequence, exclusively of all the Dugdales and Montfaucons, upon large paper, and in the finest bindings, he possesses the Grand Folio Classics, the Benedictine ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... accurately divisible into four classes; but the line of demarcation between the third and fourth would have been so much fainter than those which mark off the first period from the second, and the second from the third, that it seemed on the whole a more correct and adequate arrangement to assume that the last period might be subdivided if necessary into a first and second stage. This somewhat precise and pedantic scheme of study I have adopted from no love of rigid or formal system, but simply ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... furthered or retarded, to realise at last its inevitability—to see, in a word, every movement of the great drama and to be unable to check its denouement—that has been a part of their burden. And when the denouement came, to sink their private anxieties in the public welfare, to assume, not a double immunity but a double responsibility to their people, has been ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... English heraldry 'Restrial bearings,' "in respect of their strength and solid substance, which is able to abide the stresse and force of any triall they shall be put unto." [1] And also that, the number of bars being uncertain, I assume the bearing to be 'barry,' that is, having an even number of bars; had it been odd, as of seven bars, it should have been blazoned, argent; three bars, sable; or, if so divided, sable, three ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin

... not think that he should try to constitute himself her director, or even to assume the position of professional suggester, but in an amateur way he suggested, and she, without any idea of depending upon him for suggestions, found herself more and more inclined to accept them as ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... they came under our lee, had a curiously dazzling and phosphorescent appearance. One of the civil engineers aboard called them phosphorescent skate, but I had my doubts, for I noticed that bits of paper cast overboard would assume the same opalescent tints when three or four feet down ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... deities and a large stock of traditional lore in common, and there was an essential similarity in their modes of life; so that, since we are now assured that such cities as Izamal and Chichen-Itza were contemporary with the city of Mexico, we shall probably not go very far astray if we assume that the elaborately carved and bedizened ruins of the former may give us some hint as to how things might have looked in the latter. Indeed this complicated and grotesque carving on walls, door-posts, and lintels was one of the first things to attract ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... politic; because there is danger that party views will make our doctrine in this science fluctuating, unless it is upheld by large numbers of intelligent persons; and because the executive, if not controlled, will be tempted to assume the province of interpreting international law for us. As it regards the latter point it may be said, that while Congress has power to define offences against the laws of nations, and thus, if any public power, to pronounce authoritatively what the law of nations is, the executive ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... between the worldly possessions of his two sons would serve to mark his disapproval of the younger. But before settling down, Florimond signified a desire to see the world, as was fit and proper and becoming in a young man who was later to assume such wide responsibilities. His father, realizing the wisdom of such a step, made but slight objection, and at the age of twenty Florimond set out for the Italian wars. Two years afterwards, a little over six months ago, his ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... policy and of the attitude that this great Nation should assume in the world at large, it is absolutely necessary to consider the Army and the Navy, and the Congress, through which the thought of the Nation finds its expression, should keep ever vividly in mind the fundamental fact that it is impossible to treat our foreign policy, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... when they are arguing a case of this kind, assume each the condition of affairs that obtains in his own land—the rigidity on the one hand, the fluidity on the other. They assume it without stating it or even thoroughly understanding it, and the result is that neither ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... make him choose which he'd have, right or left, and held out our hands again, but he said he knew that some great question of choice was being involved, and that he would not assume the responsibility. That we'd have to draw straws, if we wanted to decide anything. So Eugenia held two blades of grass between her palms, and Joyce drew the longest one. I couldn't help groaning, for that meant that the Pilgrim Father must ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston

... reasons, I am in a very particular manner her aversion. What shall I do? Impudence itself cannot reclaim her. If I write miserable, she reckons me among the children of perdition, and discards me her region: If I assume the gross and substantial, she plays the real ghost with me, and vanishes in a moment. I had hopes in the hypocrisy of the sex; but perseverance makes it as bad as a fixed aversion. I desire your opinion, Whether I may not lawfully ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... means of seeing and questioning you. I can only send this letter to Allan to be forwarded, if he knows, or can discover, your present address. Placed in this position toward you, I am bound to assume all that can be assumed in your favor. I will take it for granted that something has happened to you or to Allan which to your mind has not only confirmed the fatalist conviction in which your father died, but has added a new and terrible ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... in jealousy excited a riot in the city; Sulla departed, joined his army which awaited him in south Italy, then returned to Rome. Roman religion prohibited soldiers entering the city under arms; the consul even before passing the gates had to lay aside his mantle of war and assume the toga. Sulla was the first general who dared to violate this restriction. Marius ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... it necessary to assume a character wholly fictitious—or, let us say, quite inconsistent with his life and opinions as ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... that to join her beloved lord in life was hopeless. She drew herself up with dignity. "Inquisitors, I will die with my husband," she exclaimed. "I renounce for ever the gross errors of the Romish faith, which I have been induced to assume. I am ready to die as a true Protestant—a believer in the ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston

... cannot but marvel that, even with the assistance of such laws, the supply could be maintained with any fair proportion to the demand. The people looked to the government for the supply, and when it fell short would make their troubles known with seditious grumblings, which would occasionally assume the guise of insurrection. At this period of Cicero's return food had become scarce and dear; and Clodius, who was now in arms against Pompey as well as against Cicero, caused it to be believed that the strangers flocking into Rome to welcome Cicero had eaten up the food which should ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... Institution of the Court of Session by James V of Scotland till well into the nineteenth century, it was the custom of Scottish judges when taking their seat on the Bench to assume a title from an estate—it might even be from a farm—already in their own or their family's possession. So we find that nearly every parish in Scotland has given birth to a judge who by this practice has made that parish or ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... all this speculation rests on, what I assume, that Lee surrendered only in expectation of a peace derived from his interview with Grant—and that no terms of peace would be entertained that ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... the Far East," lays great stress on the suitability of North Borneo for the immigration of Chinese on a very large scale, and prophesied that "should the immigration once commence, it would doubtless assume great proportions and continue until every acre of useless jungle is cleared away, to give place to rice, pepper, gambier, sugar-cane, cotton, coffee, indigo and those other products which flourish on its fertile soil." No doubt a considerable impetus would be given to the immigration of Chinese ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... responded to his appeal. His wife, whose courage was often greater than his own, urged him to make a beginning in the little village where he lived, unpromising as the conditions seemed, and after a little hesitation, seeing no one was ready to assume any responsibility in a matter that he took so deeply to heart, the good pastor decided to follow her advice. The old parsonage was for rent, and he secured ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... not the Life of Columba at hand to refer to, I must assume that so able an archaeologist as my friend Dr. Reeves had sufficient authority for this statement. If it rested only on Fordun or Wynton, I should deem their authority insufficient to establish as a fact what seems to me so improbable. Assuming ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... guise, Diabolus had best to show himself, when he went about to make Mansoul his own. Then one said one thing, and another the contrary; at last Lucifer answered, that in his opinion it was best that his lordship should assume the body of some of those creatures that they of the town had dominion over. For, quoth he, these are not only familiar to them, but being under them, they will never imagine that an attempt should by them be made upon the town; and, to blind all, let him assume the body of one ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... was occupied, as usual, in collecting subscriptions for the poor Vaudois of the High Alps. Now that the good "merchant missionary" has rested from his labours, they will indeed feel the loss of their friend. Who is to assume his mantle? ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... had had her sailing orders, and was going to follow them. Mr. Tompsett-King had told her that Sanchia must be led, not driven, into Ingram's arms. "Assume the best of her, my dear friend," he had said, "if you wish to get the best out of her. Take right intentions for granted. It is very seldom that a woman can resist that kind of flattery. So far as I can read your sister's mind, she has suffered ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... bullet suggests one of those fancy silver-mounted weapons that are made to sell to wealthy people. Sir Horace was a bit of a sportsman, and knew something about game-shooting, but, I take it, he had no use for a revolver. I assume he kept one of those fancy weapons on hand thinking he would never have to use it, but that it would do to frighten a burglar if ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... emotion, and walked along beside him with a grave, subdued face. Bob did not like to assume the privileges of an accepted lover and draw her hand through his arm; for, conscious that she naturally belonged to a politer grade than his own, he feared lest her exhibition of tenderness were an impulse ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... quite true that the mystery of Hazel Rath's actions on the night of the murder, her subsequent silence after the recovery of the brooch and the handkerchief and the revolver in her mother's rooms, remained as suspicious as before, but the changed motive caused these points to assume a different complexion, even to the extent of suggesting that she might be a lesser participant in the crime, perhaps keeping silence in order ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... with a frowning face, he cut off his left sleeve from shoulder to wrist; and this act, by disclosing his linen, put him in possession of the white sleeve which he had once involuntarily donned, and once discarded. The white cross on the cap he could not assume, for he was bareheaded. But he had little doubt that the sleeve would suffice, and with a bold demeanour he made his way northward until he reached ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... may be infallibly sure of the truth of them; but for other things that we have no plain texts for, but the truth of them depends upon our interpretations, here we must be cautioned, that we do not spend much time in imposing those upon others, or venting those among others, unless we can assume infallibility, otherwise we spend time upon uncertainty. And whoever casts their eyes abroad, and do open their ears to intelligence, shall both see, and to their sorrow hear, that many churches spend most of their time in jangling and contending about those things which are neither essential to ...
— An Exhortation to Peace and Unity • Attributed (incorrectly) to John Bunyan



Words linked to "Assume" :   anticipate, assumption, act, play, usurp, raid, conquer, Christian religion, Christianity, expect, assumptive, receive, move, fill, take for granted, resume, change, occupy, take in, pretend, try, slip on, take office, scarf, capture, carry-the can, sham, suppose, hijack, get dressed, invite, face the music, feint, appropriate, dress, preoccupy, hat, try on, annex, presuppose, dissemble



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