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More "Presumption" Quotes from Famous Books



... indeed, it proved. For later, when my uncle fancied that he perceived some likeness to myself in the Sposalizio, though I had given Raphael no sittings, he was vehement in his denunciation of the presumption of all artists. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... flattering the committees. On being appointed commander, when victory obliged us to march through the countries of our enemies, I was as anxious that our character should be respected as that our arms should be dreaded. War, under my orders, was a calamity only on the battlefield. I have the presumption to think that the country has not forgotten my services then, nor the ready devotion which I showed when fighting as a subordinate; nor how I was appointed to the command-in-chief by the reverses of our arms, and, in one ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... the powder must have scorched his face. Having thus thrown away his fire, he remained at the mercy of Peregrine, who clapping the piece he had in reserve to his head, commanded him to beg his life, and ask pardon for his presumption. The commodore made no reply to this imperious injunction; but, dropping his pistol, and unsheathing his broad-sword in an instant, attacked our hero with such incredible agility, that if he had not made shift to ward off the stroke with his piece, the adventure, in all likelihood, would ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... should be quite sure you are found out first; even then you have only to look rather sharply at anyone you fear in order to reduce Him. Indeed, the best of defences is presumption ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange

... suspense I now suffer is my excuse. I need not reiterate to you how dearly I love you; you know this, dear one, as fully as any assertion of my own could possibly express it. It is trite that my love for you has partaken in no small degree of a character of presumption, daring, as an humble lieutenant of infantry, to lift my eyes to one as peerless and beautiful as yourself, and of a class of society so far above what my own humble position would authorize me to mingle with. But the past ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray

... to the story. The people understood this awful visitation to be the judgment of heaven against Laocoon for his sacrilegious presumption in daring to thrust his spear into the side of the image before them, and which they were now very sure they were to consider as something supernatural and divine. They determined with one accord to take it ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... person can behold the face of a woman of rank, or speak to females of condition, but through a curtain: therefore they could not go out themselves, and be active in a rebellion. But, I own, it would be some sort of presumption against them, if Jewar Ali Khan and Behar Ali Khan had headed troops, and been concerned in acts of rebellion; and the prisoner's counsel have taken abundance of pains to show that such persons do sometimes head armies and command legions ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... with the greatest difficulty that Joan finally obtained an interview with Boudricourt, the governor of Vaucouleurs; and he laughed at her, and bade her uncle take her home and chastise her for her presumption. She returned to her humble home, but with resolutions unabated. The voices encouraged her, and the common people believed in her. Again, in the red coarse dress of a peasant girl, she sought the governor, claiming that God had sent her. There was something so strange, so persistent, so honest ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord

... them seems mainly to rest on a presumption that in Plato's writings we may expect to find an uniform type of doctrine and opinion. But however we arrange the order, or narrow the circle of the dialogues, we must admit that they exhibit a growth and progress in the mind of Plato. And the appearance of change ...
— Statesman • Plato

... muster at Zante and elsewhere. Mr. Barff gave us 8000 and odd dollars; so there is still a balance in my favour. We are not quite certain that the vessels were Turkish which chased; but there is strong presumption that they were, and no news to the contrary. At Zante, every body, from the Resident downwards, were as kind as could be, especially your worthy and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... conventionality proved perfectly competent to avenge herself!" she exclaimed. "The animal Destournelle took the average, the banal view, as might have been anticipated. He had the insane presumption to suppose it was himself, not his art, in which I was interested. I explained his error, and departed. I recovered my equanimity. That took time. I felt soiled, degraded. And then to-day I meet him again, unashamed, actually ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... the people from various causes, became apparent in the raising to power of men from the lower walks of life, whose popularity was achieved and maintained mainly by intrigue and flattery. Chief among these rose Cle'on, a tanner, who has been characterized as "the violent demagogue whose arrogant presumption so unworthily succeeded the enlightened magnanimity of Pericles." In the year 428 Mityle'ne, the capital of the Island of Lesbos, revolted against the supremacy of Athens, but was speedily reduced to subjection, and one thousand or more Mityleneans ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... of vessels that were stopped, taken into British ports and held, sometimes, for weeks; and in reply England pointed out the large increase in the amount of copper and other materials sent to countries near Germany, and declared that the presumption was strong that these stores were ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... subject of jurisprudence to scientific treatment has never been entirely lost sight of in modern times, and the essays which the consciousness of this necessity has produced have proceeded from minds of very various calibre, but there is not much presumption, I think, in asserting that what has hitherto stood in the place of a science has for the most part been a set of guesses, those very guesses of the Roman lawyers which were examined in the two preceding chapters. A series of explicit statements, recognising and adopting these conjectural ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... quantities by religious corporations, was a true constructive statute, and the principle it establishes has grown ever since. The law regards with jealousy the ownership of land by any corporation; the presumption is against the power, and it extends to-day to all corporations, and particularly to alien corporations (see chapter 7); and in 1283 came the Statute of Acton Burnel, re-enacted in 1285 and called the "Statute Merchant," equally important. It provides for the speedy recovery of debts due merchants, ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... scholars "said that they did not want mere words; that one can believe only what one understands; and that it is ridiculous to preach to others what one understands no better than they do." Bernard himself never charged Abelard with any presumption equal to this. Bernard said only that "he sees nothing as an enigma, nothing as in a mirror, but looks on everything face to face." If this had been all, even Bernard could scarcely have complained. For several ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... had been a scout and notwithstanding his suspense and almost panicky apprehension, he was not going to act impulsively or thoughtlessly. He knew that if he could only present a convincing case to his superiors, they would forgive him his presumption. If he made a bungle it might go hard with him. Anyway, he could not, or would not, turn ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... ordered by the Assembly 'that the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds be paid to Captain Kidd, as a suitable acknowledgement for the important benefits which the colony had derived from his services.' The presumption is, that those services were in some way connected with the protection of the colonial merchant ships from the attacks of the pirates, who were even yet hovering along the coasts of the Northern colonies. Indeed, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... made the startling fact palpable and evident. This assurance followed easily. No oral communication could have satisfied me more fully of the importance and necessity of an immediate resignation of my trust. It was a punishment for my presumption. I should have rested grateful for the interposition which had rescued me from the jaws of hell, and left to others, worthy of the transcendent honour, the glorious task of saving souls. What was I, steeped in sin, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... Adrian, "who can pronounce himself, or whom the world will pronounce to be your superior. There does not exist the man in England with adequate presumption. Know yourself, Raymond, and your indignation will cease; your complacency return. A few months ago, whenever we prayed for the prosperity of our country, or our own, we at the same time prayed for the life and welfare of the Protector, as indissolubly linked to it. Your hours were devoted to our ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... unluckily, the noblesse were still so puffed up with the notion of their vanished power, that it was difficult to contend against a kind of innate presumption in themselves. Perhaps this is a national defect. The Frenchman is less given than anyone else to undervalue himself; it comes natural to him to go from his degree to the one above it; and while it is a rare thing for him to pity the unfortunates over whose heads he rises, he always groans in spirit ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... but one kind of opposition to them you will never hear; you will never hear them met by quiet, steady, rational argument; for that is the one way in which they cannot be met. You will constantly hear me accused—you yourselves may be the first to accuse me—of presumption in speaking thus confidently against the established authority of ages. Presumption! Yes, if I had spoken on my own authority; but I have appealed to two incontrovertible and irrefragable witnesses—to the nature ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin

... of the Abbe's, respecting motives, has led me unintendedly into a train of metaphysical reasoning; but there was no other avenue by which it could so properly be approached. To place presumption against presumption, assertion against assertion, is a mode of opposition that has no effect; and therefore the more eligible method was, to shew that the declaration does not correspond with the natural progress ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine

... peasants; and troops of armed men sent to prevent the devastations retreated more frequently from pretended than from real fear. And now the Fabii had such a contempt for the enemy, as to believe that their invincible arms could not be withstood either in any place or on any occasion: this presumption carried them so far, that at the sight of some cattle at a distance from Cremera, with an extensive plain lying between, they ran down to it (although few troops of the enemy were observed); and when incautious and in disorderly haste they had passed the ambuscade placed ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... intensity. At least, one would be disposed to argue in this way from the analogy of the condition of the other functions of the organism during sleep. Possibly this modicum of positive evidence may more than outweigh any slight presumption against the doctrine of unbroken mental activity drawn from the negative circumstance that we remember so ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... the girl held out her hand, with a certain emphasis; and John took it and kept it a little longer, and said, 'Good-night, Flora, dear,' and was instantly thrown into much fear by his presumption. But she only laughed, ran up the steps, and rang the bell; and while she was waiting for the door to open, kept close in the porch, and talked to him from that point as out of a fortification. She had a knitted shawl over ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to right again. But what had become of the crew? A glance at the craft's davits answered that question. There were no boats to be seen, while the davit-tackles were overhauled and the blocks in the water. This clearly pointed to the fact that the boats had been lowered; the presumption therefore was that the crew had abandoned the craft, fearing that she was about to founder. Nevertheless, the weather being fine, and the condition of the sea such that the craft could be boarded without much danger or difficulty, Leslie determined to give her an overhaul; ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... the work, and was naturally desirous of bettering his condition, he applied for the appointment. The office was at the disposal of the Lieutenant-Governor, and was held entirely at his pleasure. Collins was curtly checked for his presumption by a leading official, who informed him that the office would be conferred upon "no one but a gentleman." It would be interesting to know whence the official who was guilty of this wanton insult had derived his ideas of courtesy and good ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... by death from carrying to perfection the works that they have begun. And it happens very often that, leaving them all but finished or in a fair way to completion, they are falsely claimed by the presumption of those who seek to conceal their asses' skin under the honourable spoils of the lion. And although time, who is called the father of truth, sooner or later makes manifest the real state of things, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari

... look said it would be no presumption. And Miss Planta had already desired me to bring him to her next time; which I suspect was by higher order ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... accuracy, the formality, the tediousness, which belong to the character. But he had other qualities which had not yet shown themselves, devouring ambition, dauntless courage, self-confidence amounting to presumption, and a temper which could not endure opposition. He was not disposed to be anybody's tool; and he had no attachment, political or personal, to Bute. The two men had, indeed, nothing in common, except a strong propensity towards harsh and unpopular courses. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... "I feel that very much—and yet, if your eminence would condescend, though I hardly suppose it possible, his lordship is really going to do us the honor of dining with us to-day; only a few friends, and if your eminence could make the sacrifice, and it were not an act of too great presumption, to ask your eminence to join ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... chastised and deprived of half 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 Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... person in an elaborate toilet as regards her back hair, but not otherwise impressive in attire, comes to the door of the hotel to meet you, and gently inquires concerning your wishes: that you have come to stay in the house is a presumption which no properly constituted young person in Tenby would venture upon without express warrant in words. Receiving information on this point from you, the probability is that she imparts to you in return the information that the house is full. Such, indeed, is the chronic condition ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... cause; to-night the descendants of the slave stand in Faneuil Hall, while from ocean to ocean every foot of American soil is dedicated to freedom. The Negro American has found his voice; he is able to speak for himself; he stands upon this famous platform here and thinks it no presumption to declare that he seeks nothing more, and will be satisfied with nothing less than the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... Charmian, who wrote the successful novel of last year, do you not already repent your rash act? If you do not write a better novel this year, will not the public flout you and jeer you for a pretender? Did the public overpraise you at first? Its mistaken partiality becomes now your presumption. Last year the press said you were the rival of Hawthorne. This year it is, "that Miss Charmian who set herself up as a second Hawthorne." When the new house was opened, it might be said that socially Mrs. Henderson had "arrived." Had she? When one enters on ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... continue this undertaking. Loyalty to human duty shall be my concern. Results may owe other allegiance. There may be accounting for those interlopers who, crossing boundaries of warranted care, trespass upon exclusive 'preserves' of more imperious power. Such presumption may be ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... the author of any other pieces I have not been able to ascertain: her taste, and the extreme facility with which she wrote poetry of the lighter kind, induce a presumption that she was; but I know of none that have come down ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... "This is presumption carried to the last degree," he said. "My own honor and the honor of Mexico will not allow ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... sweetly ignorant of the ways of justice, went to the judge and labored with him, to no effect, though he was wondrous kind. Then in court she gave just the wrong evidence, because it showed how poor her father was, and so established a presumption of his great necessity and desperation. But the Deus ex machina—the wicked partner—arrived at the right moment, and owned up, and the good father was cleared, and little Daughter Dorothy was made glad. But this meagre ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge

... arch, to take the old king by surprise, climbed the bearded chin, crossed the lips, and were playing before the nose as if to give it a sportive tweak, while the stern brow frowned in anger at the plant's presumption. ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.

... perhaps of all others in my life I most deeply regretted and considered as a sin of the blackest dye was the publishing of my experience during these four years, which, speaking as a farmer, was nothing but ignorance, folly, presumption, ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... intellectual barbarians for whom every religion is falsehood, every form of civilization now extinct a folly, every great pope, king, or warrior now in the course of things surpassed a criminal or a hypocrite, and revoke the condemnation, thus uttered by presumption in the present, of the past labors and intellect of entire humanity;—a school which may condemn, but will not defame,—will judge, but never, through frenzy of rebellion, falsify history;—a school which will declare the death that is, without denying the life that was,—which will call upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... commands a company on the island. He will deserve promotion. The government seems to have proscribed the great men of the past and their families, as if this government was the property of the few men who happen to wield power at the present moment. Arrogance and presumption in the South must, sooner or later, have a fall. The great men who were the leaders of this revolution may be ignored, but they cannot be kept down by the smaller fry who aspire to wield the destinies of a great and patriotic people. Smith and Lovell, New York politicians ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... An ex-contractor for forage to the armies of the Republic, a man of the district, with an income of six thousand francs, persuaded Chesnel to carry a proposal of marriage to the lady. The Marquis and his sister were alike indignant with such presumption in their man of business, and Chesnel was almost heartbroken; he could not forgive himself for yielding to the Sieur du Croisier's [du Bousquier] blandishments. The Marquis' manner with his old servant changed somewhat; never again was there quite the old affectionate kindliness, which might almost ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... earliest times down, for in that period the Pope did possess the prerogative of infallibility, though it has only recently been defined as a dogma. Here it must be recollected that I am not arguing; it would be mere presumption in me to attempt a scientific exposition altogether out of my power. Suffice it to say, that theologians have exhausted the inward reasonings upon it, and though I am not able to set them forth, I am at least convinced by them. Still the concrete world remains, and things are to be seen in them ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... For whatever of presumption may appear in giving this little book to the public, the friends of the writer alone are answerable. It was at their wish only that he consented to its being printed. It is, however, submitted to the reader, in the hope that the unbiassed impressions of colonial life, as they ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... formulated into no dogmas, but, in so far as it is communicable, it is conveyed, or sought to be conveyed, by symbols. These symbols to a sceptical or an unsympathetic person will say nothing, but the presumption among those who are inclined towards the cult is that if these symbols convey anything at all, that thing is mysticism. The mystics are right. The familiar phrases, terms, and symbols of mysticism are not meaningless, and a glance ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman

... concerning the peculiar tendencies and aptitudes characteristic of women, as women have hitherto been. I do not say, as they will continue to be; for, as I have already said more than once, I consider it presumption in any one to pretend to decide what women are or are not, can or cannot be, by natural constitution. They have always hitherto been kept, as far as regards spontaneous development, in so unnatural a state, that their nature cannot but have been greatly distorted and disguised; ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... you, young Kinsman and Counsellor? (said he to Goodland.) With all Respect due to your sacred Title, (return'd Valentene, rising and bowing) Sir Philip spoke as became a truly affectionate Husband; and it had been Presumption in him, unpardonable, to have seem'd to prefer her Majesty, or that other sweet Lady, in his Thoughts, since your Majesty has been pleas'd to say so much and so particularly of their Merits: 'Twould appear as if he durst lift up his Eyes, with Thoughts too near the Heaven you only would enjoy. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... to swell this tide, I am compelled to pause and examine the subject anew; but my judgment remains the same. We must call no man master on earth; one is our master in heaven. It is not necessarily presumption in one of us to oppose the judgment of the great and good of a former age, especially on such a subject as this. In regard to all the relations between the Church and the civil power, we are in a better position for judging than either the early Reformers or the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... Archbishop Langevin called upon every true son of the Church to stand by those who stood by it. In Ontario and the other English-speaking provinces, on the contrary, the welkin rang with denunciations of hierarchical presumption. Sir Charles Tupper fought with the wonderful vigour and fearlessness that had always marked him, but fought in vain. His forces, disorganized by internal strife, weakened by long years of office, weighted down by an impossible policy, were ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... infant son to the captain and younger brother to the officers. There is no estimating the pride I took in this grandeur, or the affection that began to swell and grow in me for those people. I could not know how the lordly steamboatman scorns that sort of presumption in a mere landsman. I particularly longed to acquire the least trifle of notice from the big stormy mate, and I was on the alert for an opportunity to do him a service to that end. It came at last. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... be little more than a conjectural answer. It would be most interesting to know the true thoughts and purposes of the leading delegates. We shall see a little later the interpretation given by one of their defenders. But the strong presumption is that their action was the fruit less of a policy than of a temper. They had long been growing into a disposition which could brook no resistance and no contradiction. The irresponsible power of the master over his slaves; the ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... into their minds to attempt to supplement the parental work, as far as in them lay, that it might not remain imperfect, when to Jacopo, who was far more zealous than the other in this work, there appeared a wondrous vision, which not only checked his foolish presumption but showed him where were the thirteen cantos which were wanting to this Divine Comedy and which they had not known where to find. A worthy man of Ravenna whose name was Piero Giardino, long time a disciple of Dante's, ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton

... to the inhabitants of the world: To the sons of Presumption, humility and fear; and to the daughters of Sorrow, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... stage of civilisation whence advancing communities emerge into the era of individual liberty. In its most perfect development it takes the form of caste, and the presumption is the movement toward caste begins upon the abandonment of a wandering life, and varies in intensity with the environment and temperament of each race, the feebler sinking into a state of equilibrium, when change by spontaneous growth ceases to be perceptible. ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... more than Eminent Beauty, can escape the Trouble and Presumption of Addresses; and that which can strike every body with Wonder, can never avoid the Praise which naturally flows from that Wonder: And Heaven is forc'd to hear the Addresses as well as praises of the Poor as Rich, of the Ignorant as Learned, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... behaves with awkwardness when he is in love, and the want of the one is a presumption of the absence of the other. When people are fairly engaged, there is perhaps less of this directly to the object, but there is still as much of it in her presence; but it is wonderful how soon the most nervous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various

... you Calmet's remarks; "A father could not sell his daughter as a slave, according to the Rabbins, until she was at the age of puberty, and unless he were reduced to the utmost indigence. Besides, when a master bought an Israelitish girl, it was always with the presumption that he would take her to wife." Hence Moses adds, "if she please not her master, and he does not think fit to marry her, he shall set her at liberty," or according to the Hebrew, "he shall let her be redeemed." "To sell her to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... dissatisfaction with the evidence against Ripa; inasmuch as Mendez, who, when first questioned, had spoken confidently as to his identity, had since faltered when he came to give his evidence in public, and seemed unable to afford any positive testimony on the subject. The presumption against the prisoner, without the evidence of the Spaniard, was considered by the other judges strong enough to convict him; but Marino had objected that since the attack was made by daylight—for it was in the summer, and the evenings were quite light—it seemed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various

... that Micky felt a natural enmity towards those in his own condition in life who wore better clothes than himself. For the last nine months, Dick's neat appearance had excited the ire of the young Philistine. To appear in neat attire and with a clean face Micky felt was a piece of presumption, and an assumption of superiority on the part of our hero, and he termed it "tryin' to ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger

... Vasari says that Donatello made two of them, and that Michelozzo made the Faith, which is the least successful of the three. Modern criticism tends to revert to Albertini, assigning all to Michelozzo, with the presumption that Hope, which is derived from the Siena statuette, was executed from Donatello's design. Certainly the basal figures are without the brio of Donatello's chisel; likewise the Madonna above the effigy, which is vacillating, and may have been the earliest work of Pagno di Lapo, a man about ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... for his presumption, marched against him with a powerful army; and after having subdued all the plain country, shut him up in Samaria, where he kept him closely besieged for three years; at the end of which he took the city, loaded Hoshea ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... the Queen. I have now mingled largely with the best society of Palmyra. The doors of the noble and the rich have been opened to me with a liberal hospitality, As the friend of Gracchus and Fausta—and now I may add I believe without presumption—of Zenobia also, of Julia, and Longinus, I have been received with attentions, of which Aurelian himself might with reason have been proud. More and more do I love this people, more and more fervently do I beg of the Being or Beings ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... I now made my way up-stairs. Having reached the upper entry, I paused, and glanced at the audience through the windows, before entering the little retiring-room behind the stage. With an inward groan at my presumption, I passed on. To think, that, but for my own madness, I might have been at that moment comfortably at home, reading the evening paper! Nay, were it not better to be tossing on stormy seas, driving on a lee-shore, toiling as a slave under a tropic sun, than here, with a gaping ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... a prince than Trajan? For these Alexanders and Caesars not only dearly loved the divine painting, and paid great prices for it, but with their own hands they occupied themselves with it and touched it. Or who, out of bravery and presumption, will despise it and be not rather very humble and very unworthy before painting, before her ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... apparently all lost their heads." The same authority supplies what may be in part an explanation of this in his comment, written shortly before Gravelotte, that he believed there might not be another battle in the whole war—a remark which savours of presumption and folly. Gravelotte, therefore, cannot be considered as wholly creditable to the victors. Still, the result was that some 180,000 French troops were shut up within the outworks ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... in strictness the only Sciences which we possess; and the only domains in which knowledge, in the proper sense of the term, is attainable. In passing their boundaries, we leave the regions of positive certitude, and come into the domain where Conjecture, varying from the strongest presumption to mere plausibility, is the highest proof. Laws or Principles are yet undiscovered there, and in their place we find Generalizations—Suppositive or Proximate Laws—which are in process of proof, or already established by such evidence as the Inductive Method can array, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... man wad I hae been, had they set me frae the first to caw the pleuch, and cut the corn, and gether the stooks intil the barn—i'stead o' creepin intil a leaky boat to fish for men wi' a foul and tangled net! I'm affrontit and jist scunnert at mysel! —Eh, the presumption o' the thing! But I hae been weel and richteously punished! The Father drew his han' oot o' mine, and loot me try to gang my lane; sae doon I cam, for I was fit for naething but to fa': naething less could hae broucht me to mysel—and it took a lang time! I houp ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald

... contaminate the shipment since the destination was proved to be a neutral one and the point of departure an English port. In February the gold was returned to the Bank of Durban because the ultimate destination of the consignment did not warrant the presumption that ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... State. At this he evidently determined to crush this intruder upon his domain. That an "upstart''—a "mere school-teacher''— should presume to reply to a man like himself, who had sat at the feet of Henry Clay, and was old enough to be my father, was monstrous presumption; but that a professor in the State university of a commonwealth largely Republican should avow free-trade opinions was akin to treason, and through twelve successive issues of his paper he lashed ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... 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

... may search for that personage in the records of the stage. That other player-author may have died young, or faded into obscurity. The term "the only Shake-scene" may be one of those curious coincidences which do occur. The presumption lies rather on the other side. I demur, when Mr. Greenwood courageously struggling for his case says that, even assuming the validity of the surmise that there is an allusion to Shakspere, {143a} "the utmost that we should be entitled to say ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... himself was partly the cause of by his exactnesse in eating and drinking, so did he the more dread the sudden infliction of any Disease, or other violence of Nature, fearing this his care might amount to a presumption, in the Eyes of the great Disposer of all things, and so it ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... mother, perhaps you will be surprised at the style in which I have been writing, and you will smile at hearing your Leonora discuss the duties of legislators and the grand interests of society. She has not done so from presumption, or from affectation. She was alarmed by your supposing that her judgment was deluded by fascinating manners, and she determined to produce general arguments, to convince you that she is not actuated by particular prepossession. You see that I have at least some show of reason on my side. I ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... TRIUMPHS, a poem in four parts, by Giles Fletcher (1610): Part i. "Christ's Victory in Heaven," when He reconciled Justice with Mercy, by taking on Himself a body of human flesh; part ii. "Christ's Triumph on Earth," when He was led up into the wilderness, and was tempted by Presumption, Avarice, and Ambition; part iii. "Christ's Triumph over Death," when He died on the Cross; part iv. "Christ's Triumph after Death," in His resurrection and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... time profitable work, for it makes you a queen! But I repeat, be cautious, never irritate the king by contradiction. Without their knowing it, we must lead the wavering where salvation awaits them. For, as we have said, he is a waverer; and in the haughty pride of his royalty, he has the presumption to wish to stand above all parties, and to be himself able to found a new Church, a Church which is neither Catholic nor Protestant, but Ms Church; to which, in the six articles, the so-called 'Bloody Statute' ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... because no vulgar tongue was worthy to express the pure conceit of an Imprimatur, but rather, as I hope, for that our English, the language of men ever famous and foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily find servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory presumption English. ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton

... is not expected to buck a chow line, or any other queue in line of duty, if he is sensibly in a rush. The presumption is that his time is more valuable to the service than that of an enlisted man. Normally, an officer is not expected to pitch a tent or spend his energy on any hand labor incidental to housekeeping. Normally, he has greater freedom ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... a temporary consternation. To imitate the voice of the dead, to counterfeit a commission from heaven, bore the aspect of presumption and impiety. It seemed an offence which could not fail to draw after it the vengeance of the deity. My wishes for a time yielded to my fears, but this scheme in proportion as I meditated on it, became more plausible; ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown

... authoritative manner of my uncle, at all times irksome and repelling, after the death of his good wife became almost insupportable; while the insolence and presumption of his artful son, goaded a free and irascible spirit like mine almost to madness. The moral force of his mother's character, though unappreciated by him, had been some restraint upon his unamiable, tyrannical temper. That restraint was now removed, and Theophilus considered that my dependent ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... kill him, so that they must wait and hope. Finally Zebbie got tired of waiting, and one day he boldly rode up to the Gorley home and formally asked for Pauline's hand. The bullet he got for his presumption kept him from going to the war with his father and brother when they ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... 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

... Again: a presumption of this crime appears in Lord Byron's admission, in a letter to Moore, that he had an illegitimate child born before he left England, and still living ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... lectures, —on Plato, or the Philosopher; Swedenborg, or the Mystic; Montaigne, or the Sceptic; Shakespeare, or the Poet; Napoleon, or the Man of the World;—if I dare, and much lecturing makes us incorrigibly rash. Perhaps, before I end it, my list will be longer, and the measure of presumption overflowed. I may take names less reverend than some of these,—but six lectures I have promised. I find this obligation usually a good spur to the sides of that dull horse I have charge of. But many of its advantages must be regarded at ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Rome and the northern cities when your health is established?" she inquired, in a voice which skilfully avoided any presumption of the reply. "Or ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... staging of a many-storied universe, in which spiritual forces have the last word and are eternal,—this bare {57} assurance is to such men enough to make life seem worth living in spite of every contrary presumption suggested by its circumstances on the natural plane. Destroy this inner assurance, however, vague as it is, and all the light and radiance of existence is extinguished for these persons at a stroke. Often enough the wild-eyed look at life—the suicidal ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... writing these lines, a little over half a century has passed away since this incident occurred, and it will here be recorded that now I am sincerely thankful that I failed to kill that man. Considering his marvelous escape on this occasion, the presumption is strong that he lived through the war, married some good woman, and became the father of a family of interesting children, and likely some one of his boys fought under the old flag in the Spanish-American War,—so it is probably all ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... 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 the dogmatising fool when ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... to marry your daughter," said Mark Spayley with faltering eagerness. "I am only an artist with an income of two hundred a year, and she is the daughter of an enormously wealthy man, so I suppose you will think my offer a piece of presumption." ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... making very audible remarks on the passers-by. His attention was at length riveted by the appearance on the other side of the street, of a modest-looking young gentleman, who appeared to be so ill at ease in his frock-coat and "stick-up" collars, as to lead to the strong presumption that he wore those articles of manly dress for the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... him to return again to the plantations,"—this causes our author to remark, that these lawyers, by thus stating the case merely on one side of the question, (I mean in favour of the master) have occasioned an unjust presumption and prejudice, plainly inconsistent with the laws of the realm, and against the other side of the question; as they have not signified that their opinion was only conditional, and not absolute, and must be understood on the part of the master, "That he can produce an authentic agreement ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet

... to man, met with his death at Barn-Elms, from the hand of the ignoble Duke who had vilely dishonoured him. Nor can it be thought an unequal dispensation, were it generally to happen that the usurper of the Divine prerogative should be punished for his presumption by the man whom he sought to destroy, and who, however previously criminal, is put, in this case, upon a necessary ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... be considered presumption in me, to speak of the diseases of children, as this more properly belongs to the faculty; but let it be observed, that my pretension is not to cure the diseases that children are subject to, but only ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin

... answer. I have already scraped together a considerable quantity—suspend your curiosity, Mr. Scott, you will see them when I see you, of which I am as impatient as you can be to see the songs for your life. But as I suppose you have no personal acquaintance in this parish, it would be presumption in me to expect that you will visit my cottage, but I will attend you in any part of the Forest if you will send me word. I am far from supposing that a person of your discernment,—d-n it, I'll blot out that, ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... inspiration quaffed in communion with imaginative and poetic souls. An amusing recognition of these limitations is vouched for by a friend, who erased a line of poetry from a manuscript copy of a public address by Douglas. Taken to task for his presumption, he defended himself by the indisputable assertion, that Douglas was never known to have quoted a line of poetry in his life.[607] Yet the unimaginative Douglas anticipated the era of aerial navigation now ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... claim that is made for mental influence in disease is based upon the allegation that it has the power of producing disease and even death; the presumption, of course, being that, if able to produce these conditions, it would certainly have some influence in removing or preventing them. Upon this point the average man is surprisingly positive and confident in his convictions. Popular literature and legend are full ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... with the flesh eaten by fishes, but the bones and the head uninjured. They swear a surgeon, who has examined the body, and certainly he had the presumption to guess it looks like a murdered body. But, being sifted, he was forced to admit that, so far as his experience of murdered bodies goes, it is not like a murdered body; for there is no bone broken, nor bruise on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... of that race will have been hard, the sacrifices great. And even so will the results of those sacrifices be great. Of social problems I am, as I have said, not qualified to speak; indeed of any of the great problems of reconstruction it would be presumption on my ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile

... them and was defeated. Three consuls, L. Cassius, C. Servilius Caepio, and Cn. Manlius, sent in all haste against them, successively experienced the same fate. With the barbarians victory bred presumption. Their chieftains met, and deliberated whether they should not forthwith cross into Italy and exterminate or enslave the Romans. Scaurus, a prisoner, was present at this deliberation. He laughed at the ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... him for a moment as if amazed at his presumption. But she checked herself and only said, "I am afraid you will have to choose some less expensive profession than that. Besides, you would have to pass an examination to enable you to enter the army; and how can you do that unless ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... suppose that you read H. Spencer's answer to Martineau: it struck me as quite wonderfully good, and I felt even more strongly inclined than before to bow in reverence before him. Nothing has amused me more in your review than Dr. B.'s extraordinary presumption in deciding that such men as Lyell, Owen, H. Spencer, Mivart, Gaudry, etc. etc., are all wrong. I daresay it would be very delightful to feel such ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... have seen and heard much of the methods of France in the south—her ambition, her presumption, her weakness. Here in the north she has a firmer grip, and Canada is her stronghold. But if once we can shake her power there, all will be gone. They say that Pitt knows this, and that his eyes are upon the Western world. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... met her in the remoteness of that morning with the belief that but for the follies of last night she might have answered him differently. He believed now that, whatever had gone before, she must still have rejected him. She had treated his presumption very leniently; she had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... human soul is necessarily to be trained up in the faith of those from whom it inherits its body, why, there is the end of all reason. If, sooner or later, every soul is to look for truth with its own eyes, the first thing is to recognize that no presumption in favor of any particular belief arises from the fact of our inheriting it. Otherwise you would not give the Mahometan a fair chance to become a ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)

... came from most of the gentlemen at that! "Preposterous!" said one. "Ridiculous!" said another. "Insufferable presumption!" ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt

... buried in the ruins, their deaths will not save the edifices. Unfortunately they can be built again. Like Doubting Castle, they have been demolished many times by successive Greathearts, and rebuilt by Simple, Sloth, and Presumption, by Feeble Mind and Much Afraid, and by all the jurymen of Vanity Fair. Another generation of "secondary education" at our ancient public schools and the cheaper institutions that ape them will be quite sufficient ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... not be able to persevere in one regular, consistent story "; whereas, if no advantage be taken of such particularity in the charge to detect the falsehood thereof, and if no attempt to disprove it, and no defence whatever be made, a presumption justly and reasonably arises in favor of the truth of such charge. That the said Warren Hastings, instead of offering anything in his defence, declared that he would not suffer Nundcomar to appear before the board at his accuser; that he attempted to indict his said accuser for ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... her in words or requested her to take a lower seat, but some rude giggles were not inaudible; and Priscilla, who would thankfully have taken her dinner in the scullery, heard hints about a certain young person's presumption, and about the cheek of those wretched freshers, which must instantly be put down with a ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... interpreted into fear; so, after drinking a little more, he suddenly started up, and striding once or twice before the table, he asked me what I meant by that impertinent question of mine, saying that he had a good mind to wring my nose for my presumption. 'You have?' said I, getting up and laying down my pipe, 'well, I'll now give you an opportunity.' So I put myself in an attitude, and went up to him, saying, 'I have an old score to settle with you, you scamp; you wanted to get me turned out of the club, didn't you?' And thereupon, remembering ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... attended at Greenhay. Dr. P. was a literary man, of elegant tastes and philosophic habits. Some of his papers may be found in the "Manchester Philosophic Transactions;" and these I have heard mentioned with respect, though, for myself, I have no personal knowledge of them. Some presumption meantime arises in their favor from the fact that he had been a favored correspondent of the most eminent Frenchmen at that time who cultivated literature jointly with philosophy. Voltaire, Diderot, Maupertuis, Condorcet, and D'Alembert had all treated ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... with the attributes of the superior race. Only her drop of black blood, he conceived, gave him the right to feel toward her as he would never have felt without it; and if Rena guessed her faithful devotee's secret, the same reason saved his worship from presumption. A smile and a kind word were little enough to ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... attended, approached us with a careless superior air. He seemed to want no introduction, but was going to salute my daughters as one certain of a kind reception; but they had early learnt the lesson of looking presumption out of countenance. Upon which he let us know that his name was Thornhill, and that he was owner of the estate that lay for some extent round us. He again, therefore, offered to salute the female part of the family, and such ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... have nothing to do with all this. For the present, take notice of one thing only; viz., that the hand of the same God has passed over everything, and that there is neither much presumption nor much merit in tracing points of comparison between the different parts of His work. These comparisons are not a mere play of the mind; they really exist ready made in the very foundations ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... made it his duty to lay before her the probability of an obstacle. That his mother did not like the alliance had to be braved, for a man must leave father and mother and cleave to his wife—a saying commonly by male presumption inverted. Mercy's love he believed such that she would, without a thought, leave the luxury of her father's house for the mere plenty of his. That it would not be to descend but to rise in the true social scale he would leave her to discover. ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... patent that this vibration is in some way taken up by the optic nerve and transmitted to the center of sight in the brain. But after that—what? He laughed again at Carmen's pertinent question about the mind climbing up into the brain to see the vibrating nerve. But was it so silly a presumption, after all? Is the mind within the brain, awaiting in Stygian darkness the advent of the vibrations which shall give it pictures of the outside world? Or is the mind outside of the brain, but still slavishly forced ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... of their own boat, sir, as lively as if they was still in their natural 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

... a majority of the settlers of the township might be expected from New England. He says, "There is a number of Families from N. England come this summer (1765) on a presumption that there was sufficient land to be had, as one Peabody and his associates had settled themselves the same way about four years ago and had a great struggle to get their Grant this year after all their improvements. ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... what would the world, to what would England, come, if this habit of regarding all novelty as sophistry, of making the very ability and learning bestowed upon a doctrine an objection to the receipt of that doctrine, were to become general? "Ignorance and illiterate presumption," he says, "which is yet but our disease, will turn at length into our very constitution, and prove the hectic evil of this age." He hoped better of the Parliament; he hoped that they would not overlook the necessity of a change of the Law in this matter of Divorce. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... to hold out the promise that it is looking out for them and providing reforms for them. This principle is preeminently applicable to the National Government. It is too much assumed that because an abuse exists it is the business of the National Government to provide a remedy. The presumption should be that it is the business of local and State governments. Such national action results in encroaching upon the salutary independence of the States and by undertaking to supersede their natural authority fills the land with bureaus and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... annoyance—and, on the other, much of that comfort which springs from spontaneous tokens of disinterested goodwill and of gratitude, even from the poor and humble; but the mens conscia sibi recti enabled him to bear the former with composure, and the latter without vain presumption. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... dispelled all doubts as to the legitimacy of his power; and the tidings that the admiral was in high favor at court, and would soon arrive with a powerful squadron, struck consternation into those who had entered into the rebellion on the presumption of ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... lands as to render the expectation of future revenue from that source, beyond the expenses of survey and management, illusory. The Secretary of the Interior estimated the revenue from the public lands for the next 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 ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... strongly this, that no Administration is justified in advising the exercise of that prerogative, unless there be a fair, reasonable presumption, even a strong moral conviction, that after a Dissolution they will be enabled to administer the affairs of this country through the support of a party sufficiently powerful to carry their measures. I do not think a Dissolution justifiable to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... true man." And Pope Leo says in a sermon on the Nativity (xxi): "Learn, O Christian, thy worth; and being made a partner of the Divine nature, refuse to return by evil deeds to your former worthlessness." Thirdly, because, "in order to do away with man's presumption, the grace of God is commended in Jesus Christ, though no merits of ours went before," as Augustine says (De Trin. xiii, 17). Fourthly, because "man's pride, which is the greatest stumbling-block to our clinging to God, can be convinced and cured by humility ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... work out of an old and, as it were, to sit in judgment on the copies of the Scriptures already scattered throughout the whole world; and, inasmuch as they differ among themselves, I am to decide which of them agree with the Greek original. A pious labor, but a perilous presumption; to judge others, myself to be judged of all; to change the language of the aged, and to carry back the world already grown gray, back to the beginnings of its infancy! Is there a man, learned or unlearned, who will not, when he takes the volume into his hands and perceives that ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... (for such evidence, whether for or against, would be subject to the same suspicion of being fabricated,) the case can only be referred to the internal evidence which the thing carries of itself; and this affords a very strong presumption of its being a fabrication. For the internal evidence is, that the theory or doctrine of redemption has for its basis an idea of pecuniary justice, and not that of ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... heart alone, is the ragged anomaly in the laws of fitness in mechanics." The heart was now seen to have a right position; for it should swing loose that its moorings be not endangered; and, as whatever impugns the Creator's unerring wisdom must be wrong, so the presumption is, that whatever vindicates it ...
— Theory of Circulation by Respiration - Synopsis of its Principles and History • Emma Willard

... in Jewry. The national spirit continues to live in the people, and it is this spirit that quickens the people. The genius of Jewish history, as in centuries gone by, holds watch over the sons of the "eternal people" scattered to all ends of the earth. West-European Jewry may say of itself, without presumption: Cogito ergo sum. ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow

... the reviewers of my translations attacked me virulently for my unwarrantable presumption in changing the very names of M. Zola's characters; they were unaware that the names given by me were those first selected by the author, who had afterwards altered them and forgotten to tell me ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... find all they most needed in each other. What is the condition of things in the growing intimacy of Number Five and the Tutor? He is many years her junior, as we know. Both of them look that fact squarely in the face. The presumption is against the union of two persons under these circumstances. Presumptions are strong obstacles against any result we wish to attain, but half our work in life is to overcome them. A great many results look in the distance like six-foot walls, and when we get nearer ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... grounds for believing that a nation has laid aside its own original form of speech, and adopted an alien dialect, language, if not a certain, is at least a very strong, evidence of ethnic character. Counter-evidence may no doubt rebut the prima facie presumption; but in the case of the Phoenicians no counter-evidence is producible. They belong to exactly that geographic zone in which Semitism has always had its chief seat; they cannot be shown to have been ever so circumstanced as to ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... was the Treatise of the Mental Sufferings of Christ—the book of the Blessed Battista of Varano, Princess of Camerino, who founded the convent of Poor Clares in that city—a book whose almost blasphemous presumption fired the train of ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... what cause the revolt of Britain was produced. Accident is commonly the parent of disorder; the seeds of rebellion happened to fall on a soil which was supposed to be more fruitful than any other in tyrants and usurpers; [8] the legions of that sequestered island had been long famous for a spirit of presumption and arrogance; [9] and the name of Maximus was proclaimed, by the tumultuary, but unanimous voice, both of the soldiers and of the provincials. The emperor, or the rebel,—for this title was not yet ascertained by fortune,—was a native of Spain, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon

... stared a moment at the Boy's presumption, drew himself up a little pompously, and crossed his arms over his ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... the ordinary trails past Collinson's or Skinner's, which would have betrayed his vicinity. But recluses are not usually accompanied by young daughters, whose relations with the world, not being as antagonistic, would make them uncertain companions. Why not a wife? His presumption of the extreme youth of the face he had seen at the window was after all only based upon the slipper he had found. And if a wife, whose absolute acceptance of such confined seclusion might be equally uncertain, why not somebody else's wife? Here was a reason for concealment, and the ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... of Prussian Court Etiquette, or openly laughing at the Orders of the Many Coloured Eagles, or simply detailing his work at Ruhleben and the other prison camps. His devotion there has earned a gratitude throughout this country that it would be mere presumption to try to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various

... You were as far above me as the evening star is above the earth it shines upon! It would have been base presumption in the poor saloon-waiter, or the dry-goods clerk, to have aspired to the hand of one like you. And although I loved you so, I should never have spoken, had not fate raised me to the position of a fortune equal to your own, and given me the means of offering you a home worthy of you. But I am waiting ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... suffered much from thirst, and though Ali had given him a skin for containing water, and Fatima once or twice presented him with a small supply, yet such was the barbarous disposition of the Moors, that when his boy attempted to fill his skin at the wells, he generally received a sound drubbing for his presumption. One night, having in vain attempted to obtain water, he resolved to try his fortune himself at the wells, which were about half a mile distant. About midnight he set out, and, guided by the lowing of the cattle, he reached the place. Here a number of Moors were drawing water, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... our presence, in an awkward but alarming attitude, of hunger mixed with fear. A single wolf seldom or never attacks a man. He cannot stand the face. But a person would need to have a godlike face indeed to terrify therewith an army of wolves some thousand strong. It would be the height of presumption in any man, though beautiful as Moore thought Byron, to attempt it. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... appropriating to itself a leading interest in the creative inventions of Watt and Arkwright, but connecting its name in honourable alliance with literature and science. The very circumstances from which a contrary presumption would originally have been drawn, have (singularly enough) principally contributed to its extraordinary progress. Lancashire owes the canals, by which the commercial thoroughfare of that end of England has been turned from the Humber to the Mersey, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various

... do, what recompense shall I have?" He answered that, since she was a maiden, he would bestow her in marriage upon a gentleman of right good worship and estimation. To this she agreed, on condition that she might have such a husband as herself should ask, without presumption to any member of his family; which he readily granted. This done, she set about her task, and before the eight days were passed he was entirely well; whereupon he told her she deserved such a husband as herself should choose, and ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... effervescing mixture of talent, learning, vanity, childish petulance, inquisitiveness, sagacity, ecstatic patriotism, and ambition. He was a splendid orator, with the voice of an old coster-woman; a savant with the presumption of a school-boy; a kind-hearted man, with the irritability of a monkey; a masterly administrator, with that irresistible tendency to intermeddle with everything which is intolerable to subordinates. He had a sincere love of liberty, with the ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... no more words to waste," he said, with a scorn in his voice that stung Brilliana's cheeks to crimson. She turned hurriedly to the little knot of Cavaliers, who chafed at having to witness what they held to be the presumption of a Puritan in daring to bandy words with a lady ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Fouquet, with airy presumption, expected thanks and praise. This, however, was what he had to hear: "I am shocked at ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... I had been alternately instructing youth in four different languages, thinking it practicable to effect some improvement upon the manuals which explain our own, I prepared and published, for the use of schools, a duodecimo volume of about three hundred pages; which, upon the presumption that its principles were conformable to the best usage, and well established thereby, I entitled, "The Institutes of English Grammar." Of this work, which, it is believed, has been gradually gaining in reputation ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... uttered, but—I can hardly say why—it gave me a sensible chill At the moment I should have been utterly unable to give the reason of this sensation, for I knew nothing of Miss Spencer's cousin. Since he was her cousin, the presumption was in his favor. But I felt suddenly uncomfortable at the thought that, half an hour after her landing, her scanty funds should have passed ...
— Four Meetings • Henry James

... too soon. We never felt this so deeply as when we finished the last chapter of the above-named extravagant work. Macaulay died too soon; for none but he could mete out complete and comprehensive justice to the insolence, the impudence, the presumption, the mendacity, and, above all, the majestic ignorance of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... dependency. This the sheriff, Mr. Dudley Fereday, declined, complaining that his honor Colonel Arthur was not mentioned in the requisition, and the object of the meeting not sufficiently defined. A meeting was therefore called to reprobate the ignorance and presumption of the sheriff; but the dispute ended without any other practical consequences than a wide impression that the government ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... this is changed, although the change has its limits. This diversity in the results of hereditary transmission is as strictly according to law as the similarity of features exhibited by parent and child. No presumption against the fact can be derived from this quarter, and therefore, if well-authenticated, it must be admitted. Many a man, however, who admits the general fact, refuses to make the application where ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... loyalty, to indulge in a forbidden privilege, and the wrath of the other waxed furious. Both knew that for Ephraim to have lain where Dorothy had discovered him, during that past night, was "intol'able" presumption, and at Dinah's care would be ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... assured and know, in regard to the mode of redress of the country, we are only children, and Their High Mightinesses are entirely competent, we nevertheless pray that they overlook our presumption and pardon us if we make some suggestions according to our slight understanding thereof, in addition to what we have considered necessary in our petition to Their ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various

... troops of the Colony were with General Carleton, near Montreal, and in the Richelieu peninsula, and while, consequently, it was in an almost defenceless condition, he had determined to find out for himself all the facts connected with his approach. It might be presumption, on his part, but he had not full confidence in the few reports on this head which had reached the city, and wished to satisfy himself from more ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... under certain circumstances the French would have no chance whatever against him, yet, as these circumstances were from the nature of things never likely to occur, necessitating, in the first instance, a presumption that Thomas would show fight, he failed to convince not only his hearers, but himself, that he was not in a very bad way. At the White Dog Mission he was, so to speak, on his own hearth, and was doubtless desirous of showing me that ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... to walk to the station, she could not help noticing how the rough and tumble of her experiences had had a hardening effect upon her once soft heart. It was not so long ago that, although presumption on a landlady's part would have goaded Mavis into making an apposite retort, she would have bitterly regretted the pain that her words may have inflicted. Now, she was indifferent to any annoyance that she may have caused Mrs Farthing. If anything, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... hers. With no faintest intention of speaking, even of hinting at the truth, he had blurted forth a full confession. She had caught him off guard, and, like a perfect ass, he had betrayed himself. What would she think? How would she take his audacity, his presumption? He was surprised to feel her fingers tighten briefly before her ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... of the FIRST OCCUPANT, is that which results from the actual, physical, real possession of a thing. I occupy a piece of land; the presumption is, that I am the proprietor, until the contrary is proved. We know that originally such a right cannot be legitimate unless it is reciprocal; ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... are a brilliant and scholarly contribution to the external history of poetical forms: and it would be great presumption in me to attempt a review of his work. But it is so eminently suggestive, and to my mind so valuable as a study for verse writers of the present day, that I have ventured to place this book in the foreground of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... them. Are they still so prone to error that he should be critical toward them? At any rate, should he set himself up as their judge; at times condemning some of their statements outright, or accepting them only in part,—and thus maintain independent views? Or would that be the height of presumption on his part? While it is true that all authors are liable to error, are they much less liable to it in their chosen fields than he, and can he more safely trust them than himself? And should he, therefore, ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... Honourable Mrs. Murray told the minister of Callander that Scott ought to have dedicated 'The Lady of the Lake' to her as the discoverer of the Trossachs—'Pray, Madam,' said the good doctor, 'when did you write your Tour?' 'In the year 1794.' {314} 'Then, Madam, it is no presumption in me to consider that I was the person who in 1790 made the Trossachs first known, for except to the natives and a few individuals in this neighbourhood, this remarkable place had never been heard of.' Mr. Robertson died in 1812. There were thus at least two notices of the Trossachs published ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... Sisaudhiya tribe, having left Chitaur, conquered Kumau and Yumila, where he established his throne, from whence his family spread to Palpa Tanahung and the Kirats. The supremacy very lately admitted by all the eastern mountain chiefs to the Rajas of Yumila, is a strong presumption in favour of this opinion. Many chiefs, and especially the Palpa Tanahung and Makwanpur families, pretend to be descended of the Chitaur princes; but it is very doubtful whether they have any claim ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... of charging the I.A.O.S. with being a propagandist body aiming under the mask of economic reform at the covert spread of Unionist opinions, will not stand a moment's examination. There is not a particle of evidence in support of such a charge, and the presumption against it is overwhelming. To mix political propagandism with organisation would be the certain ruin of the movement. The Committee of the I.A.O.S. consists of men of all shades of political faith. These men could never have joined hands except on ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... pleasure what we think we need no command to do. We stand under a discipline of reason and in all our maxims must not forget our subjection to it, nor withdraw anything therefrom, or by an egotistic presumption diminish aught of the authority of the law (although our own reason gives it) so as to set the determining principle of our will, even though the law be conformed to, anywhere else but in the law itself and in respect for this law. Duty and obligation are the only names that we must ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant

... excuse my presumption, Dr. Watson," said he, as he came panting up to where I stood. "Here on the moor we are homely folk and do not wait for formal introductions. You may possibly have heard my name from our mutual friend, Mortimer. I am ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle

... into a series, fixes upon the managers of the series, who permitted its introduction, a strong presumption of that underhand intent with which they were charged. At the same time it is honorable to our liberty that this series could be published: though its promoters were greatly shocked when the Essayists ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... of those lovers who are terrified of being over-bold or too confident, lest by their presumption they might alarm the timid object of their affections. He needn't have been afraid of wooing Gladys. She flung herself at his head rather obviously, but he seemed so obtuse she must have found him irritating at times. Thus, instead of calling upon her or asking ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick

... light as if I had written a song for Haydn to compose and Mara to sing; I know, indeed, what is poetry, but I do not know so well as he and she what will suit his notes or her voice. That actors and managers are often wrong is true, but still their trade is "their" trade, and the presumption is in favour of their being right. For the press, I should wish you to be solicitously nice; because you are to exhibit before a larger and more respectable multitude than a theatre presents to you, and in a new part, that of a poet employing his philosophical knowledge practically. ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... the precise Mrs. Graham asked, "What kind of a girl is your cousin?" to which Carrie replied, "You have a fair sample of her," at the same time nodding toward 'Lena, who was unmercifully pulling John Jr.'s ears as a reward for his presumption. ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... arrival is a piece of presumption on the part of the visitor. She assumes she will be welcome at any time she chooses to present herself. This may be true; but at the same time there is an obligation of courtesy which requires her to consult ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... prevented it although it seems as if one could have done so with ease, and one has even done things that have facilitated it, it does not follow on that account necessarily that one is accessary thereto. It is only a very strong presumption, such as commonly replaces truth in human affairs, but which would be destroyed by an exact consideration of the facts, supposing we were capable of that in relation to God. For amongst lawyers that is called 'presumption' which ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... necessary that more circumspection should be observed by our representatives abroad than they conceive you are inclined to adopt. In this statement you have the pros and cons. By reciting them I give you a proof of my friendship, if I give none of my policy or judgment. I do it on the presumption that a mind conscious of its own rectitude fears not what is said of it, but will bid defiance to shafts, that are not baited with accusations against honor or integrity. Of my good opinion and of my friendship and regard you ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... goes—I'm bound to marry her if there's nobody else in the way. This isn't conceit. It is a deep-seated certainty I can't get away from, and don't want to. When she reads this, she will think it a piece of foolish presumption. My hope is she will not always think ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... intend to bathe again—as for the dresses and jewels, I did not require them, and that I was ready to receive my lord the sultan, if he pleased to come. The Kislar Aga opened his eyes with astonishment at my presumption, but not venturing to use force to one who, in his opinion, would become the favourite, he returned to the sultan, reporting to him what had passed. The sultan, as I expected, was more amused at the novelty than affronted at the want of respect. "Be it so," replied he; "this Georgian must have ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... affirm that Liberty and Utility are reconciled with Justice and Peace, that all these grand principles follow infinite parallels, without clashing, throughout all eternity; have they not in their favor the presumption which results from all we know of the goodness and the wisdom of God, manifested in the sublime harmony of the material creation? Ought we lightly to believe, against such a presumption, and in face of so many imposing authorities, ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat

... enlightened imagination rejects the figure of a witch with her profile in dark relief against the moon and her broomstick cutting a constellation. No undiscovered natural laws, no names of "respectable" witnesses, are invoked to make us feel our presumption in questioning the diabolic intimacies of that obsolete old woman, for it is known now that the undiscovered laws, and the witnesses qualified by the payment of income tax, are all in favor of a different conception—the image of a heavy gentleman in boots and black coat-tails foreshortened ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... having no presumption of the divinatory science, of which shepherds have had many passing attacks, had often talked before him of their secret goings on, counting him ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... 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 the ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... is no proof, nothing more than a fair presumption, that any one of the Gospels existed, in the state in which we find it in the authorised version of the Bible, before the second century, or, in other words, sixty or seventy years after the events recorded. And between that time and the date of the oldest extant manuscripts ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford

... young Trafford, and see if Mrs. Thorpe has attended to him. He shall hear from me officially tomorrow; yes," muttered Mr. Huntingdon, as his daughter left the room, "a hundred a year is an ample allowance for a junior, more than that would be ill-advised and lead to presumption." ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... Kanva Sakha only).—But, an objection is raised, there is no motive for explicitly negativing the passing away of the pranas from the soul; for there is no reason to assume that there should be such a passing away (and the general rule is that a denial is made of that only for which there is a presumption).— Not so, we reply. The Chandogya-text 'For him there is delay only as long as he is not delivered (from the body); then he will be united' declares that the soul becomes united with Brahman at ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... own passions, men, whether collectively or individually taken, always greedy and improvident, passing from slavery to tyranny, from pride to baseness, from presumption to despondency, have made themselves the perpetual ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... less dreadful than the pleasures that attack Virtue. . . . Youth is full of presumption and arrogance, though nothing in the world is so frail: it fears nothing, and vainly relies utmost levity and without ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... in comparative obscurity—for over a century, and high authorities tell us that vitality prolonged for that period raises a presumption that a book deserves the title of classic."—National Review, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... lady lid not like, for she was already feeling it a sort of presumption in the girl to bear a name so nearly resembling her mother's. She had seen a little cottage poverty, and had had a class of little maidservants; but this level of life which is in no want, keeps a best parlour, and does not say ma'am, was quite ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the idea, the mere idea, of her loving him presented itself, from whatever quarter suggested, he turned from it with shame and self-reproof: the thought was in its own nature too unfit. That splendor regard him! From a social point of view there was of course little presumption in it. The marquis of Lossies bore a name that might pair itself with any in the land; but Malcolm did not yet feel that the title made much difference to the fisherman. He was what he was, and that was something very lowly indeed. Yet the thought would at times dawn up from somewhere in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... 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

... evidently determined to crush this intruder upon his domain. That an "upstart''—a "mere school-teacher''— should presume to reply to a man like himself, who had sat at the feet of Henry Clay, and was old enough to be my father, was monstrous presumption; but that a professor in the State university of a commonwealth largely Republican should avow free-trade opinions was akin to treason, and through twelve successive issues of his paper he lashed ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... 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 presumption ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... deception practised by Parsons and his daughter. There were others, however, who did not wish to jump so hastily to a conclusion, and who suggested that they were perhaps trifling with this awful and supernatural being, which, being offended with them for their presumption, would not condescend to answer them. Again, after serious consultation, it was agreed on all hands that if the ghost answered any body at all, it would answer Mr. Kent, the supposed murderer; and he was accordingly requested to go down into the vault. He went with several others, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... a desperate effort, in a voice that trembled between the fear of offending by presumption or exaction, and the desire to give utterance to her wish—"I want ... will you say that—if by that time you do not think that I have been too faulty, too undeserving—that I shall go with you when you quit this world?" ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... master used to sit at work with his students all about him, and a mind full of ease and contentment. Now and then he would throw a glance across to the bricked-up doorway of Wio-wani's palace, and laugh to himself, thinking how well he had served out Tiki-pu for his treachery and presumption. ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman

... veterans, those that had the toughest hide, 'Go, clear me the way.' Junot, a sabre of the first cut, and his particular friend, took a thousand men, no more, and ripped up the army of the pacha who had had the presumption to put himself in the way. After that, we came back to headquarters at Cairo. Now, here's another side of the story. Napoleon absent, France was letting herself be ruined by the rulers in Paris, who kept back the pay of the soldiers of the other armies, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... in its speech that their presumption had been dangerous when it says, "Yet vainly warned, I gazed on her and die." And thus it closes its speech, to which the new thought replies, as will be declared in the ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... nation has laid aside its own original form of speech, and adopted an alien dialect, language, if not a certain, is at least a very strong, evidence of ethnic character. Counter-evidence may no doubt rebut the prima facie presumption; but in the case of the Phoenicians no counter-evidence is producible. They belong to exactly that geographic zone in which Semitism has always had its chief seat; they cannot be shown to have been ever so circumstanced as ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... work organizing his cabinet; but so jealous of Don Perez Goneti was he, that in order to be well rid of him he sent him (disguised in the garb of a priest) ambassador to Washington, where, he thanked heaven, the strangeness of his figure, as well as his extraordinary presumption, would be of great service in recommending him to our good ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... English reader, unacquainted with Greek, will naturally prefer the harmonious versification and polished brilliancy of Pope's translation; with which, as a happy adaptation of the Homeric story to the spirit of English poetry, I have not the presumption to enter into competition. But, admirable as it is, Pope's Iliad can hardly be said to be Homer's Iliad; and there may be some who, having lost the familiarity with the original language which they once possessed, may, if I have at all succeeded ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... daughter Julia, though immediately addressed to propitiate the influence of her mother. This could have been no very flattering or pleasing enterprise on the part of an obscure and nameless young man; but I should not have been offended at this folly as I was at the higher degree of presumption I suspected. Offended, however, I was, and ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Presumption's a sin, and I suffer For that: But still you did say that sometime, If I'd pay you enough (here's enougher— That's more than enough) of rhyme You'd paint me a picture. I pay you Hereby in advance; and I pray you Condone, while you can, your ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... decision, but he was soon uncomfortably self-conscious and self-critical; he spoke with effort, vainly struggling against that peculiar force of Alma's personality which had long ago subdued him. When he looked at her, saw her distant smile, her pose of the head as in one who mildly rebukes presumption, he was overcome with a feeling of solemn ineptitude. Quite unaware that his last sentence was to Alma the most impressive—the only impressive—part of his counsel, suddenly he broke off, and ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... the house that he had built—for her! Not that he would ever tell her that last. She must never know of course that she was the only one in all the world he could ever care for. That would seem a great presumption in her eyes. He must keep that to himself. But there would be no harm in showing her the house, and he would make it now as beautiful as if she were to occupy it. He would take his joy in making all things fair, with the hope that she might one day ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... other power on earth, to prevent their flocking in crowds and at the very first general election back to Washington, reuniting their forces with the old body of profligate political hacks at the North, and flaunting with increased presumption and activity the pretensions of slavery to dictate the whole policy of the land. In that event, a strong party, more distinctively proslavery and Southern than ever before, will be organized; more openly and shamelessly than ever ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... Seem ingenious, I say; for seldom those persons really are such, or are capable to discover any wit in a wise and manly way. 'Tis not the excellency of their fancies, which in themselves are usually sorry and insipid enough, but the uncouthness of their presumption; not their extraordinary wit, but their prodigious rashness, which is to be admired. They are gazed on, as the doers of bold tricks, who dare perform that which no sober man will attempt: they do indeed rather deserve themselves to be laughed at, than their conceits. ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... foundation of science in the proper sense; it was they who gave the raw material the needed accuracy and generality of application, A comparison of the societies in the nearer East to which we have referred, with the history of China affords the strongest presumption of this. In the later millenniums B.C. the Chinese were in many points ahead of the Babylonians and Egyptians. They had made earlier predictions of eclipses and more accurate observations of the distance ...
— Progress and History • Various

... softly from the room, she struck a light, and explored from cellar to attic, looking into closets, behind doors, and under beds. For a slight, weak woman, hardly able to lift an empty tea-kettle, thus to dare, shows, whether we call it courage or presumption, at least the absence of all fear. None of the family knew of this fact, until an ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Domingo, and Luque's pretensions were explicitly transferred to him. Yet it is unsafe to pronounce, at this distance of time, on the authority of mere negative testimony; and it must be admitted to form a strong presumption in favor of Pizarro's general equity in the distribution, that no complaint of it has reached us from any of the parties present, nor ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... cups. Phineus ate and drank as the heroes did, and no dread shapes came before him to snatch from him nor to buffet him. But as Jason looked upon the man who had striven to equal the gods in wisdom, and noted his blinded eyes and shrunken face, he resolved never to harbor in his heart such presumption as Phineus had harbored. ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... alive—meaning that he will succeed in keeping so—but he is certainly not dead." Miss Dickenson lodged her claim to a mild form of omniscience by saying with presence of mind:—"Exactly!" but without presumption, so that only her near neighbours heard her. Self-respect called for ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... perhaps you will be surprised at the style in which I have been writing, and you will smile at hearing your Leonora discuss the duties of legislators and the grand interests of society. She has not done so from presumption, or from affectation. She was alarmed by your supposing that her judgment was deluded by fascinating manners, and she determined to produce general arguments, to convince you that she is not actuated by particular ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... only conclusion which I can draw from this fact, namely that there must have been a depression in the surface of the land to that amount. But neglecting this consideration, it was a most satisfactory support of my presumption of the Tertiary (I mean by Tertiary, that the shells of the period were closely allied, or some identical, to those which now live, as in the lower beds of Patagonia) age of this eastern chain. A great part of the proof must remain upon my ipse ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... shades in his character she was blind,—to her, indeed, they did not appear. True that once or twice in mixed society his disdainful and imperious temper broke hastily and harshly forth. To folly, to pretension, to presumption, he showed but slight forbearance. The impatient smile, the biting sarcasm, the cold repulse, that might gall, yet could scarce be openly resented, betrayed that he was one who affected to free himself from the polished ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book II • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... This presumption was like a thunderbolt to Mrs. Grizzle, who began to perceive that she had not succeeded quite so well as she imagined, in selecting for her brother a gentle and obedient yoke-fellow, who would always treat her with that profound respect which she thought due to ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... is no positive attestation, as in the other cases, that this person, certainly intimate with Milton in subsequent years, began acquaintance with him as one of his pupils. The presumption is so strong, however, that I risk including him. He was the second son of Henry Laurence, of St. Ives, Hunts, member for Westmoreland in the Long Parliament, known in 1647 as a thoughtful man, and author of "A Treatise of our Communion and War with ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... emotion is unique— neither a perception nor an intellectual grasp of relations, nor an emotion within the accepted rubric—joy, desire, triumph, etc. Whether or not music is an exception to this principle, remains to be seen; but the presumption is at least in favor of a direct, immediate, unique emotion aroused by the true beauty of music, whatever that may ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... world keeping a sunny face, whatever the clouds may be, erect and secure, light of heart and buoyant, holding up his chin above the stormiest waters, and breasting all difficulties and dangers with a confidence far away from presumption, because it is the consequence of the realisation of God's presence. So the goodwill of God ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... should have an interview, but this project fell through. Elizabeth, of course, was too fondly attached to Leicester to see him become the husband of her beautiful rival; Mary, on her part, despised the "new-made earl", and Leicester himself apologized to Mary's ambassador for the presumption of the proposal, "alleging the invention of that proposition to have proceeded from Master Cecil, his secret enemy".[69] While the Leicester negotiations were in progress, the Earl of Lennox, who had been exiled in 1544, returned to Scotland ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... approach, or the means of approaching. In law, the word is used in various connexions. The presumption of a child's legitimacy is negatived if it be proved that a husband has not had access to his wife within such a period of time as would admit of his being the father. (See LEGITIMACY.) In the law of easements, every person who has land adjoining a public road or a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... newspaper of his own?" Andoche Finot retorted, with the impertinent presumption of a chief to ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... present; look down upon Thy children, who still wander among the delusions of time—who still tremble with dread of dissolution, and shudder at the mysteries of the future; look down, we beseech Thee, from Thy glorious and eternal day into the dark night of our error and presumption, and suffer a ray of Thy divine light to penetrate into our hearts, that in them may awaken and bloom the certainty of life, reliance upon Thy promises, and assurance of a place ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh

... words or requested her to take a lower seat, but some rude giggles were not inaudible; and Priscilla, who would thankfully have taken her dinner in the scullery, heard hints about a certain young person's presumption, and about the cheek of those wretched freshers, which must instantly be put ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... own character," 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 ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... before its walls caused the defeat and ruin of his unsupported, or as might be said his abandoned, ally, who made the best terms he could with Louis; and thus Charles's presumption and obstinacy paralyzed all the efforts of his courage and power. But he soon afterward acquired the duchy of Guelders from the old Duke Arnoul, who had been temporarily despoiled of it by his son Adolphus. It was almost a hereditary consequence in this family that the ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... these mysterious foreigners? asked the patriotic Briton. Who were these "Moravians," 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 ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... Richard in age and authority, "if he is a rotter, he can go into the Brats' band. You want someone decent," she added, addressing the Twin, whose remark she felt to have savoured of presumption. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross

... by an effusion of blood beneath the cutis, and the presumption is strong, that it issued from the little point discoverable in the centre of each spot. Those points were, in all probability, arterial. That they were arterial terminations, I think is evident, from the great extent ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... vicinity, Mr. Vane, I have given myself the pleasure of calling," he said, in a peculiar but not disagreeable voice. "Your honoured grandfather treated me—I may say it without presumption—as a friend, having known me from ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... his presumption, but none more than the redoubted knight whom he had thus defied to mortal combat and who, little expecting so rude a challenge, was standing carelessly at the door of ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... castles in the desert, and digged wells for his troops stationed there. He developed the resources of his country, and devoted himself especially to the arts of agriculture and the cultivation of the vine, and the raising of cattle. But he could not stand prosperity, and in his presumption, attempted even to force himself in the sacred part of the temple to offer sacrifices, which was permitted to the priests alone; for which violation of the sacred laws of the realm, he was smitten with leprosy—the most loathsome of all the diseases which afflict the East. As a leper, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... He urged her to forget his presumption. She had been so good to him that he had spoken in spite ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... another; and he was aware that friends had given color to accusation by a zeal that was unseemly. He was pathetic in his anxiety to be very right; and only the assurance that Conkling was implacable took the sting out of the haughty presumption he encountered in that severe gentleman, whose egotism was so lofty it was ever imposing, when it would have been absurd in any ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various

... beard were long and rough, showing that he had not been in gaol lately. His eyes wandered about the court in a helpless and vacant manner. Two boys about eight or nine years old entered the court, and, with colonial presumption, sat in the jury box. There were no other spectators, so I left them there to represent the public. They stared at the prisoner, whispered to each other, and smiled. The prisoner could not see anything to laugh at, and frowned at them. Then the magistrate came in, rubbing one of his hands ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... I was sorry. My resting-time was past; my difficulties—my stringent difficulties—recommenced. When I went on deck, the cold air and black scowl of the night seemed to rebuke me for my presumption in being where I was: the lights of the foreign sea-port town, glimmering round the foreign harbour, met me like unnumbered threatening eyes. Friends came on board to welcome the Watsons; a whole family of friends surrounded and bore away Miss Fanshawe; I—but ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... where he now presided as judge. But away from the bench, once quit of the courthouse and the town, the man who attempted to accost him on his way to his carriage or sought to waylay him at his own gate, had need of all his courage to sustain the rebuff his presumption incurred. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... not distress yourself," he said, quite steadily; "such presumption as mine deserves harsher treatment than it has met with from you. You are not answerable for my extravagant self-delusions. I would ask you to forgive me for having been so precipitate—only I know, now, that if I had waited seven years your answer would have been the same. Let us part in kindness; ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... servants to have everything in readiness for her arrival, but Barbara had intervened and so had Mr. Jornicroft, a man of limited sympathies and brutal common sense. All of us, including Jaffery, who seemed to regard advice to Doria as a presumption only equalled by that of a pilgrim on his road to Mecca giving hints to Allah as to the way to run the universe, had urged her to give up the abode of tragic memories and find a haven of quietude ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... the sarcastic rejoinder. "Your vanity, Ruth, would be odious if it were not so ridiculous. But you should not allow your complacency, over a merely pretty face, to lead you into such presumption as you have been guilty of to-night. I blame myself somewhat for what has occurred; if I had not accorded you permission to witness the dancing, you would not have been thrown into such temptation; but I did not dream that you would force yourself ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... which, he did not hesitate to give judgment in her favor, on the ground that, however worthless her evidence, it had not been satisfactorily shown that her gifts to Home were "acts of pure volition," the presumption being that no reasonable man or woman would have pursued the course she did unless under the pressure of undue influence by the party ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce

... denying. 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, ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... no!" he admitted. "But these are not ordinary circumstances. Forgive me if I speak plainly. I found you engaged in searching my desk. The presumption is that you wish to do the same thing to ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... though he had treated her well—almost too well, in fact, for she had at times felt a certain reluctance in accepting his little attentions—such personal service as kept him almost constantly at her side. His manner, too, was ingratiating; he smiled too much to suit her; his presumption of proprietorship over her irritated her not ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer

... she was by her father, who was sure to resent with instant death any such presumption on his part, he might well shrink from the appalling attempt; but love has many ways of picking the locks that may be fastened ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... Survey of the West Indias (1648). He tells us that at Chiapa, southward from Mexico, the women used to interrupt both sermon and mass by having their maids bring them a cup of hot chocolate; and when the Bishop, after fair warning, excommunicated them for this presumption, they changed their church. The Bishop, he adds, was poisoned for ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp

... money should come to us in this special way, and it was you that must take it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of Providence—and who gave you the right? It was wicked, that is what it was—just blasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek and humble ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... barge proper to the occasion.—But remember, my good young lord, that I do not, like some men of my degree, wish to take opportunity to step beyond it, and associate with my superiors in rank, and therefore do not fear to mortify my presumption, by suffering me to keep my distance in the presence, and where it is fitting for both of us to separate; and for what remains, most truly happy shall I be in proving of service to the son ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... his lips, and cry unto Him: "Search me, O God, and try me; and see what evil ways there are in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Let him endeavor to come into possession of the Divine knowledge. There is no presumption in this. God desires that he should know himself as He knows him; that he should get possession of His views upon this point; that he should see himself as He sees him. One of the principal sins which God has to charge upon the sinner is, that his apprehensions respecting ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd

... been to disaster. Try and wake up your nation gradually, if you can. Call together your writers, your thinking men, your historians. Encourage the flagging spirit of patriotism in your public schools and universities. Is this presumption on my part that I give so much advice? If so, forgive me. Truth that sits in the heart will sometimes ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... meaning of such an unexpected declaration. Upon which, the other produced Ferdinand's billet, and threatened, in very high terms, to meet the stripling according to his invitation, and chastise him severely for his presumption. The consequence of this explanation is obvious. Renaldo, imputing the officiousness of Fathom to the zeal of his friendship, interposed in the quarrel, which was amicably compromised, not a little ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... own account, exceeding great, and was only equalled by his vast indignation. His loyalty towards the royal family was so fervent that it overlooked his affection to his child. He therefore fell into a violent passion, protested against her wicked presumption, and advised that the king "should immediately cause the woman to be sent to the Tower, and to be cast into a dungeon, under so strict a guard that no person should be admitted to come to her; and then that an act of parliament should be immediately passed for the cutting off her head, to which ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... would-be was astonished; he had never before heard of a Curate in the receipt of one hundred pounds per annum; besides, he had already engaged a person to do the duty for twenty-five pounds. Fired with indignation at the inhumanity and arrogant presumption of this callous-hearted Clergyman,—"What!" exclaimed his Lordship, "and so you would turn the poor Curate out of doors, and abridge the miserable pittance of his successor, and all this before you've got the living! John, shew this fellmo down stairs!" Gladly would this Incumbent, by ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... from pure egoism when it has got a wound: for it will not go into a corner complaining, it will fight its duel on the field or die. Did the young lady know his origin, and scorn him? He resolved to stay and teach her that the presumption she had imputed to him was her own mistake. And from this Evan graduated naturally enough the finer stages of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... assistance of counsel for his defense. Not one of these safeguards protected Doctor Rizal except that he had an "open trial," if that name may be given to a courtroom filled with his enemies openly clamoring for his death without rebuke from the court. Even the presumption of innocence till guilt was established was denied him. These precautions have been considered necessary for every criminal trial, but the framers of the American Constitution, fearful lest popular prejudice some day ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig

... of the altogether different nature of the two poems, and in spite of the distinct disavowals of Tasso, the critics persisted in accusing him of the presumption of entering the lists with Ariosto. And in this idea they were strengthened by the injudicious praises of Camillo Pellegrini, who in a dialogue entitled Caraffa or Epic Poetry, likened the Orlando Furioso ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... reforms for them. This principle is preeminently applicable to the National Government. It is too much assumed that because an abuse exists it is the business of the National Government to provide a remedy. The presumption should be that it is the business of local and State governments. Such national action results in encroaching upon the salutary independence of the States and by undertaking to supersede their natural authority fills the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge

... with luxury: himself, younger than she by several years, without prospects, with nothing to offer her but a limitless devotion. He tried to imagine himself saying: "Louise, will you marry me?" and the words stuck in his throat; for he saw the amused astonishment of her eyes. And not merely at the presumption he would be guilty of; what was as clear to him as day was that she did not really care for him; not as he cared for her; not with the faintest hint of a warmer feeling. If he had never grasped this before, he did so now, to the full. Sitting there, he affirmed to himself that she did not even ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... to abide. He would therefore warn his subjects to be cautious how they ventured to arraign his conduct. The proudest among them should learn that he was their sovereign, and should answer with their heads for the presumption of their tongues." Yet, notwithstanding he made all this parade of conscious superiority, Henry was prudent enough not by any means to refuse the aid of precaution. A rigorous search was made for arms, and all strangers, with the exception ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... and the taking off our cogitations from dwelling too intently upon more vain and sensual objects: that custom of burying in churches, and near about them, especially in great and populous cities, being both a novel presumption, indecent, and very prejudicial to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various

... alienation of an Executive from the possessors of parliamentary power, the officials will incessantly be tempted to make tacks out of their own course; and thus they lose the coherency and continuity of absolutism without gaining the pliant strength of popular government. This is not a presumption of what would be likely to happen, but an account of what does happen, and what justified Mr. Disraeli in adding a weak Executive to the alien Church and the absentee aristocracy, as the three great curses of Ireland. Nothing has occurred since 1844 ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... Haroun and Giafer were known to him only by their assumed names of Hamad and Yussuf—"I must first tell you how it came about that I was induced to personate our sovereign lord, Haroun Alraschid, whom may Allah preserve, and from whose ears may the story of my presumption be hidden ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... and his absurdity of manner and personal appearance had provoked a smile, which Titmouse a little misconstrued; for when, a Sunday or two afterwards, he met her in the Park, the little fool actually had the presumption to nod to her—she having not the slightest notion who the little wretch might be—and of course not having, on the present occasion, the least recollection of him. The reader will recollect that this incident made a deep impression on the mind of ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... as of late I had done for sorrow; and my child danced about the room like a young roe, and would not go to bed, but only cry and dance, and between whiles repeat the 103rd Psalm, then dance and cry again until morning broke. But as she was still very weak, I rebuked her presumption, seeing that this was tempting the Lord; and now ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... then, to the presumption of Glaucus; he mentioned his name, but not more often than that of Clodius or of Lepidus. He affected to class them together as things of a low and ephemeral species; as things wanting nothing of the butterfly, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... legislation for the Chinese women on the Pacific slope and for outcast women in our cities, and the opinion of the press that no respectable woman should be seen in the streets after dark, are all based upon the presumption that woman's freedom must be forever ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... smiling and replying. "It would be presumption in my part to think so," he observed. "I was simply at random humming a few verses composed by former writers, and what reason is there to laud me to such an excessive degree? To what, my dear Sir, do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" he went on to inquire. "Tonight," replied ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... have cast the eyes of ambitious affection on the Lady Anne (afterwards queen), daughter of the Duke of York; at which presumption Charles was so much offended, that when Mulgrave went to relieve Tangier in 1680, he is said to have been appointed to a leaky and frail vessel, in hopes that he might perish; an injury which he resented so highly, as not to permit the king's health to be drunk at his table ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... a truth when she says I am not to "count social cleverness"—she means volubility—"as a warrant for domineering a capacious intelligence": because of the gentleman's modesty. Agreed: I have done it; I am contrite. I am going into slavery to make amends for presumption. Banality, thy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... that He who is specially termed the Son of God is also specially termed the Son of Man. "Dear friends," St. John writes, elsewhere, "we are now God's children, but what we are to be in the future has not been fully revealed to us." I take it, therefore, as no presumption on my part to emphasise in my daily thought my place as a co-heir with Christ, feeling that not only is God's almightiness exercised on my behalf, but that as much of it as I know how to use ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... essay it will be apparent that the title of the following inquiry—On the nature of peace and the terms of its perpetuation—is a descriptive translation of the caption under which he wrote. That such should be the case will not, it is hoped, be accounted either an unseemly presumption or an undue inclination to work under a borrowed light. The aim and compass of any disinterested inquiry in these premises is still the same as it was in Kant's time; such, indeed, as he in great part ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... deeply he entered into the idea of the late marriage with Else, the more angry it made him. What presumption in this woman, who was years his senior! Did she really believe that he, according to her own estimation a man in the prime of life, had no other claims upon existence than to possess a home, in other ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... himself, and then began to walk up with a determination to reach the summit; but before he had gone above six steps, he heard a voice, which seemed to be near, as of a man behind him, say in an insulting tone, "Stay, rash youth, that I may punish you for your presumption." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... such extreme views so ably maintained on either hand, and say how much of truth there may be in each? The present reviewer has not the presumption to undertake such a task. Having no prepossession in favor of naturalistic theories, but struck with the eminent ability of Mr. Darwin's work, and charmed with its fairness, our humbler duty will be performed if, laying aside prejudice as ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... her beauty, that she should strive to shine more excellently than all the other stars, or even yet more proudly with Phoebus himself, asking of him his very chariot, that she, rather, may rule our day. Which thing, if you allow it without presumption in our star, how vilely shows the impertinence of Death to have laid hands upon such loveliness and authority as hers.' And since these my reasonings seemed of the stuff proper for a sonnet, I took leave of my friend and composed that one which follows; ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... thousand pounds, a sum not large when compared with the masses of wealth with which William had constantly to deal, but more than a hundred times as large as the only ransom which is known to have passed through the hands of George. These considerations would suffice to raise a strong presumption that Sunderland's letter was addressed to William, and not to George: but there is a still stronger argument behind.—— It is most important to observe that the person to whom this letter was addressed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... consulted her and your grandfather in regard to this, and obtained their permission to offer it and ask for a return in kind. Will you accept my hand (the heart you have already won) and give me yours in exchange? Ah, I fear that you must think my presumption very great! I know I am asking what a king might covet. I know that you, in your peerless beauty—so fair, so sweet, so good, so talented, so admired and sought after—are worthy of a throne, and I have not even wealth to offer you—nothing, in fact, but the ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... into explanations mingled with apologies for the presumption he had shown in putting her to this inconvenience. There was trouble in the house—great trouble. Something had occurred for which an explanation must be found before morning, or the happiness and honour of more than one person now under this unhappy roof would be wrecked. He knew it was late—that ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... General Assembly of this State shall act upon any amendment of the Constitution of the United States proposed by Congress to the several States unless such convention or General Assembly shall have been elected after such amendment is submitted." The presumption was naturally that this clause was nullified by the U. S. Supreme Court's decision. On June 10, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Suffrage Association, telegraphed Governor Albert H. Roberts, urging him to call an extra session. He, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... sooner. You have nothing else; you have no education, no accomplishments, no good birth; I should say no good breeding, no position, rank, or influence. If I may speak my mind plainly, I should say that it was a most impertinent presumption for you, a farmer's niece, even to dream of being Lady Chandos—a presumption that should be punished, and must be checked. You would, without doubt, make an excellent dairy-maid, even a tolerable housekeeper, but a countess never. The bare idea ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... received with equal cordiality by all ranks, was the tallyman's traveller. But whatever differences existed amongst them regarding each other's social standing they were unanimous on one point at least: they were indignant at Owen's presumption in coming to live in ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... the Scotish historie ye may see more at large) so that what notable feat soeuer was atchiued by the old Britains against the Romans, the same by him is ascribed to the Scots and Picts throughout his whole historie, whereas (in verie truth) forsomuch as may be gathered by coniecture und presumption of that which is left in writing by ancient authors, the Brigants inhabited Yorkshire, the Silures Wales and the Marches, and the Nouants the ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed

... this time they wor mixing their third tumbler,—"the writings of them Fathers is to be thrated wid great veneration; and it 'ud be the height ov presumption in any one to sit down to interpret them widout providing himself wid a genteel assortment ov the best figures of rhetoric, sich as mettonymy, hyperbol, cattychraysis, prolipsis, mettylipsis, superbaton, pollysyndreton, hustheronprotheron, prosodypeia and the ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various

... I am more than paid. Forgive the presumption, for why should you think of me at all? Forget the hard thoughts, mademoiselle, and ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... of a theological turn, propounded to him the question, whether such a character was not but poorly armed for single combat with the Devil, and whether he himself would not have been a stronger opponent; but the clerical gentleman, sharply reproving them for their presumption in discussing such questions, clearly showed that a fitter champion than Will could scarcely have been selected, not only for that being a child of Satan, he was the less likely to be alarmed by the appearance of his own father, but because Satan himself would be at his ease ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... Condesa, but thy duenna may join thee at any moment, and my heart has long guarded a message for thee it can no longer hold and stay whole,—a message thou mayest well resent for its gross presumption, and yet a message I would here and now deliver if I knew I must die for ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... and the majesty of the fathers, but even for the gods. This temerity, inherent in his nature, fortune had fostered by a career of prosperity and success in civil and military affairs. Thus it was sufficiently evident that, heedless of gods and men, he would act in all cases with presumption and precipitation; and, that he might fall the more readily into the errors natural to him, the Carthaginian begins to fret and irritate him; and leaving the enemy on his left, he takes the road to Faesulae, and marching through the centre of Etruria, with intent to plunder, he exhibits ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... is so over-exact as to attend to the harmony of his periods." Relying upon the force of this objection, these pretenders are perpetually grating our ears with their broken and mutilated sentences; and censure those, without mercy, who have the presumption to utter an agreeable and a well-turned period. If, indeed, it was our design to spread a varnish over empty words and trifling sentiments, the censure would be just: but when the matter is good, and the words are proper and expressive, what reason can be assigned why we should prefer a limping ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... Fletcher (1610): Part i. "Christ's Victory in Heaven," when He reconciled Justice with Mercy, by taking on Himself a body of human flesh; part ii. "Christ's Triumph on Earth," when He was led up into the wilderness, and was tempted by Presumption, Avarice, and Ambition; part iii. "Christ's Triumph over Death," when He died on the Cross; part iv. "Christ's Triumph after Death," in His resurrection and ascension. (See ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... Roman imperial dominion—in the days of the Antonines—and that the nearest analogue to the projected German peace is the Roman peace, in the days of its best security. There is every warrant for the presumption that the contemplated Imperial dominion is to be substantially all-inclusive. Indeed there is no stopping place for the projected enterprise short of an all-inclusive dominion. And there will consequently be no really menacing outside ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... to have heard of a more wonderful escape. Every thing which depended upon us, I believe, was done; but it would be the highest presumption and ingratitude to Divine Providence, were we to attribute our preservation wholly to our best endeavours: his interference in our favour was so very conspicuously manifested in various instances, in the ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... "The being but one among many stifleth the chidings of conscience."—Book of Thoughts, p. 131. "As for its being esteemed a close translalation [sic—KTH], I doubt not many have been led into that error by the shortness of it."—Pope's Pref. to Homer. "All presumption of death's being the destruction of living beings, must go upon supposition that they are compounded, and so discerptible."—Butler's Analogy, p. 63. "This argues rather their being proper names."—Churchill's Gram., p. 382. "But may it ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... it with any portion of water: it has to my mind, as it is, just the strength it ought to have, and no more. But the Greek taste was so exquisite in all matters in which we can bring it to the test, as to justify a strong presumption that in matters in which we cannot test it, it was equally correct. Salt water and turpentine do not suit our wine: it does not follow that theirs had not in it some basis of contrast, which may have made them pleasant in combination. And it was ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... wildes, Where through the sacred rayes of Chastity, No savage fierce, Bandite, or mountaneer Will dare to soyl her Virgin purity, Yea there, where very desolation dwels By grots, and caverns shag'd with horrid shades, She may pass on with unblench't majesty, 430 Be it not don in pride, or in presumption. Som say no evil thing that walks by night In fog, or fire, by lake, or moorish fen, Blew meager Hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost, That breaks his magick chains at curfeu time, No goblin, or swart faery of the mine, Hath hurtfull power o're true ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... 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 assault. Colonel Short ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... argument would have little effect on those with whom it would be degrading to contend—who pervert the inspired writings—which in some parts expressly sanction slavery, and throughout indicate most clearly that it is a civil institution, with which religion has no concern—with a shallowness and presumption not less flagrant and shameless than his, who would justify murder from the text, "and Phineas arose ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... next lesson and thus gain an idea of the sublime conception of the Absolute held by the Yogi teachers may shudder at the presumption of those mortals who dare to think of the Absolute as possessing "attributes" and "qualities" like unto the meanest of things in this his emanated Universe. But even these spiritual infants are doing well—that is, they are beginning to think, and when man begins ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... how beautiful she was, how wondrous beautiful! It was as some angel entering the room, and all else became plain and earthly. She was too sacred to be touched. It seemed almost presumption to gaze at her. You would as soon have thought of kissing her as of singing comic songs in a cathedral. It was desecration enough to kneel and timidly raise the gracious little hand to ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... man or beast not yet covered by the desert wave. All, all were gone, save one and that one, that guilty one, was myself, who had been permitted to exist, that he might behold the awful mischief which had been created by his presumption ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... proof" is always necessary when the master cannot swear to the ownership of the property (as in this case). And as I cannot send my prizes in for adjudication, I must of necessity condemn in all cases where "further proof" is necessary, since the granting of "further proof" proceeds on the presumption that the neutrality of the cargo is not sufficiently established; and where the neutrality of the property does not fully appear from the ship's papers and the master's deposition, I had the right to act upon the presumption ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... of them seems mainly to rest on a presumption that in Plato's writings we may expect to find an uniform type of doctrine and opinion. But however we arrange the order, or narrow the circle of the dialogues, we must admit that they exhibit a growth and progress in the mind of Plato. ...
— Statesman • Plato

... too great for a little presumption, for a little pride. And at last he came to cling to his deception with a fierce determination to carry it out to the end, to save her money intact, and behold her once more with his own eyes. Afterwards—what? The idea of suicide was revolting to ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... above me," he said; "and I am crushed by my own presumption. Is there any such fool as the man that breaks his heart twice ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne

... clinical symptoms associated with dry gangrene supervene, and the dead portion is delimited by a line of demarcation. If this forms slowly and irregularly it indicates a very unsatisfactory condition of the circulation; while, if it forms quickly and decidedly, the presumption is that the circulation in the parts above is fairly good. The separation of the dead part is always attended with the risk of infection taking place, and should this occur, the temperature rises and ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... to their political tradition, which had gained for them the sobriquet of "the Jews of Christendom," replied that they were not in a position to give any aid to the young king, so long as they had to keep ceaselessly on guard against the Turks; that, as to advice, it would be too great a presumption in them to give advice to a prince who was surrounded by such experienced ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... unthinking foolishness or rash presumption, you find yourself weighed down with the incubus of a vow not made for your shoulders, the only way out is to make a clean breast of the matter to your confessor, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... on his Master's breast, so as to ask and be answered, in a whisper. His question is not, 'Is it I?' He that leaned on Christ's bosom, and was compassed about by Christ's love, did not need to ask that. The question now is, 'Who is it?' Not a question of presumption, nor of curiosity, but of affection; and therefore answered: 'He it is to whom I shall give the sop, when I ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... my part a degree of presumption, I might be inclined to consider myself in this volume a fellow-labourer with the late accomplished and able Mr. Robert Chambers. In a very limited sphere it takes a portion of the same field of illustration. I should consider myself ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... Mr. Fitzgerald knew of her being here, or that he even suspected it," said Mrs. Delano, "I would at once take measures to settle the question by private purchase; but the presumption is that he and the sister suppose Flora to be dead, and her escape cannot be made known without betraying the cause of it. Flora has a great dread of disturbing her sister's happiness, and she thinks that, now she is away, ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... answered 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 rise in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... their own way. Their will is to be law. Their voice is to be the voice of God. They are they who ought to speak; who is Lord over them? And because the Lord is patient and long-suffering, and does not punish their presumption on the spot by lightning or earthquake, they fancy that He takes no notice of them, and of their crimes and follies; and say—"Tush, shall God perceive it? Is there knowledge in the most High?" But sooner or later, either by sudden and terrible catastrophes, or ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... from under me, I now made my way up-stairs. Having reached the upper entry, I paused, and glanced at the audience through the windows, before entering the little retiring-room behind the stage. With an inward groan at my presumption, I passed on. To think, that, but for my own madness, I might have been at that moment comfortably at home, reading the evening paper! Nay, were it not better to be tossing on stormy seas, driving on a lee-shore, toiling as a slave under a tropic sun, than here, with a gaping audience waiting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... fifth-form boy entered my room to learn my reason for neglecting his summons, and was for a moment startled when he discovered in what manner I was employed; but, without further hesitation or compunction, taking me by the collar, he inflicted a blow as a punishment for my presumption. This was a little too much, so instantly springing at him, and taking him unawares, for a moment I actually beat my tyrant off, when Kennedy accidentally presenting himself at the door, at once ranged himself by my side. This made the pitiful fellow pause, ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.









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