"Vague" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mile to old Skene's cot. They walked it almost in silence—upon Ian's part in silence. The snow fell; it covered their footprints. All outlines showed vague and looming. The three seemed three vital points moving in a world dissolving or ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... written by her, but was a free adaptation which Colonel Yeatman-Biggs made from the German of Victor Bluethgen. Julie had been greatly amused by the tale, but, finding that it ended in a vague and unsatisfactory way, she could not be contented, so took up her pen and wrote a finale, her chief aim being to provide a happy ending for the old farm-dog, Flaps himself, after whom she named her sequel. The writing is so exactly similar to that of "The Hens," that the two ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... pipe, and drew himself to his full height, with his back to the fire. There had been nothing very remarkable in the observation made by the man to whom he had addressed himself, but he was in a peculiar state of mind, that gave undue importance to every word, sounding, as it did, a vague presentiment of some coming evil, which the very singular manner of the dog had created, although he would scarcely acknowledge this ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... eyes he saw suddenly something else than vague terror. He saw recognition. He felt himself a rushing, heartening comfort; he knew that his Friend had somehow come, that he was no ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... (including Celtae) looked with contempt on the short Romans.[12] Strabo also says that Celtae and Belgae had the same Gaulish appearance, i.e. tall and fair. Caesar's statement that Aquitani, Galli, and Belgae differ in language, institutions, and laws is vague and unsupported by evidence, and may mean as to language no more than a difference in dialects. This is also suggested by Strabo's words, Celtae and Belgae "differ a little" in language.[13] No classical writer describes the Celts as short and dark, ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... in spite of all I could say. I do not know the young man; he is said to be of good family and rich, but I never trust to vague assertions. I have warned M. Danglars of it till I am tired, but he is fascinated with his Luccanese. I have even informed him of a circumstance I consider very serious; the young man was either charmed by his nurse, stolen ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his seat. His hearers trembled with the sadness of an indefinable delight, immense and vague, and they forgot to applaud him. As this feeling died away Pundarik stood up before the throne and challenged his rival to define who was this Lover and who was the Beloved. He arrogantly looked around him, he smiled at his followers and then put the question again: "Who is Krishna, the lover, ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... have to get along without the name for the present. I'll tell you by and by." As Mr. Ransom pronounces these words, Miss Reed, on her side of the partition, lifts her head with a startled air, and, after a moment of vague circumspection, listens keenly. "But she was beautiful. She was a blonde, and she had the loveliest eyes—eyes, you know, that could be funny or tender, just as she chose—the kind of eyes I always liked." Miss Reed leads forward over the register. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... thrown Lovely but powerless upon walls of stone. These two fair daughters of a mother dead Were all the dream had left him as it fled. A joy at first, and then a growing care, As if a voice within him cried, "Beware A vague presentiment of impending doom, Like ghostly footsteps in a vacant room, Haunted him day and night; a formless fear That death to some one of his house was near, With dark surmises of a hidden crime, Made life itself a death before its time. Jealous, suspicious, with no sense of shame, A spy upon ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... "pretending to patriotism! They have no energy, no courage, no civism. Why, you might have remained for a twelvemonth under their very nostrils before they would have found you out. Gilet is the man for the service of his country." Merely to stop the torrent of his complainings, I asked him some vague questions relative to the nobleman whom I was now following to Paris. But the patriot was not to be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... beginning of the Avesta literature, and the developments in religion to which that literature testifies must have occupied a long period. On the other hand no one proposes to place Zarathustra before the departure of the Indian Aryans from the Indo-Iranian stock. From such vague data he may be assigned perhaps to somewhere about 1400 B.C. As to his province, there is considerable agreement among scholars that his doctrine spread from the east of Iran westwards; and though ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... Bettina, "always used to suggest vague horrors. But Dr. Anthony's doesn't. He has a wonderful way with his patients, puts their hands to work, because it's their minds that make them sick; they weave and make pottery. The last time I was there an anxious-eyed, beautifully-gowned woman was working on a rug, with three ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... She felt as if she had existed for years in this living nightmare of many horrors, had lain down and had slept with that dreadful sound in her ears from the very beginning of things. The life she had led before these ghastly happenings had become so vague a memory that it almost seemed to belong to a previous existence, to an earlier and a happier era. As in a dream she now recalled the vision of her English school-life. It lay not a year behind her, but she felt herself to ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... over the daughter of Gerard, but shrinking from the precise and the definite, his dreams were delightful, but vague. All that he asked was, that his present life should go on for ever; he wished for no change, and at length almost persuaded himself that no change could arrive; as men who are basking in a summer sun, surrounded by bright and beautiful ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... his driving-gloves, and unbuttoned his overcoat— then strode into the house. Innocent followed him—she was puzzled by his look and manner, and her heart beat with a vague sense of fear. There was something about the old man that was new and strange to her. She could not define it, but it filled her mind with a curious and inexplicable uneasiness. Priscilla, who was setting the dishes ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... which, though they carry his name, agree not with his doctrine." This is not surprising, since that we have often proved that these things have not been written by himself, nor by his apostles, but that for the greatest part they are founded upon tales, upon vague reports, and put together by I know not what half-Jews, with but little agreement between them; and which they have nevertheless published under the name of the apostles of our Lord, and have thus attributed to them their own errors and their lies. [I have taken these two extracts from Boulanger's ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... were men and women in groups. I stopped a man and asked what had chanced. He said, "A battle! a battle! and General Gage killed." Couriers had reached the coffee-houses, but no one on the street seemed to have more than this vague information; all were going toward Chestnut street, where a meeting was to be held, as I learned, and perhaps ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... There was a vague murmur of the rising tide, beyond the wharves and warehouses the water was faintly rippled in silver and rose, and a ship was standing into the harbor with all her canvas spread to the light wind. He turned ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... composed of several bows, bathed in floods of red, yellow, or green light. It was a dazzling spectacle. Soon the different curves all joined in one point, and formed boreal crowns of a heavenly richness. At last the bows joined, the splendid aurora faded, the intense rays melted into pale, vague, undetermined shades, and the marvellous phenomenon, feeble, and almost extinguished, fainted insensibly into the dark southern clouds. Nothing can equal the wonders of such a spectacle under the high latitudes ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... The vague telepathic bond that always links identical twins (they "think alike", they say) becomes unbalanced under such conditions. Normally, there is a give-and-take, and each preserves the sense of his own identity, since the two ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... indulge a vague dream that I may paint again. It is rather the memory of past pleasures, when hope was enticing me onward only to deceive me at last. Except some family portraits, valuable to me from their likenesses only, I could wish that every picture I ever painted was destroyed. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... dramatic in character that the remembrance of it aroused a great deal more objective emotion than the composer was conscious of while writing the music. In the third instance, the music may have been influenced strongly though subconsciously by a vague remembrance of certain thoughts and feelings, perhaps of a deep religious or spiritual nature, which suddenly came to him upon realizing the beauty of the scene and which overpowered the first sensuous ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... dimly-lighted cell at Paphos—had passed away. The second stage in the development of Greek religion had come; a [240] period in which poet and artist were busily engaged in the work of incorporating all that might be retained of the vague divinations of that earlier visionary time, in definite and intelligible human image and human story. The vague belief, the mysterious custom and tradition, develope themselves into an elaborately ordered ritual— into ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... lingering and painful death—he could scarcely have acted otherwise, seeing that he had nothing to do but give orders for a few rope's ends to be dropped over the side to them. Then, although she had given no sign of it, his manner toward her had been such as to fill her with vague fear; while his behaviour toward Leslie, when that individual had unavailingly attempted to convince him of the presence of another survivor upon the floating wreckage, was scarcely of a kind to inspire a woman with ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... pronouns ending in "-u" ("tiu", "kiu", "cxiu", "iu", "neniu"), a similar series ending in "-o" refers to an object, fact or action not definitely specified (but never to a person), like English "what, anything, something, nothing," etc. Because of their somewhat vague meaning, these pronouns do not occur in the plural, nor are they ever ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... shall point Such ends as his were, and direct the means Of working out our purpose straight as his, 450 Nor bring a moment's trouble on success With after-care to justify the same? —Be a Napoleon, and yet disbelieve— Why, the man's mad, friend, take his light away! What's the vague good o' the world, for which you dare With comfort to yourself blow millions up? We neither of us see it! we do see The blown-up millions—spatter of their brains And writhing of their bowels and so forth, In that bewildering entanglement 460 Of horrible eventualities ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... No picture or other guide should be used at first, since every child knows something about dogs. The first cuttings are likely to be very poor, partly because the children have not sufficient control over the scissors and largely because their ideas are very vague. In a general comparison of work they will help each other with such criticisms as, "This dog's head is too big." "That dog's legs are too stiff." They are then ready to try again. Only when they have reached the limit of their power to ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... theories." There are two great fountains of political theory in our country according to the author: Rousseau is one, and Bentham is the other. Current thought and speech Is infested by the floating fragments of these two systems—by loose phrases, by vague notions, by superstitions, that enervate the human intellect and endanger social safety. This is the constant refrain of the pages before us. We should have liked better evidence. We do not believe that it is a Roman praetorium. Men often pick up old phrases for new ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... with one universal sweep of the scythe of persecution, and he felt himself moved and incited to go to some of the Lords and leaders of the Congregation to warn them of what he feared; but, considering that he had only a vague and unaccountable suspicion for his thought, he wavered, and finally returned home. Thus, though manifestly and marvellously instructed of the fruition of some bloody business in hand that night, he was yet overruled by the wisdom ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... not believe that M. Rouher uttered these words, in which there is so much audacity. At that moment M. Rouher did not possess any. Appointed Minister on the 2d December, he temporized, he exhibited a vague prudery, he did not venture to install himself in the Place Vendome. Was all that was being done quite correct? In certain minds the doubt of success changes into scruples of conscience. To violate every law, to perjure oneself, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... been approached. Just who made it we do not know; nor do we know anything of the conditions under which it was manufactured. Only about fifty pieces of it are in existence—half of them in England and half in France; and it is from these, and from vague historic hints, that we have welded together the rather uncertain tale that I am now to ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... greater reason, find more of charm and interest in the city itself than in the suburbs or the surrounding country. The enjoyment of unfamiliar places is altogether personal. There are many who really see nothing; they come away from a brief visit with only a confusion of vague recollections of sights and sounds, of brief inspection of buildings about which they knew nothing, of the big, yellow Palace, of this church and that, of the Morro and the harbor, of sunny days, and of late afternoons along the Prado and ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... the unsatisfactoriness of life, of incompleteness and solitariness, was not of that fixed sort that definitely indicates its demand. Under its oppression she tried the idea of love, but she also tried certain other ideas. Very often this vague appeal had the quality of a person, sometimes a person shrouded in night, a soundless whisper, the unseen lover who came to Psyche in the darkness. And sometimes that person became more distinct, less ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... made against him by the Athenian ambassadors in the Peloponnese. He pointed out that he had not broken any promises made to Athens at the time of the Peace, for he had made none. (In fact, if Demosthenes' account is correct, he had confined himself to vague expressions of goodwill; the promises had been made by Aeschines.) The Second Philippic, spoken late in 344, proposes a reply to Philip, the text of which has unfortunately not come down to us. The Peloponnesian envoys appear ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... illusion, but it was during these days that he did actually hear her speak for the first time. He had been writing till past midnight, with her smile just above him, and when he had turned out the lamp and was moving to the door through the vague flickering light of the fire, he distinctly heard a voice very luxurious and tender say "Antony," just behind him. It was hardly more than a whisper, but its sweetness thrilled his blood, and half ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... commissioners and the Burgesses, in 1652, established anew the gubernatorial office, they were somewhat vague in defining the duties belonging to it. They first declared that Mr. Bennett was to exercise "all the just powers and authorities that may belong to that place lawfully".[362] But that it was not their intention to give the new officer ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... Bruus a very disagreeable person—I scarcely know why myself. But whenever I see him something comes over me, something that is like the memory of an evil dream. And yet it is so vague and so faint, that I could not say whether I had really ever seen the man in my dreams or not. It may be a sort of presentiment of ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... by direction of Pedrarias, made an expedition to the south of the Gulf of San Miguel, into the territory of a chieftain named Biru, from whom they early got into the habit of calling the vague land believed to exist in the South Sea, the "Land of Biru," or Peru. It was on this expedition that the Spaniards, hotly pursued by the natives, stabbed their captives one by one and left them dying at intervals in the pathway ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... my judge. And somehow or other I did not hate those clear pools of light. They were very beautiful. But not one word could I find to say for myself. I stood and looked at her, and I fear I began to twitch at my neck cloth, with a vague instinct that I had better go and hang myself. I stared and stared, and no doubt got as red as a turkey-cock—till it began to be very embarrassing indeed. What refuge could there be from one who spoke the truth so plainly? And how do you think I got out of it?" asked ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... could tell) lay about, and rolled about, and upset their own masters, here and there and everywhere, upon this half acre of slip and stumble, at the top of the boat channel down to the sea, and in the faint rivalry of three vague lights, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... of rainwater and indicated that here they would camp for the night, Margaret was too weary to question the decision. It had not occurred to her that she would be on the way overnight before she met her friends. Her knowledge of the way, and of distances, was but vague. It is doubtful if she would have ventured had she known that she must pass the night thus in the company of two strange savage creatures. Yet, now that she was here and it was inevitable, she would not shrink, but make the best of it. She tried to be friendly once more, and offered to look out ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... There is abroad a vague idea that somehow we get good from external association with religious acts, and so on. This feeling is deep in human nature, is not confined to the Roman Catholic Church, and is not the work of priests. There is a strange revival of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... well nigh impossible to give the symptoms of this disease in an orderly manner, as the affection gives rise to a thousand and one varying and ofttimes vague symptoms. The particular part of the nervous system affected, and also the cause and character of the attacks modify the symptoms. The eminent Dr. Wood says: "Nervous exhaustion may, in the beginning, affect the whole of the nervous system, or it may be ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... old lady in the big house, and that vivid wicked little face that had just smiled into ours, and a vague chill of foreboding crept over me. I brushed ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... well, he would certainly have gone back to the bottom and hardly have escaped grievous hurt, or death. Still greater was his astonishment, when, fairly landed on terra firma, he found the patrols' arms lying there, which he knew had not been carried by his comrades. He felt a vague dread, he knew not why; he bewailed once more his evil fortune; and without venturing to touch the arms, he left the well and wandered he knew not whither. As he went, however, he fell in with his two comrades, now returning to draw him out of the well; who no sooner saw him than ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... soul, in other spheres, in reward and punishment according to the works done by men in the flesh, arose among nations in accordance with the degree of civilisation which they had attained. Among the least civilised these doctrines exist in a state of confusion, remain vague, uncouth, surcharged with superstition and peculiarities. Nevertheless, everywhere the mystery ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... regard it as a life-work. She was always coming and digging him out of the garden and dragging him back to what should have been a purely after-dinner task. It was Lord Marshmoreton's habit, when he awoke after one of his naps too late to resume work, to throw out some vague promise of "attending to it tomorrow"; but, he reflected bitterly, the girl ought to have tact and sense to understand that this was only polite persiflage, and not ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... glimmering twilight when that one very bright and knowing star peered in at her, solitary, on the side porch, or when, later, the moonshine stole through the window and onto her pillow, so thick and white she could almost feel it with her fingers—at such times vague fancies would get tangled up with the facts of reality, and disturb her new, assured sense of wisdom. Suddenly she'd find herself all mixed up, confused as to what actually was ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... out, the presence of something, as he expressed it, "very unlike the Church of England;" something new and unpleasant to him, and withal something which had a body in it, which had a momentum, which could not be passed over as a vague, sudden sound or transitory cloud, but which had much behind it, which made itself felt, which ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... localities, etc.; for all early theorising will, in all probability, end only in error. It is surely better frankly to own that we know not what these markings mean (and possibly may never know it), rather than wander off into that vague mystification and conjecture which in former days often brought discredit on the ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... and reform and paint all Heaven in their beauty and then resolve themselves into nothing. Many people think this is Kenyon Adams's most beautiful and poetic message. Certainly in the expression of the gayety and the weird, vague mysticism of youth and poignant joy he never reached that height again. Death is ignored; it is all life and the aspirations of life and the beckonings of life and the bantering of life and the deep, awful, inexorable call of life to youth. Other ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... place of trifling ones,—sacred sorrows of wives and mothers, pangs of fathers and husbands, self-denials, sympathies, new desire to bear one another's burdens. Men and women grew fast in those days of the nation's trouble and danger, and Jane awoke from the vague dull dream she had hitherto called life to new hopes, new fears, new purposes. Then after a year's anxiety, a year when one never looked in the newspaper without dread and sickness of suspense, came the telegram saying that Tom was wounded; and without so much as asking Miranda's leave, ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... endure, of the murder he still longed to commit, and felt all the agony of indecision again, and suspected that after this he would scruple to commit it—when all this came upon him, he turned and leaned against one of the horses, sobbing, conscious in a vague way that he did not wish to stop himself, but only ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... Minty pointed a vague finger behind them seaward. "We lived there when father went fishin' afore he was drownded. I was real small, and I didn't have no cow. Daisy was born the year we come here, and Thinkright gave her ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... land, where populations that respect the constable can live, for the present without Government: this comes to light; and the profound sorrow of all nobler hearts, here uttering itself as silent patient unspeakable ennui, there coming out as vague elegiac wailings, that there is still next to nothing more. "Anarchy plus a street-constable:" that also is anarchic to me, and other ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... discovery of silver mines, which become so profitable as to drive away the very memory of the gold-washings. Thus the fact that gold-washings ever existed in Mexico, or even in Brazil, is almost forgotten, and the places where those washings were rests in vague tradition. ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... Rejuvenate Eradicate Quiet Requiem Acquiesce Ambidextrous Inoculate Divulge Proper Appropriate Omnivorous Voracious Devour Escritoire Mordant Remorse Miser Hilarious Exhilarate Rudiment Erudite Mark Marquis Libel Libretto Vague Vagabond ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... go; he knew the exact distance between his lodging and present destination—just seven hundred and thirty paces. He had counted them when his plan only floated through his brain like a vague dream. At that time, he himself would not have believed it capable of realization; he merely dallied in fancy with a chimera which was both terrible and seductive. But a month had elapsed, and he had already begun to view it in a different light. Although he reproached himself throughout ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... to the good common mother of all, the earth, which gave to all its sap. And this was why, since his return to Janville, the earth, the soil had attracted him, detained him during his frequent walks, while he revolved vague but ever-expanding thoughts in his mind. He would pause for long minutes, now before a field of wheat, now on the verge of a leafy wood, now on the margin of a river whose waters glistened in the sunshine, and now amid the nettles of some stony moorland. All sorts ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... this debate, the Public Attorney is in the presence of a difficulty which he cannot ignore. It cannot be put even in the nature of a condemnation, since offenses to public morals and to religion are somewhat vague and elastic expressions which it would be necessary to define precisely. Nevertheless, when we speak to right-minded, practical men we are sure of being sufficiently understood to distinguish whether a certain page of a book carries ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... [Greek: protarchos hAte ], a "first blind deed of wrong," but in practice every wrong is the result of another. And the Children of Atreus are steeped to the lips in them. When the prophetess Cassandra, out of her first vague horror at the evil House, begins to grope towards some definite image, first and most haunting comes the sound of the weeping of two little children, murdered long ago, in a feud that was not theirs. From that point, more than any ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... details of the chief cause of her sorrows. The consequence was that in the windings of his imagination the squire found himself perpetually turning in a vicious circle; but since the exercise concerned Mrs. Goddard and her welfare it was not uncongenial. He founded all his vague hopes upon one expression she had used. When in making his proposal he had spoken of her as being a widow, she had said, "Would to God that I were!" She had said it with such vehemence that he had felt sure that if she had indeed been a widow her answer to himself would have been ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... declaration was more discomposing to the party than Clinch's fury. Utterly unaccustomed to the ideas and language suddenly confronting them, they were unable to determine whether it was the real expression of the speaker, or whether it was a vague badinage or affectation to which any reply would involve them in ridicule. In a country terrorized by practical joking, they did not doubt but that this was a new form of hoaxing calculated to provoke some response that would constitute them as victims. ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... surrounding the suburb, which was beside the last ramparts, might crush them against the walls. Then they felt themselves alone in spite of their crowd, and the great town sleeping beneath them in the shade suddenly made them afraid, with its piles of staircases, its lofty black houses, and its vague gods fiercer even than its people. In the distance a few ships'-lanterns were gliding across the harbour, and there were lights in the temple of Khamon. They thought of Hamilcar. Where was he? Why had he ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... out hustlin' a job," Mr. Gibney sighed. He was filled with vague forebodings of evil. "If you'd only listened to my advice last night, Scraggsy—if you'd ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... these replies too vague, and told me with noble freedom that we must give him a definite reply, since in such cases uncertainty spoils all. At that moment I felt as if I could never agree to his wishes, and I told him that in ten days I would let him ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... 24th March the unarmed passenger-ship Sussex was torpedoed without warning, and several Americans lost their lives. The first information about this incident was so vague that the matter was at first treated in a dilatory fashion in Washington. At the time I sent the following report ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... Lady Langmoor looked rather vague. She was busy putting on her white gloves, and inspecting the fit of her grey satin dress, as she saw it in the mirror over ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... spring, a Russian army might have advanced and cooperated with that of the Ameer; but the winter had set in, the distance was immense, and the Russians unprepared for instant action. The appeals of the unfortunate prince were responded to with vague generalities. He was no longer a powerful ally, but a broken instrument and, heartbroken with disappointment and failure, the unfortunate Sheer-Ali was seized by fever and died, in an obscure village, almost alone ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... direst pangs of want, no hunger had been keen enough to induce him to part with it. Now, one morning, the ribbon that suspended the locket gave way, and his eye resting on the names inscribed on the gold, he thought, in his own vague sense of right, imperfect as it was, that his compact with his father obliged him to have the names erased. He took it to a jeweller in Piccadilly for that purpose, and gave the requisite order, not taking notice ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... who has not heard of private persons having the world at their feet in the shape of some half-dozen items of flattering regard generally known in a genteel suburb? And words could hardly be too wide or vague to indicate the prospect that made a hazy largeness about poor Gwendolen on the heights of her young self-exultation. Other people allowed themselves to be made slaves of, and to have their lives blown hither and thither like empty ships in which no will was present. It was not to be so ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... her devoted husband fell at the hands of a besotted Indian. But her son was of a progressive spirit. He longed to leave the old home for one more comfortable. How strange that the old should sit by the grave of the past, while the young never weary of chasing some vague fancy! ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... his vague annoyance, he found Baker. Usually the liveliness of that able young citizen was welcome, but to-night ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... public too, then we will answer to the expectations of the public, as free and directly as may be expected from honest subjects of the constitution of these realms." The appeal led to nothing; the man of sense and candour never appeared; and still the suffering Brethren groaned under all sorts of vague accusation. ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... in the sorrow that he cherished, for he petted his miseries considerably; or was it that he was most at home when he was unhappy? He would rather have seen the light of day from a not quite clear window, for instead of a clear hill, he might see a vague castle of his fancy somewhere. He hadn't the sweep of a great poet, and yet somehow there was the linnet in him, there was the strain of the lute among the leaves, there was the rustle of a soft dress audible, and the passing of hands he could not ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... most important authority on this side of the question. The systems which the German philosophers have propounded are more serviceable to themselves than edifying to the ordinary reader. High abstractions afford but a very vague and indefinite idea to the mind, nor can their application be fully understood but by those who have ascended the successive stages by which each philosopher has himself mounted. On the present subject, their opinions seem to have been influenced by their ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... did not move. Nor did Deveny change his position. A queer, cold chill had come over Deveny—a vague dread, a dragging reluctance—an indecision that startled him and made of his thoughts an odd jumble of half-formed impulses that seemed to die before they could ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... revolution 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 to an abandonment ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises with which he had refreshed himself after the fatigues of business, and to all of which, no doubt, the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted Mr. Swiveller; but he was not very sensitive on such points, and recovered ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... saw how out of the drifting patch of spumy wrack there emerged a shape vague and indistinct and ghostly, but taking on instantly the sharpened outlines of one they recognized. It was the shape, not of Vida Monte, the fabled wrecker of lives, but the shape of her other self, Sarah Glassman, and the face it wore was not ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... is very large and lofty. It is without aisles and the chapels are discreetly hidden between the piers. Far above one's head curves the ribbed Gothic vaulting, and all around is unbroken space that ends in darkness or the vague outline of an altar, dimly lighted by a flickering candle. The walls are painted in rich, sombre colours, and the light comes very gently through the good old stained-glass windows. It is a southern church, dark, cool, and somewhat mysterious; ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... Greenacre, suavely ignoring the locality. "You know my weakness for looking up family histories. I happened to be talking with my friend Beeching yesterday—Aldham Beeching, you know, the Q.C.—and Quodling came into my head. I mentioned the name. It was as I thought. I had, you know, a vague recollection of Quodling as connected with a lawsuit when I was a boy. Beeching could tell me all ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... which had partly died away into a vague distant murmur beyond the hill, burst out again with redoubled fury. Again she looked round, and the meaning was made plain to her. She saw the yellow fringe of flame as it came dancing, chaotic, a ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... disposition to form a sentimental attachment for this delightful region—for its hillside prospect of old red farmhouses lighting up the dark-green bottoms, of gables and chimney-tops of great houses peeping above miles of woodland, and, in the vague places of the horizon, of far-away towns and sites that one had always heard of—was conditioned upon having "property" in the neighborhood, so that the little girls in the town should suddenly drop courtesies to me in the street; though that too would certainly have been pleasant. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... inferior indeed, but only inferior, to that of the great school of Literae Humaniores, the best intellectual training in the world. When they are divided, it may be feared that law becomes a mere technicality, if not a mere bread-study, and that history is at once thin and vague. ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... did not yet adequately know, though she had some theories and many suspicions in the background of her mind. But at any rate this first image of memory was succeeded by another precise as the first was vague—the image of a tall white house, set against a white chalk cliff rising in terraces behind it and alongside it, where she had spent the years from nine to fourteen, and where, if she were set down blindfold, now, at twenty-one, she could have found her way to every room and door ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Johnny and his family on their way to Furnace Creek for the winter; but though they were friendly Wunpost left in the night and camped far out on the plain. It was the same sandy plain over which he had fled when he had led Lynch to Poison Spring, and as he went on at dawn Wunpost felt the first vague misgivings for his part in that unfortunate affair. It had lost him a lot of friends and steeled his enemies against him—Lynch no longer was working by the day—and sooner or later it was likely to cost him dear, for no man can win all the time. Yet he had thrown down the gauntlet, and if ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... here, Amid this thoughtless, vague career, Thy soul-felt charm asserts its wondrous power.— There's a wild air which oft, among the rocks Of his own loved land, at evening hour, Is heard, when shepherds homeward pipe their flocks, Whose every note hath power to thrill his mind With ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... argued, at greater length, that the heathen were free from all responsibility as long as they were left alone, and that if God held them accountable, then their vague worship answered for a good conscience, and therefore they would reach ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... As she paused in the road near them, her faded calico sun-bonnet hanging upon her shoulders, her grey hair falling about her face, her wrinkled arms writhing in response to a grief too terrible to contemplate, she seemed related in some vague way to the prophets of old who were assailed by fierce sorrows. Here was something more real and more awful than death itself. Woodward felt in his soul that the figure, the attitude, the misery of this poor ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... perfidious statesmen, who repudiated their sworn obligations with such cynical levity. The Spartans in Sphacteria were already, they thought, prisoners of Athens, to be dealt with as they pleased; and were they to resign this costly prize, in return for a vague promise of friendship from Sparta? Their answer was framed on the advice of Cleon: they could not, they said, enter into any discussion, until the men on the island had surrendered themselves, and been brought to ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... along to the pierhead. They smoked, looked at the sea, and did not notice her where she sat in shadow. One, the larger, wore knickerbockers, talked loudly, and looked a giant in the vague light; the other was muffled up in a big ulster, and Joan would not have recognized Barron had he not spoken. But he answered his friend, and then the girl's heart leaped to hear that quiet, unimpassioned voice. He spoke of matters ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... disengaged her hand and dress from Ellen's still convulsive grasp; the door closed, with a sullen, seemingly unwilling sound, and Ellen was alone. She remained in the same posture, the same spot, till a vague, cold terror so took possession of her, that the room seemed filled with ghostly shapes, and all the articles of furniture suddenly transformed to things of life; and springing up, with the wild, fleet step of fear, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... point with him. Solomon was both flippant and incompetent. But in spite of her theoretical latitudinarianism, in practice she was pious to the point of fanaticism and could scarce conceive the depths of degradation of which she heard vague horror-struck talk. There were Jews about—grown-up men and women, not insane—who struck lucifer matches on the Sabbath and housewives who carelessly mixed their butter-plates with their meat-plates even when they did not actually eat butter with meat. Esther promised herself that, please God, she ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the richest man in the town? She had an idea that perhaps Mary Raymond might be responsible for her sudden accession to favor. She had taken care to impress her own importance upon Mary's mind, together with certain vague insinuations as to her wrongs. After her first brief outburst against Marjorie and Constance Stevens, she had decided that she would gain infinitely more by playing the part of wronged innocence. When she received her invitation she had already heard that Constance was in New ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... English Church in St. Paul's Cathedral. Dean Milman read the service, and at its conclusion the coffin was borne to the catacombs, and placed between the tombs of James Barry and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Turner's will, with its codicils, was so confused and vague that the lawyers fought it in the courts for four years, and it was finally settled by compromise. The real estate went to the heir-at-law, the pictures and drawings to the National Gallery, one thousand pounds for a monument in St. Paul's Cathedral, and twenty ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... was, idling uselessly at the Ritz as she had done yesterday, last week, last month—forever, it seemed to her. The vague protest that for some time had been growing within her against the senselessness and futility of her manner of existence crystallized itself now into a determination no longer to submit to it. Courageously she was resolving that she would take the first opportunity to escape from this ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... had ascribed his behaviour of the previous day, his first, false version, his reticence and his confusion to scruples of conscience and vague apprehensions. Anxious about the consequences of the business and dreading lest his testimony might complicate it, he had tried to avoid the annoyance ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... century, we spoke of our "age of electricity," yet there were few things in nature about which we knew less. The "electric current" rang our bells, drove our trains, lit our rooms, but none knew what the current was. There was a vague idea that it was a sort of fluid that flowed along copper wires as water flows in a pipe. We now suppose that it is a rapid movement of electrons from atom to atom in the wire ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... shares a comparatively short time ago, I think it was after you were here the last time. There were some vague rumors afloat as to the credit of the bank, and your father, who did not believe them, took a few shares as a proof of his confidence in it, thinking, he said, that the fact that he did so might allay any ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... gently till it was cloudily smoked over, and then utilizing the darker smears for clouds, shadows, water, or what not, would etch with a dry pen the forms of lights on cloud and palace, on bridge or gondola, on the vague and dreamy surface he had produced. My own passionate longing to see Venice dates from those delightful, well-remembered evenings ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... oppose the concession to them of rights that will broaden the scope of their lives and of their activity in society. It matters but little that the desire for suffrage appears in its initial stage, in the vague form of an indefinite proposition: the fact is that there has been an indication of that desire, and in my judgment the plant has germinated and it is useless to endeavor to smother it, as it will grow again. The more we delay female suffrage, the more shall we suffer by it, because ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... shot fieldfares with his bow and arrow and cooked them for his supper. Shakespeare knew it too, in the mind of Caliban, and his business was to realise this subject-matter for us in such a way that it could not possibly escape us in vague generalisation. Its appeal to our perceptions must be irresistible. He can do it only by the ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... conjecture its objects, though she thought her father's attitude commanding, and his gestures stern. The red-man, as usual, was quiet and dignified. This much our heroine saw, or fancied she saw; but beyond this, of course, all was vague conjecture. Just as the two were about to part, and had even made courteous signs of their intention, a shout arose from the workmen, which ascended, though faintly, as high as the rock. Captain Willoughby turned, and then Maud saw his arm extended towards the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the sweetness or the skill, But mine the love that will not tire, And, born of love, the vague desire That spurs an imitative ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... designate one branch of living things as opposed to the other branch known as plants. Until the discovery of protoplasm, and the series of investigations by which it was established that the cell was a fundamental structure essentially alike in both animals and plants (see CYTOLOGY), there was a vague belief that plants, if they could really be regarded as animated creatures, exhibited at the most a lower grade of life. We know now that in so far as life and living matter can be investigated by science, animals and plants cannot be described as being alive in different ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... Street are innumerable, and like unto the sea shells for variety; and the scent of oranges, the pungent odor of fried fish, from the shop down the side street, and that vague smell familiar to all who dwell in the heart of London, rise and ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... Baldwin's wife. He was very rich, very much married—out in Iowa—and whenever he made his annual business trip to New York, he liked to have a real New York time. They had dined together at the Baldwins' apartment with a vague idea of going afterward to see a play of Baldwin's then drawing toward the close of a successful season's run. But dinner had been late and they had lingered too long over it to make this excursion worth while. It had amused both Mary and ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... so very strange that the boy should express himself in this way. True, the man he was praising was now a criminal, and they sought to effect his arrest in some manner as yet vague and uncertain; but it was not in this light Andy viewed him just then. As a birdsman Casper Blue had proved that he still possessed the nerve and skill to direct a daring flight, and that all the tricks known to celebrated fliers were ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... morning has dawned, with only a vague tang of autumn in the air. In the green old dooryard at the Red Mill, under the spreading shade trees, two girls are shelling a great basket of dried lima beans for the ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... I have heard a vague report from the Dawes (the pleasant-looking young lady we called upon was Miss Daw), that Coleridge returned back to Naples: they are to make further enquiries, and let me know the particulars. We have seen little or nothing of Manning since you went. Your friend [George] Burnett calls as usual, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... and possibly the strongest argument of all for the necessity of form in music, is derived from reflection upon the peculiarly vague and intangible nature of its art-material—tone, sound. The words of a language (also sounds, it is true) have established meanings, so familiar and definite that they recall and re-awaken impressions of thought and action with a vividness but little short of the actual experience. Tones, on the ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... Wilson was bringing to the world was expected to be God's peace. Prussianism lay crushed; brute force had failed utterly. The moral character of the universe had been signally vindicated. There was a universal vague hope in a great moral peace, of a new world order arising visibly and immediately on the ruins of the old. This hope was not a mere superficial sentiment. It was the intense expression at the end of the war of the inner moral and spiritual force which had upborne the ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... log structures, but the dwelling house had about it the unmistakable atmosphere of a home. Around it, even under the snowdrifts, were vague signs of a garden; from the low, wide chimney poured forth a blue column of smoke; and at one of the windows a candle twinkled cheerfully; both speaking of warmth and welcome within, very grateful in the chill, winter dusk. And ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... her out-of-the-way corner, apart from the great streams of human traffic, a rich and beautiful land waiting for her Fairy Prince to waken her to greatness. There had been, though, some vague rumours of a great island in the Southern Seas. A writer of Chios (Greece) 300 years before the Christian era mentions that there existed an island of immense extent beyond the seas washing Europe, ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... an extent the singing of birds and the colors of flowers; to the majority, however, the enjoyment is casual, generalized, vague, in the same category as that derived from a short spell of prattling by a healthy baby. Individuals who study birds and native flora experience an almost daily refreshment of the spirit and growth of the intellect. For them the world is an unending Garden ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... restraint which soon made headway and passed all bars. In the earlier portions of his career a buoyant humour bore him up; and amid thick-coming shapes of ill he bated no jot of heart or hope. He was cheered by vague stirrings of ambition, which he pathetically compares to the "blind groping of Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave." Sent to school at Kirkoswald, he became, for his scant leisure, a great reader—eating at meal-times with a spoon in one hand and a book ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the Crest-Wave, caught up the sovereignty that the Romans had dropped, remembered its Ancient greatness, and nourished vigorous hopes. To the Welsh mind, the age has appeared one of old unhappy far-off things,—unhappy, because of their tragic ending at Camlan;— but grandiose. Titanic vague figures loom up: Arthur, the type of all hero-kings; Taliesin, type of all prophet-bards; Merlin, type of magicians. Tennyson caught the spirit of it in the grand moments of the Morte D'Arthur; and missed it by a thousand miles elsewhere in the Idylls. The spirit, ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... her side, she looked out and over the wide-stretching Yukon. Above the mountains which lay beyond the further shore, the sky was murky with the smoke of unseen forest fires, and through this the afternoon sun broke feebly, throwing a vague radiance to earth, and unreal shadows. To the sky-line of the four quarters—spruce-shrouded islands, dark waters, and ice-scarred rocky ridges—stretched the immaculate wilderness. No sign of human existence ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... up your mind—the horses were spirited and you could eat them a leg at a time, but there was more in the cookies—she bent such a look on you, so fierce and intolerant of vacillation. She belonged to the group of odd characters, rarer now than they used to be, etched upon the vague consciousness of small towns as in a way mysterious and uncanny; some said that Mother Beggarlegs was connected with the aristocracy and some that she had been "let off" being hanged. The alternative was allowed full swing, but in any case it was clear that such persons contributed little ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... stopped to consider for some minutes. "Now I come to think of it, sir, I do remember but last night hearing that Sir Charles was going on much as usual; but I did not mark at the time what Sir Charles was spoken of," was the vague answer, with which I was obliged ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... He looked at him with sullen eyes. He thought of what Sangster had said of this man—that he was always at Upton House; that he seemed very friendly with both the girls. A vague jealousy filled Jimmy's heart. Kettering was rich, whilst he—well, even the small allowance sent to him by his brother looked now as if it were in ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... food and ammunition. In this state of affairs Hans Brask made up his mind without delay. He granted the interview with Gustavus, and was very easily persuaded to join the Swedish cause. It now seemed best that the vague authority conferred upon Gustavus by the different provinces should be defined, so that he might as representative of the Swedish nation treat with foreign powers. He therefore announced that a general diet would be held at Vadstena on August 24, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... as conventional as this we drop readily into purely geometric forms, as will be seen further on. These and the preceding drawings are all executed on broad surfaces, where fancy could have free play. The modifying or conventionalizing forces are, therefore, quite vague. Variation from natural forms is due partly to a lack of skill on the part of the painter, partly to the peculiar demands of ceramic embellishment, and partly to the traditional style of treatment acquired in still more primitive stages of culture and ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... to himself, as he bent low over his desk, a little later. Some day he would "show 'em". The picture in his mind was of a vast, vague assembly of people headed by Miss Spence and the superior pupils who were never tardy, and these multitudes, representing persecution and government in general, were all cringing before a Penrod Schofield who rode a grim ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... what terms it had been left to him. Suppose I were able to say this positively to any single man in this audience, and he knew that I did not speak without warrant, do you think that he would rest content with that vague knowledge, if it were anywise possible to obtain more? Would he not give every energy to find some trace of the facts, and never rest till he had ascertained where this place was, and what it was like? And ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... selected being of such a nature that any previous judgment as to what ought to occur is as nearly impossible as may be. We predict from knowledge, real or supposed, of facts which are associated in our minds with any new subject under consideration. Children often know in a general, vague, and indefinite way that which, for the sake of a full and systematic knowledge, we may desire them to study. What they know will unconsciously modify their expectations, and their expectations in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... Englishman and his wife a very angel upon earth. This popular feeling is so contagious that even the Hell-cats shared it—cheering, shaking hands with each other, and almost shedding tears—though it must be confessed that they had some vague idea that it was all to end ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... recall anything more wild and startling than this vague and dangerous exploration of a dimly known, hostile, and ignorant country. To these few detectives we owe much of the subsequent successful prosecution of the pursuit. They were the ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... in connection with the doctrine of the tendency to the renewal of action, before discussed, that the course of self-discipline recommended as the only road to Longevity by Occultism is not a "visionary" theory dealing with vague "ideas," but actually a scientifically devised system of drill. It is a system by which each particle of the several men composing the septenary individual receives an impulse, and a habit of doing what is necessary ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... rather vague on that point, and the feeling was combined with a conviction that she ought not to be so. She tried to give an answer ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... always conscious. It was without definite intention that when he came to the bridle-path Harold turned his horse's head and rode down to the churchyard. As he pushed open the door of the church he half expected to see Stephen; and there was a vague possibility that Leonard Everard might be ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... fastidiousness implanted, nor yet the inherent shrinking of my English blood from pleasure forbidden, for my Renault blood was hot enough, God wot! It was, I think, all of these reasons that kept me untainted, and another, the vague idea of a woman, somewhere in the world, who should be worth an unsullied love—worth far more than the best I might bring to her one day. And so my pride refused to place me in debt to a woman whom ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... and weep over tender tales, and kept the young head and heart safe and happy with wholesome duties, useful studies, and such harmless pleasures as girls should love, instead of letting them waste their freshness in vague longings, idle ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the long period which has now been sketched in outline it is almost solely the political and ecclesiastical events and certain personal experiences which have left their records in history. We can obtain but vague outlines of the actual life of the people. An important Anglo-Saxon document describes the organization of a great landed estate, and from Domesday Book and other early Norman records may be drawn certain inferences as to the degree of freedom of the masses of the people and certain ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... expression of Madame Pfeiffer's about Frederick "paying his score to the Austrians," is somewhat vague. The facts are these. In 1757 Frederick the Great of Prussia invaded Bohemia, and laid siege to Prague. Before this city an Austrian army lay, who were attacked with great impetuosity by Frederick, and completely defeated. But the town ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... hung about her like a cloud, through which she only dimly saw the neat, unhurried grace of Eugenia's preparations for departure and far travels, and felt only a dimmed, vague echo of the emotion she had thought to feel at the disappearance of Mr. Welles, poor, weary, futile old ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... give Mary a hint that her conduct is being noticed and remarked upon. Of course, don't say that I've spoken of it. Merely put it to her in the manner of a vague suggestion." ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... Mrs. Catesby's decision to remove to the city that her daughter might have educational advantages. It was with genuine regret that Ree had learned her plans. He would never have admitted even to himself that he had, in a certain boyish, vague way, dreamed of a dim, distant time when he and Mary might be more than friends; but maybe some such thought had been in his mind at some time. Strange it would be had nothing of the kind ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... the door had closed behind him, Mrs. Blandford went to the mantel-shelf, where a grimly allegorical clock cut down the hours and minutes of men with a scythe, and consulted it with a slight knitting of her pretty eyebrows. Then she fell into a vague abstraction, standing before the open book on the centre-table. Then she closed it with a snap, and methodically putting it exactly in the middle of the top of a black cabinet in the corner, lifted the shaded lamp in her hand and passed ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... now, through weary day and night, I watch a vague and aimless fight For leave to strike one ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Ideal," which had all the worst faults of the author's earliest compositions in verse. The present poem (with the exception of a very few lines) has been entirely rewritten, and has at least the comparative merit of being less vague in the thought, and less unpolished in the diction, ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... compel their acquiescence, till a sufficient force shall appear to support them. The authors and promoters of this desperate conspiracy have, in the conduct of it, derived great advantage from the difference of our intentions and theirs. They meant only to amuse by vague expressions of attachment to the parent state, and the strongest protestations of loyalty to me, whilst they were preparing for a general revolt. On our part, though it was declared in your last session that a rebellion existed within the province of the Massachusetts' Bay, yet even that province ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... Perhaps his union should have been emphasized before. The crown of life had been attained, the vague yearnings, the misread impulses, had found accomplishment at last. Never again must he feel lonely, or as one who stands out of the broad highway of the world and fears, like poor Shelley, to undertake the longest journey. So he reasoned, and at first took the accomplishment ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... something better, something higher, something better worthy of the aspiration of a woman? She could not say that that had been the drift of her large discourse. What she had said had actually been puzzling in its vagueness, its daring images—all images are vague; its ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... and he calculated that if it were possible to worm anything out of him, he was now in the best condition for it. Every effort, however, was in vain; whenever he pressed the schoolmaster closely, the vague, blank expression of intoxication disappeared for a moment, and was replaced by the broad, humorous ridicule, full of self-possession and consciousness, which always characterized Finigan, whether ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton |
