"Indecision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Clinton. On this point the Federal party must, if it has not already, divide. Once separated there can be no middle course; a neutrality party in politics, if not an absurdity, at least is evidence of indecision. We are not yet declared enemies, but if I mistake not, the question of Council and the choice of a United States senator must, if these gentlemen persist, decide the matter irrevocably. Mr. W. Duer, Van Vechten, Bunner, Hoffman, and myself are opposed ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... color rose in the Tennesseean's face as he held out his hand. "I congratulate you, Mr. Secretary," said he. "Now at last we shall see an end of indecision ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... charged the flank and rear of the cadets on the plain, who from the first had sustained the attack. These seemed thrown into confusion, for they were now between two fires. After a moment of apparent indecision they gave way rapidly in seeming defeat and rout, and the two attacking parties drew together in pursuit. When they had united, the pursued, who a moment before had seemed a crowd of fugitives, became almost instantly a steady line of battle. The order, "Charge!" rang out, and, with fixed bayonets, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... the pursuit of Wellington. But while Soult, deceived by treachery in his own corps, neglected to guard the river with proper vigilance, Wellington collected boats at different points, crossed over his army, surprised the French, and, had it not been for the singular delay and indecision of General Murray, would most certainly have forced the entire army to capitulate; as it was, his operation produced a decided influence on the campaign, and effected the safety of Beresford's corps. Soult destroyed his artillery and baggage, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... manner is, naturally, the school, in England especially the Public School. In France, where the same phenomena are noted, Tarde called attention to these relationships, "most usually Platonic in the primitive meaning of the word, which indicate a simple indecision of frontier between friendship and love, still undifferentiated in the dawn of the awakening heart," and he regretted that no one had studied them. In England we are very familiar with vague allusions to the vices of public ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... entirely different from the creature of his dreams. At all events as he returned to his room and sat down by himself to think over all the things that might accrue from this step of his, he only got farther and farther into a haze of nervous indecision. One thing only was clear to him: with all his hatred and jealousy of the theatre, to the theatre that night he would have to go. He could not know that she was so near to him—that at a certain time and place he would certainly see her and listen to her—without going. He bethought ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... indecision in his actions. He got his hat, plunged into the cold night air, and, finding a hansom, bade the man drive as hard as he could go down to Sloane street. There was a light in Ingram's windows, which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... He was not one of those people who waste time over that mysterious process known as "sounding" people, a process that seems to connote a great deal of farsightedness, caution, arid discrimination in the sounder, but which, as a matter of fact, is almost always a cloak for indecision. That was not Mr. George Smith's way. He wrote me a plain, straightforward letter, telling me what his plans for the Cornhill were, adding without any flummery that he thought I was the man to give what he wanted, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... functions as a semi judicial body in regulation of rates. During the war it was loaded with enormous administrative duties. It has been demonstrated time and again that this form of organization results in indecision, division of opinion and administrative functions, which make a wholly inadequate foundation for the conduct of a great business enterprise. The first principle in securing the objective set out by Congress in building up the American merchant marine upon the great ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... it at that for a moment or two, thinking hard, drawn now this way, now that with indecision: 'Shall I accept? Shall I refuse?' continued ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... the austerities, sire, but the time they leave one in indecision. It is not to soften my life, nor to spare my body any physical suffering, or my mind any moral privation, but it is to pass at once from this world to the grating which separates me from it, and which one ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... still laboring in this valley of indecision, Sidgwick was visited by a young man, Frederic W. H. Myers, who had studied under him a few years earlier and for whom he had formed a warm friendship. Myers, it seemed, was tormented by the same scruples that were harassing him. It was his belief, he told Sidgwick, that if the ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... table, she contemplated the remaining fish for thirty seconds or so in indecision. Had her own desire ruled, she would have put them all back into the lake—she would not have killed them; but to-night—to-night it was for Daddy's sake—he was more to her than all of nature's creatures. With expert fingers, she sent the life from the twisting eels, ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... before a tall young man with a reddish-brown beard had stood at the turn of the road listening intently to the sound of the hurrying hoof beats and the purring of the racing motor car approaching from the distance. In his eyes lurked the look of the hunted. For a moment he stood in evident indecision, but just before the runaway horse and the pursuing machine came into view he slipped over the edge of the road to slink into the underbrush far down toward the bottom of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... is that a stock of habits makes life easier. "There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation. Full half the time of such a man goes to ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... might have been avoided. One outrage, however, permitted to pass with impunity almost necessarily encouraged the perpetration of another, until at last Mexico seemed to attribute to weakness and indecision on our part a forbearance which was the offspring of magnanimity and of a sincere desire to preserve friendly relations with a ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... be a foe to the approaching Indians, or one of them? thought the poor girl, rendered almost desperate by doubt and indecision. ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... man for whose strange silence she could not account. It was Tom's place to write her. She had answered his first letter. Yet she could not believe that carelessness was responsible for his silence. Something must have happened to him. But what? She knitted her brows in an agony of indecision, then giving her pen an energetic shake that ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... delayed responding to your polite letter from indecision on my part respecting the place to which I should wish to have the esteemed token transmitted, whether to me here, in London, or to the institution bearing my name in South Danvers, which I intend shall be its final resting place; but knowing the uncertainty of life, particularly ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... motionless listening for a few minutes in indecision, feeling that if he did not find water or food he would be in as bad a plight as his companion, when he suddenly caught at the nearest tree, drew himself up, and stood trembling. The next minute what had seemed to be an utter wilderness assumed a ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... flew. The clock ticked loudly in the quiet. Outside a winter blizzard was sweeping in white fury from the hills. Stump crouched silently in a corner, his head upon his paws. And Abner Sawyer, returning to his work in helpless indecision, felt his privacy and his dignity forever compromised by a boy and a dog. He knew of course that a small boy, scantily clad, should not be planing furiously on the bench beside him at midnight with a sociable ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... working people have a right to the intellectual resources of society, and the actual fact on the other hand, that thousands of them are so overburdened with toil that there is no leisure nor energy left for the cultivation of the mind. We constantly suffer from the strain and indecision of believing this theory and acting as if we did not believe it, and this man who years before had tried "to get off the backs of the peasants," who had at least simplified his life and worked with his hands, had come to be a prototype to ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... Chingachgook raised his tomahawk, and was about to bury it in the brain of his confiding and unsuspicious neighbor; but the probability that the death-cry or the floating body might give the alarm induced that wary chief to change his purpose. At the next moment he regretted this indecision, for the three who clung to the canoe suddenly found themselves in the centre of a party of no less than four others who were in quest ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... tried his best to find out the truth about Dickie's birth, and how willing he was to give up what he had thought was his own, if it should prove to be not his, do you think he was not glad to know that he had done his duty, and rescued his cousin, and had not, by any meanness or any indecision, brought dishonor on the name of Arden? As for Elfrida, when she knew the whole story of that night of rescue, she admired her brother so much that it made him almost uncomfortable. However, she now looked up to him ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... taken no steps to reinforce and re-supply the weak garrison under the command of Major Anderson. On March 5, Lincoln learned that Sumter would soon have to be yielded unless reinforcements were sent. There followed ten days of delay and indecision; then on March 15 Lincoln requested from each member of his Cabinet an opinion on what should be done. This brought to an issue the whole question of ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... not at present grasp. The sudden transformation of the house and garden was a development that had not entered into his scheme of procedure. It presented him with an entirely new and unlooked-for problem. After a moment's indecision, he took out his pocket-book, referred to an address, and gave it to ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... intellectual giant. One does not wish to belong to their company or to believe in their arguments; and so when they urge him to act one is quite prepared to credit the mysterious oracles which assure him that the time is not yet ripe. Thus even his indecision,—most damning of weaknesses in a great soldier,—does not seem to belittle him. One enters into the spirit of his self-defense, is half inclined to believe in his innocence and to sympathize with him, when the psychological moment arrives and the capture of Sesina compels him to ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... opinions differed as to the most feasible course. There was no doubt but that we could get out of the woods; but we wished to get out speedily, and as near as possible to the point where we had entered. Half ashamed of our timidity and indecision, we finally tramped away back to where we had crossed the line of blazed trees, followed our old trail to the spring on the top of the range, and, after much searching and scouring to the right and left, found ourselves at the very place ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... brethren when opportunity has been given to me. A colporteur has been present with his wares, and succeeds in selling at a small price portions of the Scriptures and tracts. An amusing instance of indecision occurred at the bookstall the last time I was present. A man had purchased a Gospel. He came back saying he was told by his people that he would certainly become a Christian if he took that book to his village, and he laid down the book on the stall and ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... Edgecumbe was, and although I was almost stunned by his sudden action, I could not help comparing him, as he was now, with the first occasion on which I had seen him. Then, with his nondescript garments, his parchment-like skin, and the look of wistful indecision in his eyes, he was a creature to be pitied. Now, in the uniform of a major, he stood stalwart and erect. In spite of the fact that his left arm was in a sling, there was something commanding in his attitude. His eyes no longer suggested indecision, and his bronzed skin ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... to the northward and they generously offered it as an asylum.[184] But the Indians balked. They were homesick, disgusted with official mismanagement[185] and indecision, and determined to go no farther. They complained bitterly of the treatment that they had received at the hands of Superintendent Coffin and of Agent Cutler and, in a stirring appeal[186] to President Lincoln, set forth their injuries, their grievances, and their incontestable claim ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... creatures, as regarded by all good men. The true nature of their characteristics will now be declared by me, with reasons. These shall be stated in aggregation and separation. Do ye understand them. Complete delusion, ignorance; illiberality, indecision in respect of action, sleep, haughtiness, fear, cupidity, grief, censure of good acts, loss of memory,—unripeness of judgment, absence of faith, violation of all rules of conduct, want of discrimination, blindness, vileness of behaviour, boastful ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the motive of that party for its policy of inactivity and indecision on this question heretofore, there are not wanting signs of a change of that policy presently into one of activity and decision. It seems probable that reduction of representation of its Southern wing in its National Conventions will occupy a prominent place on the program ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... years of indecision, during which disorder and revolution seemed the danger to be averted, the future "Chancellor of Iron" matured his plans after the manner of Newton, by "forever thinking of them" is still a question ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... prostrate nobleman began to speak, the King hesitated, turned back, and looked perplexedly at him. As he gazed, a look of indecision, of distaste and weariness, crept into his countenance. All the passion, dignity, and just anger which had lit it up faded away. The brief revelation of majesty was quenched, and the customary commonplace, vacant, good-natured ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... of looking at it, and Miller was visibly impressed as he debated it in his mind. Madge took advantage of his indecision. ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... simply said he had called to see me and is waiting in the outer office." Observing her indecision, Kent opened the door leading directly into the corridor. "You can leave this way ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... involving, however, infringement of our authority with them, it is feared, besides the breaking of promises already made; the difficulty of getting them promptly and properly paid, and of getting the value of their work fairly estimated; the general inefficiency, ignorance, and indecision of the authorities, wanting a defined system and hampered by prejudice and ignorance and selfishness,—all these things make the aspect of affairs dark enough at times, and one gets discouraged and disheartened and disgusted and disappointed, and is ready to part and ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... said, noting with boyish quickness the indecision in Jack's troubled face. "I sent a letter to Aunt Pliny, from New York, telling her we were soldiers, and that we were ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... more easily upon him than the indecision with which he had twice contended. It was his better nature to be true to her, if it were his worse nature to be wholly selfish. And as yet the better nature had ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... fatal scene before him, this indecision, he walked the streets, resolving and re-resolving, weighing and re-weighing the consequences, hoping without a chance for hope. He would be a father as he has been a kind master; but the law says, no! no! Society forbids right, the law crushes justice,—the justice ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... to the old waves, "Buffet on; I have seen trouble as well as you." The paralytic affection, or whatever it was, that twisted his mouth when young, had formerly appeared to be master of his face, and given it a character of indecision and alarm. It now seemed a minor thing; a twist in a piece of old oak. And what a bust was Liston's! The mouth and chin, with the throat under it, hung like an old bag; but the upper part of the head was as fine as possible. There was a speculation, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... distance, and some partial impression from all the distances, it should be capable of perceiving more of the forms and features of near figures than Turner gives. And how absolutely necessary to the faithful representation of space this indecision really is, might be proved with the utmost ease by any one who had veneration enough for the artist to sacrifice one of his pictures to his fame; who would take some one of his works in which the figures were most incomplete, and have ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... appeared coming west along the wash. Pan loped Sorrel across to intercept them. They were ragged and motley, altogether a score or more of the broomtails that had earned that unflattering epithet. They had no leader and showed it in their indecision. They were as wild as jack rabbits, and upon sighting Pan they wheeled in their tracks and fled like the wind, down the valley. Pan saw them turn a larger darker-colored herd. This feature was what he had mainly relied upon. Wonderful luck of this kind might attend ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... was born, and penetrated, not certainly my nature, but my whole earthly destiny, with its influence; from my plans and projects for to-morrow on to those of next year, all is mist and indistinct indecision. I suppose it is the trial that suits my temper least, and therefore fits it best. It surely is that which "willfulness, conceit, and egotism" find hardest to endure. Yesterday I determined so far to escape from, or cheat, my destiny as to have a peep into futurity by the help of a ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... stand, as we have before recounted. He knew that he had no tool so supple as the cowardly Walter. In the very language of the request, he had given Walter an intimation of what he wanted him to swear to. Walter listened to Small's words as to his doom. He felt that he should die of indecision. The perdition of a man of his stamp is to have to make up his mind. Such men generally fall back on some one more positive, and take all their resolutions ready-made. But here Walter must decide for himself. For the constable was already calling his name; the court, the spectators, and, ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... a sense, in his favour. It was not so much that he was downright ugly—perhaps that would have mattered less—but he was poor looking. He had no presence, no self-assertion, and his very anxiety to conciliate gave his manner a nervous indecision, in which the boys saw nothing but cause for ridicule. He did not understand his pupils, and still less did they understand him. But all the same he was a capital teacher, patient and painstaking to the ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... value of the opportunity he had neglected when it was beyond his reach, but of what avail was the bitterness of his self-reproach when his last moments came? How many lives were sacrificed to his unintelligent hopefulness and indecision! Like him the feeble, the sluggish, and the purposeless too often see no meaning in the happiest occasions, until too late they learn the old lesson that the mill can never grind with the water ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Self. Alone it searches Amid dark ruins for its yesterday; Beats with its hands upon the doors of churches, And, at their altars, finds it cannot pray. But I am free—I am free of indecision, Of blood, and weariness, and all things cruel. I have sold my Self for silence, for the jewel Of silence, and the ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... abroad. But his first wish was to be absolute master at home. Between the incompatible objects on which his heart was set he, for a time, went irresolutely to and fro. The conflict in his own breast gave to his public acts a strange appearance of indecision and insincerity. Those who, without the clue, attempted to explore the maze of his politics were unable to understand how the same man could be, in the same week, so haughty and so mean. Even Lewis was perplexed by the vagaries of an ally who ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... old wandering life again he shrank back. He had hated it—Oh! how he'd hated it! And he didn't want to leave Maggie. He was in reality beginning to believe that with her he might pull himself right out of this morass of weakness and indecision in which he had been wallowing for years. And yet what sort of a life could he offer her? He did not believe that he would ever now be able to find this other woman whom he had married, and until he had found her and divorced ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... upon one day was to be undecided again the next; as with painting or music, so with life and politics, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind, for decision with wrong will be commonly a better policy than indecision—I had almost added with right; and a firm purpose with risk will be better than an infirm one with temporary exemption from disaster. Every race has made its great blunders, to which it has nevertheless adhered, inasmuch as the corresponding ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... go to the Blue Boar, my mind was much disturbed by indecision whether or not to take the Avenger. It was tempting to think of that expensive Mercenary publicly airing his boots in the archway of the Blue Boar's posting-yard; it was almost solemn to imagine him casually produced in the tailor's shop, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... only an instant that they hesitated there, yet it appeared an eternity of indecision, then nearer footsteps sounded, coming down that hall. No more ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... are called upon to act. There is no time for hesitation or indecision—no time for haste and excitement. It is a time when the people should rise in the majesty of their might, stretch forth their strong arm, and silence the angry waves of tumult. It is time the people should command peace. It is a question between union and anarchy—between ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... preparation for which ample time was needed. They had had it in the winter, and had staked their hopes upon the success of their throw in March. Now they had to improvise, and their second thoughts were second best. There were, indeed, signs of indecision in Ludendorff's later moves. Possibly he regarded the Flanders offensive in April and the attack on the Chemin des Dames in May as diversions merely intended to draw reserves away from the Amiens front and facilitate a resumption of his original design ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... on this side-hill for a month, if a lady told me to," he sneered, speaking aloud as he frequently did in the solitude of the range land. He glanced from ribbon to note, ended his indecision by stuffing the note carelessly into his coat pocket and letting the ribbon drop to the ground, and with a curl of the lips which betrayed his mental attitude toward all women and particularly toward that woman, picked up ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... on, yet brought no indecision as to what she would do, though it brought no solution as to how to do it. The inaction was worse than anything else. The last quotations had come in over the ticker, showing the Syndicate stocks still unchanged. She ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... accustomed to defer, had hitherto proved sufficient to prevent him from openly declaring himself. His visit to England, and the delightful reception he had met with there, had weakened somewhat the ties which bound him to his native country, and he found himself in a state of indecision as humiliating as it was painful. Lord Dunmore and Colonel Wilton had each made great efforts to enlist his support, on account of his wealth and position and high personal qualities. It was hinted by one that the ancient barony of the Talbots would be revived by the king; and ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... instantly pulled Noddy up on a mound of ground just above the reptile, and caught hold of a long supple branch of wood. In another instant she was whipping the snake until it could not tell from which direction the blows were descending—right, left, front or back! In a moment of indecision, the snake remained quiet and in that second Polly brought down her solid heel ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... servants seeming to know him, and recognising that indecision is the most fatal weakness of man, he crossed the hall, and seeing some gentlemen going up the great staircase he followed to a ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... time arrived that our domestic circle was again to be broken up. Our eldest son was to be entered at Oxford, and it was necessary that his father should accompany him; and, after considerable indecision, it was at length determined that I and my daughters should remain another year, with our second son. It was early in February, and our travellers prepared themselves to encounter some sharp gales upon the mountains, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... gloomy silence. Villiers sat silent also, watching his friend. The expression of indecision still fleeted across his face; he seemed as if weighing his thoughts in the balance, and the considerations he was revolving left him still silent. Austin tried to shake off the remembrance of tragedies as hopeless and perplexed ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... board there was no room to doubt that the Southern Cross had once been a whaler under the prosaic name of Eben A. Thayer. In fact if there had been any indecision about the matter the strong smell of oil and blubber which still clung to her, despite new coats of paint and a thorough cleaning, ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... terrible. In any case, I cannot but feel angry, for Georges own sake and that of his kingdom, that he found it impossible to keep further aloof from the wearisome troubles of political life. His wretched indecision of character made him an easy prey to unscrupulous ministers, while his extraordinary diplomatic powers and almost extravagant tact made them, in their turn, an easy prey to him. In these two processes much of his genius was spent untimely. I must confess that ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... devotion, and love that had stayed her, ere it was too late. She could not banish from her heart the duty therein so long and carefully implanted; the principles of religion, of virtue, shaken as they had been in that painful moment of indecision, had preserved her from misery. Often, very often, Mrs. Hamilton had felt disheartened, almost despairing in her task, during both the childhood and youth of Caroline, but now her recompense was apparent. Had she not persevered, had she been indolent or careless in the discharge of her duty, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... Adelle with his little tag of legal Latin. He might be a poet, but he knew the laws of inheritance, and moreover, now in his old age, he had come out from his valleys of indecision and knew that there must be many wrongs both legal and extra-legal in our human system, and that it was not always accomplishing the most good to try to do exact justice. As he had said to Adelle, ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... before her, when the sound of Cyrus's voice, raised high in anger, came up to her from the library. A short silence followed; then a door opened and shut quickly, and rapid footsteps passed up the staircase and along the hall outside of her room. While she waited, overcome by the nervous indecision which attacked her like palsy whenever she was forced to take a definite action, Susan ran up the stairs and called her name in a startled and ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... fire was quite out. Stub stretched his stiffened body and gazed about the room. Over on the bed the man did not stir nor speak. The dead bird lay untouched at his side. There was a whine, a bark, and a long minute of apparent indecision; then the dog pattered across the floor, wormed himself through the partly open door, and took the trail ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... Canada the twenty-fourth of May WAS the Queen's Birthday; and these were times and regions far removed from the prescription that the anniversary "should be observed" on any of those various outlying dates which by now, must have produced in her immediate people such indecision as to the date upon which Her Majesty really did come into the world. That day, and that only, was the observed, the celebrated, a day with an essence in it, dawning more gloriously than other days and ending more regretfully, unless, indeed, it fell on ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... in miserable indecision. Then he got up impulsively, and sat down opposite to where Esther ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... delay, had this day decided that he should get a definite decision, and that it should be favorable. He called her up at ten in the morning and chafed her concerning her indecision and changeable moods. He wanted to know whether she would not come and see the paintings at his friend's studio—whether she could not make up her mind to come to a barn-dance which some bachelor friends of his had arranged. When she pleaded being out of ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... man of iron nerve and purpose, a man of cool deliberation under the harshest circumstances, just now Bull was afflicted like the veriest weakling with alternating hope and doubt, and something approaching indecision. The youth in him was plunged in that agony of desire which maddens with delight and drives headlong to despair. His whole horizon of life had changed. Old scenes, old dreams, had been suddenly blotted out. And in their place was the wonderful vision of ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... he received Oliver's warning, made his escape from Hampton Court; after some indecision and uncertainty, he went to Carisbrooke Castle in the Isle of Wight. At first, he was pretty free there; but, even there, he carried on a pretended treaty with the Parliament, while he was really treating with commissioners from Scotland ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... less by his letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision—that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation—that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was I did not lose time in indecision. The old classical conflict of love and honour being once fairly before me, it did not cost me a thought. I was a Saint-Yves de Keroual; and I decided to strike off on the morrow for Wakefield and Burchell Fenn, and embark, as soon as it should be morally possible, for the succour of my ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... A man of indecision is so called from the hypothetical ass of Buridan, the Greek sophist. Buridan maintained that "if an ass could be placed between two hay-stacks in such a way that its choice was evenly balanced between them, it would starve to ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... thereby. When Ella's letter had been read, then of course Ned's would be even more eagerly devoured; but no! Lilias regretfully folded away the sheet in its envelope, regarded the two unopened envelopes with languid indecision, and finally selected the packet from Paris as more worthy of attention. If she had looked up at that moment and caught the flash in the watching eyes, Miss Lilias would have been on her guard; but, as it was, she complacently settled ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Celeste. There is a strange indecision and timidity which I cannot fathom. The thing, however, is abandoned; and, for a few months, I believe, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... no attempt was made to detain Paul. There could be no case against him. He went out of the hotel, and looked up and down Broadway in a state of indecision. He did not mean to sit down passively and submit to the swindle. But he had no idea in what direction to search ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... of Catherine II. against the Turks, and to wash out in the waves of the Danube the remorse which he still felt at his unwitting complicity in a parricidal plot. Between his love of liberty and of foreign conquest he for the present wavered, with a strange constitutional indecision that marred a noble character and that yielded him a prey more than once to a masterful will or to seductive projects. He is the Janus of Russian history. On the one side he faces the enormous problems of social and political reform, and yet he steals many a longing glance ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... on the piece of gold. In the same instant he knew he ought not to accept, and found himself struggling in the throes of indecision. That bit of gold meant food, life, and light in his body and brain, power to go on writing, and—who was to say?—maybe to write something that would bring in many pieces of gold. Clear on his vision burned ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... shrilled obscenities, and drunken butchers and watermen and grooms who had started out for loot and ended in sheer lust of slaying, and dozens of broken desperadoes and led-captains who looked on the day as their carnival. But to the mob had come one of those moments of indecision when it halted and eddied ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... explain why it was so, any better than Amaryllis; I could give a hundred reasons, and then there would be no explanation—say partly circumstances, partly lack of a profession in which talent would tell, partly an indecision of character—too much thought—and, after all ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... for a moment, as though in indecision; and Evgenie Pavlovitch lingered too, for he had not collected his scattered wits. But the Epanchins had not had time to get more than twenty paces away when a scandalous episode occurred. The young officer, Evgenie Pavlovitch's friend who had been conversing with Aglaya, said ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... betrayed. On this subject, however, we have no apprehensions whatever, and pass on heartily to congratulate the country on possessing a Government which acted, on the trying occasion in question, with such signal promptitude, energy, and prudence. Not one moment was lost in faltering indecision; never was the majesty of the law more quickly and completely vindicated, never was there exhibited a more striking and gratifying instance of a temperate and discriminating exercise of the vast powers of the executive. The incessant ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... his toilet, unembarrassed by company. But even then he would have preferred the rough companionship of the miners in the common dormitory of the general store to this intrusion upon the half-civilization of the women, their pitiable little comforts and secret makeshifts. His disgust of his own indecision which brought him there naturally recoiled in the direction of his host and hostesses, and after a hurried ablution, a change of linen, and an attempt to remove the stains of travel from his clothes, he strode out impatiently into the ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... gate. How could she wait! How could she endure the suspense! She thought of Justus, and of her promise to fix the date of the wedding on election day, but only as an additional factor of trouble in her own anxiety and indecision. ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... with the promise of an extra tip, Staff jumped in and shut the door. As they swung into Fourth Avenue, he caught a glimpse of Ismay's slight figure standing on the corner, his pose expressive of indecision and uncertainty; and Staff smiled to himself, surmising that it was there that the thief had left his motor-car to be confiscated ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... knowledge of life no earthly experience ever can improve, are so extremely anxious to get credit. Every word he uttered was accompanied by an oafish grin, so ludicrously balanced between simplicity and cunning, that Nancy, who had been half her life on the lookout for such a man, and who knew that this indecision of expression was the characteristic of the tribe with which she classed him, now saw before her the great dream ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... had no intention of obeying; he had played poker himself for some fifty odd years and knew what bluff meant. But for just one brief instant he was taken aback, fairly shocked into a fluttering indecision by the thunderous voice. Then, before he could recover himself the big man had flung a heavy wet coat into Adams's face, a gun had been fired wildly, the bullet ripping into the ceiling, and Buck Thornton had sprung forward and whipped the smoking weapon from an uncertain grasp. Winifred Waverly, ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... She would only have become angry and turned away from him altogether, he knew that well already. He suspected, quite correctly, that she, too, was passing through an inward struggle, and was in a state of extraordinary indecision, that she was making up her mind to something, and unable to determine upon it. And so, not without good reason, he divined, with a sinking heart, that at moments she must simply hate him and his passion. And so, perhaps, it was, but what was distressing ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of indecision had been removed, and I found myself entrusting Carter with a telegram to Davies, P.O., Flensburg. 'Thanks; expect me 9.34 p.m. 26th'; which produced, three hours later, a reply: 'Delighted; please bring a No. 3 Rippingille stove'—a ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... held silent for a while. It was evident that a struggle was going on in her mind. Tresler watched. He saw the indecision. He knew how sorely he was pressing his advantage. Yet he must do it, if he would carry out his purpose. He felt that he was acting the brute, but it was the only way. Every barrier must be swept aside. At last she threw her head back with an impatient movement, and ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... a conclusion to my pause. My perplexity and indecision did not abate, and my silence continued. At length, he repeated his demands, with new vehemence. I was compelled to answer. I told him, in few words, that his reasonings had not convinced me of the equity of his claim, and that my determination ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... upon that house, which made the gloom more depressing than it was before. It was a crucial moment; we realised, with a cold suddenness, that here was no jest—we were standing face to face with actual war. We were equal to the occasion. In our response there was no hesitation, no indecision: we said that if Lyman wanted to meddle with those soldiers, he could go ahead and do it; but if he waited for us to follow him, he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... nightly recurrence of a dream at this period will serve to show how agitated was her mental and spiritual nature. Just emancipated from sceptical principles, accustomed to independent research, and deciding to study the New Testament rather than good books, when on the border-land of indecision and gloomy doubt, yet not wholly convinced or comforted, her sleeping hours reflected the bitter, restless doubt of her waking thoughts. A curious dream followed her almost nightly, and filled her with terror. She imagined herself to be in danger ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... her two children, and points to the pale and fainting wife of the inflexible citizen, who lies prostrate on the ground with his dying child in her arms. The scene is fearful, and the struggle terrible; he holds the dagger in his hand, and his look, though full of sorrow, speaks of no indecision. You feel that it must have been impossible to gain over such a man to the opposite party; and you cannot but thank the artist for rescuing his memory from the reproach endeavoured to ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... back toward the swamp in which the Texans lay, but he saw no lights and he heard no sounds there. He knew that within a short time they would be prisoners of the Mexicans. Everything seemed to be working for the benefit of Santa Anna. The indecision of the Texans and the scattering of their forces enabled the Mexicans to present overwhelming forces at all points. It seemed to Ned that fortune, which had worked in their favor until the capture of San Antonio, was now working against them ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... being the liberator of Hellas. We are at last assembled. It has not been easy to assemble, nor even now are our objects defined. We ought not to be still inquiring into the fact of our wrongs, but into the means of our defence. For the aggressors with matured plans to oppose to our indecision have cast threats aside and betaken themselves to action. And we know what are the paths by which Athenian aggression travels, and how insidious is its progress. A degree of confidence she may feel from the idea that your bluntness of perception prevents ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... Martin! come here," his wife wailed from the top of the stairs. The old man started timorously: "Yes, Annie, I'm coming." He turned away, hesitated, stood for a moment in miserable indecision; then reached back and patted the dead man's hair softly, and stumbled ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... then "worries himself to death," watching to see that they "do it right," or afraid lest they forget to do it at all. He wakes up from a sound sleep in dread lest he forgot to lock the door, turn out the electric light in the hall, or put out the gas. He becomes the victim of uncertainty and indecision. He fears lest he decide wrongly, he worries that he hasn't yet decided, and yet having thoroughly argued a matter out and come to a reasonable conclusion, allows his worries to unsettle him and is forever questioning his decision and going back to revise and rerevise it. Whatever he does or doesn't ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... an almost riotous vitality, with great but unused powers of endurance and of positive action, the finding of its task means concentration of energy instead of dissipations directness of action instead of indecision, conscious increase of power instead of deepened sense of inefficiency, and the happiness which rises like a pure spring from the depths of the soul when the whole nature is poised and harmonised. The torments ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... It was the common sense, curtly and neatly put, upon which our armies waited, and for whose cold and bleached utterances our glorious young men were sent home from Washington by rail in coffins, red receipts of Slavery to acknowledge Northern indecision. It was the kind of common sense which, after every family-tomb has got its tenant, and wives, mothers, sisters tears to be their bread and meat continually, would have jogged on 'Change snugly some fine morning arm in arm with the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... late when he reached Medicine Bend, and raining—a dismal kind of a night. Instead of going to his room, just across the street from the station, he went up-stairs and sat down with the train-despatchers. After an hour of indecision, marked by alternative fits of making up and unmaking his mind, he went, instead of going to bed, into the telegraph-room, where black-haired Dick Grady sat at ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... not expect me so soon, I see," said the young man easily. "Well, I was in rather a quandary, something else having offered, so I decided quickly, hating indecision. You got my note of acceptance all right, I hope? It should have reached you at the ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... the ground-swell. This last circumstance, more than any other, persuaded Harry that it was not a rock, but some floating object that he beheld. Thus encouraged, he delayed no longer. Every moment was precious, and all might be lost by indecision. He did not like the appearance of deserting his companions, but, should he fail, the motive would appear in the act. Should he fail, every one would alike soon be beyond the reach of censure, and in a state of being that would do full justice ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... cast; I have consented to return if we are not destroyed. Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed. It requires more philosophy than I possess to bear this injustice ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... slideway. The young man took a step toward him, stumbled on his own traveling kit, and staggered across the floor for a half-dozen steps before regaining his balance. Leoh turned and saw that the youth's face bore a somewhat ridiculous expression of mixed indecision and curiosity. ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... going on Hempel stood, the picture of indecision, and eased now one foot, now the other, as if his ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... concealment, his leap carrying him to within a yard of Reynard's flank. The insolence of good and easy living, and long mastery over the creatures that dwelt about him, led the fox into perhaps two seconds of indecision; and those two seconds cost him dear. There was no indecision about his flight, of course, and almost before Finn's feet touched the ground, the fox was stretched to the full stride of his top gait. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... Amboyne cursed his own indecision, but still could not make up his mind, except to tell Raby, and make him the ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... open the outer door for them. He returned to the desk beside Martha and took a gun out of his coat pocket. He pointed it at her, frowned in indecision, then slowly, with perspiration standing out on his forehead, pulled out the clip and emptied the ...
— Unthinkable • Roger Phillips Graham
... that I tried to open the heavy door, however, I knew that a watcher who had been observing our movements through the silk curtains was behind it. I felt a resisting pressure. I heard a stifled scream. It was no moment for indecision. With an unbelievable rapidity of thought, I estimated the chances of the unseen person being armed, the hazard of his giving vent to an uproar which would bring the neighborhood about our ears. Then I threw ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... balanced in the swing of indecision, as to whether I should go, or not. And at last I exclaimed: I will give her just a chance. And I drew my kattari from its sheath, and I said: Now I will throw it into the air. And if it falls back upon its point, I will go ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... Thereupon, Mr. Verdant Green, perceiving the young lady's peril, deliberately ran towards Mr. Roarer, shouting and brandishing the sketch-book. Mr. Roarer paused in wonder and perplexity. Mr. Verdant Green shouted and advanced; Miss Patty steadily retreated. After a few moments of indecision Mr. Roarer abandoned his design of pursuing the petticoats, and resolved that the gentleman should be his first victim. Accordingly he sounded his trumpet for the conflict, gave another roar and a stamp, and then ran towards Mr. Verdant Green, who, having ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... so, for he was short of money. From the introduction to the "Paston Letters" (edited by Mr. James Gairdner) it appears that the king was in such impecunious circumstances in 1451 that he had to borrow his expenses for Christmas: "The government was getting paralysed alike by debt and by indecision. 'As for tidings here,' writes John Bocking, 'I certify you all that is nought, or will be nought. The king borroweth his expenses.'" Henry anticipated what Ben Jonson discovered in ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... and blunders), at the famous sea-fight at Actium, Mark Antony's ship was held back by a remora in spite of the efforts of hundreds of willing galley-slaves. Shakespeare may say that Cleopatra's "fearful sails" were the cause of Antony's fatal indecision and flight, and a lesser poet may cast the blame upon her "timid tear"; but the tribute to the remora's interference with the fate of nations was accepted in good faith at the time, and was, moreover, supported and confirmed by the inglorious ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... retiring to rest, went to her tower; there she remained for some time, pacing up and down the room, now glancing out on the wide ocean, now clasping her hands in a manner expressive of doubt and indecision. ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Military reversals made the situation more serious for the President's supporters. The radicals and the conservatives, resorted to incessant criticism, railing against him and his policy. Lincoln, however, kept up appearances of indecision, even though his own course had been clearly and inalterably mapped out; but circumstances did not admit a revelation. His main object was to restrain impatience and zeal, and yet maintain ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... angry with myself for my own indecision: but in vain; I have no remedy. I sometimes conclude this indecision ought to act as a warning, and for that reason I have painted my feelings as they are. If yours should resemble them, I firmly and loudly say—Anna, desist! ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... or two of indecision, then in obedience to an impulse he could no longer resist, he sought speech with the deacon Pelagius. Not without trouble was this obtained, for Pelagius was at all times busy, always beset by suitors of every degree, the Romans holding him in high reverence, and making their appeals to ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... for some time in agonising indecision before he finally drove off. A cloud of sand rose; the ball was nowhere to be seen, and, taught by experience, he looked behind ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... ladies, she might have considered it interesting to marry under the circumstances and suffer a secret anguish to make her a romantic victim. But Polly's education had been neglected, and after a good deal of natural indecision she did what most women do in such cases, thought she would "wait ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... state, this indecision whether to stay passively and risk the worst or avoid it by flight, and the worst of it is that, whatever course is eventually forced upon us, it finds us equally unprepared, and more liable from such indecision to ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... fear of seeing her as she walked upstairs, I do think I should have liked her without the flattery. She is very light—has the lightest of eyes, the lightest of complexions; no eyebrows, and what looked to me like very pale red hair, and thin lips of no colour at all. But with all this indecision of exterior the expression is rather acute than soft; and the conversation in its principal characteristics, analytical and examinative; throwing out no thought which is not as clear as glass—critical, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... than the cloak, with thick wadding and a strong lining incapable of wearing out. He became more lively, and even his character grew firmer, like that of a man who has made up his mind, and set himself a goal. From his face and gait, doubt and indecision, all hesitating and wavering traits disappeared of themselves. Fire gleamed in his eyes, and occasionally the boldest and most daring ideas flitted through his mind; why not, for instance, have marten fur on the ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... that life was clearer than it had been to her serious childhood. It had always been easily measured on the surface; she had had a very complete grasp of its material aspects almost at once, accomplishing exactly what she had planned. Perhaps this was all; and her trouble an evidence of weakness—the indecision, she saw with contempt, that kept so many people in a ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... wholehearted. As a monster he lacks neither strength of will nor sinew nor good looks; he is magnificent; he has the fear, the frenzy and the resolution of a splendid animal. We have only cowardice, the unenthusiasm and the indecision of base men. If we had the virtue of Commodus, no Commodus could ever have ruled Rome for half a day. But I am senile. I am sentimental. Rather than betray Marcia—and Pertinax—who would betray me for their ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... lumber-room, came forward to take her turn. While the others swung the rope for her as gently as it could be done—a mere mockery of movement—and playfully taunted her timidity, she passaged backwards and forwards in a pretty flutter of indecision, putting up her shoulders and laughing with the embarrassed laughter of children by the water's edge, eager to bathe and yet fearful. There never was anything at once so droll and so pathetic. One ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... arresting than the power of the steersman. A turn of the wheel in the hands of Raft would set all that canvas shuddering or thundering, spilling the wind as the water is spilled from a reservoir, a moment's indecision or slackness might lose the ship a mile on her course. But Raft steered as he breathed, automatically, almost unconsciously, almost without effort. He, who ashore was hopelessly adrift and without guidance, at the helm was all wisdom, ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... water on the other. Surely, you will say, he will not be ass enough to die for want of food or drink; he will then make a choice—that is, will choose between alternatives of equal force. The problem became famous in the schools; some allowed the poor donkey to die of indecision; some denied the possibility of the balance, which ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... hour of harassing indecision I determined to consult Henry, and sitting down at a table near the open window, I wrote to ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... waited on Johnson, as usual. I observed at breakfast that although it was a part of his abstemious discipline on this most solemn fast, to take no milk in his tea, yet when Mrs. Desmoulins inadvertently poured it in, he did not reject it. I talked of the strange indecision of mind, and imbecility in the common occurrences of life, which we may observe in some people. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I am in the habit of getting others to do things for me.' BOSWELL. 'What, Sir! have you that weakness?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. But I always ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... his indecision for him somewhat unexpectedly by stopping abruptly opposite a row of old brick ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... that coquettish little hat with its jealously guarding brim which bent obstinately lower and lower between them. And in the instant of his indecision, while he waited for the surrender his vanity expected before exerting the force that would conquer brutally, she broke unexpectedly from his clasp and darted a few steps away from him, whirling about to face him with her head flung back, her eyes on fire, ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley |
