"Vague" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as if the sun plunged from the zenith to the west. It would make joy a stranger, and bring grief as bitter as when a father or a mother mourns the death of an only son. Besides all this, something darker beyond is dimly hinted in that awful, vague, final threat, 'The end thereof ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... bell that once called its flock to worship had become as mute as her own dead heart. She did not hear the whirr of the great machine inside the tent, as it plunged through space with its girl occupant. These things were a part of the daily routine, part of the strange, vague dream through which she must stumble for the rest of ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... despondent as to the result of his wooing. He seemed more anxious to assure me of his devotion than to question me about mine, as if he imagined that my coldness was caused by pique or jealousy. I drew away my hands, and tried to stop him by vague murmurs of dissent, but it was no use, he only became more ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... attendant whom De Vaux addressed thus hastily, the equerry and his fellow-servants of the royal chamber rushed hastily into the tents of the neighbouring nobility, and quickly spread an alarm, as general as the cause seemed vague, through the whole British forces. The English soldiers, waked in alarm from that noonday rest which the heat of the climate had taught them to enjoy as a luxury, hastily asked each other the cause of the tumult, and without waiting an answer, supplied by the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always observed that the visitors to the abbey remained longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes the place of that cold curiosity or vague admiration with which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the great and heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of friends and companions; for indeed there is something of companionship between the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... a vague remorse atoning for her greed and long abuse, By care no longer heeded and pity ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... dross. She leaned back in the carriage, with a restless, burning cheek, and wondered why she was born to be so miserable. The thought of Mary's saintly face and tender eyes rose before her as the moon rises on the eyes of some hot and fevered invalid, inspiring vague yearnings ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... is full of the forthcoming celebration of the Balkan Federation, which is to take place this day month, although I must say, for myself, that the ceremony is attaining to such dimensions that I am beginning to have a sort of vague fear of some kind. It almost seems uncanny. Rupert is working unceasingly—has been for some time. For weeks past he seems to have been out day and night on his aeroplane, going through and round over the country arranging matters, and seeing ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... Mona, "and I seemed to smell them quite strong," and she told them her dream—at least a part of it. She left out about the forget-me-nots that she rowed and rowed to try and get. She could not have told why she left out that part, but already a vague thought had come to her—one that she was ashamed of, even though it was so vague, and it had ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... but undoubtedly effective, based upon two fundamental principles: regard for public opinion, and hope of reward. The daily tasks were prepared and rendered as if in the presence of the great if somewhat vague public which at times she individualized, as she became familiar with her pupils, in the person of father or mother or trustee, as the case might be. And with marvellous skill she played this string, albeit occasionally she ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... one on the way. The din of battle had been succeeded by a dead silence, no sound was heard from the city, whose population were awe-stricken by the events of the day, and terrified by the expectation of further acts of vengeance by the French. Those in the suburbs had heard but vague rumours of the fighting in the streets and of the massacre at the mosque, but they had learned from fugitives of the defeat of the great sortie, and knew that the insurrection had been completely crushed. The moon was just rising when Edgar and his companions reached the spot ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... delegate was Yates, whose criticism of the work of the convention manifests hostility to a Union. He seemed to have little conception of what would satisfy the real needs of a strong government, preferring the vague doctrines of the old Whigs in the early days of revolution. Lansing was clearer, and, perhaps, less extreme in his views; but he wanted nothing more than an amendment of the existing Confederation, known as the New Jersey plan.[30] The moment, therefore, that a majority favoured the Virginia plan ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... best of that fatherly love which it would be such exquisite joy to see lavished upon her own. Alas! poor Christian! all these things passed over her as the wind passes over a bare February tree, stirring no emotions, for there were none to stir. Her predominating feeling was a vague sense of relief in the presence of the children, and of delight in the exceeding beauty of ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... fancy. The picturesque blackguard who had mouthed so gallantly his desire to reign over France and save her would in any case have tickled the king's taste for the eccentric, but when the encounter with the poet came upon the heels of the king's strange dream and was followed by the vague prognostications of the star-gazer, the business loomed majestic in his eyes. He had always before his mind the memory of the radiant, saintly maiden who had come like a messenger from heaven to help his father when his father's fortunes seemed to be in the very dust, and it was in all seriousness ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... a mandarin; lying in bed there; not any particular mandarin, a vague mandarin, the mandarin most convenient and suitable under all the circumstances. She deliberately wished him dead, on the off-chance of acquiring riches, or, more accurately, because she was short of fourteen and fivepence in order to look perfectly ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... He did not think it necessary to mention his other name, especially as, having run away from home, he had a vague idea that it might lead to ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... it meant mischief. Every purple flush of its hideous body told me so. The vague, goggling eyes which were turned always upon me were cold and merciless in their viscid hatred. I dipped the nose of my monoplane downwards to escape it. As I did so, as quick as a flash there shot out a long tentacle from this mass of ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the mansion with an almost fierce desire to penetrate its mysteries. It seemed to her that a strange voice came whispering on the breeze, urging her to the fulfilment of a mystical mission. With a vague, yet wild, purpose she entered the house, and took her way to her mother's chamber. Mistress Pauncefort was there. Venetia endeavoured to assume her accustomed serenity. The waiting-woman bustled about, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... The region called "Casi" in the inscription of Usurtasen I (Brugsch, "Hist.," i., p. 139) was in Upper Egypt, and the Cush of the Bible is apparently intended—a very vague term for the southern deserts from the Euphrates to Nubia. There were, however, Cushites also in Babylonia. In the present case the Cassites who lived on the Euphrates, east of the Hittites, and who were Mongols, are ...
— Egyptian Literature
... advance as a dark street is lit by the sudden turning-up of the lamps. All modern industry rests on this principle. We are now so accustomed to the idea that energy is a quantity that we can hardly realize a time when it was merely a vague term. If we want an illustration of how thoroughly we have grasped this idea let us remember that when we pay our electric-light bill we pay so much money for so many units of energy supplied; for so much energy, let us note, not for so ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... mitts. He would have to stop dragging her from place to place; a suitable position for the present was all he hoped for now. There must be other institutions, larger and farther away, to which Eunice could be sent. He had a vague memory of such a place somewhere on the Delaware, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Spiritual Life is not something outside ourselves. The idea is not that Christ is in heaven and that we can stretch out some mysterious faculty and deal with Him there. This is the vague form in which many conceive the truth, but it is contrary to Christ's teaching and to the analogy of nature. Life is definite and resident; and Spiritual Life is not a visit from a force, but a resident tenant in the soul. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... cloth from the table, and begins deftly to put the room in order. Michaelis watches her with a kind of vague intentness. ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... saw not one that, in his opinion, could compare with Patience Heatherstone; but still, what chance had he of supporting a wife? At present, at the age of nineteen, it was preposterous. Thoughts like these ran in his mind, chasing each other, and followed by others as vague and unsatisfactory; and, in the end, Edward came to the conclusion that he was without a penny, and that being known as the heir of Beverley would be to his disadvantage; that he was in love with Patience Heatherstone, and had no chance at present ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... hell,— And woman's slander is the worst,— And you, whom once I loved so well, Through you my life will be accursed." I spoke with heart and heat and force, I shook her breast with vague alarms— Like torrents from a mountain source We ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... her to a movie and he pleaded that he had already seen the bill, and asked her if she wanted to bore him. And when she pouted he made her a present of a pair of silk stockings. She accepted all sorts of presents, so that he felt he was making progress. She was making vague promises now of "sometime" and "maybe," and his desire was whipped up with anticipation, ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... were forced upon Lane, never to be effaced. First he found that the change in him was vast and incalculable and vague. He could divine but not understand. Secondly, the men of the service, disabled or not, were old stories to New Yorkers. Lane saw soldiers begging from pedestrians. He muttered to himself: "By God, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... in the ordinary acceptation of the term. He does not draw the multitude about him. He is no Boanerges of the Temple; but he is a giant as regards a firm grasp of doctrinal truth. He never evolves new shapes or fantastic theories, "won from the vague and formless infinite;" but he "proves all things," and "holds fast that which is good." If he is not an essentially popular preacher—and this is a merit which even his most partial admirers would scarcely venture to claim for him—he is edifying and ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... of Malietoa and Mataafa. Samoan politics, the strifes of Germany, England, and the States, were labyrinthine: their chronicle is written in his "Footnote to History." My conjectures as to the romantic side of his dealings with the rightful king are vague and need not be recorded. "You can be in a new conspiracy every day," said an Irishman with zest, but conspiracies are better things in fiction than in real life; and Stevenson had no personal ambitions, and, withal, as much common sense as Shelley displayed in certain late events of his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... autocratic lines was another achievement of Peter the Great which long endured. At the head of the state was the tsar or emperor, possessing absolute, unlimited powers. An ancient assembly, or Duma, of nobles, which had formerly exercised vague legislative rights, was practically abolished, its place being taken by an advisory Council of State whose members, usually noblemen, were selected by the tsar. All traces of local self- government were similarly swept away, and the country was henceforth administered by the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... whole class firmly believed that Kolya was so good at universal history that he could "beat" even Dardanelov. Kolya did indeed ask him the question, "Who founded Troy?" to which Dardanelov had made a very vague reply, referring to the movements and migrations of races, to the remoteness of the period, to the mythical legends. But the question, "Who had founded Troy?" that is, what individuals, he could not answer, and even for some reason regarded the question as idle and frivolous. But the boys ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... for it was considered exorbitant by those who were opposed to the purchase in 1803, yet the possibilities of the country, then so vague and ill-defined, so amply justified the prophetic faith of its advocates that a century later many millions of dollars in excess of the purchase money were spent in commemorating the transfer of a tract of land without which the present greatness ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... with the superior English force by dropping explosives on the enemy's ships, and might thus contribute towards gradually restoring the equilibrium of the opposing forces. These possibilities are, however, vague. The ships are protected to some extent by their armour against such explosives as could be dropped from airships, and it is not easy to aim correctly from a balloon. But the possibility of such methods of attack must be ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... expect so," he answered, looking vague, "but don't absolutely count on me, Mary. I've been ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... poor nurse, who spoke, as I thought, merely from the instinct of affection to me and to her native country. I promised her that I would, some time or other, visit Glenthorn Castle: but this was only a vague promise, and it was but little likely that it should be accomplished. As I regained my strength, my mind turned, or rather ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... a woman of thirty,—no,—she is the woman of thirty. Balzac has written some admirable pages on this subject; my memory of them is vague and uncertain, although durable, as all memories of him must be. But that marvellous story, or rather study, has been blunted in my knowledge of this tiny face with the fine masses of hair drawn up from the neck and arranged elaborately on the crown. There ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... spirits, the voice of the slave as he recited the gospels. His words flowed gently in the darkness, which they filled with zeal, mercy, and hope; and the neophyte, her hand in that of Ahmes, lulled by the monotonous sounds, and the vague visions in her mind, slept calm and smiling, amid the harmonies of the dark night and the holy mysteries, gazed down on by a star, which twinkled between the ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... out of bed, and in his confusion made sure the officers of justice were come for him: he began to huddle on his clothes with a vague notion ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... poems a somewhat vague tradition seems to come down of the achievements of one of the European peoples in that ancient cycle. Sometime then Greece had her last Pre-periclean age of greatness. What form it took, the details of it, were probably as much lost to the historic Greeks as the details of the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... his left shoulder; not always so, indeed, but often enough to be remarkable; and then he would occasionally start it straight again, eyes right, with a nervous twitch, any thing but pleasant to the marvelling spectator. It was as if he was momentarily expecting to look upon some vague object that affrighted him, and sometimes really did see it. Mr. Jennings had consulted high medical authority (as Hurstley judged), to wit, the Union doctor of last scene, an enterprising practitioner, glib in theory, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the baser metals could be transmuted into gold, and in attempting to effect this transmutation, the alchemist was not acting on a vague; haphazard surmise; he was pursuing a policy dictated by his conception of the order of nature; he was following the method which he conceived to be that used by nature herself. The transmutation of metals was part and parcel of a system of natural philosophy. ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... conscience at the part he was acting, and who relieved his bosom by revealing the whole plot to his confessor. The latter lost no time in reporting it to Picado, by whom in turn it was communicated to Pizarro. But, strange to say, it made little more impression on the governor's mind than the vague warnings he had so frequently received. "It is a device of the priest," said he; "he wants a mitre." 11 Yet he repeated the story to the judge Velasquez, who, instead of ordering the conspirators to be seized, and the proper steps taken ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... salvation that Christ brings. That is our first thought. We often have very vague,—I might also say visionary—ideas of what Christ is; we love the person of Christ, but that which makes up Christ, which actually constitutes Him the Christ, that we do not know or love. If we love Christ above everything, we must love humility above everything, for ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... during the night of her son's absence. A painful unrest, such as she never remembered to have felt before, took complete possession of her. Whenever the monotony of the drenching rain outside lulled her into slumber for a few minutes, she was sure to start up in bed with a vague, singular impression that some one had called her name. After midnight, when the storm fell, the shrill wailing of the rising wind seemed to forebode disaster. Although she believed Gilbert to be safely housed in Chester, the fact constantly slipped ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... excesses which distinguished those sectaries. But he felt himself alienated from them, partly because of the lack of the prestige of great men among them, and because he found Faustus, a Manichean bishop and the Goliath of their forces, ignorant of many simple subjects, and unable to give but vague and shallow responses to the questions that agitated his soul. He afterward had a famous controversy with this Faustus, and wrote against him thirty-three books. The results of Augustine's studies were that he was able to refute ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... North Russia and gain their most loyal service in the expedition. Truth, not silence with its suspected acquiescence with British propaganda and methods of dealing with Russians; truth not rumors, truth, was needed; not vague promises, but truth. ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... vague, unformulated anxiety, had quickened the lagging feet of the girls, so that when they came up the gravel walk leading to the door of the cottage, they were almost running. Peggy who was a little in the lead, was the first to reach the door. She turned the knob quickly, ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... so clearly did he keep in mind even the possible position of each corps of his army, he exclaimed, "I bet it is Victor." And in fact it was Marshal Victor, who awaited us with lively impatience. It seemed that the marshal's army had received very vague information of our disasters, and was prepared to receive the Emperor with joy and enthusiasm. His soldiers still fresh and vigorous, at least compared with the rest of the army, could hardly believe the evidence of their ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... out of Grandma Wentworth's upstairs windows he remembered those last talks and understood that yearning for home. When he had been in Green Valley only a few weeks the old life began to grow vague and unreal. The mother was real and near. But the splendid figure of his father was fading into a strange memory. He was a father to be proud of, that strong, cool, selfless man who had asked nothing of life but to take what ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... a vague answer that it was not easy to make out what he meant—the old man brought Else to ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... which occurs at puberty may go beyond its physiological limits in some instances, and become pathological. The vague feelings, blind longings, and obscure impulses which then arise in the mind, attest the awakening of an impulse which knows not its aim; a kind of vague and yearning melancholy is engendered, which leads ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... I left home just what was needed for house-keeping in the army, and being able to gather only vague ideas on the subject from Jack, who declared that his quarters were furnished admirably, I had taken out with me but few articles in addition to the ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... in the afternoon, and were regarded as a pleasant relaxation after the labours of the day, and to escape from the government of Bulldog to the genial freedom of Moossy's room proved, as we felt in a vague way, that Providence had a tender heart towards the wants and enjoyments of boys. It goes without saying that no work was done, for there were only half a dozen who had any desire to work, and they were not allowed, in justice to themselves and to their fellows, to waste ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... at least, since every one knew well how her pocket-money went! "What is your idea of something useful, my dear? We'd be pleased to take into consideration any scheme which you may have to propose, but in its present form the suggestion is somewhat vague." ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... word, but, standing as firm and erect as possible, presented his back to him, the father gave him one blow, and it was ended—justice was satisfied; the criminals had surrendered to salutary laws, of which they had but a vague and undefined knowledge. It was their first offence; I explained to them the nature of the laws they had broken, warned them to be careful in their future conduct, and let them go. Little Dalbean, directly we got outside the jail, walked up to me, ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... honours of a god, he proceeds within the palace, while she lingers behind for one brief moment to pray openly to Zeus to fulfil her prayers and to bring his will to its appointed end. Thoroughly alarmed, the Chorus give free utterance to the vague forebodings which shake them, the song of the avenging Furies ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... took two ships, not one, the meeting with Henry Hunt (st. 18) being the ballad-maker's invention. Lord Charles's fraudulent use of the 'white flag' in st. 37 is supported by Bishop Lesley's partisan account of the engagement, written c. 1570. The time-scheme of the ballad is unusually vague: it begins 'in midsummer-time,' and the punitive expedition starts on 'the day before midsummer even'—i.e. June 19, which agrees with the chronicles. The fight takes place within the week; but Lord Charles does not get home until ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... serious charge they can have against us. We have neither collected arms, nor taken any steps towards a rising. We have talked over what we might do, if there were a landing made from France, but, as there may be no landing, that is a very vague charge." ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... helped himself to some pickled walnuts which one of the tall footmen handed to him at that moment. Mrs. Windsor had a vague idea that all poor people lived upon pickles, and she had commanded her housekeeper to lay in a large store of them for this occasion. Having landed them safely upon his plate, Jimmy proceeded to devour them, helping himself to some cold beef as a species of condiment, ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... claim honor and distinction. The intangible, the invisible, the vague, the shadowy, I leave to women and priests—concerning myself only with the substantial realities of life. Great Jupiter! what would become of mankind were we all women, and priests? How could the courts ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... Germany, weighed down by the burden of war and anxious to keep Italy neutral, appeared to believe that the difficulty had been settled. But Baron Sonnino's reply proved disappointing. He found the proposals too vague. They did not settle the Irredentist problem; above all they made no appreciable improvement in Italy's military frontier; finally, they did not offer adequate compensation for the freedom of action Austria would enjoy in the Balkans. "A strip of territory in the Trentino," ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... rather vague. He may be said to have run a parallel course to the Flinders River away to the north of it, until, on nearing the coast, the bend of the river brought it across his course again. Here he found the tracks of the camels, which assured him that Burke ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... other paper, but people did sometimes throw treys at backgammon, and that which not rarely happened with two dice of six faces might happen if they had sixty or six hundred faces. On the whole, he did not see that there was any ground, so far, for anything more than a vague suspicion. He thought it not unlikely that Mr. Bradshaw was a little smitten with the young lady up at The Poplars, and that he had made some diplomatic overtures to the duenna, after the approved method of suitors. She was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... man betrays, whoever lets the word come out of his lips, till an hour or two, at least, after the time that his silence upon it becomes tormenting. A course of small, quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm,—nor so vague as to be misunderstood—with now and then a look of kindness, and little or nothing said upon it,—leaves nature for your mistress, and she fashions it ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... against the imperial encroachments, and after the death of Henry, Pope Nicholas II. (A.D. 1059-A.D. 1061) was enabled to obtain a decree that the election of the Popes should, for the future, rest with the Roman Cardinals, subject to the consent of the Roman Clergy and people, and with some vague reference to the ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... not be allowed to be come merely a high-sounding phrase, a vague generality, a pious hope, to which everyone can give lip-service. They must be made to have real meaning in terms of the daily thoughts and acts of every man, woman and child in our land during the coming year and during the years that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... seek to know? Is not All life a problem? and the tiniest pulse Beats with a throb which the remotest star Feels in its orbit? Why ask me? Rather say Whence these vague yearnings, whither swells this heart, Like some wild floweret leaping at the dawn? 'Tis not for me, 'tis not for thee to tell, But Time shall be our teacher, and his voice Shall fall unheard, unheeded in the midst! Still art thou doubtful? Then arise and sing Into the Empyrean vault, while ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... down his emptied cup, "trot out your strike. I reckon our eyes are strong enough to bear it now." Stacy drew the blanket from the vague pile that stood in the corner, and discovered a deep tin prospecting-pan. It was heaped with several large fragments of quartz. At first the marble whiteness of the quartz and the glittering crystals of mica in its veins were the most noticeable, ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... with a great effort managed to drag the bicycle to the side of the road. Then, clutching the rail that bounded the plantation, I began to stagger slowly forward along the slightly raised path. I think I had a sort of vague notion that there might be something to ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... time on curses vague, nor try to take his gold, Nor seek to shatter any plan that he might dearly hold. A crueler revenge than that for him I would bespeak: I'd wish his wife and little one might ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... The word struck him, and jarred a little. Was his mother not grazing the truth? And a vague notion rose in his mind, without actually taking shape, which just now he had not time to attend to, but which cast a shadow, like a young cloud. He was silent, and his mother after a ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... A vague belief in the transformation of sexual energy has long been widespread. It is apparently shown in the idea that continence, as an economy in the expenditure of sexual force, may be practised to aid the physical and mental development, while folklore reveals various sayings in regard to ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... directly due to England's management of Ireland. They would probably send the regiment to the polls forthwith and examine their own consciences as to their duty to Erin; but they would never be easy any more. And it was this vague, unhappy mistrust that the I. A. A. were ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... beset, as it were, by faint fleckings of sound, lightly drawn from a crazy old fiddle under the chin of a gaunt, yellow-haired young giant, one Ephraim Blinks, who lolled on a log, and who by these vague harmonies unconsciously gave to the talk of his comrades a certain ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... of the strong, organised monarchy was indeed completely to alter the position of the nobles. The German barons in the south had succeeded in throwing off the control of their territorial lords; they owned no authority but the vague control of the distant Emperor, and ruled their little estates with an almost royal independence; they had their own laws, their own coinage, their own army. In the north, the nobles of Mecklenburg Holstein, and Hanover formed ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... said Siward; and the girl looked around at him, partly because his voice was pleasant, partly because a vague memory was beginning to stir within her, coupling something unpleasant with the name ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... Unfortunately she was animated by an unceasing activity in trivial matters, and was rarely silent. Some women make one think of a printed page in which there are too many italics, and too many useless marks of exclamation. At first, their constant cries of admiration and outbursts of enthusiasm produce a vague sense of uneasiness in the listener, which soon develops to a feeling of positive distress and generally ends in a real and deep-rooted dislike. At the beginning one looks about anxiously for the object which could produce so grotesque a smile. There is nothing, ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... too, which he said constantly—for he carried his beads loose in his trousers' pockets that he might tell them as he walked the streets—transformed themselves into coronals of flowers of such vague unearthly texture that they seemed to him as hueless and odourless as they were nameless. He offered up each of his three daily chaplets that his soul might grow strong in each of the three theological virtues, in faith in the Father Who had created him, in hope in the Son Who ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... A vague suspicion, that had been born in the young man's mind immediately after his rescue from the ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... by an indistinguishable object moving across the plain from the direction of Cameron City. He regarded it as he might have regarded the progress of a coyote or prairie-dog, till it stopped at his own gate, half a mile to the northward. A vague feeling of dissatisfaction came over him at the sight, but he did not disturb himself, nor make any remarks to the dogs on the subject. They however soon pricked up their ears, and sprang to their feet, excited and pleased. They ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... light, falling through the shattered panel of the closed door, pierced the vague gloom of the passage and hovered on the door of the bedroom opposite—the room into which the dead man had ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... dragged their pitiful belongings along with them, and the murmur of their alien voices rang through the bustle of the station. Hetty Torrance was not unduly fanciful, but those footsteps caused her, as she afterwards remembered, a vague concern. She believed, as her father did, that America was made for the Americans; but it was evident that in a few more years every unit of those incoming legions would be a citizen of the Republic, with rights ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... became a distinguished object, much more a lady. All would have gone according to the proverbial marriage bell, I suppose, had there not been a slight palpable shadow over all of us from hearing vague stories of a lost battle in Florida, and from the thought that perhaps the very ambulances in which we rode to the ball were ours only until the wounded or ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... he answered, "but I will admit that I should not have said anything about it yet, if it had not been for your vague threats of what you were going to do. Virginia," he added, dropping his voice almost to a whisper, "you know that I am fond of you. I have been fond of you ever since ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... morning, Owen rode into the town in the vague hope that he should hear something of his sister, either through Mrs Jenkins's servant or the post. Mrs Jenkins had not returned, but there was a neat, smooth letter for his father, directed by Howel, with which he rode off homewards at full gallop. He longed to open it, but he dared not. He was ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... from rose to lilac; already the mountains were growing fairy-like under that vague, diffuse lustre which heralds the rise of the full moon. It rose, enormous, yellow, unreal, becoming imperceptibly silvery as it climbed the sky and hung aloft like a stupendous arc-light flooding the world with a radiance so white and clear that I could very easily have written ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... down without a word, so crushed was he by the vague presence of approaching disaster. But after breakfast, when his friends gathered round him before a comfortable fire, Birotteau naively related the history of his troubles. His hearers, who were beginning to weary of the monotony of a country-house, were keenly interested ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... end of this voluminous work we have a very vague impression of St. Francis. We see that he was a saint, a very great saint, since he performed an innumerable quantity of miracles, great and small; but we feel very much as if we had been going through a shop of objects of piety. All these statues, whether they are ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... eyes; their temporal setting, which imparts their chief interest to us, was of no account to him. He gives us not the slightest clue to the name of the besieged place, or even to the side on which he was engaged. The date of the event is left equally vague. The last point however we are able to determine with something like accuracy. November, 1644, was the earliest period at which Bunyan could have entered the army, for it was not till then that he reached the regulation age of ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... way. It seems to me, that, by taking into account the proportion of soluble material contained in the water that flows down from the mountains, the probable quantity of water that flows down in the year, and the proportion of salt in the lake itself, some vague guess might be made as to the time this state of things has been lasting. I have no data, unfortunately, even for such a rough calculation as this, or I should ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... temper was above all industrial. Men who were working hard and fast growing rich, who had the narrow and practical turn of men of business, looked angrily at this sudden disturbance of order, this restless and vague activity, these rhetorical appeals to human feeling, these abstract and often empty theories. In England it was a time of political content and social well-being, of steady economic progress, as well as of a powerful religious revival; and an insular lack of imaginative interest ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... in sackcloth and ashes instead of gnashing teeth at tradesmen who obey a human instinct. The publican is considered, among platform folk in the temperance body, as even worse than a criminal, if we take all things seriously that they choose to say, and I have over and over again heard vague blather about confiscating the drink-sellers' property and reducing them to the state to which they have brought others. Then there is the rant regarding brewers. Why forget essential business only in order to attack a class of plutocrats whom we have ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... bed, feigning a light-heartedness she was far from feeling, and dreading, with vague misgivings, what ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... the individual as in exalting him. History furnishes us with memorable examples of this. It does not allow us to go astray in the narrow ways of a peevish and jealous personality, nor to lose ourselves in the vague labyrinth of a chimerical and false communism. The latter would destroy what constitutes the power and dignity of man. It would wipe out the most prominent features of his noble nature, by destroying the support of energy and activity and the food ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... in India, M. Adolphe Pictet, in his learned researches on the subject of the primitive Aryas, arrives, in what concerns the religious idea, at the following conclusion: "To sum up: primitive monotheism of a character more or less vague, passing gradually into a polytheism still simple, such appears to have been the religion of the ancient Aryas."[13] One of our fellow-countrymen, who cultivates with equal modesty and perseverance the study of religious antiquities, has procured the greater part of the ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the boards of the hotel. Rick tried to pierce the gloom, to see his captors, but there wasn't enough light to see more than vague shapes. He had never heard the voices before. The feet came back. The voice said, ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... half hour of plodding, sighed as he turned into the welcome shade of Flat Rock. The pike had been shimmering white and his eyes ached. Yet, as he followed the woodland road, he thought of a garnet shadow on a young throat, and again he sighed. In a vague way it meant a sign to him, and troubled ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... rises above all these difficulties. He has thoughts of his own, truly human, deeply religious, and thoroughly national; and there are expressions and comparisons in his poetry which had never been used before. His style, however, is lengthy, his descriptions tiresome, and his characters somewhat vague and unearthly. As critics, we should have to bestow on Wolfram von Eschenbach, on Gottfried von Strassburg, even on Hartman von Aue and Walther von der Vogelweide, as much of blame as of praise. But as historians, we cannot value them too highly. If we measure them with ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... for manure for turnips. The old Vicar, whose age reaches halfway back to the day of the Battle, stood tottering over the verge of the trench. Carlyle has shewn great sagacity in guessing at the localities from the vague descriptions of contemporaries: and his short pasticcio of the battle is the best I have seen. {137} But he will spoil all by making a demi- god of Cromwell, who certainly was so far from wise that he brought ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... a telegram being sent announcing her safety, but in time to allow her crew—or what was left of it—to catch a late train to the north, and the solemn, echoing tramp of their heavy feet at midnight in the silent street of Eyemouth brought the stricken people from their beds with a start, and with vague apprehension of fresh disaster. But their dread was turned to rejoicing, except for the family of that man who came home never again. In all, on that Sunday night it was known that sixty-four of the men of Eyemouth had perished, and seventy-one were ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... a dark time indeed for Natalie Lind—left entirely by herself, ignorant of what was happening around her, and haunted by vague alarms. But the girl was too proud to show to any one how much she suffered. On the contrary, she reasoned and remonstrated with herself; and forced herself to assume an attitude of something more than resignation, of resolution. If it was necessary that her ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... a in Pegasus continued 45 deg. to the south points out the important star Fomalhaut in the mouth of the Southern Fish. To the right of this line, nearly half-way down, is the rather vague constellation of Aquarius, where a small equilateral triangle with a star in the centre may ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... kinds of literature. It is intended to show him the various points in relation to form, content, and spirit, to which in succession he is to devote his attention. It is hoped that the book will give definiteness and delight to literary study, which, for lack of such a guide, has so often been vague, unsatisfactory, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... Herbert is a hard-headed fellow, not likely to fly off on a vague notion. Is this Hall girl's mother still ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to remind him that I was at this time not eighteen years old. I had a remembrance of civilisation previous to my arrival among the Indians, and as we enjoyed every comfort and some luxuries at the settlement, I still had a remembrance, although vague, of what had passed in Italy and elsewhere. But I had become an Indian, and until I heard that I was to undertake this journey, I had recollected the former scenes of my ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... applies especially to boys above a certain somewhat vague limit of maturity. The child's temperament does not commonly answer to this description during infancy and the years of close tutelage, when the child still habitually seeks contact with its mother at every turn of its daily life. During this earlier period there ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... prescribed by Mr. Lincoln's note was that he would receive only an agent sent him "with the view of securing peace to the people of our one common country." The rebel Secretary of State proposed, in order to make the instructions "as vague and general as possible," the simple direction to confer "upon the subject to which it relates"; but his chief refused the suggestion, and wrote the following instruction, which carried a palpable contradiction on ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... advised that proceedings should be taken against Rose, alias Zora? Why, Catenac again; and this same man, in addition to acting for Gandelu, it seems, was also the confidential solicitor of the Marquis de Croisenois and Verminet. Perhaps he had only obeyed their instructions. All this was very vague and unsatisfactory, but it might be something to go upon, and who could say what conclusion careful inquiry might not lead him to? and Andre determined to carry on his investigations, and endeavor to find the hidden links that connected this chain of rascality together. He had taken up a pencil ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... when she should have been hustling in the direction of the Novelty Cloak and Suit Store. She was aware of a vague, strangely restless feeling in the region of her heart—or was it ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... the 2d of December. Our arrival had been preceded by vague rumors of an official mission more or less hostile to the interests of France, which caused great excitement among the French people and the American residents in Paris, and serious depression of United ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... America on a solitary expedeetion two years ago. Came back last year. Had undoubtedly been to South America, but refused to say exactly where. Began to tell his adventures in a vague way, but somebody started to pick holes, and he just shut up like an oyster. Something wonderful happened—or the man's a champion liar, which is the more probable supposeetion. Had some damaged photographs, said to be fakes. Got so touchy that he assaults anyone who asks questions, and heaves reporters ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spreading over their land, the steamers plying on their waterways, the merchant and the missionary penetrating year by year farther to the interior, became to the Chinese mind types of an alien invasion, changing the course of their national life and fraught with vague forebodings of disaster to their beliefs and ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... urgent, credit. It brought him into contact with the local authorities—with the red-haired rachitic judge, for instance, between whom and Mr. Parker there sprang up an intimacy which was viewed with vague forebodings. The lady, being a Catholic—Mr. Parker, too, was suspected of Roman proclivities—was confessed by the parish priest. That was a point gained; the PARROCO being above suspicioin, among foreigners at least. She stayed mostly indoors, inventing ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the awe and majesty of the universe, are no doubt permanent in the race, but the expression of these feelings in creeds and forms addressed to the understanding, or exposed to the analysis of the understanding, is as transient and flitting as the leaves of the trees. My little poem is vague enough to escape the reason, sincere enough to go to the heart, and poetic enough to stir ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... perceive, I tore off the seal, but it has not been opened. I grieve at the loss of your suit, and for the injustice done you, but what can one expect but injury, when forced to have recourse to law! Lord Abercorn asked me this evening, if it was true that you are going to Ireland? I gave a vague answer, and did not resolve him how much I knew of it. I am impatient for ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... little doubt that Russia will gain the enormous advantage of a free opening into the Mediterranean and that the battle of the Marne turned the fortunes of France from disaster to expansion. But the rest of the settlement is still vague and uncertain, and German imperialism, at least, is already working hard and intelligently for a favorable situation at the climax, a situation that will enable this militarist empire to emerge still strong, still capable of recuperation and of a renewal at no very remote date of the struggle for ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... image of his Creator, in the union for a time of his spirit with his corporeal frame we may find at least an intelligible illustration of the connection of God with the universe. Discarding the word mind, as the fruitful source of vague speculation and error, let us look for a moment at that of which it is a mere synonyme,—at the man himself. The sentient, thinking being, which I call self, is an absolute unit. Duality or complexity cannot be predicated of it in any intelligible ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen
... said to have shown any particular reason why it should displace the other materials. With the ordinary heat developed in an open fire of wood there is no likelihood of cracking the concrete facing if the material has been properly mixed and applied, although there seems to be a vague impression that this might be a real danger. The color of concrete gives it no particular recommendation, for it is one that remains unchanged by fire, though not unstained by smoke. Brick, on the other hand, and tile, have the very closest ...
— Making a Fireplace • Henry H. Saylor
... vague, half-formed fear that all the girls had felt, yet none had dared express, and the silence that followed was ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... appearances a vague suspicion forced itself upon Rose, who, however, obeyed the summons and continued to approach the party, who now watched him with fixed attention. As he came closer to the group, the brave but unfortunate soldier ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... slackened. Straight on she flew, like a real thistledown, her fair curls streaming on the wind, her eyes big with a vague terror. As the Doctor sped farther and farther away from her, she ceased calling realizing that she must reach ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... requesting her to send me another the next day, and I passed the rest of this day, in an ebb and flow of feelings; the man and the Christian struggling against the man and the courtier, and in the midst of a crowd of vague fancies catching glimpses of the future, painted ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... too vague to know, A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; And he, exploring fifty feet below The rosy ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... passing beneath Nina's tower he looked up at her casement under the vague impression that he should there find her whom he was so eager to meet; but no light was visible, either there or in any part of the building; and he had little time for observation, for his guide led him on with a step so light and ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... fancies,—alarm and distress were the emotions she felt the most, and which most were impressed upon her speaking countenance; and as Adrian now drew nearer to her, despite the gentleness of his voice and the respect of his looks, her fears, not the less strong that they were vague, increased upon her: she retreated to the further end of the room, looked wildly round her, and then, covering her face with her hands, burst into ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... acquainted with the difficulties and dangers of the country through which it will have to pass, and the best methods of overcoming and avoiding them. Besides, the doctor himself is well accustomed to the life he will have to lead; and enters upon it, not with the vague and uncertain notions of Back and Franklin, but with a pretty correct apprehension of the probable routine of procedure, and the experience of a great many years spent in the service of the Hudson Bay Company [see note 1]. After a few ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... probably heightened by his vague and unconscious sense of the squire's kindness, was depicted strongly on his countenance, and ended in ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Robespierre's wisdom was that of the crimes and infamies of atheism. Gamelin had never denied the existence of God; he was a deist and believed in a Providence that watches over mankind; but, admitting that he could form only a very vague conception of the Supreme Being and deeply attached to the principle of freedom of conscience, he was quite ready to allow that right-thinking men might follow the example of Lamettrie, Boulanger, the Baron d'Holbach, Lalande, Helvetius, the citoyen ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... long-hushed voices; and faces sweet Were thronging the shadowy side of the street As far as the eye could see; Dreaming again, in anticipation, The same old dreams of our boyhood's days That never come true, from the vague sensation Of walking asleep in the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... luchet is driven into the ground at random; and almost invariably I find none of what I am seeking. To be sure, the males, flying level with the ground, give me a hint, at the outset, with their certainty of instinct, as to the spots where the females ought to be; but their hints are very vague, because they go so far in every direction. If I wished to examine the soil which a single male explores in his flight, with its constantly changing course, I should have to turn over, to the depth of perhaps a yard, at least four poles ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... hang out the signs of Venus and Mars. This little planet could not provincialize such a man. The multiplication-table is for the every day use of every day earth-people, but the symbols he deals with are too vast, sometimes, we must own, too vague, for the unilluminated terrestrial and arithmetical intelligence. One cannot help feeling that he might have dropped in upon us from some remote centre of spiritual life, where, instead of addition and subtraction, children ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) |
