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Assume   Listen
verb
Assume  v. i.  
1.
To be arrogant or pretentious; to claim more than is due.
2.
(Law) To undertake, as by a promise.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Assume" Quotes from Famous Books



... of liberty as you. I have lived in France a little. I have known and admired the elegant society of Paris, the salons, the festivals, the conversations, the plays. But in our mountains, under our olive-trees, we become rustic again. We assume golden-age manners, and marriage is for us ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... dollars; lots, second and last sale, 100 dollars each, are now being sold from 500 to 1000 dollars each. Six lots together in the principal street are valued at 10,000 dollars. The figures at Esquimault Harbour and lots in that vicinity assume a bolder character as to value, from the fact that the harbour is a granite-bound basin, similar to Victoria, with an entrance now wide and deep enough to admit the Leviathan. Victoria has a bar which must be dredged, dug, or blown away. We noted at Victoria ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne

... and some beads. At bedtime the chief and five others slept round the fire of captain Lewis, and the rest hid themselves in different parts of the willow brush to avoid the enemy, who they feared would attack them in the night. Captain Lewis endeavoured to assume a cheerfulness he did not feel to prevent the despondency of the savages: after conversing gayly with them he retired to his musquitoe bier, by the side of which the chief now placed himself: he lay down, yet slept but little, being in fact scarcely less uneasy than his Indian ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... was nothing mean in this man, and yet nothing alarming; for, if his eye had a commanding sparkle, the expression of his mouth was particularly gentle; and the deep voice which could make itself heard above the clash of fighting men, could also assume the sweetest and most winning tones. His education had not only made him well aware of his greatness and power, but had left him also a genuine man, a stranger to none of the emotions of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... through the wooded declivity of the mountain. I never once cast a glance behind me; nor did it ever occur to me to return, as I might have done, to Bendel, whom I had left in affluence. I reflected on the new character I was now going to assume in the world. My present garb was very humble—consisting of an old black coat I formerly had worn at Berlin, and which by some chance was the first I put my hand on before setting out on this journey, a travelling-cap, and an old pair of boots. I cut down a knotted stick in memory of the spot, ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.

... He met us, packed in a miserable hack. Hereafter I must insist upon strict compliance with my wishes. Do not assume things, please. Am I quite clear? Thank you." Mrs. Wellington turned from him and pressed still another button. In a moment the tutor of her two sons, Ronald, sixteen years old, and Royal, twelve, stood ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... me in following this line of thought by their bearing on the whole modern sex problem. Such facts as this; that, in the great majority of species on the earth the female form exceeds the male in size and strength and often in predatory instinct; and that sex relationships may assume almost any form on earth as the conditions of life vary; and that, even in their sexual relations towards offspring, those differences which we, conventionally, are apt to suppose are inherent in the paternal or the maternal sex form, ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... nervously up from the letter, which he had now finished, he had not met the cold, searching eyes of the inventor. He instantly shut his lips upon the outcoming confession, and said, with as much indifference as he could awkwardly assume: ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... the character of the exercises changed, the attributes of the patron would change also, and he who was once celebrated as working wonders with his good axe or his elf-made sword might afterwards assume the character of a skilful bowman; that the scene of his actions would likewise change, and the person whose weapons were the bane of dragons and giants, who sought them in the wildernesses they infested, might become the enemy only of the sheriff and his officers, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... construction. It always has some relation to the author's peculiar manner of thinking; involves, to some extent, and shows his literary, if not his moral, character; is, in general, that sort of expression which his thoughts most readily assume; and, sometimes, partakes not only of what is characteristic of the man, of his profession, sect, clan, or province, but even of national peculiarity, or some marked feature of the age. The words which an author employs, may be proper in themselves, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... long-range guns like those with which they had occasionally bombarded Paris since 23 March. These annoyances would have been serious; but the British public paid itself a very bad compliment when it seemed to assume that the distant bombardment of London would have an effect upon the war disproportionate to that of Paris; and the notion that an impetus which carried the Germans to Calais would transport them across the Channel was merely another illustration of the ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... years! But it is impossible! And you have all the freshness of a child. And very happy?" she said smiling upon Lucy. She had not a fault in her pronunciation, but when she uttered these two words she gave a little roll of the "r" as if she meant to assume a defect which she had not, and smiled with a tender benevolence in which there was the faintest touch of derision. Lucy did not make out what it was, but she felt that something lay under the dazzling of that smile. She ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... which is really the farmer's daughter to-day," she drawled. "Perhaps we all ought to assume ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson

... only when, after stepping over the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her fur cloak, and, beside Sonya and in front of her mother, mounted the brightly illuminated stairs between the flowers. Only then did she remember how she must behave at a ball, and tried to assume the majestic air she considered indispensable for a girl on such an occasion. But, fortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw nothing clearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood throbbed at her heart. She could not assume that pose, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... I assume that the Post-Office Department in 1884 dealt justly and fairly by the postmaster at Lawrence, and upon this theory, if he should be reimbursed any expenditure for a previous year, the demand he ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... Four such forms have been developed—the imperial, or papal; the episcopal; the presbyterial; and the congregational. While these four differ in external form, they are all alike in fundamental character, in that they assume that the governing ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith

... observance of the methods of explorers seems to call for warning against the rather common tendency to go into a field unprepared with a thorough knowledge of preceding work. It is easy to forget or overlook some investigation made many years previously; or to assume that such work is out of date, and of no special consequence in the application of new thought and method which is the basis of the faith and confidence of each new geologic explorer. A study of the reports on an old camp shows how often the younger generations have ignored the results ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... father talk about his children. "My wife's children," he ought to say. Did you ever feel how false your position was? Weren't you ever afflicted with doubts, I won't say suspicions, for, as a gentleman, I assume that your wife ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg

... "Indeed, I do," he said, genially, using a kind of superior and yet sympathetic air which he could easily assume on occasion. He felt as though Mrs. Sohlberg might be a charming daughter to him—she was so cuddling and shy—and yet he could see that she was definite and individual. Her arms and face, he told himself, were lovely. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... persons who may be going by in this book, and ask them to look in too, but at the same time I cannot conceal—do not wish to conceal, even if I could—that there have been times, standing in front of my window and looking in, when what I have seen there has seemed to me to assume a ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee

... breath and started. Now that she was in the crisis of the emergency a certain innate spirit and courage sustained her. Knowing her cousin so well, she could assume his very gait and manner, while her arm, carried in a sling, perfected a disguise which only broad light would have rendered useless. Her visit caused no surprise to the sergeant of the guard, on whom at first she kept her eyes. He merely ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... Ah, Rose, assume a gentle Avarice And hoard the soft Allurements that entice; For One will come who holds the Golden Means To buy your Blushes at ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin

... His power; but is that statement of your attitude quite true, Dr. Stanley?" Katherine gently inquired. "If you really believed it, if all who claim that they have faith in an omnipotent God really believed it, would you or they ever assume that drugs or surgical instruments were needed to assist God to ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... authority of some words of his own, that the Church was a profession to which he once felt himself drawn. But an admission of this kind could only refer to that period of his childhood when natural impulse, combined with his mother's teaching and guidance, frequently caused his fancy and his feelings to assume a religious form. From the time when he was a free agent he ceased to be even a regular churchgoer, though religion became more, rather than less, an integral part of his inner life; and his alleged fondness for a variety of preachers meant really that ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... His lips were firm, his chin prominent, he had a hard, dry eye, and his manner was precise and formal. Forty years of stern discipline had made him reserved and silent. Yet, when at his ease with an equal, he could readily assume a less quarter-deck style, and he had a fund of little, dry stories of the world and its ways which were of interest from one who had seen so many phases of life. Dry and spare, as lean as a jockey and as tough as whipcord, ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle

... her father and another man came into the hall from the street, compelling Leonore to assume a ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... purposeless, nothing otiose in God's dispensation. The Church's invariable answer to the Apollinarians was grounded in belief in this economy. She argued that Christ could not redeem what He did not assume, and, conversely, that what He assumed He redeemed. He assumed human nature in its entirety, thought, will, feeling and body; therefore not one of those elements of human nature lies outside the scope of redemption. Monophysitism excludes some or all of those elements from the being of the incarnate ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce

... vigor she was always ready to assume the leadership in whatever of fun or work was at hand. Perhaps that is why she was often called "The Little Captain," and certainly she deserved the name. Her father, Charles Nelson, was a wealthy carpet manufacturer, his factory being just outside of Deepdale, and her mother, Rose, was one ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope

... Court Road; an obscure lodging enough, where he had a couple of comfortable rooms on the first floor, and where his going out and coming in attracted little notice. Here, as at the hotel, he chose to assume the name of Norton instead ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... honoured me with the pressing request that I should again assume a heavy burden, and on the day on which the Republic was proclaimed I announced it the whole nation that never again should a monarchy be permitted in China. At my inauguration I again took this solemn ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... breathing due to obstruction from large tonsils or adenoids. These cause great restlessness and lead a child to assume many different postures during sleep, often lying upon the face or upon the hands ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt

... assume the responsibilities of the larder Jean was surprised and dismayed at the small amount of food that was left them. She tried to banish the fears that this knowledge brought her by talking cheerfully of the certainty of procuring ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... letter, call to my mind the wicked wasp of Twickenham; his lies affect me now no more; they will be all as much despised as the story of the seraglio and the handkerchief, of which I am persuaded he was the only inventor. That man has a malignant and ungenerous heart; and he is base enough to assume the mark of a moralist in order to decry human nature, and to give a decent vent to his hatred to man and woman kind.—But I must quit this contemptible subject, on which a just indignation would render my ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... let us see Excluded middle use reductio. God is or God is not, but then what God? Excluded Middle never sought a God To suffer demolition at his hands Except the God of Illinois, the God Grown but a little with his followers Since Moses lived and Peter fished. So now God is or God is not. Let us assume God is and use reductio ad absurdum, Taking away the rotten props, the posts That do not fit or hold, and let Him fall. For if he falls, the other postulate That God is not is demonstrated. See A universe of truth pass on the way Cleared ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... of the reinforcement in the shape of Bart, and Dr Lascelles made the Indians utter a loud "Ugh!" and for a moment they seemed disposed to assume the offensive, but to Bart's surprise they only urged their ponies forward a few yards, and ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn

... What if in warbling fiction he record Cadmus and Arethusa, to a snake Him chang'd, and her into a fountain clear, I envy not; for never face to face Two natures thus transmuted did he sing, Wherein both shapes were ready to assume The other's substance. They in mutual guise So answer'd, that the serpent split his train Divided to a fork, and the pierc'd spirit Drew close his steps together, legs and thighs Compacted, that no sign of juncture soon Was visible: the tail disparted took The figure which ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... of War: "If any person in the Navy shall pusillanimously cry for quarter, he shall suffer death." Thus, with death before his face from the foe, and death behind his back from his countrymen, the best valour of a man-of-war's-man can never assume the merit of a noble spontaneousness. In this, as in every other case, the Articles of War hold out no reward for good conduct, but only compel the sailor to fight, like a hired murderer, for his pay, by digging his grave before his eyes ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... vicinity of the village." In The Pioneers, his description of Cooperstown includes, in a location to be identified with the present Cooper Grounds, fruit trees which he says "had been left by the Indians, and began already to assume the moss and inclination of age," when ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... My nerves are all unstrung. This weakling trick Of overearnestness betrays the fool In me; and yet we know it, though we profit not, The eager hand doth ever spill the cup That lifted carefully would quench our thirst. I must assume a wise placidity; As he puts on—Ah! damned hypocrite!— The air of purity. (Approaches Dimsdell.) I'll drink dissimulation at the source; I'll study him.—Thus might an angel look When, wearied with the music of the spheres, ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith

... specimen, so I sent for the best-known oculist in New York. The decision which he has just given will probably mean a loss of thousands of dollars to me, but that is one of the risks which I have to assume. Would it interest you to hear a rather unusual romance of the menagerie business?" The Stranger gave eager assent, and the Press Agent settled himself comfortably ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe

... as a victory over the other. The Unionists accepted it as the best policy, not knowing that, taking such a position, they would aid the Confederacy. Even John J. Crittenden had this idea. He said: "If Kentucky and the other border States should assume this attitude, war between the two sections of the country would be averted and the Confederate states after a few years' trial of their experiment would return ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... heart in anger. We may see children, only two or three years old, and even those born blind, blushing from shame; and the naked scalp of a very young infant reddens from passion. Infants scream from pain directly after birth, and all their features then assume the same form as during subsequent years. These facts alone suffice to show that many of our most important expressions have not been learnt; but it is remarkable that some, which are certainly innate, require ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... festivity. A table, with covers for twelve, was spread in the living-room, a fire of cones was tossing on the hearth, the curtains were drawn, and the sideboard was a thing of intimation. Rollo, his man—St. George had easily fallen in all the habits which he had longed to assume—was just closing the little ice-box sunk behind a panel of the wall, and he ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... that of never speaking to the King, gave an excellent example and instruction to the other maids of honour, was "severely careful how she might give the least countenance to that liberty which the gallants there did usually assume," refused the addresses of the "greatest persons," and was as famous for her beauty as for her wit. One would like to forget the age at which she did these things. When she began her service she was eleven. ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... in their yellow robes, draped like Roman Togas, come and go just like other people; they are greatly reverenced, they teach all the boys of the nation their faith, reading, writing and simple arithmetic, but they do not proselytise or assume spiritual powers, nor do they act in civil affairs, and they "judge not;" they live, or try to live a good life, and to work out each his own salvation, and you may follow their example if you please, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... it all came about. He was aware of himself, of his power. And while for the first years he had drifted, he was always aware of his power. Knew that he had only to rise to assume gigantic stature. And then, just because he was very stiff, and the pain of stiffness and stretching made him uncouth, he grew angry. He resented his captivity, chafed at his being limited like that, did not understand how it had come about. It had come about through love, through sheer sheltering ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... of literary men are to assume the bulk which Mr. Masson is giving to that of Milton, their authors should send a phial of elixir vitae with the first volume, that a purchaser might have some valid assurance of surviving to see the last. Mr. Masson has already occupied thirteen hundred and ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... to do homage to Fergus Mac-Ivor. Other individuals, too, who had not even that apology, were nevertheless received into his allegiance, which indeed was refused to none who were, like Poins, proper men of their hands, and were willing to assume the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... down from our highest hopes, and broken, at times, in every cheerful prospect—since these and other countless ills were to be woven in our web of earthly life, He, the divine Master, who came to save, to teach a lesson, to suffer and die, would assume a body so sacred, so delicate, so pure and sensitive that, when exposed to the rough and ruthless ways of life, He could truly cry out from the depths of His anguish: "O all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... from her home and me. But, as I have said, you may try, though with the full understanding that not for some years to come will I resign my custody of her. She is my own dear child, and, in my esteem, still much too young to leave my fostering care and assume the duties and responsibilities ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley

... in the chapel, without any one to help him even in the grinding of his colours; but, as he adds, that he took great precautions to prevent the workmen informing the public as to what he was doing, we must assume that Vasari was repeating a fable that had grown up about the marvellous work forty years after it was executed, much as we might at this day repeat stories of the making of the Wellington Monument by Alfred Stevens. The carpenters and plasterers Michael Angelo employed would soon learn to perform ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd

... the George was William Middleton, who continued the printing of law books, and brought out a folio edition of Froissart's Chronicles, with Pynson's colophon and the date 1525, which has led some to assume that this ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer

... crust of gathering anxiety, and remind her of the peace of the lilies and the well-being of the birds of the air? Or will life be less interesting to her, that the lives of her neighbours, instead of passing like shadows upon a wall, assume a consistent wholeness, forming themselves into stories and phases of life? Will she not hereby love more and talk less? Or will she be more unlikely to make a good match——? But here we arrest ourselves ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... of Moreau's. My one idea was to get away from these horrible caricatures of my Maker's image, back to the sweet and wholesome intercourse of men. My fellow-creatures, from whom I was thus separated, began to assume idyllic virtue and beauty in my memory. My first friendship with Montgomery did not increase. His long separation from humanity, his secret vice of drunkenness, his evident sympathy with the Beast People, tainted him to me. Several times I ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... assured him, "I am waiting with some patience for the explanation you owe me. After dragging me out of bed at one o'clock in the morning, it's natural, perhaps, you should assume ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... for ascending the channel, and La Perouse therefore resolved to pass to the east of the island. He rectified the position of the Pescadores Islands, a mass of rocks which assume various shapes, reconnoitred the small island of Botol-Tabaco-Xima, where no navigator had landed, coasted Kinin Island, which forms part of the kingdom of Liken, whose inhabitants are neither Chinese nor ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... splashing against its rotting timbers, and watched the far- distant sails on the outer sea. It is not very difficult to picture to one's self Poe searching among these sailors' lodging-houses for Dirk Peters; nor is it unreasonable to assume that he did so search for him. If Dirk Peters was twenty-seven years old in 1827, when the mutiny occurred, he was only forty-nine at the time of Poe's death—in fact, would be only seventy-seven if now alive. Poe says in his 'Note,' that 'Peters, from whom some information ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... express which are charged originally, and which are brought by them into the opposite electrical condition. I propose to call those bodies which are originally charged, inductric bodies; and those which assume the opposite state, in consequence of the induction, inducteous bodies. This distinction is not needful because there is any difference between the sums of the inductric and the inducteous ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday

... sixteen miles, the country began to assume a more hilly aspect, and we were soon surrounded by mountains on every side. At the foot of each ascent we found extra horses in waiting for us; these were yoked to the ordinary team, and whirled us rapidly over all obstacles. Although there is a ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... heretics. Those executed were simply punished for their crimes, and were condemned by judges acting under the royal seal."[2] "This," says Lea, "is a typical instance in which history is written to order.... It is altogether a modern perversion of history to assume, as apologists do, that the request for mercy was sincere, and that the secular magistrate and not the Inquisition was responsible for the death of the heretic. We can imagine the smile of amused surprise with which Gregory IX and Gregory XI would have listened to the dialectics with ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard

... and to consider of a specific plan. It was this that the corrupt part of the Irish Government dreaded. They had been stunned by the unexpected blow struck by the people in asserting the independence of the legislature: for whatever credit the Parliament of that day may assume for the part which they acted in that business, it requires no argument to prove to a discerning man, that they were passive instruments in the people's hand—they only re-echoed the voice of an armed nation which they conceived too loud to be smothered, and were hurried on irresistibly by that ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous

... It might attempt to use a natural force like Blake or Shelley for very ignoble purposes; it would be quite capable of asking Blake to take his tiger and his golden lions round as a sort of Barnum's Show, or Shelley to hang his stars and haloed clouds among the lights of Broadway. But it would not assume that a natural force is useless, any more than that Niagara is useless. And there is a very definite distinction here touching the intelligence of the trader, whatever we may think of either course touching the intelligence of the artist. It is one thing that Apollo ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... becoming acquainted with the family, being familiar with Southern manners, to have them all prepared at a given hour for the starting of the steamboat for Cincinnati, and to join him at the wharf, when he would boldly assume the part of a slaveholder, and the family naturally that of slaves, and in this way he hoped to reach Cincinnati direct, before their owner ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... nature sees Her robe assume its vernal hues, Her leafy locks wave in the breeze, All freshly steep'd in morning dews. And maun I still on Menie doat, And bear the scorn that's in her e'e? For it's jet, jet black, an' it's like a hawk, An' it winna let a ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... to be tested, a few drops of blue vitriol, and then a quantity of potassa solution, and apply heat; if the cane sugar is pure, the liquor will remain blue, while, if it be adulterated with starch sugar, it will assume a reddish ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... silvery mohonono, which in the tropics is in form like the cedar of Lebanon, stands in pleasing contrast with the dark color of the motsouri, whose cypress-form is dotted over at present with its pleasant scarlet fruit. Some trees resemble the great spreading oak, others assume the character of our own elms and chestnuts; but no one can imagine the beauty of the view from any thing witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... the impulse jewel to the center of motion, which is in the balance staff, most writers assume the impulse angle and radius to be equal, and it is true that they must conform with one another. We have made a radical change in the radius and one which does not affect the angle. We shall prove this in due time, and also that the wider ...
— An Analysis of the Lever Escapement • H. R. Playtner

... Costigan—for the latter was the rank which he preferred to assume—was seated in the window with the newspaper held before him at arm's length. The Captain's eyes were somewhat dim; and he was spelling the paper, with the help of his lips, as well as of those bloodshot eyes of his, as you see gentlemen do to whom reading ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... phases of the manifestation through the ages of the artistic sense in man. From Egypt, Chaldea and Assyria, from Persia, Phoenicia and Greece, rich and marvellous collections afford a unique opportunity for the study of comparative aesthetics. We may safely assume, however, that the traveller will be chiefly interested in the manifold examples of the plastic and pictorial arts, here exhibited, from Greece downwards. In the limited space at our disposal we can do no more than indicate the principal and choicest objects in the various rooms, ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... point this contrast better, perhaps, than the mere fact that the Michigan Central, which had only reached Ann Arbor a year or so before, was running one train a day between Detroit and Dexter. Most of the students we may assume, therefore, rode into town on horseback, as he did, with their gear behind them, or perhaps took advantage of the several stage lines which centered ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw

... the more prudent—if she learned something of a faith that is symbolized by suffering, and the old light softened in her eyes, it did not take the shape of a lesson. A few of the plainer people had made up a little sum by which the ragged Mliss was enabled to assume the garments of respect and civilization; and often a rough shake of the hand, and words of homely commendation from a red-shirted and burly figure, sent a glow to the cheek of the young master, and set him to thinking if it was ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... for you to talk with me before you allow them to make a fool of you. I am prepared to take that steamer off your hands, as she stands, at a fair appraisal, and I will give bonds to assume all expenses of the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... Jeff, both she and Anne thought, not adequately welcoming. But how could he be, Anne considered. He was in a position of unique loneliness. He lacked fellowship. Nobody but Alston, in their stratum at least, had come in person. No wonder he looked warily, lest he assume ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... the energies of the people to the utmost, and then direct and employ them by means of some such machinery, was the way to win. But he preferred to believe that the danger was not great. He would have died sooner than assume unconstitutional power. The ardor of the people was rebuffed, and they sank into an apathy, from which they were awakened by terrible disasters, to find themselves encompassed by fierce and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... A.D. 85. But several of the twenty-one Epistles in the New Testament are certainly earlier than A.D. 62, and out of the whole number only the three by St. John can be confidently placed at a later date than St. John's Gospel. Now, these twenty-one Epistles assume the truth of the story contained in the Gospels. They do more than this. For they prove that during the lifetime of men who had personally known Jesus Christ, there were large numbers of earnest men and women who were at home with the same ideas ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... felt constrained to humor the artist, and assume a position that, according to Will's idea, accorded ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen

... the first man to do that," submitted Lord. St. John, smiling, "Nan is—Nan, you know, and you mustn't assume too much from Roger's liking to be with her. I'm sure if I were one of her contemporary young men, I should 'tag round' just like the rest of 'em. So don't meet ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... silent forever. I would have declared myself had I dared, but my uncertain position, my debts, my inability to keep a wife, weighed me down; and, instead of appealing to Sir Peter, as I ought to have done, for the means to assume a position that would justify me in asking Lord Mount Severn's daughter, I crushed my hopes within me, and suffered you ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... commercial traveller or a newspaper-reporter would seem quite commonplace and undeserving of record. There are periods in which all places and people seem to be in a conspiracy to impress us with their individuality,—in which every ordinary locality seems to assume a special significance and to claim a particular notice,—in which every person we meet is either an old acquaintance or a character; days in which the strangest coincidences are continually happening, so that they get to be the rule, and not the exception. Some might naturally think that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... objection to the theories of Hobbes is the same objection that must be taken to the theories of Locke and Rousseau. All these writers assume not only the fiction of a social contract, but a static view of society. Society is the result of growth: it is not a fixed and settled community. Mankind proceeds experimentally in forms of government. To Hobbes and his followers, security of life ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... not! And allow me to inform you, my girl, that in accusing me of not having a cent you're being guilty of the worst possible taste. Children should always assume that their fathers have mysterious stores of money, and that nothing is beyond their resources, and if they don't rise to every demand it's only because in their inscrutable wisdom they deem it better not to. Or it may be ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... wall, an airy Giant's Causeway, pale blue, paling through ethereal gray into snow. Islands quit the sea, and become islands in the sky, sky-foam and spray seen along their bases. Hills shoot out from their summits airy capes and headlands, or assume upon their crowns a wide, smooth table, as if for the service of genii. Ships sail, bergs float, in the heavens. Here a vast obelisk of ice shoots aloft, half mountain high; you gaze at it amazed, ecstatic,—calculating the time it will take to come up ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... it was cried down, would become more perilously effective for the degradation of human nature. Being itself dishonored, war would become the more effective as an instrument for the dishonoring of its agents. However, at length, we will suppose the impossible problem solved—war, we will assume, is ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... thus overleaping that common law of "honour among thieves." They would do this with the utmost impunity, whenever they saw proper. There was no redress. The very officers were, many of them, under fictitious names and would assume deceptive titles, for the more successful ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green

... only to you five who know the wife of John Stevens truly. Despite all her airs and efforts to assume to herself a superiority, we know full ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... our Mr. GALSWORTHY to assume that things will be as black as ever a few years hence. 'Tis, no doubt, what encourages us to keep our end up in the great War. But we know the customs of leopards, and can forgive our pessimist for his creations (for all the world as if he were a milliner) of Poulder, Lord William's butler, ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various

... enthusiastic, credulous people whom modern theories which explain away the Resurrection assume them to have been, that even His familiar voice in His familiar salutation, tenfold more significant now than ever before, did not wake belief that it was verily He. They fled to the ready refuge of supposing that they saw ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... do," she replied, looking at him wistfully. "Is it this?—that, assuming what you do assume, it would be easier for ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King

... attach him to Humanity, such is the importance and the difficulty of this ministry that each of us should be placed under the special guidance of one of these angels, to answer for him, as it were, to the Great Being. This moral guardianship may assume three types,—the mother, the wife, and the daughter; each having several modifications, as shown in the concluding volume. Together they form the three simple modes of solidarity, or unity with contemporaries,—obedience, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 10: Auguste Comte • John Morley

... silence. After all, he was beginning to fear that he had made a mistake. Lovell had somehow contrived to impart a subtly tragic note to his story, but the outcome of it all seemed to assume a more sordid aspect. These two would meet, there would be recriminations, a tragic appeal for forgiveness, possibly some melodramatic attempt at vengeance. The glamour of the affair seemed to ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... is "fast," but immeasurably faster than all other sparks put together. Unlike them, however, he submits to be led by master minds. Stronger than Hercules, he can rend the mountains. Fleeter than Mercury, he can outstrip the light. Gentler than Zephyr, he can assume the condition of a current, and enter our very marrow without causing pain. His name is Electricity. No one knows what he is. Some philosophers have said that he is a fluid, because he flows. As well might ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne

... longer appeal to that undefined chemico-electric action by which some attempt to account for protoplasm. Mr. Wallace says: "Here all idea of mere complication of structure producing the result is out of the question. We feel it to be altogether preposterous to assume that at a certain stage of complexity of atomic constitution, and as a necessary result of that complexity alone, an ego should start into existence,—a thing that feels, that is conscious of its own existence. Here we have the certainty that ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner

... pretend to be," replied Rayner, stepping forward. "We found it necessary to assume these disguises for the sake of escaping from prison. We are not spies, and have no desire to injure France or ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... God; and, assuming such an intelligent ruling force to be in existence, permeating this universe of millions of stars and (no doubt) tens of millions of planets, we do not know under what conditions and limitations It works. We are quite entitled to assume that the end of such an influence is intended to be order out of chaos, happiness and perfection out of incompleteness and misery; and we are entitled to identify the reactionary forces of brute Nature with the anthropomorphic ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... of blood seem to outlast successive series of special reforms. Be this as it may, it is safe to assume, that, as the anti-slavery movement prevailed with only a moderate amount of sanction from "our best society," the woman-suffrage agitation, which has at least an equal amount, has ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... time Tom's stomach began to be rebellious again, and the question of rations began to assume a serious aspect. He was not suffering for food, but it was so much more comfortable to travel upon a full stomach than an empty one, that he could not pass a dwelling house without thinking of the contents of the cellar and closets. It was perfectly proper to forage on the enemy; ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic

... shirt of blue check bound with red, and a string of beads round his neck, but he cries like a baby if he tears his clothes, or still worse if the color of the red braid washes out. At first he hated civilized garments, even when they were only two in number, and begged to be allowed to assume a sack with holes for the arms, which is the Kafir compromise when near a town between clothes and flaps made of the tails of wild beasts or strips of hide. But he soon came to delight in them, and is now always begging ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... degenerating into an immobility—an inertia—a molluskular condition of receptive passivity which is rendering us, year by year, more unfitted to either think or act for ourselves? Even in the matter of marriage we are not permitted by custom to assume the initiative. We may only shake our heads until the man we are inclined toward asks us, when he is entirely ready to ask. Then, like a row of Chinese dolls, we nod our heads. I tell you," she said, tremulously, ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... Blois, Rotterdam, La Hague, and Antwerp. At Brussels they were met by M. Georges Mniszech, who took charge of the two Countesses in Balzac's place. The latter felt obliged to write afterwards to the Count to apologise for his cold good-bye, and to explain that he had been forced to assume indifference, because he feared a complete breakdown unless he sternly ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... me assume that. No, don't shake your head. I have abundant means. The Lord has given me far more of this world's goods than I ought to use for myself or my family and I know it is because he would have ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley

... thus that Samuel Brohl took a decisive farewell of Count Abel Larinski, who might henceforth rest quietly in his grave; there was no further danger of a dead man being compromised by a living one. What name did Samuel Brohl mean now to assume? Out of spite to his destiny, he chose for the time the humblest of all; he decided to call himself Kicks, which was ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... intensity and insistance, whether you would or no; urging themselves upon the mind, and thrust upon the eye, with a force of fascination which you could not refuse. Now, to a certain extent, the senses get into this state whenever the imagination is strongly excited. Things trivial at other times assume a dignity or significance which we cannot explain; but which is only the more attractive because inexplicable: and the powers of attention, quickened by the feverish excitement, fasten and feed upon the minutest circumstances of detail, and remotest traces of intention. So that what would ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin

... of the day, he entered the senate, and after he had made a short speech to them, pretending that he had been seized in the streets, and compelled by violence to assume the imperial authority, which he designed to exercise in conjunction with them, he retired to the palace. Besides other compliments which he received from those who flocked about him to congratulate and flatter him, he was called Nero by the mob, and manifested no intention ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... procreate others contract common duties and responsibility of the highest importance. They are, perhaps, the highest social duties that man can assume. Is it not then infamous and unnatural to legally liberate one only of the procreators, the man, from all his responsibilities, simply because certain religious or civil ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... take from the fire and stir in a heaping teaspoonful of butter, a grating of nutmeg, pepper and salt. Put a little butter in a saute pan, and when hot throw in the half pint of coarser crumbs which remained in the sieve; stir them over the fire until they assume a light brown color, taking care that they do not burn, and stir into them a pinch of cayenne pepper. For serving, pour over the chicken, when helped, a spoonful of the white sauce and on this place a ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman

... more or less to the policeman's viewpoint. It isn't a moral viewpoint exactly; he doesn't invariably disapprove; but he isn't deceived as to the possibilities, and yields no jot or tittle of the upper hand if he can only once assume it. There was scant love lost between him and ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... guarded from his early friend. But as that secret connects itself with the history of a Person about whom it is well that the reader should now learn more than was known to Darrell himself, we will assume our privilege to be ourselves the narrator, and at the cost of such dramatic vivacity as may belong to dialogue, but with the gain to the reader of clearer insight into those portions of the past which the occasion permits us to reveal—we will weave into ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... instead of being a helpful operation at large in support of the main advance, was whittled down to the turning of Laing's Nek. Between Botha's Pass and Laing's Nek the dominant contours roughly assume the outline of a sickle and its handle, the Pass being at the end of the handle and the Nek near the point of the blade. Within the curve of the blade stands the high Inkwelo Mountain facing Majuba Hill, and at the upper end of the handle is a mountain of less elevation ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited

... no little trial to him to assume them in the changed aspect of his circumstances; for alas! he wore them in right of service only, not of birth, and the tartan of his lord's family ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... said she, soothingly, but with that dignity nobody could assume more readily than she could. "I dare say I am much grown since I last had the pleasure of seeing you; but I have not outgrown my memory, and I am happy to receive you, or any of our old servants that knew my ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... differences of race, a conjecture has occurred to me that much may be due to the correlation of complexion (and consequently hair) with constitution. Assume that a dusky individual best escaped miasma and you will readily see what I mean. I persuaded the Director-General of the Medical Department of the Army to send printed forms to the surgeons of all regiments in tropical countries to ascertain this ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... well in place. Besides 'tis no way certain but our blade, By strength of nerves the poison may evade; And that's a double reason for the choice, Since with more certainty we shall rejoice: The venom may evaporate in fume, And Mandrake pleasing pow'rs at once assume; For when I spoke of death, I did not mean, That nothing from it would the person screen; To-morrow we the rustick lad must name; To-night the potion given your charming dame; I've some already with me, all prepared; Let nothing of your project be declared: ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... one cigar, we will say that the table must not be less than 2 feet square and the cigar not more than 41/2 inches long. With those restrictions you may take any dimensions you like. Of course we assume that all the cigars are exactly alike in every respect. Should the first player, ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... make my appearance, and assume the command of my estates, in the kingdom of Ireland; rewarding generously those persons who had been kind to me in my former adversities, and taking my fitting place among the aristocracy of the land. But, in truth, I had small inducements to remain in it after having tasted of the ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... her head in sudden and intelligent interest when the picture was replaced upon the wall. It seemed that her every hope was bound up in that. As she saw Dennis and her husband standing before it—-as she saw the face of the latter begin to assume something of its former look—-her whole soul came into her great blue eyes, and she watched as if more than life ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... was afraid to ask more, as she guessed how he would use a fine day. As she was silent, he pretended to pout with that cajoling manner he could assume, and which ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux

... bright eyes seemed ever to be asking questions, took his seat in the armchair, and passing his snuffbox round the company, very soon took the lead in the conversation. He was the chief magistrate of the town, but he did not assume any undue dignity on that account. Indeed, his long life among the simple fisher folk of Stromness, and his business connection with ships—for the bailie was a shipping agent—had given him a sympathy with all persons connected with the sea which quite overrode his dignity as ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... it is not my present business, or intention, to discuss their views. All I wish to bring clearly before your minds is the unquestionable fact, that the improvement of natural knowledge is effected by methods which directly give the lie to all these convictions, and assume the exact reverse ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... stepped forward. "Come, sir," said he, "this will not do—you have come here, a stranger among us, to assume airs and dignities, which, by G—d, would become a duke, or a prince! We must know who or what you are, before we permit you to carry ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... death of Sertorius took place B.C. 72. As to the death of Perperna, see the Life of Sertorius, c. 26. The allusion to Sicily will be explained by referring to c. 10; but there is nothing there stated for which Pompeius needed to show any gratitude to Perperna. We may assume that Perperna left the island, because ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... somewhat from the nervous haste which urged her to travel at a rate much beyond her capacity, she advanced into the ravines of the mountains with more of that steady, regular tramp which practice in the use of her snow-shoes had taught her to assume; so that, being of a robust constitution naturally, she became stronger and more able for her ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... upon him in astonishment, blowing out his cheeks and seeming to make his eyes roll, while his naturally rotund figure began more and more to assume the appearance of a fat ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn

... morning, found all his womankind "overwhelmed with grief" in consequence of the news of the capture and imprisonment of the American seamen, and prepared to assail him with prayers, petitions, and tears, as soon as he made his appearance. In vain he tried to assume the governor, and to look and act dignified; he had not, either in appearance or manner, or even language, so "much of the Roman" in him, as a certain other potentate who shall be nameless; the persevering ladies followed him, and gave him no rest; and perhaps, by their pertinacity, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... the fields, fast hurrying from that dome, The former lovers changed, a mighty train, Some into rock or tree, to fountain some, Or beast, she made assume their shapes again: And these, when they anew are free to roam, Follow Rogero's footsteps to the reign Of Logistilla's sage; and from that bourn To Scythia, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... said that Preger is too ready to assume that the logical development of Eckhart's system away from Thomist scholasticism can be traced as a gradual process in his writings, the order of which is very uncertain. We are not justified in saying in a positive manner ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge

... we entered the Gulf Stream the wind hauled suddenly to the eastward, and the heavens were obscured by clouds. The breeze also increased, and the sea became rough, causing the brig to assume various unseemly attitudes, and perform gymnastic exercises wonderful to behold. As the wind increased and the sea became more turbulent, the Dolphin tumbled about like an elephant dancing a hornpipe, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... the very end of June, and he is sure to be helpful on this sentimental journey; he aided Ronald and Francesca more than once in their tempestuous love-affair, and if his wits are not dulled by marriage, as so often happens, he will be invaluable. It will not be long then, probably, before I assume my natural, my secondary position in the landscape of events. The junior partners are now, so to speak, on their legs, although it is idle to suppose that such brittle appendages will support them for any length of time. As soon as we return in the autumn I should like to advertise ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... he threatened that if the blinded girl continued to refuse to enter the convent and yield up the child, he would withdraw his aid from both. After a sleepless night, however, he remarked, on the following morning, that he perceived it to be his duty, whatever might happen, to assume the care of the child who was entitled to call him its father. What he would do for the mother must depend upon her future conduct. This was another instance how every trespass of the bounds of the moral order which the Church ordains and hallows ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... on her pillows very hot and flushed, with that anxious, perturbed look which the eyes assume when the brain is only half clouded, and can feel itself ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... neither the feelings which favour Home Rule, nor the reasons by which they are supported, tell in reality in favour of Home Rule policy. They scarcely tend to show that Home Rule would cure the evils complained of; they certainly do not show, they only assume, that Home Rule in Ireland would not be injurious to England. They are, in short, arguments in favour of Irish independence; every one of them would be seen in its true character if the Irish demand should take the form of a claim that Ireland should become an independent ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... took his side boldly, and very clumsily attempted to rescue him out of his difficult position—why should he, at nine o'clock the following morning, fall in a dead faint and get cerebral congestion at sight of a defalcation he knew had occurred? One might simulate a fainting fit, but no one can assume a high temperature and a congestion, which the most ordinary practitioner who happened to be called in would soon see ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... friend of Li Hung Chang, who aided him in every possible way. He introduced much-needed discipline into his troops, who had been at first mere adventurers, and also established regular grades of pay. The Chinese Government was glad to assume these payments; while the English authorities were well content with the unique arrangement. Whether or not, Gordon would have called it "anomalous"—it was working, and that was the ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden

... their dead, while the plan of retreat,—alternately giving ground and renewing the attack,—was no doubt adopted for the purpose of gaining time to remove the wounded across the Ohio. It is fair to assume that the loss of the Indians was not far short of that sustained by ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... characteristic came into play. He did not assume the lofty role of mentor or prophet; he very tactfully and gently tucked the young Indianian under his wing. Thenceforth there were no ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous



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