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Assuming   /əsˈumɪŋ/   Listen
Assuming

adjective
1.
Excessively forward.  Synonyms: assumptive, presumptuous.  "On a subject like this it would be too assuming for me to decide" , "The duchess would not put up with presumptuous servants"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Assuming" Quotes from Famous Books



... Lucien, assuming a slightly patronizing tone, "the 'comical fellow' may become a great public character ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... raising his voice and assuming possession of the atlas, which he struck energetically with the back of his hand. "I ought to know my ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson

... at an early age—earlier than is generally safe or happy for youths—the incidents of life, supplying an unusual stimulus to ordinary powers, gave vividness to those dreams of human excellence and progress which, at some time, visit all; how by the weakness which precluded them from assuming those independent shapes which require the plastic force of higher powers, they became associated with the scenes among which they were cherished, and clove to them with earnest grasp; and how the fervid expressions which that combination ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various

... to detail all the steps in this complex negotiation, but the final proceedings call for some notice. When the treaty was assuming its final form, Talleyrand, the polite scoffer, the bitter foe of all clerical claims, found it desirable to take the baths at a distant place, and left the threads of the negotiation in the hands of two men who were equally determined to prevent its ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... bestowing good fortune, furnished with rooms and seats and adorned with celestial trees, it is delightful in the extreme. There sitteth in that assembly room, O son of Pritha, on an excellent seat, the Lord of celestials, with his wife Sachi endowed with beauty and affluence. Assuming a form incapable of description for its vagueness, with a crown on his head and bright bracelets on the upper arms, attired in robes of pure white and decked with floral wreaths of many hues, there he sitteth with beauty, fame, and glory by his side. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... this confidence, that I commenced a calculation as to the time at which we might expect to reach land. Assuming it to have been thirty miles distant at the time when we had seen its spectrum, by means of the refraction, arising from a peculiar state of the atmosphere; and estimating the rate of the current at ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... Franklin, two nephews of Governor Arthur had been raised to very high positions. One of them, Mr. Montagu, was the Chief Secretary. During his uncle's government he had contrived to appropriate to himself so great a share of power that Franklin, on assuming office, was forced to occupy quite a secondary position. By some of the colonists the Governor was blamed for permitting the arbitrary acts of the Chief Secretary; while, on the other hand, he was bitterly denounced as an intermeddler by the numerous friends of the ambitious ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... almost anxiously. Even if he was just now assuming the humble role of chauffeur he still was an ardent admirer of such hair as Jane's, long, black ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston

... self-governing institutions is probably not in a condition to work them with effect. Some of these possessions were purely military posts, like Gibraltar and Aden, and were necessarily administered as such. Others were too small and weak to dream of assuming the full privileges. But in the majority of cases one outstanding common feature will appear on closer analysis. Nearly all these territories were tropical or semi-tropical lands, whose British inhabitants were not permanent settlers, but were present solely ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... relation between him and his people is severed; and he begins, as it were, life anew, hundreds of miles away, it may be, from any former field of labour. To a married man, this system is one involving great self-denial and sacrifice, assuming ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur

... loth, followed his advice, Jerry addressed himself to Zoroaster. After a little conference, accompanied by that worthy and the knight of Malta, the trio stepped forward from the line, and approached Dick, when Juniper, assuming some such attitude as our admirable Jones, the comedian, is wont to display, delivered himself of the following address. Turpin listened with the gravity of one of the distinguished persons alluded to, at the commencement ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... accompanied by two of the quondam deserters (now appearing quite respectable infantrymen), set off to find a farm where in the name of King Lewis I might demand what we needed. We had to go some three miles before we came to a likely looking farmhouse, and there, assuming an authoritative and hectoring manner quite foreign to my amiable disposition, I secured a wagon and two horses, for which I gave ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... great attention. The glittering crescent of the Earth was evidently narrower than it had been the preceding evening, but its volume was still enormous when compared to the Lunar crescent, which was now rapidly assuming the proportions ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... me see," said Joe Dumsby, assuming the air of one who endeavoured to recall something. "Could you come Beet'oven's ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... noble Marquis of Lusace 'Twas custom for the heir who filled his place Before assuming princely pomp and power To sup one night in Corbus' olden tower. From this weird meal he passed to the degree Of Prince and Margrave; nor could ever he Be thought brave knight, or she—if woman claim The rank—be reckoned of unblemished fame Till they had breathed the air of ages gone, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... change, at least among a part of the people, and I ask my-self what it is? I meet or hear of thousands of my former connexions, who are men of the same principles and friendships as when I left them. But a non-descript race, and of equivocal generation, assuming the name of Federalist,—a name that describes no character of principle good or bad, and may equally be applied to either,—has since started up with the rapidity of a mushroom, and like a mushroom is withering on its rootless stalk. Are those men federalized to support the liberties of their ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... inscriptions acquaint us with the names of the duumvirs,—N. Istadicius, A. Audius, O. Caesetius Saxtus Capito, M. Gantrius Marcellus, who, instead of the plays and the illumination, which they would have had to pay for, on assuming office, had caused three cunei to be constructed on the order of the decurions. Another inscription gives us to understand that two other duumvirs, Caius Quinctius Valgus and Marcus Portius, holding five-year terms, had instituted ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier

... unfortunate men endeavoring to escape by those huge aerial strides, and seeming, like the giant Antaeus, to receive fresh strength every time they touched the earth. But this situation had to terminate. It was now nearly noon; the Victoria was getting empty and exhausted, and assuming a more and more elongated form every instant. Its outer covering was becoming flaccid, and floated loosely in the air, and the folds of the silk rustled ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... recognised slavery (which it did only by implication) was a compact with evil. They held that the Fathers had been led into this compact unwittingly and without full realisation of the responsibilities that they were assuming for the perpetuation of a great wrong. They refused to accept the view that later generations of American citizens were to be bound for an indefinite period by this error of judgment on the part of the Fathers. They proposed to get rid of slavery, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam

... it may at first seem extraordinary, that so large a collection of letters, written by different persons at different times, embracing topics of great moment, and assuming the character of secret and confidential despatches, should be so generally well fitted to meet the public eye. But it must be kept in mind, that the writers knew their letters would be read in open Congress, which ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... science. Behind science, as much to-day when our knowledge of the details of phenomena is so enormously increased, as in the times when science had hardly begun, there lies a world of mystery which we cannot pierce, and yet which we are compelled to assume. No scientific treatise can begin without assuming Matter and Force as data, and however much we may have learned about the relations of forces and the affinities of things, Matter and Force as such remain very much the same dim infinities, that the ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... to be the case, and assuming also, as we are compelled to do, that an interruption of gauge must exist somewhere, the question is reduced to this: to ascertain at what points such interruption should be fixed in order to occasion the least inconvenience ...
— Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the • Samuel Laing

... You have a way of assuming I know the end of your story before I've heard the beginning. It's an annoying method,' ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson

... manifestation has ceased; that, with the cessation of the physical manifestation, the particular activity which we recognize here as an individuality will so persist that hereafter we may recognize it as a spiritual personality. In other words, assuming the existence of a soul of which the universe and all it contains are but so many manifestations, it is dimly conceivable that with the cessation, or rather the transformation, of any particular manifestation, the effects may ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... the mention by various writers, this man, M. Gabius Apicius, was one of the many ancient gastronomers who took the subject of food seriously. Assuming a scientific attitude towards eating and food they were criticised for paying too much attention to their table. This was considered a superfluous and indeed wicked luxury when frugality was a virtue. These men who ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... with her hands folded tightly together, came to the low bed, on which lay the wreck of a once beautiful woman, and stood for a moment silent and pre-occupied. With a sudden gesture of surrender, she stooped her noble head, as if assuming a yoke, and drew one long deep breath. Did some prophetic intuition show her at that instant the Phicean Hill and its dread tenant, which sooner or ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... of that system of redemption, which engaged the counsels of heaven from eternity; and which was carried into effect, not like the work of creation, by a single word of the Son of God, but by his assuming human nature, enduring a long exile of toil and reproach, and humbling himself unto death, even the death of ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin

... church-spire of the fatherland, though dear and sacred in a way different from the village spire, language, ideas, and institutions change but little. The death of individuals has little effect; they are replaced by others who look like them, and think, talk, and act in the same way; who do not stop on assuming the uniform of their predecessors, but inherit their souvenirs also—the glory they have acquired, their traditions, their jests, and even certain intonations of their voices. This accounts for Fougas' sudden friendship, after a first feeling ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... witnesses, but only that the overt act—the corpus delicti—be so proved; and for the simple reason that, when by further evidence any particular individual is connected with the treasonable combination which brought about the overt act, that act, assuming the Common Law doctrine, becomes his act, and he is accordingly responsible for it at the place where it occurred. Burr's attorneys admitted this contention unreservedly. Indeed, that was precisely the reason why they had opposed the Common ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... this subject little attention will be given to the scriptural argument, for there is little if any difference of opinion concerning the teaching of Jesus and that of the writers of the New Testament. They are united and consistent in assuming the persistence of being. That belief underlies all their appeals to the solemn sanctions of the moral law which they derived from the future life. Jesus himself said, "If it were not so, I would have told you;" and nearly, if not quite all the Apostles base ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford

... he answered assuming his old cheerful tone, "I'll go. I AM tired, I guess, Cory, and bed's the best place for me. Good-night, old man,—give my love to Ruth," and he followed his wife out ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... repartees. I do pity you for the accident that made you think yourself remiss.(648) I enjoy your patient's recovery; but almost smiled unawares at the idea of her being sopped, and coming out of the water brustling up her feathers and ermines, and assuming the dignity of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... with his clenched hand. "We couldn't do it, that's all. It's awfully good of you, Anne, to do this for me. I'll—I'll never forget it. And I'll pay you back somehow before we're through, see if I don't." He was already assuming that the task of winning back Lutie was joyously on the way ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... few would look for them. At the same time I confess that to me the tracing of the plot of the evolution of love, with its diverse obstacles, is more fascinating than the plot of an individual love-story. At any rate, since we have thousands of such love-stories, I am perhaps not mistaken in assuming that the story of love itself will be welcomed as a ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... rajah. His death in some three years settled that difficulty, only to open fresh ones among the conflicting claimants. These perplexing questions the British finally concluded quite effectually by assuming charge of the government themselves, though this was attended with trouble, for the stout old mother of Ramchund Rao made armed resistance from the fort or castellated residence of the rajahs, which stands on its great rock overlooking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... to be composed of elements similar to those which go to make up our earth, we need not be disheartened at this failure of the spectroscope to inform us of the composition of the planets and satellites. We are justified, indeed, in assuming that more or less the same constituents run through our solar system; and that the elements of which these bodies are composed are similar to those which are found upon our earth and ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... lasted to the night of the 18th. The limiting pressure of 50 lbs. on the square foot of Osler's Anemometer was twice exceeded during this storm.—With respect to the Diurnal Inequalities of Magnetic Horizontal Force: Assuming it to be certain that they originate from the Sun's power, not immediately, but mediately through his action on the Earth, it appears to me (as I suggested long ago) that they are the effects of the attraction of the red end or north end of the needle by the heated portions ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... wrong thing," said the girl, in a repentant voice; "but, truly, I didn't mean to be irreverent—I only wanted you to know how pat the doctor reels off the scientific phrases; and"—assuming an important air—"I guess I know that Christian Science is the 'new tongue' spoken of in the Bible. I've been to the service all summer; auntie went with me, too, and thought it was beautiful"—this with a sudden break in her voice—"and I've got the book," ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... more or less directly has to do, between the lower and higher degrees of intensity in the [94] poet's conception of his subject, and his concentration of himself upon his work. It was Wordsworth who made most of this distinction, assuming it as the basis for the final classification (abandoned, as we said, in the new edition) of his poetical writings. And nowhere is the distinction more realizable than in Wordsworth's own work. For though what may be called professed Wordsworthians, ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater

... constituted a bad place. "Some day you're going to take a tumble, you old fool," Wes used to address him, "if you go on fiddling down steep rocks with your little old monkey work. Why don't you step out?" Only Old Slob never did take a tumble. He was willing to do anything for you, even to the assuming of a pack. This is considered by a ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... a normal or "strong-minded" person, if we may use that term as distinct from feeble-minded, marries a feeble-minded person. Assuming that the "strong-minded" person is a "thoroughbred" all of the children will be apparently normal. None will be feeble-minded. "Strong-mindedness" is dominant over weak-mindedness. Yet all these children that seem to be perfectly normal ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... we are always emphasizing the "long-time point of view," and we fall back upon this convenient phrase to harmonize many discrepancies between our so-called scientific principles and present facts. On the whole, we are well justified in assuming these long-time harmonies, but it will not do to overlook the fact that many important and legitimate enterprises have to justify themselves from a short-time viewpoint. Of more importance still is the fact that in this country enterprises of the ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss

... fiercely at each other, but Borromee, quickly assuming an air of amiable urbanity, said, "Vive Dieu, you ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... Apologia, I began to read it with the utmost eagerness, flattering myself that now at length I should understand how a man of brains could travel such a road. I was horribly disappointed, and not a little enraged, when I found that he began by assuming the very beliefs I thought he was going to justify. In you I ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... suspicions that there was more English than Spanish blood in their veins. He acknowledged that they were splendid sailors; but, being as he believed English deserters, he regarded them as desperate fellows, assuming a gentleness and zealous obedience quite foreign to ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... their sorrow has to be flogged into them, on the good old educational principle. Could he do less than this he was about to do? Rose had wedded her noble nature to him, and it was as much her spirit as his own that urged him thus to forfeit her, to be worthy of her by assuming unworthiness. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... eagerness which, having resulted in his twice jumping off before the word, terminates in his getting two or three yards the worst of the start when the word "go" is finally given. A green and white jersey dashes to the front, and assuming a longish lead, brings them along at a great pace. Next come the all white of Jim Bloxam and the pink of Montague running side by side and eyeing each other closely. They take but little heed of their leader, as they know very well that he can never last the quarter of a mile at the pace that he ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart

... assumptions made consciously and with effort, but in those which one makes because he cannot help it, and even without being too much aware what he does. All that a man of power assumes utterly, so that he were not himself without assuming it, he will impress upon others with a persuasion that has in it somewhat of the infinite. Jesus never said, "There is a God,"—nor even, "God is our Father,"—nor even, "Man is immortal"; he took all this as implicit basis of labor and prayer. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... the larger Asphodel, which is however found occasionally towards Kuchlak. Within the last few days vegetation has rapidly progressed; the orchards bursting into leaf, and the whole plain, where uncultivated, is assuming a greenish tint. I have nothing to add respecting the botany, except having found Ceratophyllum and two species of Chara, one a very interesting species from having the joints furnished with semi-reflexed, very narrow leaves, it is apparently Dioeceous, there is also a Naiad, much ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... abbot, very wroth, made answer that he would none of it, for that nought had he to do with Ghino; but that he purposed to continue his journey, and would fain see who would hinder him. "Sir," returned the envoy, assuming a humble tone, "you are come to a part of the country where we have no fear of aught save the might of God, and where excommunications and interdicts are one and all under the ban; wherefore you were best be pleased to shew yourself agreeable to Ghino in this particular." As ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... grant official protection to same; i. e., allow its representatives to aid and protect in every reasonable way the success of the enterprise, and when built guard same as public property, without assuming any legal liability therefor? ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... form only the lower part of the building. Whether the roof was an arch of stone or simply of wood, is uncertain; but it seems to me probable that it was of wood. For the tomb contained a layer of ashes in which all the objects put in the grave with the dead man were found; and, assuming that the roof was of wood, it is possible that the roof was set on fire at the time when the tomb was robbed and that the ashes came from this fire. The explanation which the excavator gives of these ashes, that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... attachment of his tribe: the people he commanded were his friends, his subjects, and his troops. If we suppose, upon any change in their manners, that they cease to revere his dignity, that they pretend to equality among themselves, or are seized with a jealousy of his assuming too much, the foundations of his power are already withdrawn. When the voluntary subject becomes refractory; when considerable parties, or the collective body, choose to act for themselves; the small kingdom, like that of Athens, becomes of ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... later, the Pacific Express was slowly winding up the long mountain grade, the engine puffing and wheezing in apoplectic fashion, and occasionally emitting short shrieks of protest. The mountains, which had gradually been assuming shape and color, were now looming up in grand proportions, their rugged outlines clearly defined against the sky. Already the mountain breezes, fragrant with the breath of tamarack, spruce and pine, stole in on adventurous wings through the car windows; lifted locks, both golden and ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... misconception is stated and manifest, often it is subtly implied, and then it presents the greatest difficulties to the inexpert dialectician. I find, for instance, Mr. W. H. Lever, in an article on Socialism and Business in the Magazine of Commerce for October 1907, assuming that there will be no increase in the total wealth of the community under Socialism, whereas, as my fourth chapter shows, Socialist proposals in the matter of property aim directly at the cessation of the waste occasioned by ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... Saint Nicolas, so as to cut off their advance on Antwerp, the base hospital must be removed from Ghent to some centre or point which will bring the Ambulance behind the Belgian lines. He thinks that working from Ghent would necessarily bring it behind the German lines. This is assuming that the Germans coming up from the south-east will cut in between ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair

... letter from Benjamin to Frederick A. Porcher of Charleston, a supporter of the Government, who had made rash suggestions as to the extra-constitutional power that the Administration might be justified by circumstances in assuming. Benjamin deprecated such suggestions but concluded with the unfortunate remark: "If the Constitution is not to be our guide I would prefer to see it suppressed by a revolution which should declare a dictatorship during the ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson

... "Dundreary Married;" and the captain, who, it afterwards appeared, had in former years suffered divers things at the hand of an obnoxious mother-in-law, grew more excited than ever, and became furiously indignant, not only at the all-assuming lady, but also at the supine Dundreary, who allowed himself to be thus imposed upon. He grumbled and muttered, and really seemed as if he would make for the stage, as he said, "to give the old creetur a piece of his mind." Even Norman was now uneasy lest he should ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... is sure to draw down envy on himself from some quarter or other, and they who are resolved never to be pleased, consider him as too assuming, and discover their resentment by contempt. How miserable is the state of an author! It is his misfortune in common with ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber

... for two such men, so different in character, to go on well together in the same Cabinet. I told him what Wharncliffe had told me, that no man was ever more easy to act with, more candid and conciliatory, and less assuming than Peel in the Cabinet, and Graham said that Stanley was likewise perfect as a colleague, so that it may be hoped there would not be any such incompatibility if they were to come together. I was with him two hours and a half, and we discussed very fully all political contingencies ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... much puzzled over Cuthbert's manner. It seemed to him utterly impossible that anyone should really be indifferent to losing a fine estate, and yet he could see no reason for Cuthbert's assuming indifference on so vital a subject unless he felt it. He even discussed the ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... Without, however, assuming too advanced ideas of justice for the time, it is unlikely that so capable a person as Salisbury appears to have been,[42] could fail to perceive that the publication of the Attorney-General's opinion of ...
— The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605 • William Parker

... the portress—and stooping down, she bawled in his ears: "What is the matter with my Alfred? It is his 'Stasie who is here. How are you now? They are coming to bring you some absinthe; that will put you to rights." Then, assuming a caressing tone of voice, she added: "Have they abused you, killed ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... possibly find a dissonant note in the ascending phrase, with a repeated culminating note. (This note would, then, be more than an indication; it would receive an adjective form from the accident, assuming in the musical phrase the value that an adjective would have in a logical phrase.) Its intensity, therefore, would be greater than that of the highest repeated note, and it would ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... while preparing for the bath; whistled like a blackbird as she stood before the pier-glass before the maid hooked her into a filmy, rosy evening gown—her first touch of colour since assuming mourning. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... to expose the entry of my ancestors' marriage as a forgery, while the rest of the year's register should look genuine. It took me some little trouble to clear it all up to my own mind, but by degrees everything settled into its place, assuming an intelligible shape in virtue of ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... accent was getting to be more formally polite. "But why you? Why did not your most efficient employers dispatch an ordinary assassin? I do not err in assuming that you all knew that this war was to ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... French Revolution; the bravery which distinguished the resistance of certain sections of the Hellenic peoples, such as the Suliotes, and Spakiots of Crete; the aspirations of Ali Pacha, who conceived the idea of severing his connection with the Sultan and assuming the independent government of Albania; the impunity with which the Klephts or pirates pursued their calling in the Levant, all combined to demonstrate the real weakness of the Turkish rule, and at last brought about ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury

... impulse was to accuse Kidd of the theft and have him searched. And then I reflected that I was almost as much to blame as himself. Assuming that he knew something of the value of precious stones, I had exposed him to temptation by leaving so many and of so great value in an open drawer. He might well suppose that I set no store by them, and that half a dozen or so ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... by the glibness of the above statements into assuming that the development of interest is an easy matter. It requires adherence to certain definite psychological laws which we may call the laws of interest. The first may be stated as follows: In order to develop interest in a subject, secure information about it. The force of this ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... conditions no statistics as to the graduation of professional ability among doctors are available. Assuming that doctors are normal men and not magicians (and it is unfortunately very hard to persuade people to admit so much and thereby destroy the romance of doctoring) we may guess that the medical profession, like the other professions, consists of a small ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... to this, assuming the latest possible date for the Irish work, and the earliest date for others, are the kindred Welsh literature and that of ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... and the theologians to search into the causes for the contradictions which may be found between the "Life of Issa" which I lay before the public and the accounts of the Gospels. But I trust that everybody will agree with me in assuming that the version which I present to the public, one compiled three or four years after the death of Jesus, from the accounts of eyewitnesses and contemporaries, has much more probability of being in conformity with truth than the ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... account for the mutual action of separate atoms," she said, "I defy him to do it, without assuming the existence of a continuous material medium in space. And this point of view being accepted—follow me here! what is the result? In plain words," cried Mrs. Gallilee, rising excitedly to her feet, "we dispense with ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... death until sentenced by the whole body of the people assembled in their Comitia, and for this act Cicero, as the presiding magistrate, was held responsible. It was in vain to urge that the Consuls had been armed with dictatorial power; the Senate, in the present instance, assuming to themselves judicial functions which they had no right to exercise, gave orders for the execution of a sentence which they had no right to pronounce. Nor were his enemies long in discovering this vulnerable point. On the last day of the year, when, according to established custom, he ascended ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... being deeply in love with Lady Chesterfield, was scarcely less agitated or less jealous than her lord; but he was obliged to conceal his feelings. Therefore, assuming the tone of an impartial hearer, he shrugged his shoulders, declared appearances were often deceitful, and maintained that even if she had given herself airs to encourage the duke, there were no grounds to show she had been culpable of improprieties. My lord expressed himself much obliged ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... my letter is assuming rather lengthy proportions, and I must hasten to a close. I have related just one incident in the life of Col. Grass that illustrates his spirit of patriotism and love of country. I could speak of many more, but the occasion demands brevity. Of his career since the close ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell

... that Sir Terence had been in love with my sister Ellen from the day I had first taken him home, and that Ellen was equally in love with him; so when Celeste consented to my entreaties that our wedding should take place six weeks after my assuming the title, O'Brien ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various

... in the thought of the men's appreciative delight when he should show them these lovely stones—across-the-sea kin to their own quarry granite. His semi-monthly talks with the quarrymen and stone-cutters were assuming, after many years, the proportions of lectures on art and scientific themes. Already many a professor from some far-away university had accepted his invitation to give of his best to the granite men of Maine. Rarely had they found a more fitting ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... the lanista had failed him. Already Drusus's reinforcements in the peristylium had become so numerous and so well armed that the young chieftain was pushing back the gladiators and rapidly assuming the offensive. Gabinius was the first to take flight. He plunged into one of the rooms off the atrium, and through a side door gained the open. The demoralized and beaten gladiators followed him, like ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... occasions he was scrupulous in assuming a frock-coat and a silk hat. Both were well-worn, and designed in the fashion of another day; but they were in his eyes insignia of office, and as he felt the tails of the coat about his knees they seemed to him ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... side and folded his hand in hers. For an instant there was a slight hesitation amounting almost to timidity, as if she were doing something or assuming a place to which she had no right, but it passed quickly. She was looking up into his face with a pleasant smile, a little pale yet from her recent emotion, or else those two years which had elapsed since their parting had robbed her of ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... wit at will. Both are accustomed to ape quality.—Both are genteelly descended. Mistresses of themselves, and well educated—yet past pity.—True Spartan dames; ashamed of nothing but detection—always, therefore, upon their guard against that. And in their own conceit, when assuming top parts, the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... after an inquiry by the French Minister of Public Works, amounted to 1,200,000 francs. This really seems to warrant the assertion that at Anzin in 1883 the profits of the mines were virtually divided into two equal portions, one of which went to Capital and the other to Labour. Assuming this assertion to be, even roughly speaking, accurate, why should there have been any serious collision between Capital and Labour, in such an organisation, over a question of practical economies necessarily ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... his power. He was a good scholar, and very fond of philosophy and poetry, and he delighted to have learned men around him, and he had naturally a generous spirit; but the sense that he was in a position that did not belong to him, and that everyone hated him for assuming it, made him very harsh and suspicious. It is of him that the story is told, that he had a chamber hollowed in the rock near his state prison, and constructed with galleries to conduct sounds like an ear, so that he might overhear the conversation of his captives; and of him, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... informed them of their pardon; and being secretly too much disordered to stay till the conclusion of the feast, she ordered them to follow her to her apartment; where seeing herself alone with them, she was obliged to renew her efforts, to conceal the confusion of her soul; and assuming an air of as much fierceness as she could, which was heightened by a natural majesty; "I have saved your lives," said she, "and you may judge by such a proof of my power, that I have authority enough to put you again into the same danger; resolve therefore to satisfy my curiosity, ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown

... religion really is, but rather against the Christian religion as the Roman hierarchy misrepresented it, that Voltaire ostensibly directed his efforts. "You are right," wrote he to his henchman D'Alembert, in 1762, "in assuming that I speak of superstition only; for as to the Christian religion, I respect it and love it, as you do." This distinction of Voltaire's, with whatever degree of simple sincerity on his part made, ought to be remembered in his favor, when his memorable motto, "Ecrasez l'Infame," ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... proposed three skilfully drawn questions. Avoiding the direct discussion of hostilities, he asked whether, if France were compelled to withdraw her ambassador from Madrid, the other powers would do the same. Then, assuming their sympathy, he asked what form of moral support they would give her in event of war. Lastly, he propitiated Russian views of joint action by asking what form of material support the powers would give France, if she should ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... of the forces coming thence before the junction with the other Federal forces was affected, he could defeat the plan. The Kentucky troops would turn and pursue him, and the attack upon the department would not be made. In short, he hoped to avoid invasion and attack by assuming the offensive—to keep the enemy out of Southwestern Virginia by ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... attributes. She had a poll of very dirty and untidy red hair; her eyes were set close together; she had the jowl of the traditional prize-fighter. But far more disagreeable than any single feature was the woman's expression, or rather the expression which I caught her assuming naturally, and banishing with an effort for my benefit. To me she was strenuously civil in her uncouth way. But I saw her give her husband one look, as he staggered in with my comparatively light portmanteau, ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... the same common plan, of which they constitute diverging manifestations. No a priori reason is conceivable why such similarities should be necessary, but they are readily explicable on the assumption of a genetic relationship and affinity between the animals in question, assuming, that is, that they are the modified descendants of some ancient form—their ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... that the amount of time wasted in changing sides, although the field did their best to minimise the loss by assuming a couple of positions alternately, was very ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various

... this change the leaving of the parental home; the selecting of a business or profession; and, sometimes, the establishment of a new home, and the assuming of the cares of family life. It is, therefore, of importance that we should guard all the several interests of this period with more than ordinary care, and especially that we should acquaint ourselves with those facts and principles ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.

... truth Was made too late to influence to ruth The Procurator who had condemned his son— Or rather him so deemed. For there was none To prove that Panthera erred not: and indeed, When vagueness of identity I would plead, Panther himself would sometimes own as much - Yet lothly. But, assuming fact was such, That the said woman did not recognize Her lover's face, is matter for surprise. However, there's his tale, fantasy ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... family—not of imperial extraction so far as the reigning house was concerned—which, by adopting Tartar, or perhaps Tartar—Tibetan, manners, had for many generations succeeded in acquiring a predominant influence in that region. Assuming that—which is not at all improbable—the nomad horsemen in unchallenged possession of the whole desert and Tartar expanse had at any time, as a consequence of their raids in directions away from ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... exclusive. The native of Old Spain does not endeavor to conceal his contempt for foreigners of all classes, and as to the Creoles, he simply scorns to meet them on social grounds, shielding his inferiority of intelligence under a cloak of hauteur, assuming the wings of the eagle, but possessing only the eyes of the owl. Thus the Castilians and Creoles are ever at antagonism, both socially and politically. The bitterness of feeling existing between them ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... at last assured himself that his first theory was tenable, for Selim had confirmed it. A hundred conjectures flashed into the Englishman's mind as he trudged onward, to be one by one dismissed and relegated to the limbo of uncertainty. But assuming that Selim had told the truth, Renwick had found the trail, and would follow wherever it might lead ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... likeness but, with the likeness, I attain the very same ideas as well as the same mode of arranging them, so that, you see, by looking at a person attentively, I by degrees assume his likeness, and by assuming his likeness I attain to the possession of his most secret thoughts. This, I say, is a peculiarity in my nature, a gift of the God that made me; but, whether or not given me for a blessing, He knows Himself, and so do I. At all events, I have this privilege, ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... were his own domestics and retainers, but not all. There were free rancheros among them—some who belonged to the pueblita itself—some, perchance, who had figured in pronunciamentos—who voted at elections, and styled themselves citizens. The Don, therefore, had good reasons for assuming a character; and well did the old ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... time the periodic celebrations, the games, and lamentations, and songs would be assuming a more solemn character. Awe would more and more mingle with the other feelings inspired by his name. Certain rites and a certain ritual would attend those annual games and lamentations, which would formerly not have been suitable, ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady

... have been changing. Gradually Agriculture has been assuming its proper place in the scheme of things. It is recognized now that successful farming is a business—a profession, if you like—requiring lifelong study, foresight, common sense, close application; that it carries with it all the satisfaction of honest work well done, all the dignity of practical ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... beginning, the groundwork for something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be made of the table is obvious—but in this particular cipher we shall only very partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will commence by assuming it as the e of the natural alphabet. To verify the supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples—for e is doubled with great frequency in English—in such words, for example, as 'meet,' 'fleet,' 'speed,' 'seen,' ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... flour, and as food was the first necessity Columbus immediately put all the able-bodied men in the colony, whatever their rank, to the elementary manual work of grinding. Friar Buil and the twelve Benedictine brothers who were with him thought this a wise order, assuming of course that as clerics they would not be asked to work. But great was their astonishment, and loud and angry their criticism of the Admiral, when they found that they also were obliged to labour with their hands. But Columbus ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... and to keep it in the right course, that they believed that their untutored hands, guided by common-sense and sound abilities, were perfectly capable of guiding it, without mishap, to the appointed goal. Men who, aware of their ignorance, would probably have shrunk from assuming charge of a squad of infantry in action, had no hesitation whatever in attempting to direct a mighty army, a task which Napoleon has assured us requires profound study, incessant application, and wide experience.* (* ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... every point that would please his client, without studying his advantage. I find no fault with the composition of the memorial, for it is well written; nor with the principles of liberty it contains, considered in the abstract. The error lies in the misapplication of them, and in assuming a ground they have not a right to stand upon. Instead of their serving you as a ground of reclamation against us, they change into a satire on yourselves. Why did you not speak thus when you ought to have ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... that belief assumed is seen in the book of Daniel. That book was a creation of this period, inspired by its sufferings, aspirations, and hopes. The writer, assuming the name and authority of a traditional hero,—by that easy confusion of the ideal and the historical which we have seen before,—blends with stories of unconquerable fidelity and divine deliverance his own interpretation of the world's recent history and probable ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... fact more than half ashamed of the dreams which he had cherished before coming to England, and which since, at times, had been very potent with him, assuming as strong a tinge of reality as those [scenes?] into which he had strayed. He could not prevail with himself to disclose fully to this severe, and, as he thought, cynical old man how strong within him was the sentiment that impelled him to connect himself with the ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... is coming to Lady Charlton's too?" This at least is the meaning Everett read in an eye probably devoid of any meaning at all. He felt he could not go in the company of these gentlemen. He must wait now until they were admitted. So assuming as unconscious an air as possible he stepped through the band of gaslight, and was once more swallowed up in the friendly ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... his cabbages. When the hedgehog caught sight of the hare, he bade him a friendly good morning. But the hare, who was in his own way a distinguished gentleman, and frightfully haughty, did not return the hedgehog's greeting, but said to him, assuming at the same time a very contemptuous manner, "How do you happen to be running about here in the field so early in the morning?" "I am taking a walk," said the hedgehog. "A walk!" said the hare, with a smile. "It ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... inmates of the house, with the exception of Marheyo, his son, and Tinor, after assuming their gala dresses, departed in the direction of the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... "one imperial whole," the idea is abroad, and has occupied many minds. Perhaps the man whose powerful imagination first grasped the "imperial" idea and began to look upon Greater Britain as having common interests, and being capable of assuming common responsibilities, was Lord Beaconsfield, or Benjamin Disraeli—to use the name by which he first came into public notice. Death hushed his active mind before he could give form and substance to his great concept, and it was left to others trained in his school to propagate ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... infertility may at first exist could be eliminated by careful selection, if the crossed races were bred in large numbers and over a considerable area of country. This case is especially valuable, as showing how careful we should be in assuming the infertility of hybrids when experiments have been made with the progeny of a single pair, and have been continued only for ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... towards a peace. He suggested, that each government should transmit its conditions to Madrid, and that he should be allowed to draw from both a plan for the conclusion of a treaty. To this the British ministers assented, and the conditions they sent were comprised in this one article—that, assuming the right of England to treat with her own colonies independently of foreign intervention, as an unquestionable principle, if France would cease her interference, and withdraw her troops from America, they would readily concur in establishing ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... find the clue to the great apostasy whose dark eclipse now covers two-thirds of nominal Christendom, here it is—the rule and authority of the Holy Spirit ignored in the church; the servants of the house assuming mastery and encroaching more and more on the prerogatives of the Head, till at last one man sets himself up as the administrator of the church, and daringly usurps the name of "The Vicar of Christ." When the Spirit of the Lord, ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... seen, no basis in history for assuming that poetry will cease. Is there any ground in speculation? The assertion goes that imagination will be shrivelled by the chill of scientific practicality, that minds trained and informed by physical and mental science will possess ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... one third of the petty officers of the Neversink were born east of the Atlantic. Why is this? Because the same principle that operates in hindering Americans from hiring themselves out as menial domestics also restrains them, in a great measure, from voluntarily assuming a far worse servitude in the Navy. "Sailors wanted for the Navy" is a common announcement along the wharves of our sea-ports. They are always "wanted." It may have been, in part, owing to this scarcity man-of-war's men, that not many years ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... place the explanation attached seems to show that the term was among the titles of Bel. But this verbal resemblance between the name Dagon and one of Bel's titles is probably a mere accident, and affords no ground for assuming any connection between the two gods, who have nothing in common one with the other. The Bel of the Assyrians was certainly not their Fish-god; nor had his epithet Da-gaga any real connection with the word dag, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... have borne the name of Blake, and who am still the proudest of them all at heart, I, the Countess de Mirac, cousin to your husband there, repeat what this good woman has said, and in holding out my hand to you, ask you to make my cousin happy and his family contented by assuming that position in his household which the law as well as his love ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green

... from the places of concealment in which they had been lying, and came with speed and confidence to the general. He saw and received them with joy, and, while still at Caesarea, having accurately inquired into every circumstance, he found that Firmus, while assuming the disguise of an ally and a suppliant, was secretly planning how, like a sudden tempest, to overwhelm his army while unprepared for any ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... stopped the organ. Mangin then rang a small bell, stepped forward to the front of the carriage, gave a slight cough indicative of a preparation to speak, opened his mouth, but instantly giving a more fearful start and assuming a more sudden frown than before, he took his seat as if quite overcome by some unpleasant object which his eyes had rested upon. Thus far he had not spoken a word. At last the prelude ended, and the comedy commenced. Stepping forward again ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... acquainted with the ticket agent, and assuming as nonchalant an air as was possible in his present disturbed state, he strolled into the office. After a little indifferent ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... saw, paid themselves for conquering the Saxons and Angles by assuming a perpetual right to tax their produce; a right still in full force, and forming the very foundation of the ruling class in England. The land tenure thus created was, under the Tudors and the first Stuarts, bodily transferred to Ireland. In Ireland the ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... that a suitable suppository has been used. It is all a question of getting the right articles to begin with and using them intelligently. But there is this chance—a bare chance—of accidental impregnation, and we want to eliminate all chances, if possible. Assuming the rubber pessary fits properly, as it will if skilfully selected and applied in the first instance by a competent medical practitioner, then the seminal fluid must remain in the lower part of the vaginal passage. An hour or two after ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout

... themselves," observed the general; "but my objection is to the mode in which they unite themselves in the so-called religious system under which they are placed. They may, in most instances, serve God far better by staying at home and doing their duty in their families, instead of assuming the dress and imitating the customs of the nuns of ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston

... know," answered the girl, assuming a serious air; "but I am sure he was trying it on. A fellow doesn't hand over banknotes for nothing, and I saw him give one for five hundred francs to Paul; and more than that, he promised him that he should make a great fortune through a friend ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... a totally distinct nature. Is not the a priori evidence in favour of an identity of the causes that have produced such similar results? and have we not a right to call upon our opponents for some proofs of their own doctrine, and for an explanation of its difficulties, instead of their assuming that they are right, and laying upon us the ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... ladies no longer took the trouble to remember where—had been emphatically commended by the distinguished biologist, Professor Foreland, as the most agreeable woman he had ever met; and the members of the Lunch Club, awed by an encomium that carried the weight of a diploma, and rashly assuming that the Professor's social sympathies would follow the line of his scientific bent, had seized the chance of annexing a biological member. Their disillusionment was complete. At Miss Van Vluyck's first off-hand mention of the pterodactyl Mrs. Roby had confusedly murmured: "I know so little ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... and watched him for a moment. This boy was worried, she could see that. But assuming that any part of his story was true—and it was impossible to doubt ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith



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