"Indistinctly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over the Downs once with Robin—but he managed to leave a flock of very active impressions behind him. That, as he knew well, was his strong point. He could not be with you a day without vaguely, almost indistinctly, but nevertheless quite certainly, influencing your opinions. He never said anything very definite, and, on looking back, you could never assert that he had positively taken any one point of view; but he had left, as it were, atmosphere—an assurance that this was the ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... ... rented some lands and in the day time, in walking around the yard and garden 1811ff and in the day, in walking ... She stepped softly to the window, suddenly raised it, and held out the candle. She fancied she saw the glimpse of two or three dark forms pass swiftly along, but so indistinctly that it was impossible to determine whether they were real, or only shadows produced by objects intervening the light of the candle. She listened and gazed 1811/51/70 She stepped softly to the window, ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... statue assumed a lifelike semblance that was at once startling and wonderful. Color flies with the sun, and the white marble did not depend now on tint alone to differentiate it from flesh and blood. Seen thus indistinctly, it might almost be a graceful and nearly nude woman standing there, and some display of will power on the girl's part was called for before she approached nearer and stifled the first breath of apprehension. Then, delighted ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... he fixed his thoughts successfully on outward and physical things, the world wherein he now walked grew dim: he missed the path, stumbled, saw trees and flowers indistinctly, failed to hear properly the call of birds and wind, to feel the touch of sun; and, most unwelcome of all,—was aware that his leader left him, dwindling in size, dropping away somehow among shadows far behind or ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... of couches on which lay Florus, Favorinus and their Alexandrian friends stood like an island in the midst of the surging sea of the orgy. Even here the cup had been bravely passed round, and Florus was beginning to speak somewhat indistinctly, but conversation had hitherto had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... we read, though indistinctly, some of the characteristics of the people. From the absence of all weapons of war, however, we may suppose them peaceable, though grossly idolatrous, and, from ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... his fiery indignation. "Is it of stealing that bank-note of Galloway's that you presume to accuse my brother?" he asked, speaking indistinctly ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... vigilant eye kept her aware of a small boat, which, soon after her starting back from Marietta, she had seen glide out of the mouth of the Muskingum and drift down the Ohio, hugging close to the north shore. Indistinctly, through the mist, she could make out the shape of a man rowing the boat. Whenever she quickened the pace of her horse, the man plied his oars rapidly; whenever she slackened reins, the man slowed up; he kept ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... little bundle of clothes, and a coin or two, or is fetched away by some far-sighted pedlar in such human wares, who buys them as bird-fanciers buy the finches from the nets; and then, years and years afterwards, the town or hamlet hears indistinctly of some great prima donna, or of some lark-throated tenor, that the big world is making happy as kings, and rich as kings' treasurers, and the people carding the flax or shelling the chestnuts say to one another, "That was little black Lia, or that was our old Momo;" but Momo or Lia the village ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... light, attended by a strong though not unpleasant odour. Their light was assisted by the red glare of a large charcoal fire, round which were seated five or six armed Highlanders, while others were indistinctly seen couched on their plaids in the more remote recesses of the cavern. In one large aperture, which the robber facetiously called his SPENCE (or pantry), there hung by the heels the carcasses of a sheep, or ewe, and two cows lately slaughtered. The principal inhabitant ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... again. If it isn't next year, it'll be later. My master, it seems, wants to enter the service in St. Petersburg," he went on, pronouncing the words carelessly and somewhat indistinctly. "And it may be that we'll ...
— The Rendezvous - 1907 • Ivan Turgenev
... would see to that. But I felt, somehow, as grimy as a Costaguana lepero after a day's fighting in the streets, rumpled all over and dishevelled down to my very heels. And I am afraid I blinked stupidly. All this was bad for the honour of letters and the dignity of their service. Seen indistinctly through the dust of my collapsed universe, the good lady glanced about the room with a slightly amused serenity. And she was smiling. What on earth was she smiling at? ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... (6.0-7.0). Color: Upper parts Cream Buff, lined with black and giving a pale olivaceous appearance; lateral line near (16'd) Light Ochraceous-Buff; postauricular patches Cream Buff; subauricular patches and underparts white; tail indistinctly bicolor, dusky above, whitish below. Skull: Size medium for species (see Table 1); braincase and auditory bullae moderately inflated; interorbital ...
— Geographic Distribution of the Pocket Mouse, Perognathus fasciatus • J. Knox Jones, Jr.
... prince was one of the first to appear, to assist, if necessary, in the defence of the old king. The scene of the preceding night ran in his recollection; and, remembering the bloodstained figure of Bonthron, he conceived, though indistinctly, that the ruffian's action had been connected with this uproar. The subsequent and more interesting discourse with Sir John Ramorny had, however, been of such an impressive nature as to obliterate all traces of what he had vaguely heard of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... staggering like a drunken man, with drops of sweat standing on his brow and with parched mouth. Sometimes he unconsciously raised his hand to wipe the dust from his burning eyes, but he cared little that he saw very indistinctly what was passing around him, for there could be nothing more beautiful than what he beheld with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the stable were up to my waist and dripping with water. The prospect was not inviting, but we nobly marched out with the lantern and an umbrella. As we entered the enclosure where the stable stands, or rather stood, we became aware of two large white objects showing indistinctly through the darkness. A little nearer and our two horses were looking us in the face. They had eaten the sides and ends of their house quite away. They must have thought it odd to be housed in an edible stable.[44] When we entered they received us with every sign ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... said, in the tone of conversation, "that I had indistinctly perceived you leaving a villa in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... northern shore, from Nettlestone Point to Egypt, bounding the view. On Lucy's right lay the entrance to Southampton Water, with the further shore, about Stone Point and the mouth of the Beaulieu River, indistinctly seen through the quivering golden haze; whilst on the left, across the water, Southsea Castle stood boldly forward upon its low projecting point, a watchful sentinel over the magnificent anchorage of Spithead. Inland from the castle lay the ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... merriment of the laborers. There was, at that time, something in their looks both of pride and feeling. The latter came from thankfulness to God, the former from the sight of the harvest, the reward of their labor. They felt indistinctly the grandeur and the holiness of their part in the general work of the world; they looked with pride upon their mountains of corn-sheaves, and they seemed to say, Next to God, it is we who feed ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... under the impulse of her hand until they stood at the gaping window. The murmur, which he had heard indistinctly a moment before, had grown to a roar of voices. The mob, on its return eastward along the Rue St. Honore, was nearing the house. He stood, his arm supporting her, and they waited, a little within the window. Suddenly he stooped, his ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... a man standing on the other side, and who was about to step on the support, when he paused on seeing another on the point of doing the same from the opposite bank. In the dim light, Harvey saw him only indistinctly, but judged that he himself was ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... of that inland sea. She was silent, however, and with awe- struck face and outstretched hands gazed into the face of him who still held her by the shoulder. The night was dark; but her eyes were now accustomed to the darkness, and she could see indistinctly something of his features. He was a low-sized man, dressed in a suit of sailor's blue clothing, with a rough cap of hair on his head, and a beard that had not been clipped for many weeks. His eyes were large, and hollow, and frightfully bright, so that she seemed to see nothing else of him; ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... look-outs were sent aloft to ascertain if any vessels were in sight. They reported three to the south-east, and one to the westward; but what they were it was impossible at that distance to say, as their loftier sails could but indistinctly be seen rising ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... many a rugged heart was melted, even to tears. Eleanor, meanwhile, remained in a state of passive stupefaction, vacantly gazing at Sybil, upon whom alone her eyes were fixed, and appearing indistinctly to apprehend the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... perilous adventure. He discharged himself clumsily from the wagon, his face undergoing singular changes of color the while, and cast a few savage glances at Saunders, who very composedly sat on the box endeavoring with might and main to suppress a vagabond laugh. 'Now, Saunders,' indistinctly sputtered the old man, as that bluff-sided individual turned upon his seat, rather knavely casting a comical glance over his shoulder, 'I'm not afraid—my courage never fails me; but that steamer don't take me to Ostend if ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Some were sent home to their friends—others, Anthony Dalaber among them, were placed on their trial, and being terrified at their position, recanted, and were sentenced to do penance. Ferrars was brought to Oxford for the occasion, and we discern indistinctly (for the mere fact is all which survives) a great fire at Carfax; a crowd of spectators, and a procession of students marching up High Street with fagots on their shoulders, the solemn beadles leading them with ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... relations—slept in a confused heap of brown arms, legs, and multi-coloured garments, from whence issued an occasional snore or a subdued groan of some uneasy sleeper. An European lamp with a green shade standing on the table made all this indistinctly ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... down when I first saw her. Her features and her expression were but indistinctly visible to me. I could just vaguely perceive that she was young and beautiful; but, beyond this, though I might imagine much, I ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... opprest, Columbus sat, till sudden hope was given— A ray of gladness shooting from the West. Oh, what a glorious vision for mankind Then dawned upon the twilight of his mind; Thoughts shadowy still, but indistinctly grand. There stood his genie, face to face, and signed (So legends tell) far seaward with her hand, Till a new world sprang up, and bloomed beneath ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... relaxed his hold and dropped down on the path at her feet. Mr. Crayshaw, feeling, perhaps, that he would gain nothing by stopping to scold, and just a little afraid of being seized by the other leg, muttered something indistinctly and walked into the house, limping a little, for Godfrey's feet and fingers had left their mark. Angel stooped down and laid her hand on the little boy's shoulder, and he caught hold of her dress and ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... "what was it that ran away from you on the meadow?" "cat!" "What did you want to do with the poor cat?" "kill!" "Have you no pity?" "no!" "Then is the cat right if she kills you?" "no!" "Why?" (The reply to this was rapped indistinctly.) "Have you no pity for any man ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... was some excuse for the negro's extraordinary behaviour; for, intense as was the darkness that enveloped us, the water was faintly phosphorescent, and we were thus enabled to discern indistinctly that, less than a hundred yards distant from us, a huge creature, which, to our excited imaginations, appeared to be between two and three hundred feet long, had risen to the surface and was now slowly ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... and thence to the mail-coach in the yard, as if to call some friend's attention to the vehicle. In spite of his muffling goatskin and thanks to this movement which allowed her to see his face, Francine recognized the Chouan, Marche-a-Terre, with his heavy whip; she saw him, indistinctly, in the obscurity of the stable, fling himself down on a pile of straw, in a position which enabled him to keep an eye on all that happened at the inn. Marche-a-Terre curled himself up in such a way that the cleverest spy, at any distance far or near, might have taken ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... of this land and the father of the seven sons is variously and indistinctly named. One legend calls him the White Serpent of the Clouds, or the White Cloud Twin, Iztac Mixcoatl.[1] Whoever he was we can hardly mistake the mountain in which or upon which he dwelt. Colhuacan means the bent or curved mountain. It is none other than the Hill of Heaven, curving down on ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... that soared above the foaming torrent, the tops of the two ahuehuetes could be seen only indistinctly, but the trunks and lower limbs were more palpably visible. On one of these, that projected obliquely over the water, the dragoon fancied he could perceive the figure of a man. On closer scrutiny he became certain it was the figure of a man, and the bronze-coloured ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... late in the afternoon of an intensely cold day, which caused the spray to congeal as it dashed against the bulwarks and cordage of the vessel, that we descried with great pleasure looming indistinctly in the distance, the shores of Sandy Hook, a desolate-looking island, near the coast of New Jersey, about seven miles south of Long Island Sound. This the captain informed me was formerly a peninsula, but the isthmus was broken through by the sea in 1767, the year after the declaration of American ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... world there is in some respects very different from the earth whereon men live. For instance, the waters reflect no forms. To the unaccustomed eye they appear, if undisturbed, like the surface of a dark metal, only that the latter would reflect indistinctly, whereas they reflect not at all, except light which falls immediately upon them. This has a great effect in causing the landscapes to differ from those on the earth. On the stillest evening, no tall ship on the sea sends a long wavering ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... the bosom of her dress, and taking something out that looked like paper, crumpled it up and flung it away. It fell at Salisbury's feet. She ran out and disappeared in the darkness, while the man lurched slowly into the street, grumbling indistinctly to himself in a perplexed tone of voice. Salisbury looked out after him and saw him maundering along the pavement, halting now and then and swaying indecisively, and then starting off at some fresh ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... dumpy shops whence issue puffs of air as cold as if coming from a cellar. Here are dealers in toys, cardboard boxes, second-hand books. The articles displayed in their windows are covered with dust, and owing to the prevailing darkness, can only be perceived indistinctly. The shop fronts, formed of small panes of glass, streak the goods with a peculiar greenish reflex. Beyond, behind the display in the windows, the dim interiors resemble a number of lugubrious cavities animated by ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... was living over again the old horrors, and remonstrating with slave-holders upon the wrongs of slavery. Then came passages of Scripture, their most telling words given with strong emphasis, the others indistinctly; some in tones of solemn rebuke, others in those of heart-broken pathos, but most distinctly audible in detached fragments. There was one exception,—a few words uttered brokenly, with a half-explosive force, from James 5: 4: ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... the window came no response; the girl could see the man's face only indistinctly in the dim, storm-washed light; receding thunder growled now and again and the noise of the rain came in soft, fierce waves; at times, lightning flashed a weird clearness over the details of the ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... peaceful a night that I conceived a quite desperate hope. In this state he remained part of the following day. But towards the evening he became agitated and pronounced words so indistinctly that they remained a ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... had been standing amongst the brushwood and smaller trees just beyond the ridge of rising ground towards which his gun had been directed. The head only of this man could have been visible from the side of the bank on which Brian was standing; and even the head could be seen very indistinctly. As Brian fired, it seemed to him, curiously enough, as if another report rang in his ears beside that of his own gun. Was any one else shooting in the wood? Or had his senses played him false in the horror ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... in contact with the boarding. Half dazed, he involuntarily relaxed his grip. The prisoner tore himself away and struck out viciously. A man fell heavily. For the fraction of a second a shadowy figure was indistinctly outlined in the doorway. Almost simultaneously Foyle, Green, and Wrington flung themselves in pursuit. They were too late. A soft splash told that the man had taken the only possible avenue ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... sprung to her feet without delay. "I also," she interposed, "indistinctly noticed the shadow ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Captain Dalgetty's habits to employ his mouth in talking, while it could be more profitably occupied. Sir Duncan was absolutely silent, and the lady and churchman only occasionally exchanged a few words, spoken low, and indistinctly. ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... the priest, indistinctly, sitting in a small skiff, which he tried to keep off the roof ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... The chevalier could but indistinctly see the face of the man, half hidden in his bed of fresh leaves. Not far from the hut was a covered fire where, cooking slowly, after the fashion of buccaneers, was a year-old boar. The stove or gridiron was formed by four forks driven into the earth, on which were ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... lip is turning out, and very thin; inside there are three ridges, two on the top part of the mouth, and the other, which is very small, is below. The shell, when the animal is out of it, is semi-transparent, and the little colomella, or pillar, can be indistinctly ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... houses. Partly on account of the distance, and partly on account of the blinding sun, and partly, perhaps, on account of the emotion I experienced, which made me desire and yet fear to see, I could distinguish the bridge but indistinctly, with the dark line of a barricade in front of it. What surprised me most in the battle which I was busily observing, was the extraordinarily small number of combatants that were visible, when suddenly—it was about two o'clock in the afternoon—the Versailles ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... and fired. Before the flash and the fumes had blinded me I, too, had seen indistinctly something low and prone gliding around the corner of the entrance. That was all we could make out of it, for as you can imagine the light was almost non-existent. The thing glided steadily, untouched or unmindful of the shots we threw at ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... (the nearest ones in the picture have been restored), nearly seventy feet high. They have campaniform (bell-shaped) capitals. On either side are seven rows of shorter columns, somewhat more than forty feet high. These, as may be indistinctly seen at the right of our picture, have capitals of a different type, called, from their origin rather than from their actual appearance, lotiform or lotus-bud capitals. There was a clerestory over the four central rows of columns, ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... it sounded to me like, "I am fond of you, in spite of all." She said it very lowly and indistinctly; maybe I did not hear aright. She may not have said just those words; but she cast herself impetuously against my breast, clasped both her arms about my neck for a little while, stretched even up a bit on her toes to get a good hold, and stood so ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... out a national existence, broad enough and strong enough to satisfy the ambition of a great nation a century after its birth; Clinton was satisfied to conserve what he had, unmoved by the great possibilities even then indistinctly outlined to the eye of the statesman whose vision was fixed intently upon an undivided America. But Clinton wisely conserved what was given to his keeping. As he grew older he grew more tolerant and humane, substituting imprisonment for the death penalty, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... back his boat-cloak around him maintained a profound silence, until they had passed the two small headlands that fanned the mouth of the harbor. The men pulled, with muffled oars, their long, vigorous strokes, and the boat glided with amazing rapidity past the objects that could be yet indistinctly seen along the dim shore. When, however, they had gained the open ocean, and the direction of their little bark was changed to one that led them in a line with the coast, and within the shadows of the cliffs, the cockswain, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... other side of the stove and near a door which communicated with the kitchen Minna was indistinctly visible in the haze of the good man's smoke, to which she was apparently accustomed. Beside her on a little table were the implements of household work, a pile of napkins, and another of socks waiting to be mended, also a lamp like that which shone on the white ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... with a child, rattling pretty speedily down hill;—people looking at us from the open doors and windows;—the children staring from the wayside;—the mowers stopping, for a moment, the sway of their scythes;—the matron of a family, indistinctly seen at some distance within the house, her head and shoulders appearing through the window, drawing her handkerchief over her bosom, which had been uncovered to give the baby its breakfast,—the said baby, or its immediate predecessor, sitting at the door, turning ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... glassy lake could be seen stretching into an undefined distance. The blue hills, apparently springing from the bosom of the lake, lined the horizon, and the shadowy forms of the Kandian mountains mingled indistinctly with the distant clouds. From this spot, with a good telescope, I could watch the greater part of the plain, which was at this time enlivened by the numerous herds of wild buffaloes scattered over the surface. A large bull was standing alone ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... spot as yet, down the moonlit, snow-banked trail, indistinctly they beheld an unsteady figure slowly weaving its way towards the detachment. At intervals the night-wind wafted ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... very indistinctly formulated by the most advanced thinkers of the age, and only gradually developed by practice into actuality, was a vast one. It involved the embitterment of national jealousies, the accentuation of national characteristics, and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... alluded to as marking the south-east angle of the lake, I again saw; but so indistinctly, though the atmosphere was very clear, that I imagined it to be at least forty miles distant. It is due east of my station on Observatory Hill. I further draw my conclusions from the fact, that all the hills on the country are much about the ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... rugged mountains rose against the lowering sky, but a moving ray of sunshine touched the plain below. In front, the road ran across a marsh, between deep ditches where tall sedges grew. Beyond the marsh, wet sands stretched back to the blurred woods across a bay, and farther off, low hills loomed indistinctly ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... did Cecil get on her narrow perch that night, for her sisters, in their dreams, were ever in a sinking ship, or struggling in the foam-driven rapids. Even her heart beat quicker when the paddle-wheels suddenly ceased, and ominous voices, indistinctly heard, appeared in agonized consultation. A familiar sound of knocking and hammering, however, suggested that they must have put into port for the repairs determined on; and, grasping her scanty complement of bed-clothes that were slipping to the floor, Cecil conveyed the re-assuring intelligence ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... the bench, and gasped, apparently unable to speak; he looked to Vanderhoek, and pointed to an instrument in the shape of a mattock—shaking his hand, and muttering indistinctly, "Haste! haste!" ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... house. The rain had ceased. A cold wind dispersed the clouds and scattered them behind the mountains; the sky became clear with the pale blue of autumn days, and a few stars appeared like diamonds in the horizon. The trees, mountains, streams and verdure-clad valley shone indistinctly under the clearness of the twilight. The count again put his horse to a gallop and quickly descended the hill which hid Lancia from view. The wind affected his senses and whistled in his ears producing ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... many fables got up to make the Jews odious and afford a pretext for plundering them. As for the sound like a woman laughing and crying, I never said it was a woman's voice; for, in the first place, I could only hear indistinctly; and, secondly, he may have an organ, or some queer instrument or other, with what they call the voce umana stop. If he moves his bed round to get out of draughts, or for any such reason, there is nothing very frightful in that simple operation. Most of our foolish conceits explain themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... prochlorite and corundophilite also occur as more or less distinct six-sided plates. These four better crystallized species are grouped together by G. Tschermak as orthochlorites, the finely scaly and indistinctly fibrous forms being grouped by the same ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... intricate alliterative and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh englyn, is infinitely more complicated but we believe our readers will agree that the spirit has been well caught. Perhaps it should be added that the effect is greatly increased if Owen's verse be spoken somewhat slowly and indistinctly in a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... military expeditions or enterprises within the jurisdiction of the United States, or usurp and exercise judicial authority within the United States, or where the penalties on violations of the law of nations may have been indistinctly marked, or are inadequate—these offenses can not receive too early and close an attention, and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington
... the beginning a man loves himself, although indistinctly; then comes the distinguishing of those things which to him are more or less; to be more or less loved or hated; and he follows after and flies from either more or less according as the right habit ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... a kind of simmering in her mind—an inward action which might become disagreeable outward. Husbands in the old time are known to have suffered from a threatening devoutness in their wives, presenting itself first indistinctly as oddity, and ending in that mild form of lunatic asylum, a nunnery: Grandcourt had a vague perception of threatening moods in Gwendolen which the unity between them in his views of marriage required him peremptorily to check. Among the means he chose, one was peculiar, and was ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Tartar Wall, towards the Ch'ien Men Gate, yellow dots could be indistinctly seen. These were the Americans, in their slouch hats and khaki suits, lying on the ground and facing the enemy's fire in the other direction. Held in check by the Germans and Americans in two feeble posts of a few men each, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... variety of other cloths manufactured for this purpose only in the Provinces of Tondo, Laguna, Batangas, Ilocos, Cagayan, Camarines, Albay, Visaya, etc., immense supplies of each kind would appear, which give occupation to an incalculable number of looms, indistinctly worked by Indians, Chinese, and Sangleyan mestizos, indeed all the classes, in their own humble dwellings, built of canes and thatched with palm leaves, without any apparatus ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... a shallow, stony river, but deep enough at one point for gingerly swimming. Stefan seemed never to have been cool through the summer except when he was squatting or paddling in this hole. He remembered only indistinctly the boys with whom he bathed; he had no friends among them. But there had been a little girl with starched white skirts, huge blue bows over blue eyes, and yellow hair, whom he had admired to adoration. She wanted desperately to bathe in the hole, and he demanded of her mother that ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... these emotions bowed to her inarticulate reply, supposing that the mingling voices of others had made him hear hers indistinctly. ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... "Yes, indistinctly; but none of them ever got in my bonnet or made much impression. I don't like bees, nor do they like me. They respect only the deliberation of profound gravity and wisdom. Father has these qualities by the right of years, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... whom security was given, took to flight, etc. For "zamin" with the acc. see Ibn Jubair ed. by Wright, 77, 2. I may say on this occasion, that my impression of the Montague MS. is, that it is a blundering copy of a valuable though perhaps indistinctly ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... did, straight and to the point, so fast and indistinctly that at times I could scarcely follow him. I answered his rapid questions briefly, and as best I knew how. He wanted to know what chance he had to win the suit, and I told him there might be other factors involved beside those of which he had spoken. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Higgins," he ventured, somewhat indistinctly through his matting of whiskers, "I swow if he hain't got right feelin's, fer all he's so durn peart." And his ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... pile became faintly luminous. The radiance grew stronger and stronger, and presently an immense circular disc of light appeared reflected on the slowly-rising cloud of vapour, in which a host of forms were indistinctly traceable. Another moment and a loud ejaculation of astonishment burst from the savage spectators, for, with another sudden brightening of the luminous disc there appeared the phantom presentment of M'Bongwele's troops drawn ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... that sent them rapidly across the sheet of water. A cold and uncertain light began to stream from the ashen east, and the air was dank and heavy with the thick mist that wrapped earth and water like a shroud. It swallowed up the land behind them, and through it the nearer marshes gloomed indistinctly, dark patches upon the gray surface of the water. The narrow creek was hard to find amidst the universal dimness. The Muggletonian rowed slowly, peering about him with small, keen eyes. At length with ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... also showed other things, indistinctly, 'tis true; but enough—quite enough. She revealed for an instant, as she shone on the spot on the sand where the skua had sat, the fact that the sand seemed to be alive, horribly alive, as if the pebbles had taken legs and ran about. It was a sudden, ghastly flashlight, hidden as ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... bay against a pitiless world, and a kind of animal secretiveness possessed her. But the street was empty, and she passed unnoticed through the gate and up the path to the house. Its white front glimmered indistinctly through the trees, showing only one oblong of light on the lower floor. She had supposed that the lamp was in Miss Hatchard's sitting-room; but she now saw that it shone through a window at the farther corner of ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... were soon engaged in the agreeable discussion of grog and small talk. Nothing interrupted our conversation. The heavy lashing and rush of the weltering sea on the quarters—the groaning and straining of the vessel—the regular strokes of the engines which boomed indistinctly yet surely on the ear, were alike unattended to. Impelled by that mighty power, we almost bid defiance to wind and weather. As the glass circulated, the Lieutenant amused us in his own dry way with some early recollections of service; and knowing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... as it were, indistinctly, and through a sort of high singing in Abel Keeling's own ears. Then he fancied a short bewildered laugh, followed by a colloquy from somewhere ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... commotion arises in the palace; Hippolytus is heard indistinctly uttering angry words. He and the Nurse come forth; in spite of her appeal for silence, he denounces her for tempting him. When she reminds him of his oath of secrecy, he answers "My tongue has sworn, but not my will"—a line pounced upon as immoral by the poet's many foes. Hippolytus' ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... could be more agreeable than the season, precisely answering to the beautiful weather which my letters announced from different parts of England. During this time the mountains were rarely visible, and when seen appeared indistinctly. This charming fortnight, during which Pau seemed to deserve all the commendations so profusely bestowed on it, was a promise of the calm and peaceful winter which I was told was always to be found in these favoured regions; ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... the subject then sinks into a deep sleep, which continues for half an hour or longer. When consciousness is first regained, the subject appears confused, stupid, and usually complains of headache. He has no recollection of what has occurred during the attack, he pronounces words indistinctly, and if he attempts to walk, he staggers like a drunken man. Sometimes, several attacks occur so closely together that there is no ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the foreman held the end, but like the rest they leaned over the side of the boat to watch the movements of the white figure they could indistinctly see far below, for the water was of course disturbed, and our movements in the boats kept up a series of ripples ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... words, claim infallibility, by requiring implicit and absolute submission, must have had a direct tendency to hoodwink and blind the people; nor can we be surprised, that when their eyes were first opened, they saw indistinctly; or, to use a scripture phrase, 'men as trees walking.' They utterly failed in preparing the mind to receive divine truth, or in furnishing an antidote ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... was very dark. There was service in the church, and the building glimmered through all its crevices like a dim Kirk Allowa'. I saw few other lights, but was indistinctly aware of many people stirring in the darkness, and a hum and sputter of low talk that sounded stealthy. I believe (in the old phrase) my beard was sometimes on my shoulder as I went. Muller's was but partly lighted, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the side of the slope; mighty trees also adorn it, giant elms, the nearest of which, when the sun is nigh its meridian, fling a broad shadow upon the face of the pool; through yon vista you catch a glimpse of the ancient brick of an old English hall. It has a stately look, that old building, indistinctly seen, as it is, among those umbrageous trees; you might almost suppose it an earl's home; and such it was, or rather upon its site stood an earl's home, in days of old, for there some old Kemp, some Sigurd, or Thorkild, roaming in quest of a hearthstead, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the lines of a poetess flashed across me, indistinctly remembered—"beauty that women seek after ... that they may give ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... detached itself from the group, and, as it approached, developed indistinctly the features of a brawny farmer, with a ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... Ann! The child seemed hypnotized and, as if touched by a magic power, her resemblance to her mother fairly radiated from her face. She was struggling for expression. Seeking to find words that would convey what she was experiencing. It was like remembering indistinctly another country and scene, whose language had been forgotten. Then—and only Lynda and Truedale ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... complete eradication of the natural tendency to "baby-talk" which is too often encouraged and aided by the habit of parents in REPEATING THE BABY-TALK. In no case, should defective utterances be repeated, no matter how "cute" the utterance may seem at the time. Many speak indistinctly throughout their entire life simply because of the habit of their parents in repeating baby-talk, thus confirming incorrect ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... this sentence I started, and, for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)—it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... those individuals who take pleasure in telling you that you are looking ill,—that you are falling off physically or mentally. "Surely you have lost some of your teeth since I saw you last," said a good man to a man of seventy-five years: "I cannot make out a word you say, you speak so indistinctly." And so obtuse, and so thoroughly devoid of gentlemanly feeling, was that good man, that, when admonished that he ought not to speak in that fashion to a man in advanced years, he could not for his life see that he had done anything unkind or unmannerly. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... sank indistinctly, and scarcely reached Olive. Perhaps it was well; such light falling on her darkness might ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... as a silver mirror that is formed of a thin plate reflects indistinctly and with a feeble light, while one that is substantially made can take on a very high polish, and reflects a brilliant and distinct image when one looks therein, so it is with stucco. When the stuff ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... Nevertheless, she made the same mistake with the nail shortly after. I have often made similar observations. We may certainly conclude that the wasp saw something of the size of a fly, but without distinguishing the details; therefore she saw it indistinctly. Evidently a wasp does not only perceive motion; she also distinguishes the size of objects. When I put dead flies on a table to be carried off by another wasp, she took them, one after another, as ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... hopeless face upon the new-comers, staring vacantly at them, muttering indistinctly words which his lips refused to articulate. Only the remnants of his clothing marked him as a civilised being. The blacks who had fed him sat round to watch the meeting with most gratified ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... The next morning the parties were summoned, and a jury of two men called. Humphreys under a guard of six men, armed with muskets, was arraigned, and Smith and Kidder, seated upon a chest near him. The prisoner was asked a few questions touching his intentions, which he answered but low and indistinctly. The trial, if it may be so called, had progressed thus far, when Comstock made a speech in the following words. "It appears that William Humphreys has been accused guilty, of a treacherous and base act, in loading a pistol for the purpose of shooting ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... sang, a voice from the Cabinet, a deep contralto, joined in, loudly. Soon something resembling in outline a human form covered with drapery appeared at the Cabinet. It was indistinctly luminous. No face was visible; nor could the face of any other Spirit, which appeared during the evening, be discerned even in faintest outline. The light seemed to belong entirely to the drapery. The Spirit was declared to be Apollonius, ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... only knew that her head was throbbing, that she heard but indistinctly the words of the man who kept close to her as they went on up the steep trail. At the rock where she had been too quick for him, Sperry abruptly stepped in front of her, ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... examination went on more staidly. Bertram said that he remembered very well the walk he had taken with the Dominie and somebody lifting him up on horseback—then, more indistinctly, a scuffle in which he and his guide had been pulled from the saddle. Vaguely and gradually the memory came back of how he had been lifted into the arms of a very tall woman who protected him from harm. Again he was a poor half-starved cabin-boy in the Holland trade. ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... gleefully on ahead were merely in haste. And they were followed more slowly by burly men and lean ones, whole men and limping men, who hauled frantically on long ropes of hide, dragging some heavy thing behind them. Tommy saw it only indistinctly as the filthy, nearly naked bodies moved. But it was an intricate device of a golden-colored metal, and it rested upon the crudest of possible carts. The wheels were sections of tree trunks, pierced for wooden axles. The cart itself was made ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... fled up the dark stairs, and near the top, in his eagerness, stumbled and fell back to the last step with a rolling din, which, reverberated by the arch overhead, smote through and through the wall, dying away at last indistinctly, like low muffled thunder among the clefts of deep hills. When raising himself instantly, not seriously bruised by his fall, Israel instantly listened, the echoing sounds of his descent were mingled with added shrieks from within the room. They seemed some nervous female's, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... the attention of his comrades to an object in the water at no great distance ahead. The rays of the searchlight with which the submarine was provided indistinctly revealed a huge bulk slightly above the level ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson |
