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Assumption   Listen
noun
Assumption  n.  
1.
The act of assuming, or taking to or upon one's self; the act of taking up or adopting. "The assumption of authority."
2.
The act of taking for granted, or supposing a thing without proof; supposition; unwarrantable claim. "This gives no sanction to the unwarrantable assumption that the soul sleeps from the period of death to the resurrection of the body." "That calm assumption of the virtues."
3.
The thing supposed; a postulate, or proposition assumed; a supposition. "Hold! says the Stoic; your assumption's wrong."
4.
(Logic) The minor or second proposition in a categorical syllogism.
5.
The taking of a person up into heaven. Hence: (Rom. Cath. & Greek Churches) A festival in honor of the ascent of the Virgin Mary into heaven.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Assumption" Quotes from Famous Books



... condemned it, in no stinted terms; it permeated the other branches of the government and, finally, reacted upon the armies in the field. For the growing dislike of his most trusted adviser began to affect Mr. Davis; his ready assumption of all responsibility at the beginning having taught the people to look direct to him for all of good, or of ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... circumstances, but he could politely freeze objectionable persons out of a room as effectually as if he took them by the shoulders and walked them out. There was so much in his surroundings and antecedents to sustain his quiet assumption, that the world was learning to say, "By your leave," ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... et qui ne daigne me parler que pour injurier ma Nation et pour m'ennuyer du recit des grandes qualites de la sienne.' Of this Bull we may safely say with Horace, habet faenum in cornu. What we felt to be especially insulting was the quiet assumption that the descendants of men who left the Old World for the sake of principle, and who had made the wilderness into a New World patterned after an Idea, could not possibly be susceptible of a generous or lofty sentiment, could have no feeling of nationality deeper ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... assumption rather, is all the odder because, on the one hand, orthodoxy holds Free-will (if it accepts that) as a Divine endowment of the Soul: and, on the other, serious Atheism is almost always Determinist. But the study of M. Ohnet was probably ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... the volume of transactions which contained also the same author's epoch-making paper on geology. This "theory of rain" explained precipitation as due to the cooling of a current of saturated air by contact with a colder current, the assumption being that the surplusage of moisture was precipitated in a chemical sense, just as the excess of salt dissolved in hot water is precipitated when the water cools. The idea that the cooling of the saturated air causes the precipitation of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... phrase, it must be admitted, involves a certain assumption, which may be regarded as the fundamental postulate of the organic view of society. It implies that such a fulfilment or full development of personality is practically possible not for one man only but for all members of a community. ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... entitled to. Yet study Group II closely and subtleties gradually emerge. By boldly and categorically placing Eastern Inner Mongolia on precisely the same footing as Southern Manchuria—though they have nothing in common—the assumption is made that the collapse in 1908 of the great Anglo-American scheme to run a neutral railway up the flank of Southern Manchuria to Northern Manchuria (the once celebrated Chinchow-Aigun scheme), coupled with general agreement with Russia which ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... Resurrection; The Three Maries; Christ appearing to Mary; The Pilgrim of Emmaus; The Ascension; The Descent of the Holy Ghost; The Assumption of the Virgin; and Doomsday, close the series. I have quoted enough to show that these plays must, in the condition of the people to whom they were presented, have had much to do ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... Don Mike's assumption that Pablo would seek balm for his injured feelings at the expense of the potato baron was one born of a very intimate knowledge of the mental processes of Pablo and those of his breed. And Pablo, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... ships to enjoy preferential through routes in conjunction with our railroad systems. The present Interstate Commerce Law, as I interpret it, gives to the Commission jurisdiction over carriers to the seaboard. It is the assumption of the law that rates will be made to and from the American ports and that at such ports all ships may equally compete ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... although thoroughly understanding that he could not avail himself of a costume so distinctively the mark of a condition, yet, by one of the contrarieties of his strange nature, in which the desire for an assumption of any kind was a passion, he had tried on that coat fully a dozen times, and while admiring how well it became him, and how perfectly it seemed to suit his face and figure, he had dramatised to himself the part of an aide-de-camp in waiting, rehearsing the little ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... nations were about to break. He next endeavored, by methods verging on the unscrupulous, to create distrust of the Italian Government among the Italian people. A member of the Reichstag circulated stealthily among the deputies and journalists, flattering each in turn with the assumption that he alone was the man of the moment, and offering him, in the names of Germany and Austria, new concessions which had not been communicated to the Italian Cabinet. It was back-stairs diplomacy in its shadiest and most questionable form. The concessions thus unofficially promised ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... in a small house near the harbour, which, as Eve pointed out, was much more convenient for the shops; and, besides, they could now buy their fish out of the boats. This last theory she propounded with a grave assumption of housekeeping knowledge which did not fail ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... peril. Compared to the discussions at the Cedars, this discussion was as the open, tossing, windy sea to a weed-choked canal. The talk veered into mere profane politics, and Mr. Orgreave, entrenching himself behind an assumption of careless disdain, was severely attacked by all his sons except Jimmie, who, above Hilda's left shoulder, pretended to share the paternal scorn. The indifference of Hilda to politics was complete. She began to feel less ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... his rapid reconstruction of the past he found himself cutting a shabbier figure than he cared to admit. He had always been intolerant of stupid people, and it was his punishment to be convicted of stupidity. As his mind traversed the years between his marriage and this unexpected assumption of paternity, he saw, in the light of an overheated imagination, many signs of unwonted crassness. It was not that he had ceased to think his wife stupid: she was stupid, limited, inflexible; but there was ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... government in the Philippine Islands under American rule was a gradual evolution up to the time of the assumption of control by ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... it not so much the money as Timea that was the object? Timar had enough romance about him to find this a plausible assumption, however little it agreed with a supercargo's ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... given to St. Elizabeth's College, and apparently some rights over Merdon, the Chancellor Wriothesley obtained that, on the confiscation of monastic property, the manor should be granted to him. Stephen Gardiner had been bishop since 1531, a man who, though he had consented to the king's assumption of the royal supremacy, grieved over the fact as an error all his life. He appeared at the bar of the House of Commons and pleaded the rights of his See, to which Merdon had belonged for 1300 years. ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... moderate as they were, assumed in his hearers the consciousness of a moral claim superior to the obligation of making one's business "pay"; and it was the futility of this assumption that chilled the arguments on his lips, since in the orthodox creed of the business world it was a weakness and not a strength to be content with five per cent where ten was obtainable. Business was one ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... then long past, however, when Napoleon's assumption of regal magnificence had provoked merriment among those as yet unfamiliar with it. In 1804 Lady Louisa Stuart had recorded how the unaccustomed deference with which the first consul elected to be treated was viewed in the nature of a farce by ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... nations who had citizens and investments there had long protested to the American Government, and Dru knew that one of the purposes of the proposed coalition against the United States had been the assumption of control themselves. Consequently, he took active and drastic steps to bring order out of chaos. He had threatened many times to police these countries, and he finally prepared to ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... she complain to her royal consort of the insulting calumnies of Madame de Verneuil; he either affected to disbelieve that she had been guilty of such absurd assumption, or reproached Marie with a want of self-respect in listening to the idle tattle of eavesdroppers and sycophants; alleging that her foreign followers, spoiled by her indulgence, and encouraged by her credulity, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... tend to limit music to programs?—a limitation as bad for music itself—for its wholesome progress,—as a diet of program music is bad for the listener's ability to digest anything beyond the sensuous (or physical-emotional). To a great extent this depends on what is meant by emotion or on the assumption that the word as used above refers more to the EXPRESSION, of, rather than to a meaning in a deeper sense—which may be a feeling influenced by some experience perhaps of a spiritual nature in the expression of which the intellect ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... care for them and to show his affection in extravagant ways, as in his affair with Mlle. Georges, the beautiful but rather tiresome actress. As for Mme. de Stael, she bored him to distraction by her assumption of wisdom. That was not the kind of woman that Napoleon cared for. He preferred that a woman should be womanly, and not a sort of owl to sit and talk with him about the ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... by Hooker's allusion to his own wife and his degrading similitude of their two conditions. But he dismissed the former as part of Hooker's invincible and still boyish extravagance, and the latter as part of his equally characteristic assumption. Perhaps he was conscious, too, notwithstanding the lapse of years and the condonation of separation and forgetfulness, that he deserved little delicacy from the hands of Susy's husband. Nevertheless, he dreaded to hear him speak again of her; and the fear was realized ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... churches, and all the quieter communities are notorious for this, the peculiarity having formed for a hundred and fifty years the stock-in-trade of novelists. Sobriety and continence being more or less in evidence the assumption is that all the requirements have been fulfilled. The community is "moral" notwithstanding the back-bitings, heart-burnings, slanders, cheatings, envies, hatreds, and bitternesses that may permeate it through and through. As I write, the cramped, venomous, unlovely life of the American ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King

... expediency, is the thing that must guide us," is the emphatic declaration of President Woodrow Wilson. The false assumption that "the end justifies the means has come from self-centered men, who see in their own interests the interests of the country, and do not have vision enough to read it in wider terms, the universal ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... too many assumptions about what human nature ought to be and not enough research into what it is. Take the assumption that creative work can be undertaken only in the realm of vision. We speak of creative "artists" in music, painting, and the other arts. We seemingly limit the creative functions to productions that may be hung on gallery walls, or played in concert halls, or otherwise displayed ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford

... detestation of the cruel decree of the Convention respecting English prisoners. His return from Egypt, and assumption of absolute power as First Consul. His policy at this period. Allows Barere to reside in Pairs. Employs Barere as a writer and spy. Establishes the Imperial government. His opinion of Barere's journalism. His ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... great part of her half-year's dividend in the purchase of a black velvet coat for little Rawdon, who, by the way, was grown almost too big for black velvet now, and was of a size and age befitting him for the assumption of the virile jacket ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... if she had to start making "comforts" for him at the War Knitting League which she was attending with great energy at the Garden Home. He found, as they talked, that it never occurred to her but that it was as an officer that he would be going, and something warned him not to correct her assumption. He found with pleased surprise quite a friendly chat afoot between them. She only began to fall away in interest when he, made forgetful by this new quality in their contact, allowed his deeper feelings to find voice. Once started, he was away before he had ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... that sexual intercourse was irregular and haphazard up to the dawn of history. Every woman—within the limits of her own tribe, probably—belonged to every man. Whether this assumption is universally applicable or not, must remain doubtful; later ethnologists, more particularly von Westermarck, deny it because it does not apply to every savage tribe of the present day. Herodotus tells us that promiscuity existed in historical times in countries as far removed ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... young farmer with a hearty, "Good-morning, Squire," or some such flattering introduction. A wise dealer always knows how to keep up amicable relations with a possible seller or buyer, and never descends to abuse, or the assumption of a personal injury if he cannot persuade a seller to accept his price, as is the case with some dealers ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... a deep swallow of whiskey and water that he might control his voice. When, finally, he spoke, he showed a fine assumption of indifference. ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin

... His curious assumption that Artois and he were contemporaries because they were friends, and his apparently absolute blindness to the fact that a man of sixty and a man of twenty-four are hardly likely to regard the other sex with an exactly similar ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... also the whole of the Delhi garrison to be well affected to the mutineers; an assumption altogether unwarrantable on the outside of Delhi during the 10th and ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... of the Master's mean? Certainly not a mere arrogant assumption in favour of His own nationality—such an idea is negatived, not only by the universality of all His other teaching, but also by the very instruction in which these words occur, for He declared that the Jewish temple was equally with the Samaritan of no account ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... the sky, and blinked at the dim stars,—there was a smile under his grizzled moustache. He had interrupted the conversation between his hostess and her objectionable wooer precisely at the right moment, and he knew it. Roxmouth's pale face grew a shade paler, but he made a very good assumption of perfect composure, and taking out his case of cigars offered one to Gigue, who cheerfully accepted it. Then he lit one for himself with a hand that trembled slightly. Maryllia, pausing on the step of the porch as she was ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... then, we have seen how Eucken proves the inadequacy of the realistic conceptions of life, and how they really depend for their acceptance upon the assumption of a Universal Spiritual Life. We have still to see how he attempts to prove that basing human life upon an eternal spiritual life satisfies the conditions he himself has laid down for a satisfactory solution of the problem. He has to show that the theory gives a satisfactory explanation ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones

... and clenching of the right hand seemed to warrant this assumption. Then a yell rang through the hut; Moses displayed all, and more than all his teeth, and the professor, springing up on one elbow, ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne

... chooses three jurymen, the defendant three, and the court three. These nine men hear and decide the merits of the case without application of such strict rules of evidence as prevail in the legal practice of the United States. All judicial procedure in Sweden is based upon the assumption that the court is sufficiently intelligent and impartial to determine the reliability of witnesses and to judge of the application of facts laid before it. All judges and judicial magistrates are appointed for life on good behavior, but they can be ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... weeks she had seen it coming. Incredible as she found it that a man from whom every nerve of her body recoiled with loathing should complacently ignore the signs, should complacently persevere in assuming himself to be agreeable and in pressing that assumption, she had to admit that the offer did not take her wholly by surprise. What bruised her was the insufferable obtuseness of the wording. How was it possible for a human being to sit down in good faith and pen such sentences without guessing ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... matter of compliment to the reigning Emperor, the first Consulship that fell vacant after his accession to the throne was (I believe invariably) filled by him, and that though he might sometimes have held the office of Consul before his assumption of the diadem, this was not often the case. Certainly, in the instances given above, Probus, Carus, and Diocletian held no Consulships till after they ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... Infinite Goodness must have been imperative for a whole eternity. If the fabric of the universe is a perfection of the Creator, He, therefore, lacked a perfection before the creation of the world. But an assumption like this contradicts the idea of perfect goodness, therefore there is no creation. To what have I arrived, Raphael? Terrible fallacy of my conclusions! I give up the Creator as soon as I believe in a God. Wherefore do I require a God, if ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... her warm understanding. Her quick wit rallied him and awoke echoes of his past youth, until they began to laugh and jest with the camaraderie of boy and girl. With their better acquaintance her assumption of masculinity fell from her, and she became the ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... who were represented as in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, something about a Sparkling Bowl. He sang it with an assumption of a Devil-may-care voice, that made his face a thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... The assumption existed that the excursion into the Thuringenwald to see the memorials of Luther was especially for the uncle's benefit, and he tried solicitously to say or look nothing which might invalidate it. There were other places in Germany, from Mainz to ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... transfer her banker's account to yourself for the benefit of Miss What-d'-you-call-'em—Miss Costigan—don't you think you should at least have consulted my sister as one of the principal parties in the transaction? I am speaking to you, you see, without the least anger or assumption of authority, such as the law and your father's will give me over you for three years to come—but as one man of the world to another,—and I ask you, if you think that, because you can do what you like with your mother, therefore you have a right ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... defective, in that it assumes Intelligence to be the only possible cause of Intelligence. This assumption amounts to begging the whole question as to the being of a God. Inconceivability of Matter thinking no proof that it may not think. Locke himself strangely concedes this. His fallacies and self-contradictions pointed ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes

... me about it," he said with a fair assumption of ease. "Why didn't you come back sooner?" He was pleased with that speech. He wouldn't have dared ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks

... States. These have no right to question the propriety of the demand; no discretion beyond that of devising the ways and means of furnishing the sums demanded. But though this be strictly and truly the case; though the assumption of such a right would be an infringement of the articles of Union; though it may seldom or never have been avowedly claimed, yet in practice it has been constantly exercised, and would continue to be so, as long as the revenues of the Confederacy should remain dependent on the ...
— The Federalist Papers

... becomes the richest in his village, to pay any attention to him, Harry grew up a self-indulgent, self-sufficient boy. His course at the seminary and college naturally developed this into a snobbish assumption that he was of finer clay than the commonality, and in some way selected by fortune for her finer displays and luxurious purposes. I have termed this a "sterile selfishness," to distinguish it from that grand egoism ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... Lester," protested Godfrey, "you are not a detective—that's not your business; but it is Grady's. At least, it is supposed to be, and the safety of this city as a place of residence depends more or less upon the truth of that assumption. On the strength of it, he has been made deputy police commissioner, in ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... without any specification of offensive passages, or any trial before a court of justice. This was probably the first transaction, in the American Colonies, relating to the freedom of the press; and it is not less remarkable for the assumption of power on the part of the legislature, than for their disregard of the first principles and established forms ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer

... put on an unhappy look, and murmured something sympathetic: but he did not believe in the reality of his wife's ailments. She had played the invalid more or less ever since their marriage; and he had grown accustomed to the assumption as a part of his wife's daily existence—a mere idiosyncrasy, like her love of fine dress and strong tea. If at dinner she ate hardly enough for a bird, he concluded that she had spoiled her appetite at luncheon, or by the consumption of sweet biscuits ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... "But the Assumption by Titian, and the Transfiguration by Raphael," resumed the Countess, who added in Italian, with an accent of enthusiasm: "Ah, ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... say a prayer for me before the miraculous Virgin? Or, better still, before the tomb of the holy and sainted Dimitry in the cathedral of the Archangel! And, lady," he seized her hand in entreaty, "before the relics of St. Philip the Martyr in our Holy Cathedral of the Assumption." ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... between cultured and uncultured people, which humanism had effected, and which subsisted after the benefits conferred by humanism had been withdrawn from the race. The retirement of the commercial aristocracy from trade, and their assumption of princely indolence in this period of political stagnation, was another factor of importance. But the truest cause of Italian retrogression towards barbarism must finally be discerned in the sharp check given to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... consider that the schemes of our enemies are not dissimilar to our own, and that the freaks of chance are not determinable by calculation. In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to believe that there is much difference between man ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... experiences was his involuntary assumption 'for this occasion only' of the role of the fighting editor. He was essentially a man of peace, and would always prefer making an angry man laugh to fighting with him; but one day there called at the office a very furious photographer. What the paper may have said about ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... the assumption that the mind of every foreigner reasons on German lines, but with inferior intelligence. But behind the agent is the cunning of Berlin, with its long-deliberated plans and its concocted ingenuity ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... signifies "salary," and not a single payment or gratuity. The Judge was forbidden to receive from any man a fixed stipend (by the acceptance of which he would become the donor's servant), or robes (the assumption of which would be open declaration of service); but he was at liberty to accept the offerings which the public were wont to make to men of his condition, as well as the sums (or 'fees,' as they would be termed at the present ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... frigidly. "I have no intention of denying that the instrument is a hypnotic spray. As you know, I dislike guns and similar weapons, and we are engaged in a matter in which the need to defend myself against a personal attack might arise. Your assumption, however, that I intended to employ the spray on you just ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz

... life and prospects of America; every view partial, parochial, not raised to the horizon; the moral feeling proper, at the largest, to a clique of States; and the whole scope and atmosphere not American, but merely Yankee. I will go far beyond him in reprobating the assumption and the incivility of my countryfolk to their cousins from beyond the sea; I grill in my blood over the silly rudeness of our newspaper articles; and I do not know where to look when I find myself in company with an American and see my countrymen unbending to him as to a performing ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... you, and we shall proceed upon that assumption. They know, then, that neither they nor we can do anything as long as we maintain the zone—that it is a stalemate. They also know that it takes an enormous amount of power to keep the zone in place. Now we have gone as far as we can go upon the meager ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... Everything aided the fulfilment of his wishes. On 28th November the Pope arrived at Paris, and two days after, viz. on the 1st of December, the Senate presented to the Emperor the votes of the people for the establishment of hereditary succession in his family: for as it was pretended that the assumption of the title of Emperor was no way prejudicial to the Republic, the question of hereditary succession only had been proposed for public sanction. Sixty thousand registers had been opened in different parts of France,—at the offices of the ministers, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... name for his pseudonym has troubled many, but this choice was, I think, as was the assumption of a pseudonym, the part of wisdom. I do not believe, as he at times liked to believe, that he attained a woman's standpoint. He had been complimented on all sides for his composition of the wife's letters in "A Fellowe and his Wife" (1892), in which Mrs. ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... children, meeting for study at the same schools, colleges, military academies, &c.; by what furious forgetfulness of the realities belonging to the case, has it been possible for writers in public journals to persist in arguing national questions upon the assumption of a bisection in our population—a double current, on the one side steeped to the lips in town prejudices, on the other side traditionally sold to rustic views and doctrines? Such double currents, like the Rhone flowing through the Lake of Geneva, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... a tangent to a certain issue troubling his legal conscience. He had not wavered in the usual assumption of omniscience, but he was by no means sure that he had given right advice. Well! Without that power to decide and hold to decision in spite of misgiving, one would never have been fit for one's position at the Bar, never have been fit for anything. The longer he lived, the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the Republic of Brazil have excited regret and solicitude. The information we possessed was too meager to enable us to form a satisfactory judgment of the causes leading to the temporary assumption of supreme power by President Fonseca; but this Government did not fail to express to him its anxious solicitude for the peace of Brazil and for the maintenance of the free political institutions which had recently been established there, nor ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... concerned. His mother believed that she had discovered in him something of a new mood of late, a tendency to quiet cheerfulness, and she attributed it in part to the healthfulness of intercourse with a friend; partly she assigned to it another reason. But her assumption did not receive much proof from Gilbert's demeanour when left alone in the sitting-room this Sunday night. Since Thyrza's departure, he had in truth only made pretence of reading, and now that ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... exposure and prominence of the generative organs, which in most other animals are well protected. Leaving danger out of the question, it may be asked whether we have not here the origin of clothing? The assumption of the upright posture may have made primitive ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... Dulwich College; it is without heading or date, and relates almost exclusively to the dresses worn by himself in his personation of various characters upon the stage. It is of interest, seeing that it demonstrates the assumption by Alleyn of various parts, if not in Shakespeare's plays, at any rate in the earlier dramas upon which the poet founded certain of his noblest works. Thus the actor's list makes mention of "a scarlet cloke with two brode gould laces with ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... very lack of reverence, in his impertinent assumption of equality, in his refusal to pay her the condescending homage due feebleness and old age, ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... me that I should play the goat like this?" Vernon asked himself, as he raised his head from Temple's broad shoulder. Then he met Betty's laughing eyes, and no longer regretted his assumption ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit

... the prophets, except some in Daniel, are arranged in chronological order; they were delivered by parcels, and at intervals, frequently of some years; and these parcels generally have no connexion with each other. Mr.. Everett's reasoning upon the assumption here contradicted, is ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English

... say you wished to go to Cap'n Abe's store," he observed with neither an assumption of familiarity nor any bucolic embarrassment. "I am bound that ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... historic life and surroundings, if we try to understand what the mythologists have done and not done in their attempts to claim exclusive property in the folk-tale. They have entirely denied or ignored all history contained in the folk-tale, and they have proceeded upon the assumption, the bald assumption not accompanied by any kind of proof, that the folk-tale contains nothing but the remnants of a once prevalent system of mythology. They ignore all the proofs brought forward by folklorists to the contrary, such proofs, for instance, as Mr. Knowles, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... noticeable that in this paper and in Our Second Girl, which was contributed to The Atlantic Monthly for January, 1868, the author poses as the masculine member of the household, as if this assumption gave her some advantage in the point of view. At any rate, she adopted the same role when she came more deliberately to survey a wide field in a series ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the physical theories of the time; and nothing could better illustrate the quarrel between science and religion, as it presents itself on the surface to the plain man. But there is more in the quarrel than appears at first sight. The real sting of the comedy from which we have quoted lies in the assumption, adopted throughout the play, that the atheist is also necessarily anti-social and immoral. The physicist, in the person of Socrates, is identified with the sophist; on the one hand he is represented as teaching the theory of material ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... religious, i.e. whose conduct is not definitely permeated by her spiritual life: young children are essentially religious, and the life of the spirit must find a response in the same kind of intangible assumption of its existence as goodness. No form of creed or dogma is meant, only the life of the spirit common to all. But of course there may be people who refuse to admit this as ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... villain getting away. Still, in cases merely of suspected murder, or in cases where no evidence is taken, it would be manifestly unfair arbitrarily to assign motives for the deed, if deed it was. No, one must start with the assumption, sufficiently accurate under all the circumstances, that the killings in which the killer is caught are fairly representative of killings ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... glance flew from face to face. There was a pregnant pause. Husky's great fist was raised. But not having struck on the instant, he could not strike at all. Under the blaze of the smaller man's eyes, his own glance finally bolted. He turned away with an assumption of facetiousness. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... Moreover, the Provost Saxo went on a mission to Paris in 1165, and was thus much too old for the theory. Nevertheless, the good Bishop of Roskild, Lave Urne, took this identity for granted in the first edition, and fostered the assumption. Saxo was a cleric; and could such a man be of less than canonical rank? He was (it was assumed) a Zealander; he was known to be a friend of Absalon, Bishop of Roskild. What more natural than that he should have been the Provost Saxo? Accordingly this latter worthy had an inscription in ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... a patron has been eliminated from modern literature. If a man now inscribes a book to any one it is that he may associate with his work the names of friends he loves and delights to honor. There is always a certain amount of assurance in any such dedication, the assurance lying in the assumption that there is honor to the recipient in the association with the book. Well, there is ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... to the old custom of distributing to the populace largesses (congiaria) of money or valuables on the occasion of events of interest to the imperial house, such as the emperor's assumption of the consular office, birthdays, etc. The first largess of this kind was made by ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius

... best turn they could behave like sworn enemies ever after?" If in offering Nick his freedom she had indeed done him such a service as that, perhaps he no longer hated her, would no longer be unwilling to see her.... At any rate, why should she not write to him on that assumption, write in a spirit of simple friendliness, suggesting that they should meet and "settle things"? The business-like word "settle" (how she hated it) would prove to him that she had no secret designs upon ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... work is seen in the speeches and letters. For the latter cf. iv. 1, 10-74. Curtius has little technical knowledge of war or politics. Thus Alexander's assumption of oriental pomp to conciliate the Asiatics is looked on as hybris. Cf. iii. 12, 18. Like Livy, he attempts to depreciate Alexander's abilities by unduly accentuating ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton

... his lands, and wasted the goods of his farmers and tenants: but yet so often as they attempted to inuade him, they lost manie of their owne souldiers and men of war. Moreouer, the said Edricke calling to his aid the kings of the Welshmen, Bleothgent and Rithwall, about the feast of the assumption of our Ladie, wasted the countrie of Hereford, [Sidenote: The riuer of Wye.] euen to the bridge of the riuer of Wye, and obteined out of those quarters a maruellous great spoile. [Sidenote: King William returneth into England.] In the winter also following, and after king ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (1 of 12) - William the Conqueror • Raphael Holinshed

... and glorious morning—the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin—when Hans Haller, Knight, Doctor, and Town councillor, the eldest of his ancient race, my dear lord and plighted lover, was carried to the grave. The velvet pall wherewith his parents covered the bier of their beloved and firstborn son was so costly, that the price ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Descriptionis Plolomaicae augmentum, which among the rest contained a chart on which not only Java figured as an island, but which also represented New Guinea as an island by itself, separated from Terra Australis. The question naturally suggests itself, whether this chart [**] will justify the assumption that the existence of Torres Strait was known to WIJTFLIET. I, for one, would not venture to infer as much, seeing that in other respects this chart so closely reproduces the vague conjectures touching a supposed Southland ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres

... it, and to my dismay Mrs. Colby has announced my high-handedness in this week's Tribune, when I intended to keep my assumption of Andrew Jackson-like responsibility a secret. One night last week the new Lincoln Hall was opened and when I saw what a splendid audience-room it is, I just rushed the next day to the agent and found our convention days not positively ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... it) is thy life and the length of thy days.' 2. Omitting to repeat the customary benediction over a cup of blessing; for it is written (Gen. xii. 3), 'And I will bless them that bless thee.' 3. And the assumption of a Rabbinical air; for Rabbi Chama bar Chanena says, 'Joseph died before any of his brethren, because he domineered ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... is incontestably true: the only basis for the "Ideal" of the Anarchist-Communists, is this petitio principii, this "assumption" of the very thing that has to be proved. Companion Grave, the "profound thinker," is particularly rich in assumptions. As soon as any difficult problem presents itself, he "assumes" that it is already solved, and then everything is for the best ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff

... background), Last Supper, Agony in the Garden, Capture, Flagellation, Crowning with thorns (?), Christ taken for the last time before Pilate, the Original journey to Calvary, Fainting Madonna, Crucifixion, Entombment, Ascension, and the old church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary now removed. There were probably one or two others, but there ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler

... Jehovah spoke from Sinai, and quotes the very words of the old law when He speaks of 'keeping My commandments.' There are distinctly involved in this quite incidental utterance of Christ's two startling things—one the assumption of His right to impose His will upon every human being, and the other His assumption that His will contains the all-sufficient directory ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... the day that the ship's course was changed. In the smooth concluding paragraph of this same log, to be cited later, he passes over unmentioned the mutiny that occurred on the homeward voyage. Judging him by the facts recorded in the accounts of the voyage into Hudson's Bay, it is a fair assumption that in both of these earlier mutinies ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier

... apparently anyone else, that Denas might have been the person who took care of her own honour; or that Roland had done right because he could not induce his companion to do wrong. And there was another popular view of this marriage which was singularly false—the general assumption that Denas had been greatly honoured by it, and that John and Joan Penelles ought to be pleased and satisfied. Why not? Such a decision was the evident one, and how many people have the time or the interest in any subject to go ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... be claimed is that if a democratic ideal makes an express consideration of the social problem inevitable, it is of the first importance for Americans to realize this truth and to understand the reasons for it. Furthermore, the assumption is worth making, in case the traditional American system is breaking down, because a more highly socialized democracy is the only practical substitute on the part of convinced democrats for an excessively ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... her suddenly? But a mere sudden parting would not end things between them now unless he went off abruptly without explanations or any arrangements for further communications. At the outset of this escapade there had been a tacit but evident assumption that it was to end when she joined her father at Falmouth. It was with an effect of discovery that Sir Richmond realized that now it could not end in that fashion, that with the whisper of love and ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... Old Testament writings by the rules of Greek and Latin literature, and to argue from the history of Europe to that of the East. Uncontrolled by external testimony, critical scepticism played havoc with the historical narratives that had descended to it, and starting from the assumption that the world of antiquity was illiterate, refused to credit such records of the past as dwarfed the proportions of Greek history, or could not be harmonised with the canons of the critic himself. It was quite sufficient for a fact to go back to the second millennium B.C. for it ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce

... would be a great impropriety in the assumption of either alternative. But whether the gods are or are not indifferent to pleasure is a point which may be considered hereafter if in any way relevant to the argument, and whatever is the conclusion we will place it to the account ...
— Philebus • Plato

... there was this great objection that his father, though wielding the sceptre for a few months, had borne arms in the Jinshin disturbance against Temmu and Jito, and was held to have forfeited his title by defeat and suicide. His assumption of the sceptre would have created a most embarrassing situation, and his enforced disqualification might have led to trouble. In this dilemma, the Empress convened a State council, Prince Kuzuno also being present, and submitted the question for their decision. But none replied until ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... been deceived into believing that the theory involves the denial of all influence to idealistic or spiritual factors, and the assumption that economic forces alone determine the course of historical development. Much of the criticism of the theory, especially by the Germans, rests upon that assumption. The theory is attacked, also, as being sordid ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo

... was unexpected, because her bearing had always conveyed to him, even in the days when he was in love with her, an impression of very refined, very subtle haughtiness. It seemed to make her say, like Marie Antoinette to Madame Vigee-Lebrun: "They would call me arrogant if I were not a queen." The assumption of privilege and prerogative might be only the inborn consciousness of distinction, but he fancied it might be more effective for being tempered. Not that it was overdone. It was not done at all. If the inner impulse working outward poised a neat, classic head too loftily, or ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... morality which takes shape in his imaginative fears. Had he done so, and said plainly to his wife, 'The thing is vile, and, however much I have sworn to do it, I will not,' she would have been helpless; for all her arguments proceed on the assumption that there is for them no such point of view. Macbeth does approach this position once, when, resenting the accusation of ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... Demdike and Old Chattox.[32] Both had attained, or had reached the verge of the advanced age of eighty, were evidently in a state of extreme poverty, subsisting with their families by occasional employment, by mendicancy, but principally, perhaps, by the assumption of that unlawful power, which commerce with spirits of evil was supposed to procure, and of which their sex, life, appearance, and peculiarities, might seem to the prejudiced neighbourhood in the Forest to render them not unsuitable ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... original adult stages telescoped into their embryos, and the statement that the resemblance between certain characters in the embryos of higher animals and corresponding stages in the embryos of lower animals is most plausibly explained by the assumption that they have descended from the same ancestors, and that their common structures are ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan

... on the proceeds of which he retired into leisured ease. Sallust aspired with very limited success to assume the mantle of Thucydides, and the role of a philosophic historian. He displays considerable political acumen on occasion, but his assumption of stern impartiality is hardly less a pose than his pretense of elevated morality. His "Conspiracy of Catiline"—the first of his historical essays—was probably written, in part at least, with the object of dissociating Caesar from it; the lurid colors in which he paints the conspirator ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... voice cold. Feeling seems denied him; his head is a debtor and creditor account, his departure the receipt, and time alone can say, whether your bargain has been a good or a bad one. He has certainly no assumption—it is one of his few good traits; he walks with his arms in motion, but attempts not a swagger; his knock is unassuming, and his words, though much attended to, are few, and to the point. Why, then, abuse him? We know not, but believe it originates ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... Scriptures, and that it is dangerous to follow any other. They have also no more right to use the argument drawn from the baptism of households, than they have that drawn from circumcision: they are both founded on the same principle—an assumption that the doors of the Christian visible church have been opened by our Lord himself to the unconscious and unconverted, in diametrical opposition to the principles on which they found their opposition to the established ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various

... Bull Pup, with that easy assumption of authority which characterised him, "there is no necessity for us both to be awake. I would woo the god of pleasant dreams, so oblige me by keeping watch ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... Sunday-school departments of Church-work, their success is marvellous, and challenges our highest admiration. Happily no question of competency or worthiness is involved in the question of their eligibility as delegates. Hitherto the assumption underlying the legislation of the Church has been that they were ineligible to official positions, except by special provision of law. In harmony with this assumption, they have been made eligible, by special enactment, of ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... to rebut their testimony? The character of the accused was of no avail. An alibi could not touch the case. The distance from the Prisoner to the party professing to be tormented, was of no account. The whole proceeding was on the assumption that, however remote the body of the Prisoner, his or her spectre was committing the assault. No limitation of space or time could be imposed on the spectral presence. "Good, plain, legal evidence" was out of the question, where the Judges assumed, as Mather did, that "the molestations" ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... Experience would be in literature a delicate Innocence. Not a passage of cheapness, of greed, of assumption, of sloth, or of any such sins in the work of him whose love-poetry were thus true, and whose pudeur of personality thus simple and inviolate. This is the private man, in other words the gentleman, who will neither ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... friend," he continued, "I wish to speak to you on the remark made in your letter, in which you say that you consider the Church of Rome the mother of all Churches, and that it has the advantage of antiquity. You evidently go first on the assumption that our Lord instituted a visible Church on earth, and that that Church, though corrupted, is the Church of Rome. Now I wish to draw your attention to the origin of that wonderful establishment ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston

... the foreigners for days after. The leaders were aroused and angered, deeply angered. This stranger had kicked up a pretty muss with His inconvenient earnestness and inconsiderate quoting of Scripture. It was a practical assumption of superior authority over them. It was an assumption of the truth of John's ignored claim that He ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon

... static; its ideal is motion and not rest. Rest is the quality of dead things, and particularly of dead souls. The weariness of the way, which is so obvious a phenomenon in the Christian life, is the infallible sign of lukewarmness. What we need therefore is to break with the assumption that we know all that it is necessary to know, and that we have done or are doing all that it is necessary to do. It is indeed the mark of an ineffective religion that the notion of necessity is adopted as its stimulus, rather than the notion of aspiration. The question, ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... payment of indemnity for the loss of American lives. The United States left an avenue open through which Austria-Hungary could find an acceptable excuse. It preferred to believe that the submarine commander acted contrary to instructions rather than accept the alternative assumption that the Austro-Hungarian Government "failed to issue instructions to the commanders of the submarines in accordance with the laws of nations and the principles ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... conscious of a subtle sense of inward gratitude for this concession. Of the easy assumption of equality by the detective he experienced no resentment whatever. The circumstances possibly warranted it, and, in any event, it was assumed so quietly and naturally that he accepted it as a ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... the king, whose behaviour thus acquired the incoherence of a woman persecuted and distressed. Measures of resistance, bribing the Assembly, an entire surrender of the constitution, attempts by force, an assumption of royal dignity, repentance, weakness, terror, and flight,—all were discussed, planned, decided on, prepared and abandoned, on the same day. Women, so sublime in their devotion, are seldom capable of the continuous firmness of mind—the imperturbability requisite for a political ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... on Shakspere could be so potent as has been above asserted. Among those whom we know him to have acted upon in the highest degree—setting aside the disputed case of Bacon—are Pascal, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Flaubert, Emerson, and Thoreau. In the case of Pascal, despite his uneasy assumption that his philosophy was contrary to Montaigne's, the influence went so far that the Pensees again and again set forth Pascal's doctrine in passages taken almost literally from the ESSAYS. Stung by the lack of all positive Christian credence in Montaigne, Pascal ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... shaft, this. But Richard had totally denied to Lawyer Ball the popular assumption that Afy had been ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... superstitious turn of mind, or that they might execute his commands and adopt his plans without hesitation, as if they proceeded from the responses of an oracle. With the intention of preparing men's minds for this from the beginning, he never at any time from his first assumption of the manly gown transacted any business, public or private, without first going to the Capitol, entering the temple, and taking his seat there; where he generally passed a considerable time in secret and alone. This practice, which was adhered to through ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... hero-worship but to present the man exactly as he was; a review of his chief works, which is intended chiefly as a guide to the best reading; and a critical estimate or appreciation of his writings based partly upon first-hand impressions, partly upon the assumption that an author must deal honestly with life as he finds it and that the business of criticism is, as Emerson said, "not to legislate but to raise the dead." This detailed study of the greater writers of a period is followed by an examination of some of the minor ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... must retire upon Namur as his base of operations, and that Wellington, retiring towards Brussels, would be cut off from his allies. He therefore despatched Marshal Grouchy, with 33,000 men, to follow up the Prussians eastward by the Namur road. His assumption was unfounded. Bluecher, loyal to his engagements, retired upon Wavre; Wellington, relying upon Bluecher's loyalty, took his stand on the field of Waterloo; and this error on the part of Napoleon determined the fortunes of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... criticisms, but the authenticity of pictures round which he wove his aureoles of prose, Mr. Benson says: 'In the essay on Botticelli he is on firmer ground.' But among the first masterpieces winged by the sportsmen of the new criticism was the Hamilton Palace 'Assumption of the Virgin' (now proved to be by Botticini), to which Pater makes one of his elusive and delightful allusions. While the 'School of Giorgione,' which Mr. Benson thinks a little passe in the light of modern ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... supposing that everything is caused. Scientific people tend to trust their senses and disbelieve their emotions when they contradict them; religious people tend to trust emotion even though sensual experience be against it. On the whole, the religious are the more open-minded. Their assumption that the senses may mislead is less arrogant than the assumption that through them alone can we come at reality, for, as Dr. McTaggart has wittily said, "If a man is shut up in a house, the transparency of the windows is an essential condition of his seeing the sky. ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... requesting him to write a notice of Timrod's work, not that he (Timrod) deserved it of Simms, but that he (Hayne) asked it of him. It may be that Timrod's recognition of the fact that he could write poetry and that Simms could only try to write it led to a degree of youthful assumption which clashed with the dignity of the older man. The Nestor of Southern literature seems not to have cherished animosity, for he not only noticed Timrod favorably, but in after years, when the poet's misfortunes pressed most heavily upon him, made every possible exertion to give him ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... a dog is, in every sense of the word, its master: the term expresses accurately their mutual relations. But it is ridiculous when applied to the limited possession of a cat. I am certainly not Agrippina's mistress, and the assumption of authority on my part would be a mere empty dignity, like those swelling titles which afford such innocent delight to the ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... I suppose," said Hawkins, with a readiness which refused to be masked under his assumption of reluctance. "Come ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin

... in him as the nucleus from which they radiate, he must pardon us, if we think, that, by long contemplation of the object of his filial admiration, his mental sight has become morbid and distorted, and sees things which are not to be seen. Beginning his book with the assumption that Hamilton was the first to conceive the idea, of "the Union of the People of the United States,"—an assumption which we can by no means admit, though supported (as we learn from a foot note) by the opinion of Mr. George Ticknor Curtis,—the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... career, however, an older impulse stirred in Hauptmann. He remembered that he was a poet. Pledged to naturalism by personal loyalty and public combat he broke through its self-set limitations tentatively and invented for that purpose the dream-technique of The Assumption of Hannele(1893). Pure imagination was outlawed in those years and verse was a pet aversion of the consistent naturalists. Hence both were transferred to the world of dreams which has an unquestionable ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... to have been a saint; very much the contrary," Colonel Colquhoun proceeded with that assumption of humility often apparent in the repentant sinner who expects to derive both credit and importance from his past when he frankly confesses it was wicked, "but I hope I have always been a gentleman,"—with her "saint" and "gentleman" were synonymous ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... found, and might be quoted,' he is inclined to admit that the attribution of forgery was a 'gross defect.' Readers interested in the subject will find by reference to Pike's 'History of Crime,' i. 276, that Scott was perfectly justified in his assumption that a feudal knight was capable of forgery. Those who understand how intimate his knowledge was of the period with which he was dealing will, of course, be the readiest to believe him rather than his critics; but when he seems doubtful of himself, and ready ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... the boat. Can you swim a little faster? They'll surely come back to pick us up," said Jim, with an assumption of confidence that he did not feel. They could hear voices from the yacht, and could follow, partially, what was going on. Miss Redmond cast loose her cloak, put a hand on Jim's shoulder, and together they swam nearer. "Ahoy!" shouted Jim. "Give us a hand!" But the boat ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... said Mr. Linden,—"is that the division of labour? What does she talk about, Johnny?—let me see how well you remember." It was said with a little acknowledging look that he was asking that to which somebody would demur—but also with a wilful assumption that somebody would come to no harm. So though Faith flushed and started, she sat back in her seat again without making any word interposition. Johnny stood and thought—for he ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... the sketch which is itself taking. To attempt the complete even in a fractional bit of the cosmos, like a picture, has in it a difficulty akin to the logical one of proving a universal negative. The possibilities of failure are enormously increased, and failure is less forgiven for the assumption. Art might perhaps not unwisely follow the example of science in such matters where an exhaustive work, which takes the better part of a lifetime to produce, is invariably entitled by its erudite author an Elementary Treatise on the subject ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell

... particularly so where she saw cause for disapproval, and above all if she thought others were assuming too much; and she had on certain occasions so plainly made known her opinion of some of Grade's assumption, that a sort of chronic feud had become established between the two, not breaking out into open hostility, but showing itself in a half-slighting, half-teasing way with Lily, and with Gracie in a manner partly scornful, partly an ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... a burning plain where heat devils dance all day long from year's end to year's end. The plain reaches on and on between black mountain walls, and even the mirage which springs from its surface under that hot sun throws off the guise of a cool lake almost on the moment of its assumption to become a repellant specter that leaps and twists like a flame. The Paiute Indians called the spot ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... treatment in mural decoration, one sees only the grand forms, the movement, the intention, those things which most befit the inner surface of the building being also those which bear the greater importance. The fact is used as an argument for the assumption that painting should, after all, be an art of two dimensions, length and breadth, reserving thickness and its representation, for sculpture. This robs painting of the quality of natural aspect, except under the single effect of absolutely direct lighting and ignores ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... him. "What's up?" they chorused. With a fine assumption of indifference he briefly informed them. McSporran received the news with his customary stolidity, only his gray eyes twinkled and he chuntered something that was totally unintelligible to anyone save himself. But its effect upon McCullough ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall

... rights of property and we lapse into barbarism." Rogozhinsky uttered this authoritatively, repeating the usual argument in favour of private ownership of land which is supposed to be irrefutable, based on the assumption that people's desire to possess land ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... of our experience should be the realm of eternal essences, of platonic ideas, of crystal battlements, of absolute significance. But whether they be animists or associationists, a supposition something like this is still the assumption of our usual psychologists. It comes from their being for the most part philosophers, in the technical sense, and from their showing the weakness of that profession for logical abstractions. Myers was ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... conception underwent in his acting the process which in writing he applied to his own. Into both he flung himself with the passionate fullness of his nature; and though the theatre had limits for him that may be named hereafter, and he was always greater in quickness of assumption than in steadiness of delineation, there was no limit to his delight and enjoyment in the ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... hold this view look down with mild contempt upon such as give to religion a definite place in their thoughts and lives. They assume an intellectual superiority and often take little pains to conceal the assumption. Tolstoy administers to the "cultured crowd" (the words quoted are his) a severe rebuke when he declares that the religious sentiment rests not upon a superstitious fear of the invisible forces of nature, but upon man's consciousness ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... The facile assumption of superiority recalled a paradoxical remark that Huxley made about thirty years ago, when that apostle of evolution suddenly scandalised progressive Liberalism by asserting that a Zulu, if not a more advanced type than a British ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... the most solemn form, and the constituted authorities are but agents to carry that will into effect. Every power which it has granted is to be exercised for the public good; but no pretense of utility, no honest conviction, even, of what might be expedient, can justify the assumption of any power not granted. The powers conferred upon the Government and their distribution to the several departments are as clearly expressed in that sacred instrument as the imperfection of human language will allow, and I deem it my first ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various



Words linked to "Assumption" :   theory, Christian religion, major premiss, groundwork, cornerstone, foundation, miracle, position, deed, human action, august, holy day of obligation, audacity, supposal, given, postulate, base, human activity, basic assumption, posit, stipulation, minor premise, acquisition, basis, uppishness, uppityness, presumption, August 15, premiss, possibility, major premise, laying claim, presumptuousness, premise, Aug, conclusion



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