"Vague" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boy will remain in that boy all his life. When he enters the workshop he will unconsciously identify the foreman with Duncan, and fear him and hate him. I believe that many a strike is really a vague insurrection against the teacher. For it is well known that the unconscious mind ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... since I have been lying on my back with nothing else to do. When your body gets kind of turned over in the ditch it's wonderful how your mind begins to hustle around the place. Until this thing happened my intellect was nothing more than a vague rumor. I had heard of it, now and then, in college, and I had hoped that it would look me up some time and ask what it could do for me, but it didn't. These days I would scarcely believe that I have ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... Fronde, [Footnote: Probably so called from the name of a street game played by Parisian children and often stopped by policemen.] the last attempt prior to the French Revolution to cast off royal absolutism in France. It was a vague popular protest coupled with a selfish reaction on the part of the influential nobles: the pretext was Mazarin's interference with the parlement ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... himself and his narrow escape from having to give up his big house and all the rest of it; that, soft-hearted and generous though he was, to those poor chaps and their wives and children he wasn't giving a thought. Wall Street never does—they're too remote, too vague. It deals with columns of figures and slips of paper. It never thinks of those abstractions as standing for so many hearts and so many mouths, just as the bank clerk never thinks of the bits of ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... wizard here referred to the Moravians, who had about that time sent out their first mission to Greenland. Of course he knew nothing of the object those self-sacrificing men had in view in thus establishing themselves in Greenland, only vague rumours having at that time reached his distant tribe. All he knew was that they were Kablunets, or foreigners, and that they had something mysterious to tell about the God ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... but he did not put it in his breast pocket. And then he sat for some time doing nothing, looking before him, with his legs stretched out and his hand beating a little tattoo upon the table. "Well: well? well!" That was about what he said to himself, but it meant a great deal: it meant a vague but great disappointment, a sort of blank and vacuum expressed by the first of these words—and then it meant a question of great importance and many divisions. How could it ever have come to anything? Am I a man to marry? What ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... a part of the roof of the pavilion fell in, so rapid was the progress of the fire. A loud, vague, and horrible noise accompanied the collapse, and a vast volume of flame went soaring up to heaven. It must have been visible at that moment from twenty miles out at sea, from the shore at Graden Wester, and far inland from the peak of Graystiel, the most eastern summit of the Caulder Hills. ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was his vague answer with a wave of his big fat hand in the direction of the dark pine forest that stretched before us. "We shall be there about ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... the duties I was to perform were very vague, as were also my ideas of Ireland generally. Hitherto I had passed my time, seated at a desk, either writing letters myself, or copying into books those which others had written. I had never been called upon to do anything I was unable or unfitted to do. I now understood that in ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... dinner. The Tessiers have always lived in Bordeaux and they are connected by marriage with everybody—from the blacksmith up to the Mayor's notary. Once a Tessier was Mayor himself. Years and years ago Madame's great-uncle Jean had emigrated to America, and from time to time vague rumors of the wealth he had achieved in the new country reached the ears of his relatives—but no direct ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... the thoroughfares and bazaars—Indians and Singalese, Chinese and Burmans—and one's first impression is a vague confusion of picturesque costumes and unaccustomed types of mankind; for Rangoon is cosmopolitan to a degree, and can hardly be called a Burmese ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... of this book to trace the story of Japan from its beginnings to the establishment of constitutional government. Concerned as this story is with the period of vague and legendary antiquity as well as with the disorders of mediaeval time and with centuries of seclusion, it is plain that it is not an easy task to present a trustworthy and connected account of the momentous changes through which the empire has ...
— Japan • David Murray
... none of me! I grow morbid. Remember words of song, entreating vague somethings (perhaps stars) "to smile on their vagabond boy"—no one smiles on me. And I to have vapoured about "throwing the handkerchief." Fool—fool!... They are more sympathetic in the back-streets, though. "Starmouth is very full!" They say, complacently, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... him, and in the pleasure it gives to artistic visitors. And in the same way Mr. Stelling believed in his method of education; he had no doubt that he was doing the very best thing for Mr. Tulliver's boy. Of course, when the miller talked of "mapping" and "summing" in a vague and diffident manner, Mr Stelling had set his mind at rest by an assurance that he understood what was wanted; for how was it possible the good man could form any reasonable judgment about the matter? ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... of the currents of Russian national life toward the North, there was awakened in Europe a vague sense of danger. Not far from Novgorod, on and about the shores of the Baltic, were various tributary Slav tribes, mingled with pagan Finns. This was the only point of actual contact, the only point without ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... no doubt, likewise, our knowledge of the tones of sympathy, of grief, of pity. And so the chant of a blind woman in this city of the Far East may revive in even a Western mind emotion deeper than individual being,—vague dumb pathos of forgotten sorrows,—dim loving impulses of generations unremembered. The dead die never utterly. They sleep in the darkest cells of tired hearts and busy brains,—to be startled at rarest moments only by the echo of some voice ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... the end of the second century, tells us that the religion so marvelously propagated throughout the whole world was not a vague, ever-changing form of Christianity, but that "this faith and doctrine and tradition preached throughout the globe is as uniform as if the Church consisted of one family, possessing one soul, one heart, and as ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... cannot be denied that, when he had made up his mind to even this extent, he felt an unaccustomed sense of freedom—a vague and indistinct impression of holiday-making—which was very luxurious. He had his moments of depression and anxiety, and they were, with good reason, pretty numerous; but still, it was wonderfully pleasant to reflect that he was his own master, and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... murmurs Philip, whose long strides are not easy to keep pace with. They walk more slowly when out of sight. Oh, the delightful dawdle back through the vague shadows of evening in sweetly scented lanes! How merrily she prattles with charming ingenuousness, while he watches her expressive features, a new ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... analysis, while awaiting the advent of the Saint Paul of the humanitarian faith of the future, should gather up provisionally such fragmentary illustrations of this new faith as are to be found in the records of the old. Whatever form may be ultimately imposed on our vague religious aspirations by some prophet to come, who shall unite sublime depth of feeling and lofty purity of life with strong intellectual grasp and the gift of a noble eloquence, we may at least be sure of ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... (except that it did not enjoy the light of the true religion), yet very superior to it in point of material well-being. Not a race of cannibals, as the credulous Diodorus Siculus, on the strength of some vague tradition, was pleased to delineate; but a people acquainted with the use of the precious metals, with the manufacture of fine tissues, fond of music and of song, enjoying its literature and its books; often disturbed, it is true, by feuds and contentions, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... old-looking boy, Tom thought. His spine had been deformed through an accident in infancy, and to Tom he was simply a humpback. He had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem's son had some relation to the lawyer's rascality, of which he had so often heard his father ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... seeming Steve Packard was a gentleman; he had that vague something called culture; he bore himself with the assurance and ease of one who knew the world; he had been to college—and Terry knew nothing more of school than was to be learned at a country high school. Steve's father had "broken" her father ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... awakened her to the realization that according to general opinion the battle she was waging was a losing one. It was a terrible discovery. What should she do? She must do something. Wild-eyed she plunged into the hall, a vague impulse to seek help moving her; and it was just as she paused irresolute at the head of the stairs that she came face to face with Mrs. McGregor ascending to ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... "why." As the moments slipped by, the years fell away from her. She had carried her little romance in her heart unsullied by reality. To-night the talk of Memorial Day had brought it all back, and the thrill of other days returned with the odor of the lilacs. She yielded to a vague, crazy notion, and in an impulsive, girlish run she went to the corner of the porch and broke ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... broad Scotch setting of Rantin' Roarin' Robbie's poem, came The Dream of Jubal. This, as I take it, was a work produced in the Jubalee Year. I don't know who JUBAL was, at least I've only a vague idea. Rather think he was a partner of TUBAL. TUBAL, JUBAL & CO., Instrument Makers. From this Oratorio I gather that JUBAL was an enthusiastic amateur, but that the only musical instrument he possessed was a tortoise-shell,—whether ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... will may hear the Staircase story told; All its blobs, splotches, facets,—what you will; The vague Nude, compassed murkily about With ravage of six long sad hundred stairs, Dizzily plunging with tumultuous glee! Whirling the stairdust, hazarding oblique, The moon safe in her pocket! See she treads Cool citric ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... duties, and imposes increased burdens and constraint on the subject; that a highly instructed and intelligent community may perceive the benefit of compulsory obligations which, at a lower stage, would be thought unbearable; that liberal progress is not vague or indefinite, but aims at a point where the public is subject to no restrictions but those of which it feels the advantage; that a free country may be less capable of doing much for the advancement of religion, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... also the Academician Bailly. But the illustrious philosopher, the virtuous magistrate, gave no hold for positive and decided criminations. The hideous pamphleteer understood this well; and therefore he adopted vague insinuations, that allowed of no possible refutation, a method which, we may remark by the way, has not been without imitators. Marat exclaimed every day: "Let Bailly send in his accounts!" and the most powerful ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... death of Henry I., David, backing his own niece, Matilda, as Queen of England in opposition to Stephen, crossed the Border in arms, but was bought off. His son Henry received the Honour of Huntingdom, with the Castle of Carlisle, and a vague promise of consideration of his claim to Northumberland. In 1138, after a disturbed interval, David led the whole force of his realm, from Orkney to Galloway, into Yorkshire. His Anglo-Norman friends, the Balliols and Bruces, with the Archbishop of York, now opposed him and his ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... than it actually was. On the other hand, it is certain that when some Southern apologists said that the slaves did not want their freedom they were wrong. Dr. Booker Washington, himself a slave till his sixth or seventh year, has given us a picture of the vague but very real longing which was at the back of their minds which bears the stamp of truth. It is confirmed by their strange and picturesque hymnology, in which the passionate desire to be "free," ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... clear memories begin. I have indeed some vague impressions of a visit to the widow of my mother's grandfather—Lady Robert Seymour—who died in her ninety-first year when I was two years old; though, as those impressions are chiefly connected with a jam-cupboard, I fancy ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... the balance; depend. Adj. uncertain; casual; random &c. (aimless) 621; changeable &c. 149. doubtful, dubious; indecisive; unsettled, undecided, undetermined; in suspense, open to discussion; controvertible; in question &c. (inquiry) 461. vague; indeterminate, indefinite; ambiguous, equivocal; undefined, undefinable; confused &c. (indistinct) 447; mystic, oracular; dazed. perplexing &c. v.; enigmatic, paradoxical, apocryphal, problematical, hypothetical; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... appears upon the terrace amid the flowers to which night has only left a vague outline, without diminishing their delicious perfumes; the dahlias mingle with the mentzelias, with the helianthus, and, beneath the occidental breeze, form a waving basket which surrounds Sarah, ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... the ribs, until it reached the shoulders, where it settled into a weary pain; thirdly came a chilliness over the whole body, which was quickly followed by a heavy head, swimming eyes, and throbbing temples, with vague vision, which distorted and transformed all objects of sight. This lasted until 10 P.M., and the mukunguru left me, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... a faint smile and flitted by him into the passage. How could she rest on a night like this, with the vague whisperings of the spirit-world all about her? Besides, in another hour the darkness would be over—the Dawn would come! Not for all the world would she miss that wonderful coming of a new day—the day which Isabel was awaiting in that dumb ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... not room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain it is that if any matter were propounded to him, on which ordinary mortals would rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague mysterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some time in profound silence, and at length observe that "he had his doubts about the matter;" which gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief, and not easily imposed upon. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... opening statement, we promised to prove various facts; and we have proven them, in the main; if there are any contentions about which the evidence remains vague, this circumstance exists only because His Honor has seen fit to rule out certain testimony which is vital to the case, and we believed, and still believe, was entirely ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... after sailing night had settled down. The English shore was but a vague, distant line. A short, choppy sea was running. In the sky was a new ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... the odium of summoning all his friends from their rest? In the midst of the doubts as to the new and old Ministry, when the political needle was vacillating so tremulously on its pivot, pointing now to one set of men as the coming Government and then to another, vague suggestions as to an autumn session might be useful. And they were thrown out in all good faith. Mr. Mildmay, when he spoke on the subject to the Duke, was earnest in thinking that the question of Reform should not be postponed even for six months. "Don't pledge ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... from Victorian journals, and with domestic odds and ends lying here and there. The good lady speedily produced the tea and added cakes and scones, while George brought into action his cheap American machine and its hoary old records; vague, scratching echoes here in the depths of the bush of the gay sparkling life of Piccadilly and Leicester Square by night, laughing theatre crowds and wonderful women—a life worlds away from George and his rough, but hospitable ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... issued. "A new party of malcontents" had arisen, "assuming to themselves, though very falsely, the title of the People." They affect, he tells us, "superiority to the whole legislature ... and endeavor in effect to animate the people to resume into their own hands that vague and loose authority which exists (unless in theory) in the people of no country upon earth, and the inconvenience of which is so obvious that it is the first step of mankind, when formed into society, to divest themselves ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... 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 ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... congress of sovereignties which good men in the Old World have sought for, but could never attain, and which imparts to America an exemption from the mutable leagues for common action, from the wars, the mutual invasions, and vague aspirations after the balance of power which convulse from time to time the Governments of Europe. Our cooperative action rests in the conditions of permanent confederation prescribed by the Constitution. Our balance of power is in the separate reserved rights of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... not know whether the words brought the idea suddenly and as if with a flash into Carford's head. It may have been there dim and vague before, but now it was clear. He paused on his way to the door, and turned back with brightened eyes. He gave a ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... not accept them and asked for arguments; at the same time he, like every one else, felt the influence of a vague dread of some imminent and terrible disaster hanging over the earth ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... profession in the United States in greater numbers, and as the scale of salaries is by no means equal pay for equal work, except in New York, money is saved by employing women. I think that it is the student of arts (that English title which is as vague and unmeaning as the Scottish one of humanities)—student of ancient classical literature—who, whether man or woman, has least perception of the modern spirit or sympathy with the sorrows of the world. With all honour to the classical authors, there are two things in which they ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... which lies before our mortal vision so splendid and so ruthless, so beautiful and so dreadful, does really gain both its substance and significance from immaterial and unseen powers. It is significant not in itself but because it hides the truth. It points forever to a beyond. It is the vague and insubstantial pageant of a dream. Behind it, within the impenetrable shadows, stands the Infinite Watcher of ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... from which particular quality this charm was derived. The contour of her face certainly formed a delightful oval, and there was a wistful look in her eyes which was half appealing and half impish. Her demure expression was not convincing, and there rested a vague smile, or promise of a smile, upon lips which were perfectly moulded, and indeed the only strictly regular feature of a nevertheless bewitching face. She had slightly curling hair and the line of her neck and ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... is a real boy, a little grimy, ignorant chimney sweep, next a water baby or eft, in which character, under the tutelage of the fairies, he gains his education. Briefly at the end he is a man, an engineer, but all that is delightfully vague, for he has ceased to be the little Tom ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... connection. Roger went out to talk with Warner, while Aubrey fumed in the back office. He could not sit still, and paced the little room in a fidget of impatience, tearing his watch out of his pocket every few minutes. He felt dull and sick with vague fear. To his mind recurred the spiteful buzz of that voice over the wire—"Gissing Street is not healthy for you." He remembered the scuffle on the Bridge, the whispering in the alley, and the sinister face of the druggist at his prescription counter. The whole series ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... gave her and the stone only a single glance, and then rested his eyes upon our new friend. To my anxiety, Ariadne was gazing fixedly at him now, her expression combining both agitation and a vague fear. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... philosophers who so often seemed on the verge of our later discoveries did no more than vaguely anticipate their successors of this later century. To gain an accurate, really specific knowledge of the properties of elementary bodies was reserved for the chemists of a recent epoch. The vague Greek questionings as to organic evolution were world-wide from the precise inductions of a Darwin. If the mediaeval Arabian endeavored to dull the knife of the surgeon with the use of drugs, his results hardly merit to be termed even an anticipation of modern anaesthesia. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... roomy and vague, that before I came into court, I did not know what special acts of mine would be brought up against me—for to follow out the Judge's charge, all my life is a series of constructive misdemeanors. Nay, ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... neither exact nor eloquent. The thoughts are not precise; the expressions are vague; and, of consequence, the reasonings of no value. The attempts at rich displays of imaginative power are contrasted with a want of invention; and illustrative stories, of feeble execution, are lavished abundantly in lieu of physiological facts. ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... cold form, and let the lamplight play upon it. I looked, and then shrank back terrified; since, say what she might in explanation, the sight was an uncanny one—for her explanations were beyond the grasp of our finite minds, and when they were stripped from the mists of vague esoteric philosophy, and brought into conflict with the cold and horrifying fact, did not do much to break its force. For there, stretched upon the stone bier before us, robed in white and perfectly preserved, was what appeared ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... in doubt about the meaning and scope of this demand, and the next was equally vague. The Servian reply to these two demands was necessarily guarded: yet the Austro-Hungarian Government treated ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... reconstructed him, was of the blunt type, with probably very little feeling of democracy for those in subordinate positions, and with, most certainly, a good deal of insular and racial prejudice. Evidently a rather vague bargain had been struck, and the motor had set forth. Then ensued financial wranglings and disputes as to terms. It ended by useless hauteur on Davis's part, and inexcusable but effective action by the German. For Davis found himself ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... in a Turkish bath. Andrey entered the water-tight conning tower, which was flooded with diluted, greenish light from the ports provided for the purpose of giving a view of the surrounding waters. He peered through the glass pane. Vague, blurred forms and shadows gradually became visible in the twilight of the deep. One of the shadows wavered and glided along the window, and the round, tragic eyes of a fish glanced at Andrey. The fish disappeared ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... to extinguish all compassion for the sufferers. He apologizes for it; in fact, he justifies it. He who (as the reader has just seen in what is quoted from this letter) feels so much indignation at "vague denunciations," when made against himself, and from which he then feared nothing more than the subversion of his power, is not ashamed to consider the charge of a conspiracy to massacre the Parisians, brought against his master upon denunciations as vague as possible, or rather ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... vague May well take example from HAIG, Who talks to the Huns In the voice of his guns Till they dread him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... Vague rumors brought in by traders and friendly scouts floated hither-thither—rumors of mysterious remarks, of secret councils, of a collecting of arms and powder, and a sharpening of knives and hatchets, even among tribes remote ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... minute—I'm thinking." He spoke in a quick, hoarse tone, a tone alas! which Kitty at one time in their joint lives had come to associate with deep feeling on his part, in those days when she used to come and tell the lonely man of her sorrows, of her temptations, and of her vague, upward aspirations.... ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... a lady of the old time—the face, vague like a shadow, smiles; and a hand, gloved with an openwork mitten, retains upon her satiny knees a lap-dog, with a ribbon about its neck. That picture fills me with a sort of charming melancholy. Let those ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... that grand dinner of Monday 3d; and was in very bad humor in consequence. Crown-Prince has written from Potsdam to his Sister, 'No doubt I am left here lest the English wind get at me ( de peur que le vent anglais ne me touchat ).' Saw King at Parade, who was a little vague; 'is giving matters his consideration.' Majesty has said to Borck and Knyphausen, 'If they want the Double-Marriage, and to detach me from the Kaiser, let them propose something about Julich and Berg.' Sits the wind in that quarter? King has said since, to one Marschall, ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... candle-light and lamplight. But that died away, through gradations of augmenting obscurity, until the extreme end, towards the western bay, melted out into complete darkness. This produced an effect of almost limitless length which moved her to a childish, and at first pleasing, fancy of vague danger—an effect heightened by the ranges of curious and costly objects standing against, or decorating, the walls in a perspective of deepening gloom. Turquoise-coloured, satin curtains, faded to intimate ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... hand the greatest task of our time, and which on the other side has a majority which revolt of even a small number can at any moment turn into a dishonoured and impotent minority. Such being the material, a nice little plot was concocted by which a certain number of young members, full of all that vague distrust of existing ministries which belongs to ardent young Radicalism, were to be induced to give a vote against Mr. Gladstone's proposal to take away the time of private members. And it is reported that one member of the Liberal party had begun operations as many as four ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... he resembles, not a mirror which clearly reflects the truth, but "a glass fantastically cut into a thousand spangles;" that side by side with great moral truths we sometimes find his worst errors, contradictions, and paradoxes; that his eloquent utterances about God often degenerate into a vague Pantheism; and that even on the doctrine of immortality his hold is too slight to save him from waverings and contradictions;[51] yet as a moral teacher he is full of real greatness, and was often far in ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... Aristotelians, the material, the acquired and the active. The problem goes back to Aristotle's psychology, who distinguishes two intellects in man, passive and active (above, p. xxxvi). But the treatment there is so fragmentary and vague that it gave rise to widely varying interpretations by the Greek commentators of Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Themistius, as well as among the Arabs, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes. The latter insisted on the unity of the intellect for the human race, thereby ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... put the well-filled bags into Tom's hands, and received the silver he offered in payment—three bright new dimes. At that moment she caught a glimpse of Ed Brown lurking in the area way of a house at the other end of the block. The sight filled her with a vague misgiving which she could not have explained. She glanced again at Tom; he ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... of poetry imitate this method of nature by calling on us with a thousand voices at once. Poetry deals often with vague or contradictory statements, with a jumble of images, a throng of impressions. But in true poetry the psychology of real life is closely followed. The mysticism is momentary. We are not kept suspended ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... Beast, as it were, by the skin of her teeth. The Pope drew most of her fire usually, because she could understand him; the target was plain and she could shoot. But this tree-and-forest business was so vague and horrible. It terrified her. "He makes me think," she went on, "of Principalities and Powers in high places, and of things that walk in the darkness. I did not like the way he spoke of trees getting alive ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... in the place, and, as Mr. Gibbon has taught us, the offspring of this admixture is something fantastic and unpredictable. I forgot my grievous thirst and my tired feet in admiration and a certain vague expectation of wonders. Here, ran my thought, it is fated, maybe, that romance and I shall at last compass a meeting. Perchance some princess is in need of my arm, or some affair of high policy is afoot in this jumble of old masonry. You will laugh at my folly, but I had an excuse for it. A fortnight ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... of the Host the congregation, permeated by a vague impression that the mystery was becoming more sacred, ceased its private conversations, and assumed a certain appearance of reverent devotion. And as the organ fell silent all heads were bowed at the tinkling of a little bell which was shaken ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... selected and arranged, the first part of the work to be considered is the orthography, which was long vague and uncertain; which at last, when its fluctuation ceased, was in many cases settled but by accident; and in which, according to your Lordship's observation, there is still great uncertainty among the best criticks; nor is it easy to state ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... leave my memory. We with the dogs had seen Wright turn away from the course by himself and the mule party swerve right-handed ahead of us. He had seen what he thought was a cairn, and then something looking black by its side. A vague kind of wonder gradually gave way to a real alarm. We came up to them all halted. Wright came across to us. 'It is the tent.' I do not know how he knew. Just a waste of snow: to our right the remains of one of last year's cairns, a mere mound: ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... very worthy person, but I am afraid too much beneath Sir Mulberry's station for us to make a companion of. Poor thing!' Acting upon this grave consideration she rejected the idea of taking the little portrait painter into her confidence, and contented herself with holding out sundry vague and mysterious hopes of preferment to the servant girl, who received these obscure hints of dawning greatness ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... they were instantly safe in the black heart of the mountains. Many a mile of hard riding lay before them, however, and there was no road, not even a trail that they could follow. They had never even seen the Crittenden schoolhouse; they knew its location only by vague descriptions. ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... lungs. The irrelevant ideas might consist of thoughts about a German lesson which you are going to study, visions of a face, or thoughts about some social engagement. These marginal objects are in the mind even when you conscientiously focus your mind upon the history lesson, and, though vague, they try to force their way into the focus and become clear. The task of paying attention, then, consists in maintaining the desired object at the centre of the mental field and keeping the distractions away. With this definition of attention, ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... drawers, and trays, and slides, that was quite bewildering. In this same box was stowed also a quantity of hair, the gleanings of all the horse-tails upon the premises. This was for making fishing-tackle, with a vague notion on the part of Harry that it was to be employed in catching whales and crocodiles. Then all their favourite books were stowed away in the same chest, in especial a packet of a dozen penny books, of which I think I could give a complete list ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... her window and letting the moonlight flood the room, sings the famous scena and prayer, "Leise, leise, fromme Weise," beginning, after a few bars of recitative, with a melody full of prayer and hope and tender longings, shaded with vague presentiment. It is an adagio of exquisite beauty, closing with an ecstatic outburst of rapture ("Alle meine Pulse schlagen") as she beholds her lover coming. The melody has already been heard in the overture, but its full joy and splendid ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... beginning to be a little overpowering. If Whitey had been a dog, a goat, a fowl, or even a stray calf, they would have felt equal to him; but now that the earlier glow of their wild daring had disappeared, vague apprehensions stirred. Their "good look" at Whitey had not reassured them—he seemed ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... promised to be here to speak to his character. I sent him a sub-poena on Saturday night. Though, after all, juries go very little by such general and vague testimony as that to character. It is very right that they should not often; but in this instance unfortunate for us, as we must rest our ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... leaning dreamily upon the gate-post. "Indifferink!" He tried to get the exact cooing quality of the unknown's voice. "Indifferink!" And, repeating the honeyed word, so entrancingly distorted, he fell into a kind of stupor; vague, beautiful pictures rising before him, the one least blurred being of himself, on horseback, sweeping between Flopit and a racing automobile. And then, having restored the little animal to its mistress, William sat carelessly in the saddle (he had ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... in quietly without being seen by his mother and tiptoed up to his room, where, in sour meditation, he spent the intervening time until supper was ready. In a vague way he realized that he had, by deserting the team, betrayed himself to all his comrades as a fellow swayed by petty jealousy; but this thought, which seemed trying to force itself humiliatingly upon him, he beat back and thrust aside, persisting in dwelling on the notion that he had been ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... stars at their glittering best overhead— By day or by night Their delightfulest light Laughing down from their little square heaven of blue!— Who gave you the name of Old Glory?—say, who— Who gave you the name of Old Glory? The old banner lifted, and altering then In vague lisps ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... afterward proclaimed his ecstasy—"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." But fear not, Mary! It is no ruffian band that approaches thee! These are no idle strangers, impelled by a vague curiosity; but they are the commissioned messengers of Providence and the ambassadors of peace! They have heard "glad tidings," and they are come to verify the visions they have seen, and to renew the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... from the room, soon brought back the weapon in question. Sweetwater, with a vague sense of disappointment disturbing him, took it eagerly and studied it very closely. But ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... expanding; his eyes were opening; his arms were stretching forth to grasp that which was finite, yet infinite. He dreamed strange dreams; his eyes started open to behold wondrous visions. The fever of the time was getting into his blood. Vague, half-understood impulses moved him hither and thither. He groped, and touched nothing. He cried out, ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... for me to give advice to a man of the world—but had it been in the days when I was Gaston d'Heronac, of the Imperial Guard, I should have told you—Use your intelligence, search, investigate for yourself. Make her love you—leave nothing vague or to chance. As a priest, I must say that I find all divorces wrong—and that for me she should remain the wife of the ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... dramatize education. They enable plain men and women to visualize in the concrete that vague word which means so little to them in the abstract. More properly they dramatize the identity between real education and actual life. On the platform before the audience is a miniature engine to which steam has been piped, a miniature frame house in course of construction, and ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... of it on her victim, however, was different from what she intended. For it roused suspicion. What if, he thought with himself, he was the victim of a conspiracy? What if the something frightful that befell him the night before, of which he had but a vague recollection, had been contrived and executed by the people of the house? This horrible old hag might remember else-forgotten things? What if they had drugged his wine? the first half of the bottle he had yesterday was decanted!—But the one he had just drunk had not been touched! ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... wandered about the house in a vague, restless way, unable to settle to anything, and trying to amuse herself by consulting with the nurse as to how they should go and fetch the baby back when they discovered where it was. She ate little or nothing, and after another sleepless night looked so worn and ill that the baron sent for ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... in fact, lost confidence in Drums after his wayward experiment with a potato-digging machine, which turned out a lamentable failure, and his premature departure confirmed our vague impression of ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... law was therefore propounded and adopted, by which any district which the magistrates of it might think proper to declare in a state of disturbance, or in immediate danger of becoming so, (phrases so vague that it required but little artifice to make them applicable at that time to any county in the kingdom,) was put into such a state of regimen, that any individual magistrate might on his own authority, without ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... are to be made Christian citizens of the great West.". This statement is symptomatic of the curious Christianity that now prevails among the various non-Catholic denominations. With them Christianity is nothing more than social welfare inspired by a vague philanthropy. Differences of creed are being cast to the winds, and Social Service is the basic idea of their forward movement, around which they are trying to rally their dwindling forces. It is then but consequent to have the burden of their message and ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... anxiously, who is a little thing herself, and looks even smaller than she really is because of her slender, girlish figure. She wonders in a vague, uncomfortable fashion whether—whether most men like ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... by measurers left immense, Through sound and shape and colour, comes the unsure Vague ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and seasickness. And amid this dirty chattering human assemblage, devouring nuts and oranges, sometimes making music and gaming, all half dulled and frightened by the usual fierce and anxious battle of life they had gone through and with the vague expectation of future wealth and pleasure in their eyes - amid these I saw my sweet, delicate wife with her eyes, now dark-rimmed but shining with joyous fervor, and her pale, delicate features - and amid the singing, eating, chattering and gaming ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... in which he had nothing to fear; for when a great work is approaching completion, the anxiety of the promoter becomes stronger and stronger. "No, no," he continued; "I am getting too full of suspicions;" and with these words he endeavored to put aside the vague terrors which were creeping ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... was the release of his will. His whole body sank. Under the intense whiteness of his face a cold gray shade began to creep. His last conscious instant spent itself in the strange gaze Allie had felt before, and now she had a vague perception that in some way it expressed a blessing and a deliverance. The instant the beautiful light turned inward, as if to illumine the darkness of his soul, she divined what he had once been, his ruin, his secret and eternal remorse—and the chance to ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... destined to hold for him still another unforgettable event in his life. Now that he was alone the memory of his master was not so vague as it had been yesterday, and the days before. Brain-pictures came back to him more vividly as the morning lengthened into afternoon, bridging slowly but surely the gulf that Neewa's comradeship had wrought. For a time the exciting thrill of his adventure ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... [48] This vague account of the extent of Malabar is erroneous or corrupt, as sixty-one Portuguese leagues would barely reach from Cape Comorin to Calicut. The extreme length of the western maritime vale of India, from Cambay to Cape Comorin, exceeds 250 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... but vague aspirations and self-conceits must be bound together by some practical necessity—perhaps a very homely and a very vulgar one—or they scatter and evaporate. One would think that rich people in high life ought to do more than poor folks ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... many drawing-rooms are there?" His wife waved a vague hand toward the folding doors on her right, implying the suite of Georgian rooms that stretched away beyond them; "one for every nuance if it comes to that. If they positively won't mix I shall have to segregate ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is perhaps noways connected with this great range, but rather with the tertiary volcanic rocks of Banda Oriental, and therefore the elevation at these places may have been infinitely slower than on the coast of Peru. All such speculations, however, must be vague, for as we know with certainty that the elevation of the whole coast of Patagonia has been interrupted by many and long pauses, who will pretend to say that, in such cases, many and long periods of subsidence may ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... may be gathered from the above description that the definition of the types implies many vague moments. Especially in regard to the G-type are very different definitions indeed accepted, even at Harvard.[6] It is also a defect that the definitions do not directly give quantitative characteristics ...
— Lectures on Stellar Statistics • Carl Vilhelm Ludvig Charlier
... he soon found out that Harry was frightfully hard up, and in the most delicate manner imaginable—a delicacy rather wasted on his friend—implored, as a special favour, to be allowed to be his banker. But Harry had refused, having vague ideas of much more important extent than a mere loan with regard to making Van Buren useful. He had thus gone up in his friend's estimation, at the same time placing him under a great and deeply felt obligation by gratifying his fancy for ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... are immortal, what happens to a man when he dies? It is said by some that at first the surroundings in his new life seem shadowy, but after a bit they grow solid; and then it is the world left behind that seems vague. You lose touch with it and with those whom you knew there—except when they think of you. When they think of you, although you can see them, and feel what they're thinking, it isn't like hearing the words that they say, or their voices; it's not ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... will sting Ada and make her miserable. As long as Katherine's heart is satisfied all else can be borne; but her conditions are more difficult. Heigho! for material ills there is nothing so intolerable as debt." She rose and went to her room with the vague intention of doing some of the hundred and one things which needed doing, one more than another, as was usual in her busy life, but somehow the uncertainty and anxiety oppressing her heart made her incapable of continued action; she was always breaking off to think—and the more she thought, the ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... hesitated. In a vague way she felt she would be doing her mother's and Cyril's great future an injury to tell her name. And yet, quick-witted as she was, it did not occur to her to ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... This should include a certain amount of Latin, which is needed throughout medical work. The student must also possess the necessary capacity for acquiring knowledge. It is very usual to find among the general public—women in particular—an idea that a tremendous amount of a vague quality which they describe as "cleverness" is necessary in order to follow one of the learned professions. Certainly this is not so in medicine. It is, however, necessary to be possessed of average ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... Carlyle's Door! But I did not. I should of course have asked and heard how he was: which I can find no one now to tell me. For his Niece has a Child, if only one, to attend to, and I do not like to trouble. I heard from vague Information in London that he is ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... Madame Patoff; but there was a vague look in her eyes, which showed that her thoughts were somewhere else. We were close upon the Asian shore, and I put the helm down to go about. The ladies changed their places, and there was a little confusion, in which Cutter found himself ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... willing she should go. But Moneta had somewhere heard that fairies who marry mortals receive the gift of a human soul: so, in spite of all objections, she was resolved to take the journey; for she had in her dark mind some vague aspirations after a higher ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... vague murmur in the group as he approached, and Nate Griggs came out from its midst, nodding his head threateningly. His hat, thrust far back on his sandy hair, left in bold relief his long, thin face with its small eyes, which seemed now so close together that his glance had ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... already been promised in marriage to the Mei family. But as dowager lady Chia had made, as yet, no open allusion to her intentions, (Mrs. Hseh) did not think it nice on her part to come out with any definite statement, and she accordingly observed to old lady Chia in a vague sort of way: "What a pity it is that this girl should have had so little good fortune as to lose her father the year before last. But ever since her youth up, she has seen much of the world, for she ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... father earned a few coppers by playing before public-houses in the East End, and then took to the road. Somehow or other he found himself on the Continent, and after many years he had turned up here. It was all very vague and incoherent. Often starving, homeless, and speaking no language but his own, is it to be wondered that the man had lost count of days, years, and time? Now he had a desire to journey to Greece, why, he knew not, but he clung to it with all a weak man's obstinacy. We could never let him ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... A vague desire, you say, resulting in confusion and mediocrity. This is true and will be true for some time longer; but instead of arguing in generalities let me illustrate these results by the ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... which it was heard; but he cannot print his tone, nor his air and manner, nor the contagion of his hardihood. All the while we were not sensible of the flutter of his ideas, the incoherence of his transitions, his vague notions, his doubtful assertions, and his meagre knowledge. A pen is the extinguisher ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... place, however, depressed her not at all. She exulted in the change of scene and the fresh air; besides, she knew that the presence of Desmond Okewood would dispel the vague fears that had hung over her incessantly ever since her father's murder. She had only met him twice, she told herself when this thought occurred to her, but there was something bracing and dependable about him that was ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... spiritual life, our conception of it is so vague that we are apt to overlook, or to regard lightly, the work of the Holy Spirit in redemption. The disciples of John, whom Paul met at Ephesus, believed in Jesus and had been baptized, and yet they told the Apostle ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds |
