"Indefinite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out of the station. As it passed through Portsmouth, Siegmund remembered his coming down, on the Sunday. It seemed an indefinite age ago. He was thankful that he sat on the side of the carriage opposite from the one he had occupied five days before. The afternoon of the flawless sky was ripening into evening. The chimneys ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... across the mud caught the last rays of the sun and turned into a wrathful red disc. The light held Dick's attention for a moment, and as he raised his revolver there fell upon him a renewed sense of the miraculous, in that he was standing by Maisie who had promised to care for him for an indefinite length of time till such date as——A gust of the growing wind drove the girl"s long black hair across his face as she stood with her hand on his shoulder calling Amomma "a little beast," and for a moment he was ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... other things of which I knew nothing, such as the Fire of Life with its fatal gift of indefinite existence, although I remember that like the giant Rezu whom Umslopogaas defeated, she did talk of a "Cup of Life" of which she had drunk, that might have been offered to my lips, had I been politic, bowed the knee and shown more faith in her ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... chap with a green velour hat, and white spats. He had asked about a Captain Cronin, and when told that a visitor was already seeing the patient, agreed to wait outside. It had been about five minutes before. The man was indefinite about more details. Shirley hurried to the telephone booth in the corridor. To Headquarters he reported the theft of car "99835 N.Y.," giving a description of its special features and its make. This warning he knew ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... previous species the mycelium covers the young plant but is not so strongly developed, so that the adhering dirt is not so evident on the mature plant. Fleshy layer when dry, thin and closely adherent. Endoperidium globose, sessile. Mouth sulcate, indefinite. Columella globose-clavate. Capillitium thicker than the spores. Spores small, 4 mc. ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... absorbing life of the Ducal Palace, so little distant, was for Marcantonio as though it did not exist. In that time of waiting—he knew not how long it was nor what was passing—life was a great void to him, echoing with one agonized hope; time had no existence, except as an indefinite point when Marina should come back to him with her soul and heart ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... connecting work, and a button-hole picot-finish is made along the edge of the braid which forms the border. In making an edging, a definite outline could be kept for the lower edge, and above this an irregular or indefinite ...
— The Art of Modern Lace Making • The Butterick Publishing Co.
... East," I said; and I spoke no more than the truth, for, putting my cordial feeling for Farnham out of the question, it might be that valuable information concerning Wildred's past could be wrested from him with due diplomacy. "Still, I hardly feel like hanging about Denver for an indefinite length of time, doing nothing. I shouldn't mind a little journey, as I've come so far. If he's at any of the Colorado mines, perhaps I might run out and join him; I've been there with ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... an inch long, and they are produced only at one season of the year. Moreover, the waves, I suspect, do not so much construct as wear down a material which has already acquired consistency. They preserve their form when dry for an indefinite period. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... for many indiscretions," is a dangerous title for a play for young people; because many is an indefinite term; and in settling how many, the calculations of parents and children may vary materially. This little play is so charmingly written, the character of the imprudent and generous Frederick is so likely to excite imitation, that we must doubly regret ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... that the Lord God Himself actually went with them in person, and lived with them, and took immediate charge of everything. He had promised Moses, their leader, that He would do this. Just how definite or indefinite a thing that meant to Moses' mind we cannot know. But it became very definite and tangible that memorable night of departure from the iron furnace of Egypt. For there was a real physical evidence of His presence. There appeared a column or pillar of fleecy-like ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... on the other hand, made returns for about half that number of hands, but their proportion to the totals employed cannot be similarly stated, first, because we have here no specific industrial census, and, second, because many of the English returns were made for an indefinite number of employes. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... slave, and had possessed withal some experience in Underground Rail Road matters. Either of these professors was willing to undertake the operation, provided arrangements could be completed in time to be carried out during the vacation. In this hopeful, although painfully indefinite position the matter remained for more than a year; but the correspondence and anxiety increased, and with them disappointments and difficulties multiplied. The hope of Freedom, however, buoyed up the heart of the young slave girl during the long months of anxious waiting and daily expectation ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... flag of peace might appear to a tired soldier. Hank Bradley was the orphaned son of old Welborne's sister, and he lived in his uncle's home in lieu of any other that was available. He had made trips to the West and had remained away for indefinite periods, the last being the time he had come home with the carelessly announced death of his companion, Dick Wrinkle. The uncle and nephew were an incongruous pair: old Welborne, with his miserly grasp on the vitals of half the county, and the devil-may-care Bradley, whose wild ways made him ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... and as pleased in this indefinite prospect as if she were bidden to pack up and start to-morrow. Harry went on to tell her what Mr. Moxon had told him, how Oxford is one of the most beautiful of cities, and one of the most famous and ancient seats of learning in the world (which she knew from her ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... inaccuracy, even as regards development, and much more in regard to functional power. The activity, power and predominance of an organ may be essentially changed, without making any perceptible impression upon the interior of the skull, for an indefinite period. Changes in excitement and circulation, that revolutionize the character, may leave but a slight impression upon the interior, and none upon the exterior of the cranium. The external configuration of the skull is therefore not a true criterion of character when ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... the week after, I began to be sensible of a running-down in the wheels. I had an article to write for the "Atlantic," but felt mopish and could not write. My dinner had not its usual relish, and I had an indefinite sense everywhere of something going wrong. My coal bill came in, and I felt sure we were being extravagant, and that our John Furnace wasted the coal. My grandsons and granddaughters came to see us, and I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... kinds were often comprised in one, and it is even not improbable that the first one may have been but a variety of the general tribute-lands devoted to the benefit of the conquering confederates. Still the evidence on this point is too indefinite to warrant ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... that the engine was rated at 90 horsepower. He does not give the diameter of the pump cylinder, but, judging by the scaling of Marestier's drawing and by a rather indefinite entry in the Vail account book, it appears to have been between 17 and 18 inches. Quoting Captain Collins at some length, Watkins writes that the mainmast was placed farther aft than was usual in a sailing ship, and that the vessel had a round stern. Collins apparently based ...
— The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle
... just rung us up from there upon the telephone to request that necessaries for an indefinite stay be despatched to her. She is visiting Mrs. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... propose to descend, he begged them to wait for him, and scrambled down to the surface. When he got there, he found the water perfectly motionless and of a colourless transparency. He walked onto it, lay down at full length, and peered into the depths. It was weirdly clear: he could see down for an indefinite distance, without arriving at any bottom. Some dark, shadowy objects, almost out of reach of his eyes, were moving about. Then a sound, very faint and mysterious, seemed to come up through the gnawl water from an immense ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... come for swift action. From the moment when Ferrier groaned with despair, a lightning thought shot into Marion's brain and settled there. She had a grand idea, and she was almost eager to get ashore: one indefinite attraction alone held her. Ferrier was almost as eager to return, for his electric nature was chafed by the limitations that bound him; he knew he could do nothing without further means and appliances, and, in the meantime, he was only half doing work of supreme importance. He wished to glance ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... Life can be empirically determined more and more exactly, and completely, a positive metaphysic is possible: that is to say, a metaphysic which cannot be contested and which will admit of a direct and indefinite progress; such a metaphysic would escape the objections urged against a transcendental metaphysic, and would be strictly scientific ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... been told, for two reasons,—first, because it was absolutely necessary they should kill a grizzly and strip him of his skin; and secondly, because our young hunters, Pouchskin as well, had but a very indefinite idea of the risk they were running. They had heard that the grizzly was one of the fiercest of its kind; but because it was called a bear, and they had now hunted and killed so many other bears, they fancied this ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... (judges are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the National Council of the Judiciary for an indefinite period); Constitutional Tribunal (judges are chosen by the ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... remained to be examined. (Hear, hear.) Some individuals swore against the prisoners, and though others tendered their evidence, the jury refused to hear them. (Hear, hear.) Besides, the punishments inflicted are monstrous; thirty-nine lashes are inflicted for the vague, indefinite—because incapable to be defined—offence of insolence. Thirty-nine lashes for the grave and the more definite, I admit, offence of an attempt to carry a small knife. Three months imprisonment, or fifty lashes for the equally grave offence of cutting off the shoot of a cane plant! There seems ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... that these men were Italians, and therefore possible Mafiosi, but his mood was too optimistic to permit of silly suspicions. To-night the Mafia seemed decidedly unreal and indefinite. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... interest: he thought more of contradicting Mr. Wharton's prophecies than of fulfilling his own ideas of what was fair and right. He was anxious to prove, that he could "go far in politics, that it was in him, that he was not too soft, and that it was not building on mud to depend on him." These indefinite expressions operated powerfully and perniciously on his imagination. To prove that Wharton was mistaken in his prognostics, it was necessary to our hero to obtain the price and stamp of talents—it was essential to gain political power; and this could not be attained ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Richard Calmady called in the rue de Rennes. It appeared he had come to Paris with the intention of remaining there for an indefinite period. He called again and yet again, making himself charming—a touch of deference tempering his natural suavity—alike to his hostesses and to such of their guests as he happened to meet. It was the fashion of fifty years ago to conduct affairs, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... there or allowing us to have beer. At any rate, we were hurried out to await our train on the platform. A small circle soon formed round us, largely made up of sailors, whom we concluded must be on indefinite leave. As our train was steaming up a civilian gave vent to his feelings by fixing his evil eyes upon us and at the same time moving his lips with a deadly purpose, cursing us inaudibly. I should never have thought a face could express such condensed ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... their way to the ocean by some subterranean communication. All these things had been made a frequent subject of discussion in our desultory conversations around the fires at night; and my own mind had become tolerably well filled with their indefinite pictures, and insensibly colored with their romantic descriptions, which, in the pleasure of excitement, I was well disposed to believe, and half expected ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... morning breeze, and were just about to round the last headland, when all at once a gale sprang up again, the bare and uninviting coast was hidden in heavy rain, and we had the choice of waiting for an indefinite time or continuing our voyage. Without much hesitation we chose the latter alternative. It might be tempting enough to come in contact with other men, especially as they were fellow-countrymen, but it was even more tempting to have done with the remaining ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... played for a moment At a game that now neither will press: I cared not to find out what "No" meant; Nor your lips to grow yielding with "Yes." Love is done with and dead; if there lingers A faint and indefinite ghost, It is laid with this kiss on your fingers— A jest ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... believe it will be allowed by those familiar with German idioms, that the phrase kaum 6 Stunden, is not to be rendered as though it meant no more or less than 6; but rather thus: "but little more than 6;"—the "little more," in this indefinite form of expression, being a very uncertain quantity, it may be an hour ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... imagine that Rousseau embraced his theory only from a vain love of eccentricity, to read "Emile" and the "Social Contract" once more. That admirable dialectician was led to deny society from the standpoint of justice, although he was forced to admit it as necessary; just as we, who believe in an indefinite progress, do not cease to deny, as normal and definitive, the existing state of society. Only, whereas Rousseau, by a political combination and an educational system of his own, tried to bring man nearer ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... used as accusative of the indeclinable indefinite personal pronoun {man}, one, them; trans. idiomatically by changing to passive construction, when they (i.e. university-students) are overburdened neither by learning nor by the contents ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel
... into the manure with a certain savage, grim indifference. At one time Yanson tried to make love to the cook, but he was not successful, and was rudely rejected and ridiculed. He was short in stature, his face was freckled, and his small, sleepy eyes were somewhat of an indefinite color. Yanson took his failure indifferently, and never ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... than the reign of Henry VII., and in the third year of that reign the Court of Star Chamber was established. The press and its enemy are nearly coeval. As no positive law against libels existed, they fell under the indefinite class of misdemeanours. For the trial of misdemeanours that court was instituted, their tendency to produce riots and disorders was a main part of the charge, and was laid, in order to give the court ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... lesson this afternoon. You studied it just enough to get a few indistinct impressions, and what little you did learn you were not sure of. It would be better for you to master but one single question a day, and then know that you know it, than to fill your head with a thousand half-learned, indefinite, and uncertain ideas. I have told you all this before, but you do not seem to pay any attention to it. I am sorry that it is so, for you might easily stand at the head of the school, if ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... it is said to pass knowledge, 'tis manifest it is exceeding great, or greatly going beyond what can be known; for to exceed, is to go beyond, be above, or to be out of the reach of what would comprehend that which is so. And since the expression is absolutely indefinite, and respecteth not the knowledge of this or the other creature only: it is manifest, that Paul by his thus saying, challengeth all creatures in heaven and earth to find out the bottom of this love if they can. The love of Christ ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... ship at sea, after the manner of seamen; and although the method of stating a ship's position was perfectly familiar to me, yet I anticipated that the answer in regard to her would have been given in general and indefinite terms. What was my astonishment, then, to find distinctly written out, "Latitude 35 deg. 30 min. S.; longitude 98 deg. 40 min. W." True this position was about four thousand miles out of the way, but where did the answer, such ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... forever. We never intend to become a man. We keep our boy's heart ever fresh and ever warm. We don't care if the whole human race, from the Ascidians to Darwin himself, assail us and fiercely thrust us once more into short jackets and knickerbockers, provided they allow an indefinite vacation in a daisy field. The joy of childhood is said to be vague. It was all satisfying to us once, and we do not intend to allow it to waste in unconscious effervescence among the gaudier though less ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... world, my darling, full of wonder and wistfulness and strange Recognition and greetings of half-acquaint things, as I greet the cloud Of blue palace aloft there, among misty indefinite dreams that range At the back of my life's horizon, where the dreamings ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... opponent in such a neat and humourous manner, as to relax the severity of the Judges into a smile or an open laugh:—not one who knows how to dilate and expand his subject, by reducing it from the limited considerations of time, and person, to some general and indefinite topic;—not one who knows how to enliven it by an agreeable digression: not one who can rouse the indignation of the Judge, or extort from him the tear of compassion;—or who can influence and bend his soul (which is confessedly the capital perfection of an ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... strayed into the formal chamber across from the dining-room and leaned out of a window, gazing into the darkening court. Directly below was where Pleydon had kissed her. She often re-examined her feelings about that; but only to find that they had dissolved into an indefinite sense of the inevitable. Not alone had it failed to shock her—she hadn't even been surprised. Linda thought still further about kissing, with the discovery that if, while it was happening, she was conscious of the ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... poison? The law has not defined a poison, although it requires at times a definition. The popular definition of a poison is "a drug which destroys life rapidly when taken in small quantity." The terms "small quantity" as regards amount, and "rapidly" as regards time, are as indefinite as Hodge's "piece of chalk" as regards size. The professor defined a poison as "any substance which otherwise than by the agency of heat or electricity is capable of destroying life, either by chemical action on the tissues of the living body or by physiological ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... females of their species. Think of a lot of over-dressed creatures flouting those severe outlines and deep-toned distances with frippery and garishness. You know how you have been lulled to sleep by that delicious, indefinite, far-off murmur of the canyon at night—think of it being broken by a crazy waltz or a monotonous german—by the clatter of waiters and the pop of champagne corks. And yet, by thunder, those women are capable of liking both and finding no discord ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... altogether the importance of improving a victory, should the army be successful; so now, when the chance had come, they were neither ready to forward such an enterprise, nor could they make up their minds to depart from their passive attitude. But to postpone all idea of counterstroke until some indefinite period is as fatal in strategy as in tactics. By no means an uncommon policy, it has been responsible for the ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Thus filled with indefinite longings, she grew up to womanhood without any proper direction from her mother. She had no sympathy with her uncultivated suitors. She sighed for something higher, an ideal that was far off, indistinct, and dim. Good offers of marriage from neighboring workmen ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... recent events impinged upon her life was in so far as the rupture of Sara's engagement would probably mean the indefinite prolongation of her stay at Sunnyside, which would otherwise have ended with her marriage. And this, from Mrs. Selwyn's egotistical point of view, was all to the good, since Sara had acquired a pleasant habit of making herself both useful ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... a moment the bell ceased its clangor. It was a distant sound, and its location was indefinite ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... deliverance of Italy, was a native of Genoa, belonging to a good but not illustrious family. He was a boy of twelve years of age when the revolution of 1821 broke out in Piedmont, which was so summarily crushed by Austria. At that early age he had indefinite ideas, but thought that Italians should boldly struggle for the liberty of their country. In 1826, while a student at the university, he published an article on Dante, whose lofty sentiments and independent ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... that the end was not yet—that still other strangers were coming to the Jack-o'-Lantern for indefinite periods. She saw, now, why wing after wing had been added to the house, but could not understand the odd arrangement of the front windows. Through some inner sense of loyalty to Uncle Ebeneezer, she forebore ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... An indefinite period passed. Then, for the last time, I saw the earth—an enduring globule of radiant blue, swimming in an eternity of ether. And there I, a fragile flake of soul dust, flickered silently across the void, from the distant blue, into the expanse of ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... Mr. Branston may live for an indefinite number of years, during which you will be wasting your ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... head and rose from the chair with a smile and a certain grace of manner which seemed in some indefinite way to have been put on with her evening dress. For a moment Luke gazed at her, taken aback. Then he bowed gravely, and she ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... replying to my queries of the 10th instant. It appears that on the 30th September, while the schooner was aground in the lower part of the Victoria, Mr. Wilson landed to search for fresh water at Mosquito Flat; having made some indefinite arrangements with Mr. Elsey to signalize for a boat, should he require it, to return to the vessel; but he omitted to acquaint either the master of the schooner, or Mr. Baines, who was next in command to Mr. Wilson. The result ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... can't resist telling you," she said, "because it wouldn't be fair of me to deprive you: it's far too much in your line." She even flattered me: "You'd do it awfully well too, you know; but I have a sort of sentimental regard for her—not admiration, or anything of that kind, but an indefinite feeling that noblesse oblige. In her own extraordinary way she did us a good turn, and however carefully you wrapped it up she might recognise her portrait and feel embarrassed. It's she that I'm thinking of, not Arthur. ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... came in to say good-bye to Captain Jack: every one was busy packing up his belongings for an indefinite period and preparing for the field. We all felt the undercurrent of sadness and uncertainty, but "a good health" and "happy return" was drunk all around, and Jack departed at midnight for his new station and ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... notions of the alchymists. He believed in the philosopher's stone, and wished to engage Descartes to devote his energies to the discovery of the elixir of life, or some other means by which the existence of man might be prolonged to an indefinite period. He gave his wife, the beautiful Venetia Anastasia Stanley, a dish of capons, fed upon vipers, according to the plan supposed to have been laid down by Arnold of Villeneuve, in the hope that she might thereby preserve ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... like precision in the language employed in such verses frequently causes confusion. The word atma as used in the first line is very indefinite. The commentator thinks it implies achetanabuddhi, i.e., the perishable understanding. I prefer, however, to take it as employed in the sense of Chit as modified by birth. It comes, I think, to the same thing in the end. The 'inner Soul' is, perhaps, the Soul or Chit as unmodified ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... turn which events had taken led Hay-uta to stop and question himself as to the right course to follow. His intelligence told him that Deerfoot was fleeing through the woods, with an indefinite number of enemies in pursuit. The ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... this infallible method was not infallible to-night. Going out on the train Skinner had the "blues" and "had them good." Gloom was closing in on all sides; he could n't tell why, unless the growing fear of exposure to Honey was taking hold on his subconsciousness and manifesting itself in chronic, indefinite apprehension. ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... Larnaca were shortly relieved of their Custom House troubles by the total absence of imports. The native Cypriote does not purchase at European shops; his wants are few; the smallest piece of soap will last an indefinite period; he is frugal to an extreme degree; and if he has desires, he curbs such temptations and hoards his coin. Thus, as the natives did not purchase, and all Europeans were sellers without buyers, there ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... equally omitted to declare that they never would so consent. They seemed to desire a postponement of that question and the adoption of some other course first, which, as some of them seemed to argue, might or might not lead to reunion, but which course we thought would amount to an indefinite postponement. The conference ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... "It was his indefinite state of mind which caused him to relate the whole story to me. When the police failed to make any discovery, he thought some one interested in psychological research ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... that they were glaringly happy. And Mr. James Thornton was a good soul—everybody admitted that. And yet—for an instant the gray stone building in the distance, bathed in the golden radiance of the setting sun, grew misty and blurred. She saw another sunset, all pink and green and soft, indefinite violet, and above the deep, sweet, ceaseless sound of a wondrously opalescent sea she heard a man's voice ring clear and true with a love as eternal as that same changeless sea. She felt again that strange, sweet, unearthly happiness that comes to a woman once and once only. She ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... distinguished leader, Admiral Coligny, as early as 1555, projected colonies in America, and sent an expedition to Brazil, which proved unsuccessful. Having procured permission from Charles IX to found a colony in Florida, a designation which embraced in rather an indefinite manner the whole country from the Chesapeake to the Tortugas, he sent an expedition in 1562 from France, under command of Jean Ribault, composed of many young men of good family. They first landed at the St. John's River, where they erected a monument, but finally established a settlement ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... looked about her in secret delight. Something about the air of the tent and the surroundings, and an indefinite something about every one of the ladies, told her as plainly as words could have done that she was among the workers; that she had unwittingly and gracefully slipped behind the scenes, and had been cordially admitted to one of the work-shops of Chautauqua; and there ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... to tighten up suddenly at some part of the upward or downward swing, and, as surely as there is a ball on the tee, when it does so there will be mischief. Depend upon it the instinct of activity will prevent the right hand from going through with the swing in that indefinite state of looseness. Perhaps a yard from the ball in the upward swing, or a yard from it when coming down, there will be a convulsive grip of the right hand which, with an immediate acknowledgment of guilt, will relax ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... above, from some indefinite, hidden opening; the light from the big outdoors filtered down upon her. There was a brooding dusk here made vibrant with the clamouring voice that was no longer like distant thunder but resolved itself into the ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... indefinite continuance of the war, the good Hartley, profoundly disappointed, wrote a brief note invoking blessings on his "dear friend," and closing with the ominous words, "If tempestuous times should come, take care of your own safety; events are uncertain ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... also observe, that I say nothing of higher courts. But the lines between the upper and lower tribunals were not so strictly drawn then as they now are, and the limits of jurisdiction were, consequently, very indefinite. Most of the characteristics, moreover, here ascribed to the justice of the peace, belonged, in almost an equal degree, to the judges of the circuit courts; and, though some of the latter were men of respectable legal requirements, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... one can easily understand how very limited the Indian notions of calculation are. They cannot realize any number much over ten; and twenty—cempoalli—is with them the symbol of a great number, as a hundred was with the Greeks. There is in Mexico a mountain called in this indefinite way "Cempoatepetl"—the twenty-mountain. Sartorius mentions the Indian name of the many-petaled marigold—"cempoaxochitl"—the twenty-flower. We traded for some trifles of aloe-fibre, but soon had to count up the ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... Bright women's faces, young and middle-aged, a little behind these, but toward the front—(pick out the best, and lecture mainly to that). Here and there a countenance sharp and scholarlike, and a dozen pretty female ones sprinkled about. An indefinite number of pairs of young people,—happy, but not always very attentive. Boys in the back-ground, more or less quiet. Dull faces here, there,—in how many places! I don't say dull people, but faces without a ray of sympathy or a movement of expression. They are what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... as his servitor, I would say no more on the subject. I kept my word. For more than a year I had not of myself opened my mouth thereon. If he was sometimes spoken to before me, and I could not keep quite silent without being suspected of sulking or pique, I carelessly said something indefinite, with as little meaning in it as possible, and calculated to make us drop ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... wholly scornful of every fraternal and philanthropic purpose as well,—when communities like this of Wall Street, cold-blooded, shameless, injurious, are bowed to as powers, instead of being shunned as pests, then the ideals of such men as Karl Marx and his disciples loom distant and indefinite on the horizon of the future. Tritest of metaphors though it may be, all civilization is a garden, and in this garden of our own western tillage Wall Street towers to-day like a colossal weed, with roots deep-plunging into a soil they desiccate and ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... odd contortions appeared half paralyzed, and, when his strange appearance had attracted attention, his legs would give way and he would find himself with his back on the pavement, where he waited to be picked up by sympathetic spectators shedding silver and copper. After an indefinite number of performances Meckisch would hurry home in the darkness to dance and sing "Tiddy, riddy, roi, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... very plebeian surroundings. Being ignorant of her birth-right, her sympathies were wholly with her associates. Not that as yet they had had any occasion for active development; only the tendencies were there. In a vague, indefinite way she had heard of kings and queens, of lords and ladies, grand personages, so far above common folk that they needs must have mongrel go-betweens to make known their royal wills. Though she knew that kings and queens had no domain ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... early type of Celtic fairy-mistress story, according to which a valorous hero, in response to the summons of a fay who has set her love upon him, under the guidance of a fairy messenger sails over seas to the otherworld, where he remains for an indefinite time in happiness, oblivious of earth. It is easy to see that the belief that Arthur was still living, though not in this world, might gradually take shape in such a form as this, and that his absence from his ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... I thought of the steamship ticket in my pocket. I remembered that my boat was to sail on Friday. I thought of my plans for the future and anticipated the joy of an early home-coming. Set against this was the prospect of an indefinite period of soldiering among strangers. "Three years or the duration of the war" were the terms of the enlistment contract. I had visions of bloody engagements, of feverish nights in hospital, of endless years in a home for disabled soldiers. The conference was over, ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... to work and built a rough hut of stone, in order to ensure safety during the night, as their stay at Weld Springs seemed likely to be indefinite, and a fresh attack might be made at any moment. When the hut was finished, Forrest, taking a boy with him, started on a flying trip due east. This time they were fortunate enough to find a small supply in some clay waterholes, and the whole ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... him, on the part of the Directory, to revolutionise Italy. The General inquired whether the whole of Italy would be included in the plan. The revolutionary commission had, however, been entrusted to Bottot in so indefinite a way that he could only hesitate, and give a vague reply. Bonaparte wished for more precise orders. In the interval peace was concluded, and the idea of that perilous and extravagant undertaking was no longer agitated. Bottot, soon after his ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... inner harbor into which we could have gone, with seven fathoms of water and in which vessels sometimes winter as it is so secure, but we did not enter it because the captain was doubtful which of the two entrances to take and the chart seemed indefinite on the point. There are about one hundred and seventy-five people in the settlement, some of them staying there the year round, fishing in the summer and hunting the rest of the time. They have another settlement of winter houses at the head of the inner harbor, ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... careless, more lightly casual than Howard had intended. His own thoughts were quick to respond though his reply came after a noticeable hesitation. Alan did not appear to care whether he went away or remained; he had not asked if this were to be a brief absence or an indefinite sojourn. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... to die some other death, to propagate its kind, and thus indirectly condition an incalculable number of future changes that would have been brought about by the ever increasing number of its descendants—these and an indefinite number of other physical changes must all be held to have followed as a direct consequence of the man's volition thus suddenly breaking in as an independent cause upon the otherwise uniform course of Nature. Now, I say that, apart from some system of pre-established ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... up again pretty early the next day, filled with an indefinite hope, a still keener desire to be gone, and a horror of another day to be got through ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... if you would form an estimate of the Countess's heroic impudence, that a rumour was current in Lymport that the fair and well-developed Louisa Harrington, in her sixteenth year, did advisedly, and with the intention of rendering the term indefinite, entrust her guileless person to Mr. George Uplift's honourable charge. The rumour, unflavoured by absolute malignity, was such; and it went on to say, that the sublime Mel, alive to the honour of his family, followed the fugitives with a pistol, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... still covered with smoke. Late comers reported that the fire had crossed Van Ness avenue. There were orders posted all about that one must not build fires indoors nor burn lights at night. Those who disobeyed would be shot. The orders were signed by Mayor Schmitz. Saloons had been closed for an indefinite period. Two men, found looting the dead, had been summarily executed by military order. Hundreds of buildings were being dynamited. The dull roar of these frequent explosions was plainly ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... in a situation much softer than mine, but in a hollow that for me was impracticable. I hastily recovered my hold, which I marvel now that I had the temerity to let go; but to have at my side my dear little faithful Diane was a comfort which no one not planted, and for a term that seemed indefinite, in so unknown-a solitude, can conceive. What cries of joy the poor little thing uttered when thus safely lodged! and with what tenderness I sought to make her sensible of my gratitude for her ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Bremen and through Saxony. The Formula Concordiae thus sums up the Lutheran controversies: 1. Against the Antinomians insisting on the preaching of the law. 2. Justification as a declarative act, against Osiander; good works are its fruits. 3. Synergism is disavowed, but the difficulty left indefinite. 4. Adiaphora are admitted, but in times of trial declared to be important. 5. Consubstantiation, and ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... morning struck tents at camp, a few miles this side of Bowling Green, and were on the march for "any place where ordered." I am thus indefinite, because the publication of the "ultimate destination" is contraband news. Yesterday we were encamped in a wildly picturesque part of Kentucky—intensely rocky—abounding in caverns and subterranean streams; to-day ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... the center-table; drawn "an entirely original view of Nantasket Beach"; made a temperance address; and given vent to "innumerable jests, jokes, puns, oddities, quiddities and nothings," interrupted by his own laughter and that of his hearers. Besides this, he had eaten "an indefinite number of raisins, chestnuts(!), etc., etc., etc., ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... was lying under an azalea bush, in pretty much the same attitude in which he had fallen some hours before. How long he had been lying there he could not tell, and didn't care; how long he should lie there was a matter equally indefinite and unconsidered. A tranquil philosophy, born of his physical condition, suffused and ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the same question to the first policeman who came along. Without giving him a direct reply, the officer winked, shifted his quid of tobacco so as to display his Check to full advantage, and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at indefinite city "slums" behind him. Let the "Countryman" understand that, as things are at present, he may stand almost any where in the city and be within a marble-shot of "Murderer's Block." Perhaps Superintendent JOURDAN is ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... to bind themselves to march their militia for the defence of the Southern States, for their defence against those very slaves of whom they complain. They must supply vessels and seamen, in case of foreign attack. The Legislature will have indefinite power to tax them by excises, and duties on imports; both of which will fall heavier on them than on the Southern inhabitants; for the bohea tea used by a Northern freeman will pay more tax than the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... House, Harry Somerville and his friend Hamilton found that they were to remain at that establishment during an indefinite period of time, until it should please those in whose hands their ultimate destination lay to direct them how and where to proceed. This was an unlooked-for trial of their patience; but after the first exclamation of disappointment, they made up their ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... little head of wavy black hair lay in the crook of his elbow. The loosened strands breeze-blown against his cheek seemed light as the sheen of a spider's craft. These waved to the rhythm of beauty above a low white forehead veined in an indefinite tint of blue. The eyebrows were fine and daintily arched. Black lashes long and up-curling swept the unexplainable curve of her cheek, at the present time apparently masking eyes too rare for the vision of man. The nose, thin and ever so ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... certain islands in Yalu and Tumen rivers are in uncontested dispute; a section of boundary around Paektu-san (mountain) is indefinite; China has been attempting to stop mass illegal migration of North Koreans escaping famine, economic privation, and oppression into northern China; Military Demarcation Line within the 4-km wide Demilitarized Zone ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... writer's feeling was exaggerated, but because it was expressed coarsely, and as a physical power: now, every thing physical is measurable by weight, motion, and resistance; and is therefore definite. But the very essence of whatsoever is supernatural lies in the indefinite. That power, therefore, with which the minds of men invested the emperor, was vulgarized by this coarse translation into the region of physics. Else it is evident, that any power which, by standing above all human control, occupies the next relation to superhuman ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... a fastidiously correct bow on his tan oxford when he happened to glance out of the window. It was early, altogether too early, he reflected, to appear in the breakfast-room of the hotel. Winthrop's indefinite soliloquy melted into the rapt silence of imagination. Below on the smooth black pavement pattered two laden burros. On their packs hung dusty, weatherworn canteens, a pick and shovel, and a rifle in its soiled and frayed scabbard. The sturdy, shaggy burros followed a little, lean old man, ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... heart of the shepherd rejoices; where the verb gaethaese is in the indefinite or aorist tense, and is meant to indicate a condition of feeling not limited to any time whatever—past, present, or future. In Latin, the force and elegance of this usage are equally impressive, if not more so. At this moment, I remember two cases ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the like. It would naturally color their political thinking, because politics is nothing but common action to secure more favorable living conditions, and to these people, the term 'living conditions' includes not only the present life, but also an indefinite number of future lives as well. I find this title, 'Independent' Institute, suggestive. Independent of ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... him freely of your own, for he will not readily fancy that you prefer it to this; but say as little as possible of your hopes of an ultimate return, and, if you are forced to acknowledge them, let them seem as indefinite as possible." ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... Dennis were as mystical as they were assuring: one, in a female hand, told her that her son Levin was being tenderly watched, and another, in man's writing, enclosed some money, and said her son would soon be home. Mrs. Dennis was far from happy in this indefinite state of mind, and her heart told her, also, that the absence of James Phoebus was a different strain. She loved that absentee already too ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... of this negative measure was the creation of the right to transmit together, and for an indefinite time, a title and the realty on which its dignity reposed. Though the restoration of this institution was slightly anterior in time to the other as to its beginnings, yet the final decree was not published until 1808, and logically it is complementary and subsequent to it. To this ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... warbler, yellow redpoll, myrtle bird, ruby-crowned kinglet, phoebe, and flicker. In short, there were no birds at all, except now and then an accidental straggler of a kind that could be found almost anywhere else in indefinite numbers. ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... by nothing but the parching winds of continents distant from the sources of abundant rains, finishes the scale of natural fertility, which thus diminishes in the two opposite extremes of hot and dry, of cold and wet; thus is provided an indefinite variety of soils and climates for that diversity of living organised bodies with which the world is provided for the use of man. But, between those two extremes, of mountains covered with perpetual snow, and parched ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... frequently heard it objected to foreign missions that there are works of philanthropy still to be done here. The objection is absolutely irrelevant. The work of missions is not an indefinite 'doing good.' It is the bearing of a specific good to those who have not received it. It is not, per se, the bettering of temporal conditions. It is the securing to those who believe its message the best eternal conditions. It is not a matter of 'elevation'—it is a matter of translation. ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... competition of law against law, force against force, producing the most endless and unexpected variety of results? Cannot each law be interfered with at any moment by some other law, so that the first law, though it may struggle for the mastery, shall be for an indefinite time utterly defeated? The law of gravity is immutable enough: but do all stones inevitably fall to the ground? Certainly not, if I choose to catch one, and keep it in my hand. It remains there by laws; and the law of gravity is there too, making it feel heavy in my hand: ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... of the past does not mean the extinction of memory or the extinction of hope. It only means that the profoundest of our memories are "brought over" as it were from the past into the present. It only means that a formless horizon of immense hope, indefinite and vague, hovers above the present, to give it ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... trial of sea-life. And Anthony, clearly trying to be most attentive, had induced this Mrs Brown, the wife of his faithful steward, to come along as maid to his bride. But for some reason or other this arrangement was not continued. And the mate, tormented by indefinite alarms and forebodings, regretted it. He regretted that Jane Brown was no longer on board—as a sort of representative of Captain Anthony's faithful servants, to watch quietly what went on in that part of the ship this fatal marriage had closed to their vigilance. That had been ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... an open question, perhaps, whether a great refracting telescope will last unimpaired for an indefinite length of time. I am not aware that the twin instruments of Harvard and Pulkowa, mounted in 1843, have suffered from age, nor am I aware that any of Alvan Clark's instruments are less perfect to-day than when they left the hands of their ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... principle does not run through all the powers delegated to the Union; yet it pervades and governs those on which the efficacy of the rest depends: except as to the rule of apportionment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America. The consequence of this is that, tho in theory their ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... has always said, 'Mother, I will be; but you know me better than anybody else does, and you know I mean no harm—in short, mean nothing.' All of which is very true, my dear, but is no justification. However, as he is now gone so far away and for an indefinite time, and as he will have good opportunities and introductions, we may consider this past and gone. And you, my dear," said the old lady, who was now all nods and smiles, "regarding your dear self, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... first inquire, not for O. B., that's too indefinite; but for a young girl by the name of Doris Scott. She holds the clew; or rather she is the clew ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... what he was like. He was a young man of two-and-twenty, with a round and pleasing face, dark childlike eyes, dressed like a townsman in grey cheap clothes, and as one could judge from his complexion and narrow shoulders, not used to manual labour. He was of a very indefinite type; one could take him neither for a student nor for a man in trade, still less for a workman. But looking at his attractive face and childlike friendly eyes, I was unwilling to believe he was one of those vagabond impostors ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... chooses by the attraction it experiences towards this or that object," answered the count. "Before Maurice last returned to the university, nine months ago, his admiration for Madeleine was unmistakable. Now that he is shortly to come home, and for an indefinite period,—now that our plans must ripen, I have come to the conclusion that Madeleine must be removed, or they will never attain fruition; she must not be allowed to cast the spell of her dangerous fascination over him; something must ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... will have madness no other than melancholy in extent, differing (as I have said) in degrees. Some make two distinct species, as Ruffus Ephesius, an old writer, Constantinus Africanus, Aretaeus, [1077] Aurelianus, [1078]Paulus Aegineta: others acknowledge a multitude of kinds, and leave them indefinite, as Aetius in his Tetrabiblos, [1079]Avicenna, lib. 3. Fen. 1. Tract. 4. cap. 18. Arculanus, cap. 16. in 9. Rasis. Montanus, med. part. 1. [1080]"If natural melancholy be adust, it maketh one kind; if blood, another; if choler, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... travelled with Jacques Pontiac across the Height of Land to his destination, he had uncomfortable feelings; presentiments, peculiar reflections of the past, and melancholy —a thing far from habitual with him. Insolence is all very well, but you cannot apply it to indefinite thoughts; it isn't effective with vague presentiments. And when Gregory's insolence was taken away from him, he was very like other mortals; virtue had gone out of him; his brown cheek and frank eye had lost ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... answer to his question, the darkness seemed to lighten. But the process was gradual; seconds passed before Halder gained the impression of a very large room of indefinite proportions. Twenty feet away was the rim of a black, circular depression in the flooring. At first, his chair seemed the only piece of furnishing here; then, as the area continued to brighten, Halder became aware of several objects at some distance ...
— The Other Likeness • James H. Schmitz
... looking at the rising and falling hollows of the sea with wistful eyes that in their growing age and dimness had an intensely pathetic expression,—the expression one sometimes sees in the eyes of a dog who knows that its master is leaving it for an indefinite period. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... began to talk to himself, and in a low voice cried out with pleasure in the delicious scent brought by the soft wind that came from a cart of strawberries. Sabine said a word or two in reply. Again they were silent. They were enjoying the charm of these indefinite silences, and trivial words. Their dreams were the same, they had but one thought: they did not know what it was: they did not admit it to themselves. At eleven they ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... theoi, to theion} and {ta theia}. They never conceive of their {theos} as anything more than a rather larger and more majestic member of the innumerable family of the divinities of which the poets had sung—more spiritual only in so far as it was more vague and indefinite, a sort of mysterious, mythical being to which is sometimes attributed the same kind of personality possessed by the inferior gods, and sometimes regarded as simply the abstract divinity which characterized ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... perfectly familiar with quantities which increase together, and never cease increasing, but so that one of them remains finite when {71} the other becomes infinite. In fact, the argument is a perfect non sequitur.[152] Those who propose it have in their minds, though in a cloudy and indefinite form, the idea of the increase of guilt being proportionate to the increase of greatness in the being offended. But this it would never do to state: for by such statement not only would the argument lose all that it has of the picturesque, but the asserted premise would have ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... Cleveland, was born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, on the first of April, 1841. His education was obtained at a village school house. When he was in his thirteenth year his parents removed to Ohio, and the lad remained with them until his eighteenth year, when he left home with a somewhat indefinite idea of doing something for himself, although possessing neither money nor friends to aid him in his start in life. Until the year 1864, he wandered from place to place, turning his hand to various employments, but was dissatisfied with ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... Christ had our sins laid upon his back; yea, of God was made, that is, reputed, sin for us (Isa 53; 2 Cor 5:21). Were we under the curse of the law by reason of sin? Christ was made under the law, and bare the curse thereof to redeem (Gal 4:4, 3:13; Rom 3:24). Had sin set us at an indefinite distance from God? Christ has become, by the price of his redeeming blood, a reconciler of man to God again (Col 1:20). Were we by sin subject to death? Christ died the death to set us free therefrom (Rom ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... days of Cain and Abel were the infancy of the world,—as we have sometimes heard,—when will it come to maturity? Its divisions of life cannot follow the plan of animated beings; for, with an embryonic condition of an indefinite period, and an infancy of three hundred and fifty millions of years, more or less, we can hardly expect that it will really have begun to enjoy the freedom of adult life, before the human race will have attained to its earthly limit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... no higher bravery than facing an indefinite terror such as this, as the colonel was at pains to point out, but ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... foundation of the theory of natural selection is the fact that living bodies tend incessantly to vary. This variation is neither indefinite, nor fortuitous, nor does it take place in all directions, in the ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... certain of his own movements, that he expected to be immediately married. In the fair copy, the vague foreboding of some accident to come was so painfully present to his mind, that he struck out the words which referred to his marriage, and substituted the designedly indefinite phrase, "domestic affairs." ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... by saying that they have so little common sense as to oppose the concession to them of rights that will broaden the scope of their lives and of their activity in society. It matters but little that the desire for suffrage appears in its initial stage, in the vague form of an indefinite proposition: the fact is that there has been an indication of that desire, and in my judgment the plant has germinated and it is useless to endeavor to smother it, as it will grow again. The more we delay female ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... hostile to such a measure. The people of England, he remarked, were at this moment paying the expenses of an armament for which they never gave their consent, and as far as that went, they were paying their money for not being represented in parliament. Fox, in conclusion, made some indefinite remarks on the books recently published upon principles of government; ridiculed the idea of danger from innovation in the constitution of England, and warmly applauded the principles of the French revolution, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... as the 'Herbs' and the 'Sunflowers.' You are not to call them Lipped flowers, nor Composed flowers; because the first is a vulgar term; for when you once come to be able to draw a lip, or, in noble duty, to kiss one, you will know that no other flower in earth is like that: and the second is an indefinite term; for a foxglove is as much a 'composed' flower as a daisy; but it is composed in the shape of a spire, instead of the shape of the sun. And again a thistle, which common botany calls a composed flower, as well as a daisy, is composed in quite another shape, being on the whole, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... that sleeping on the couch within, my sleep was troubled. Many dreams I had, indefinite and broken. I recall none of their images, except I feel a dim sensation 'twas my lot to live in brighter days than now rise on our race. Suddenly I stood upon a mountain tall and grey, and gazed upon the stars. And, as ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... surprise that was very annoying, but that was made to produce compensations. An unexpected fourth person, presuming—so Rosalie was given to understand—on a long standing, indefinite invitation, had dropped in to dinner. She recognised him directly they entered the drawing-room and could not stop the emblem of a swift vexation about her mouth and in her eyes. He caught it, she was ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... of the requirements of the amendment, the railroad companies claimed that they could issue first mortgage bonds on their properties to an indefinite amount and exchange them with the state for its bonds, bond for bond, but the governor, who was Hon. Henry H. Sibley, construed the amendment to mean that the first mortgage bonds of the companies which the state was to receive must be an exclusive first lien on the lands ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... wrong," continued Dashall; "it is a Corporation, which was founded in the year 1515 by Henry VIII. and consists of a Master, four Wardens, eighteen Elder Brothers, in whom is vested the direction of the Company, and an indefinite number of younger Brothers; for any sea-faring man may be admitted into the Society by that name, but without any part of the controul of its concerns. The elder Brethren are usually selected from the most experienced commanders in the navy and the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... was ten minutes late. A newsboy had made two trips to the train-board in quest of information. When the big locomotive finally thundered and hissed its way to a stand-still near the gates, Canal Street seemed to have become a maze of indefinite avenues, so dizzy had she grown of a sudden. Her eyes searched the throng that swept through the .gates; at ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... capable of indefinite extension, in a long, low dining room that was a replica of the hacienda dining rooms of the Mexican land-kings of old California. The floor was of large brown tiles, the beamed ceiling and the walls were whitewashed, and the huge, undecorated, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... was that it adjusted nothing, improved nothing, left everything to drift on toward an indefinite end. If Lester had married Jennie and accepted the comparatively meager income of ten thousand a year he would have maintained the same attitude to the end. It would have led him to a stolid indifference to the social world of which now necessarily he was a part. He would have drifted ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... appears to be a Hittite name, like the "Pisiris" of an Assyrian inscription (Schrader), being the Mongol "bisir" ("rich"), with the indefinite nominative in s, which marks the Hittite as a non-Semitic tongue. The other names are also apparently non-Semitic, ...
— Egyptian Literature
... with such strength, that its bill pierced the board. And now the visitor should turn to contemplate the grand and solitary Frigate Bird. This bird appears to have the power of sustaining itself in the air for an indefinite period, and to wander with the utmost confidence on its broad pinions, over hundreds of miles of ocean, now and then dipping to secure its prey. This slim, pale, and solitary wanderer must have a noble ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... She must have come that distance, but not ALONE. Doubtless she had kept her duenna in waiting in the road. Perhaps it was she who had frightened Cecily. Had Cecily told ALL she had seen? Her embarrassed manner certainly suggested more than she had told. He felt himself turning hot with an indefinite uneasiness. Then he tried to compose himself. After all, it was a thing of the past. The fair unknown had bribed the duenna for once, no doubt—had satisfied her girlish curiosity—she would not come again! But this thought brought with it such a sudden sense of utter desolation, a deprivation ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Indicate temperamental youthfulness in vigor and courage. Say something original—something strong, maybe a little startling; but it must be self-evidently true. By all means avoid anything that suggests parrot talk or indefinite thought. Do not expect the other man to listen with interest to a statement proceeding ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Union, and seen something of its matchless symmetry, beauty, and indefinite capabilities, ever unfolding, to promote human welfare, through its unity with variety, its liberty with order, its freedom of action of each part in its own sphere, coexisting with the harmonious working of all together as one grand whole—all of which arises, as was said, from the unconscious ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Explanation.—I say indefinite, because it cannot be determined through the existence itself of the existing thing, or by its efficient cause, which necessarily gives the existence of the thing, but ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... great value. As from its hard nature it turns the edge of the best-tempered tools, it serves for the construction of wharves, as well as for the keels of ships,—the attacks of the teredo, or sea-worm, being futile upon the iron network of its fibres. It can remain under water for an indefinite period without rotting, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... I hope that change will do well by you. I would therefore have you write after the 20th of August, to Lord Holderness, to beg of him to obtain his Majesty's leave for you to return to England for two or three months, upon account of your health. Two or three months is an indefinite time, which may afterward insensibly stretched to what length one pleases; leave that to me. In the meantime, you may be taking your ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... not very difficult to account for. They doubtless inhabit only the extreme depths of the ocean, and are probably endowed with the means of sustaining life whilst sunk for long periods—if not for an indefinite time—at those depths; it is easy, therefore (supposing such to be the case) to understand that it may be quite opposed to the creature's habits to appear at the surface at all; and that, when it does so, it will be—as, indeed, we have every reason to suppose—at very lengthened ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... made by themselves (the sole and undisputed property of the makers); (3) those stolen from enemies, and (4) those given or bought. Nothing is given except with a view to a gift in return. Property obtained by gambling is held by a very indefinite tenure. ...
— Siouan Sociology • James Owen Dorsey
... men, we must first explain the widespread belief in immortality; we must answer the question, how does it happen that men in all countries and at all stages of ignorance or knowledge so commonly suppose that when they die their consciousness will still persist for an indefinite time after the decay of the body? To answer that question is one of the fundamental problems of natural theology, not indeed in the full sense of the word theology, if we confine the term strictly to a reasoned knowledge of a God; for the example of Buddhism proves that a belief in the existence ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... times, and concludes: "I have read this for thee, oh, such and such a one." Or, "I have transferred the merit of this to thee." When you question these people as to the particulars of their belief, you find their ideas vague and indefinite. Among the men a dispute quickly starts,—the people who have been found good by the examining angels on the night of the burial are there, but the bad are somewhere else. No, says another, they are all in their graves, but the bad suffer ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner
... there'll take you the rest of the way," said the liveryman; and, accepting his hopeful view of the situation, the girl consented to go on in such indefinite fashion. ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... chasm of indefinite time, he saw a studio and himself happy at an easel, with this devoted dark face resting against his side, reciting her work to him and quivering with joy at some sign of success. But the whole panorama ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... passed, and she did not come back. They passed monotonously, like all the springs and winters he had known. He had got his rise at Michaelmas; but he was free from the obsession of the matrimonial idea and all that he now looked forward to was an indefinite extension of the ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... their sensibility and their vocation; that, not only in their private interest, but again in the interest of the public, not merely through prudence, but also through equity, all should not be indistinguishably restricted to the same mechanical pursuit, to the same manual labour, to the same indefinite servitude ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... my freedom for an indefinite time," she thought, "in order that William may see Cassandra here at his ease. He's not the courage to manage it without my help—he's too much of a coward to tell me openly what he wants. He hates the notion of a public breach. He wants to ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... is to say, he recalled clearly all that had led up to that vicious blow from out of the darkness which had found his jaw with such surprising accuracy; and he was visited by one or two rather indefinite memories of ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance |
