"Indefinite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have been practically undisturbed. A complete picture of aboriginal life during the occupancy of the lower Verde valley would be a picture of pueblo life pursued in the face of great difficulties, and with an environment so unfavorable that had the occupation extended over an indefinite period of time it would still have been impossible to develop the great structures which resulted from the ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... discovered the steam-engine; that to 'discover' the system is the same thing as to set it to work; and that, once at work, it will be omnipotent. He is not less certain that a good constitution will make men virtuous, than was Bentham that he could grind rogues honest by the Panopticon. The indefinite modifiability of character was the ground upon which the Utilitarians based their hopes of progress; and it was connected in their minds with the doctrine of which his essay upon education is a continuous application. The theory of 'association of ideas' appeared ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... better." But no representative Virginian shares that prophetic vision; the color-blindness, on whichever side it is, has not yielded to treatment during the twenty-five years that have elapsed since the close of the war, and may as well be accepted for an indefinite period. When social relations were resumed between the North and the South,—they followed slowly the resumption of business relations,—what we should call the color-blindness of the other side often manifested itself in a delicate reticence on the part of ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... after, I began to be sensible of a running-down in the wheels. I had an article to write for the "Atlantic," but felt mopish and could not write. My dinner had not its usual relish, and I had an indefinite sense everywhere of something going wrong. My coal bill came in, and I felt sure we were being extravagant, and that our John Furnace wasted the coal. My grandsons and granddaughters came to see us, and I discovered that they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... existed for a few years after the separation from Haiti in 1844 was the division between clericals on the one hand and liberals on the other, a party division that has created havoc in other parts of Spanish America. The very indefinite claims on each side and the practical unanimity of the country in its attitude towards the church caused this issue ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... to be made into spring, summer, autumn, and winter, or several similar seasons (sometimes with intermediate points), festivals gradually arranged themselves in the various periods. The terms designating the four seasons are, however, somewhat indefinite in regard to position in the year and duration, varying in these points in different places, and it is better, in considering agricultural ceremonies, to make a general division into times of planting ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... no limits, have no limits, know no bounds,have no bounds; go on for ever. Adj. infinite; immense; numberless, countless, sumless[obs3], measureless; innumerable, immeasurable, incalculable, illimitable, inexhaustible, interminable, unfathomable, unapproachable; exhaustless, indefinite; without number, without measure, without limit, without end; incomprehensible; limitless, endless, boundless, termless[obs3]; untold, unnumbered, unmeasured, unbounded, unlimited; illimited[obs3]; perpetual &c. 112. Adv. infinitely &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... when the captain coming from his cabin, and observing the master-at-arms leading Israel about in this indefinite style, demanded the reason of that procedure, adding that it was against his express orders for any new and degrading punishments to be invented ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... for them—and no doubt for us, too, since they might fairly assume that we did not get much to eat. But on our side there was the trouble and delay involved in the getting of it. To jostle about in a crowd for an indefinite period of time for sake of a scrap of flesh meat—and such meat! such flesh!—required rare ravenousness of appetite; and the bursting of a shell in the midst of a surging mass of humanity was so certain to be attended by fatal results ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... races: nor did it seem too great a stretch of imaginative probability to conceive that their general characteristics might be adopted and imitated by beings already invested by the human mind with an indefinite power, and inhabiting a world in which ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... merely to make a satisfactory settlement on his wife, but to do his part in helping her relatives, who would also be his from the day he married her, that his marriage should not take place as soon as Dora and Tom Robinson's. In place of an indefinite engagement, with thousands of miles of land and sea, and all the uncertainties of life into the bargain, between him, Harry Ironside, and Annie Millar, would it not be much better that he should carry away with him the brightest, bravest ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... and made the city home so comfortable and cosy. Yet I came to my house in the city less and less. The car ride grew shorter every week. When the courts closed and the long vacation, arrived I bade the cook an indefinite good-bye. My clients had to conform to the new office hours, 10 to 3, with Saturdays struck off the office calendar, and, in the dog days, Mondays too. Yet I was within call, and business ran smoothly. The country looked brighter than ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... comparatively speaking, ineffective in more contracted and difficult regions. The Parthian military system had not the elasticity of the Roman—it did not in the same way adapt itself to circumstances, or admit of the addition of new arms, or the indefinite expansion of an old one. However loose and seemingly flexible, it was rigid in its uniformity; it never altered; it remained under the thirtieth Arsaces such as it had been under the first, improved in details, perhaps, but essentially the same ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... Jan. 24th, 1881, Mr. Forster introduced his Coercion Bill. It was open, of course, to any member to speak once, and once only, on the main motion. But every member had an indefinite right to move the adjournment of the debate, and on each such motion every member could speak again. The debate was carried all through that week. It was resumed on Monday, 31st. The declaration of Redmond's election was fixed for Tuesday, February ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... incautious exposure, and only by frequently running beside our sledges could we keep any "feeling" in our feet. Impelled by hunger and cold, we repeated twenty times the despairing question, "How much farther is it?" and twenty times we received the stereotyped but indefinite answer of "cheimuk," near, or occasionally the encouraging assurance that we would arrive in a minute. Now we knew very well that we should not arrive in a minute, nor probably in forty minutes; but it afforded temporary relief to be told ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... illegal migration of tens of thousands of North Koreans escaping famine, economic privation, and political oppression; North Korea and China dispute the sovereignty of certain islands in Yalu and Tumen rivers and a section of boundary around Paektu-san (mountain) is indefinite; Military Demarcation Line within the 4-km wide Demilitarized Zone has separated North from South Korea since 1953; periodic maritime disputes with South over the Northern Limit Line; North Korea supports South Korea in rejecting ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... There was plenty to be done before the war game actually began. There were plans to be laid, codes to be determined, umpires to be consulted as to vague and indefinite rules, and all sorts of little things that in a real war would have adjusted themselves. But the Scouts were well out of the excitement. They struck their tents and handed them over, neatly arranged, with all their bedding, to the ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... young plant but is not so strongly developed, so that the adhering dirt is not so evident on the mature plant. Fleshy layer when dry, thin and closely adherent. Endoperidium globose, sessile. Mouth sulcate, indefinite. Columella globose-clavate. Capillitium thicker than the spores. Spores small, 4 mc. ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... hard to extract some more ends out of him on the way to the Rectory; but he declined to pursue the history of the Trout family through indefinite generations. It was decided on all hands, however, that Tommy Trout was evidently one and the same with the Tommy Trout who pulled the cat out of the well, because "it was just a sort of thing for a Brownie to do, you know!" and that Johnnie Green ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... if, for women, marrying was mere reposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit, Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as "making up their minds." You see I uphold my own sex at ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... what in cold, crude systems hath holden the place and dignity of the highest virtue. May you live, O my friend, in the enjoyment of health, to substitute the facetious for the licentious, the simple for the extravagant, the true and characteristic for the indefinite and diffuse. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... was a waltz. Tom did not know that it was the music that stirred his soul with a sudden tenderness, a longing indefinite, that was full of pain and yet was all sweetness. Martha who sat near him looked at him half expectantly. But her little gray face and twitching hands repelled him. On the other side of the room, Nellie Slater, flushed and smiling was tapping ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... perhaps, more correct to say of Byron, that he was charged with the spirit of revolt rather than with the revolutionary spirit. The revolutionary spirit was in him indefinite, inarticulate; he offered nothing to put in the place of the social and political evils against which he rebelled. There is nothing CONSTRUCTIVE in his poetry. But if his great passion-capital, his keen spiritual susceptibility, and his great power of vigorous expression, had been brought ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... which even to the writer's feeling was exaggerated, but because it was expressed coarsely, and as a physical power: now, every thing physical is measurable by weight, motion, and resistance; and is therefore definite. But the very essence of whatsoever is supernatural lies in the indefinite. That power, therefore, with which the minds of men invested the emperor, was vulgarized by this coarse translation into the region of physics. Else it is evident, that any power which, by standing above all human control, occupies the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... of justice. You have heard the evidence; the law for the purposes of this trial you are to take from the judge. But you are not to be led away with the idea that you must convict this prisoner at any rate. It is a well-established principle that it is better for an indefinite number of guilty men to escape than for one innocent man to be convicted and punished; and for the best of reasons,—for to have the very machinery established for the protection of right turned into an instrument for the infliction of wrong, ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... intended to teach the student to "do something," in order that the vocal organs may be directly caused to act properly. No matter how vague and indefinite the directions given, their aim is always to inform the student what to do, how to guide the vocal action. Even when used in a purely empirical way the directions for open throat, etc., are always given in this spirit. ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... present day, all public assessments are levied, and divisions made, according to the number of merk lands in a parish. All arable lands were anciently, under the Norwegian law, rated as merks,—a merk containing eight ures. These merks are quite indefinite as to extent. It is, indeed, clear that the ancient denomination of merk land had not reference to superficial extent of surface, but was a denomination of value alone, in which was included the proportion ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... silhouetted in dark outline against the pale gray skyline. From the very first moment Eustace Le Neve set eyes upon that striking figure this man exerted upon him some nameless attraction. Even at this distance the engineer could see he had a certain indefinite air of dignity and distinction; and he poised himself lightly on the very edge of the cliff in a way that would no doubt have made Walter Tyrrel shudder with fear and alarm. Yet there was something about that poise quite unearthly ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... importance is to be attached to 2Kings xviii.22. The narrative of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem is not a contemporary one, as appears generally from the entirely indefinite character of the statements about the sudden withdrawal of the Assyrians and its causes, and particularly from xix.7, 36, 37. For in this passage the meaning certainly is that Sennacherib was assassinated soon after the unsuccessful ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... recommending that one shd take occasion of ye Bishops' charges, under wh people writhed so much, to make one's defence, show that one was not so unsound as one seemed, and plead for sympathy. [Footnote: This fondness for the use of the indefinite pronoun very much characterised the Puseyite dialect, as I have somewhere read that it did the Jansenist. The phase which it marked may he seen fully developed in the tract 'On Reserve,' by Isaac Williams.] I was unwilling to ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... by an extensive outlook. The shore, perhaps a hundred yards away, ran shortly into a fisher hamlet, and then into a long line of half submerged rocks, like successive touches of a skipping stone. Beyond the end of this indefinite point, and a little to the right of it, stood another lookout. This was our only near neighbor, though others could be seen in miniature in the distance, faint cobwebs against the coast. The bay stretched away on all sides, landlocked at last, except ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... separate session, and repeatedly renew obnoxious or unprofitable motions, the society can adopt a rule prohibiting the second introduction of any principal question [Sec. 6] within, say, three or six months after its rejection, or indefinite postponement, or after the society has refused to consider it. But generally it is better to suppress the motion by refusing to consider ...
— Robert's Rules of Order - Pocket Manual of Rules Of Order For Deliberative Assemblies • Henry M. Robert
... the crime, the civil power seized the persons of both the guilty parties, and began to prosecute judicial inquiries, with the greatest secrecy, under the clandestine supervision of the bishop. The proceedings were prolonged to an indefinite period, until the friar had been six years in prison, within which interval the woman died. In a popular commotion which occurred in Cuenca in consequence of an invasion by the French, all prisoners were set at liberty, and ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... the dilemma of persons whom she knew had made her the butt of their scandalous gibes, could only admire the skilful manner in which he brought home to the several captives the necessity of finding a very large sum of money at their bankers' in a very short time, or enduring an indefinite captivity. After more or less of surly threats and resistance on the part of the men, and screaming on the part of the women, the prisoners one and all capitulated, and put their names to the papyri they were commanded to sign; and ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... in order to be consoled. And there is no reason to doubt that at times, if not invariably, in his early days, he did rise; he found consolation. But it was all without form. It was a sentiment, a mood,—philosophically bodiless. This indefinite mysticism was the real heart of the forest world, closer than hands or feet, but elusive, incapable of formulation, a presence, not an idea. Before the task of expressing it, the forest mystic stood helpless. Just what it was that he felt impinging upon him from every side he did not know. ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... hanging at her sides, lost themselves in the folds of her black dress; her eyes gazed vaguely before her. There was nothing to recall her to the house; the two ladies, in their seclusion, dined early and had tea at an indefinite hour. How long she had sat in this position she could not have told you; but the twilight had grown thick when she became aware that she was not alone. She quickly straightened herself, glancing about, and then saw what had become of her solitude. She was sharing it with Caspar Goodwood, ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... attracted by the Earth, she would glide through the Heavens along an indefinite straight line, escaping at the tangent. But in virtue of the attraction that governs the movements of all the Heavenly bodies, our satellite at a distance of 60 times the terrestrial half-diameter revolves round us in 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, 11-1/2 seconds, continually leaving ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... Village of C., where he married a second time. When first he removed to R, he was for some years employed in a saw-mill and earned a comfortable support for his family. My knowledge of his early residence in R. is indefinite, as he had lived there for many years previous to my recollection, and all I know concerning the matter is what I have heard spoken of at different times by my parents and other old residents of the place. It would seem however that his second marriage ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... Day after day he remained silent and almost motionless alike in mind and body. He had a vague feeling that, after some great sorrows, and some great trials, he was in stillness and in safety; and he had an indefinite mysterious sentiment of gratitude to some unknown power, that had cherished him in his dark calamities, and poured balm and oil into ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... themselves were not exempt from the common lot. They too grew old and died. But when at a later time the discovery of the art of embalming gave a new lease of life to the souls of the dead by preserving their bodies for an indefinite time from corruption, the deities were permitted to share the benefit of an invention which held out to gods as well as to men a reasonable hope of immortality. Every province then had the tomb and mummy of its dead god. The ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... forward his basket, and repeated the story of Wik-a-nee,—seldom forgetting to imitate her strange cry of joy when she saw the scarlet peas. His mother was now obliged to be more watchful than ever to prevent him from wandering out of sight and hearing. He had imbibed an indefinite idea that there was a great realm of adventure out there beyond. If he could only get a little nearer to the horizon, he thought he might perhaps find another pappoose, or catch a prairie-dog and tame it. He had heard his father say that a great many of those animals lived ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... to them. They were in origin the "nymphs" or "genii" of mountain streams worshipped by an ancient bardic race (resembling our own sweet-singing Welsh folk), the Thracians. At first the number of the Muses was indefinite, and they had no names. Then three were named—one of Meditation (Melete), one of Memory (Mneme), and one of Song (Aoeide)—a much prettier embodiment of the impression made on a poetical mind by rock-pools and cascades and leafy gorges than the formal and redundant nine of later ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... compliments to Mr John Rokesmith, and begs to say that he has decided on giving Mr John Rokesmith a trial in the capacity he desires to fill. Mr Boffin takes Mr John Rokesmith at his word, in postponing to some indefinite period, the consideration of salary. It is quite understood that Mr Boffin is in no way committed on that point. Mr Boffin has merely to add, that he relies on Mr John Rokesmith's assurance that he will be faithful ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... Confederate States 'as a sea-power.' Also,[12] he remarks of the war of the Spanish Succession that 'before it England was one of the sea-powers, after it she was the sea-power without any second.' In all these passages, as appears from the use of the indefinite article, what is meant is a naval power, or a state in possession of a strong navy. The other meaning of the term forms the general subject of his writings above enumerated. In his earlier works ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... story brief, and can only say that not long after this I found myself in another town, where it became necessary for me to do something to support myself. This was difficult, for I am an indefinite man, and definiteness seems necessary to success in any line. Happening one day to pass a house with open lower windows, I heard the sound of children's voices speaking in unison, and knowing that this must be a school, I looked in, compelled entirely by that curiosity which often urges us ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... yacht, and everything belonging to her, were in some indefinite but very real danger, took afresh a strong hold of him, and the persuasion that the master of the brig was going there to help did not by any means assuage his alarm. The fact only served to complicate his uneasiness with a ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... and Leibnitz arose in the midst of plains of moderate extent, bounded by an indefinite succession of amphitheatres and circular ramparts. These two chains are the only ones which are met with in the region of amphitheatres. Relatively they are not very broken, and only throw out here and there some sharp peaks, ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... a man! Stout as a buffalo an' as to looks I'd call him, as ye might say, real copasetic." Mrs. Lukins expressed this opinion solemnly and with a slight cough. Its last word stood for nothing more than an indefinite depth of meaning. She added by way of drawing the curtain of history: "I'll bet he didn't dilly dally long when he made up his mind. I reckon he were ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... cling to amid the wrack of a man's universe; yet it holds until the appearance of a new phase in which he is to find escape from the prison-house. He has begun to realise that fear—a nameless fear of he knows not what—has taken hold upon him. "I lived in a continual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous." Fear affects men in widely different ways. We have seen how this same vague "sense of enemies" obsessed the youthful spirit of Marius the Epicurean, until it cleared itself eventually ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... same as dividing a Nation by an indefinite number of Councils," retorted the White Queen, smartly. "Talk about tu ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... campaign in Mexico seem so mixed up and indefinite as that relative to the taking of Huamantla, and the death of that noble and chivalric officer, Capt. Walker. In glancing over the papers of Major Mammond, of Georgia, which he designates the "Secondary Combats of the Mexican War," we observe that he ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... broken all the machinery he can find with a hammer, and has then thrown the hammer into the sea; and then he can, by experiment, become almost as rooted in the earth as a tree or an artesian well. It is a bad thing to have an indefinite horizon. It is a good thing to grow knowing one part of the world as thoroughly as one knows the inside of one's boots. Legs make for nationality, patriotism, and all the virtues which centre in locality. Wheels make for diffuseness, imperialisms, cosmopolitanisms. By ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... dispute with Malawi over the boundary in Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi); Democratic Republic of the Congo-Tanzania-Zambia tripoint in Lake Tanganyika may no longer be indefinite since it has been informally reported that the indefinite section of the Democratic Republic of the ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... springs up, producing first a tender shoot, then a stem, and branches, and leaves, and blossoms, and fruit; and every herb or tree, "having seed in itself," makes provision for the repetition of the same process, and the perpetuation and indefinite increase of its kind. The same law is observed in the animal kingdom, where a continuous race is produced from a single pair. And even in the supernatural scheme of Revelation itself, the truth was gradually unfolded in a series of successive dispensations; the First Promise ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... is no indefinite article in Esperanto. Patro, a Father; or merely Father, as the case ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 2 • Various
... have time to finish the long and heavy task which nature lays upon the instinct that rises in order to approach a brighter region.... An ill of a mysterious character, which seems specially to punish the only animal that succeeds in leaving the circle in which it is born; an indefinite ill that carries off hundreds of intelligent little dogs, came to put an end to the destiny and the happy education of Pelleas. And now all those efforts to achieve a little more light; all that ardour in loving, that courage in understanding; all that affectionate gaiety and innocent fawning; ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... unfailingly discovered a proportionate increase of wisdom and intuition in Shakespeare;—when I know this, and know too, that by a conceivable and possible, though hardly to be expected, arrangement of the British theatres, not all, indeed, but a large, a very large, proportion of this indefinite all—(round which no comprehension has yet drawn the line of circumscription, so as to say to itself, "I have seen the whole")—might be sent into the heads and hearts—into the very souls of the mass of mankind, to whom, except by this living comment and interpretation, it must ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... that Aunt Theresa came to know what Mrs. Minchin had said about her wearing half-mourning for my father and mother. That she knew better than to go into deep black, which is trying to indefinite complexions, but was equal to any length of grief in those lavenders, and delicate combinations of black and white, which are so becoming to everybody, especially to people who are not quite so young as they ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... ancient kingdoms or dynasties. Many of the gods who occupied so much of their thoughts were personifications of natural forces such as the sun, wind and fire, worshipped without temples or images and hence more indefinite in form, habitation and attributes than the deities of Assyria or Egypt. The idea of a struggle between good and evil was not prominent. In Persia, where the original pantheon was almost the same as that of the Veda, this idea produced ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... eyes were on him. In some indefinite way he was so different, so—so human and equal. Outwardly there was no evidence of the change—the same nondescript clothes, the same grimy hands and face, the same coarse boots ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... that they were glaringly happy. And Mr. James Thornton was a good soul—everybody admitted that. And yet—for an instant the gray stone building in the distance, bathed in the golden radiance of the setting sun, grew misty and blurred. She saw another sunset, all pink and green and soft, indefinite violet, and above the deep, sweet, ceaseless sound of a wondrously opalescent sea she heard a man's voice ring clear and true with a love as eternal as that same changeless sea. She felt again that strange, sweet, unearthly ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... better to visit few places, and to become at home in each, than to race from place to place, guide-book in hand. A beautiful scene does not yield up its secrets to the eye of the collector. What one wants is not definite impressions but indefinite influences. It is of little use to enter a church, unless one tries to worship there, because the essence of the place is worship, and only through worship can the secret of the shrine be apprehended. It is of little ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of the valley to the summit of the hill, like the complaining of a mighty voice; the glare of the funeral torches was still seen afar through the mist of evening; it was the hour of twilight—that strange hour, which gives to the most solid forms a vague, indefinite fantastic appearance—when the sound of firm and regular footsteps was heard on the stony soil of the rising ground, and, between the black trunks of the trees, a man passed ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... members of the race. And coupled with this thought would go the conception that inasmuch as some people through luck had escaped the vengeance of all their enemies for long periods, these same individuals might continue to escape for indefinite periods of the future. There were no written records to tell primeval man of events of long ago. He lived in the present, and his sweep of ideas scarcely carried him back beyond the limits of his individual memory. But memory is observed to be ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... is obtained, which may be employed with any form of lamp, and will last for an indefinite time. It may also be used in connection with an open cup, which the inventor terms a poor man's lamp. A perforated card is laid upon the top of the cup or tumbler as a support to ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... boundary with India is indefinite; exchange of 151 enclaves along border with India subject to ratification by Indian parliament; dispute with India over South ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of the court bill and was willing to let the impeachment be dropped, it being understood that this course would not be taken as a sanction of the Judge's conduct. To my astonishment, members who had said only half an hour before that they should vote for the impeachment now voted for an indefinite postponement, which was carried by three votes—fifteen to twelve. I did not vote, and three members who strongly favored the impeachment were absent at the time. Seven of the members who voted for the indefinite postponement afterwards informed me that they had done ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... by facts. Indeed, so far as the evidence of facts is concerned, the advocates of immediate abolition have a complete monopoly. All experience proves two things, viz., the entire safety of immediate emancipation, and that all danger has arisen from its indefinite postponement; for this is really the true definition of ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin
... on at indefinite length to examine the various monopolies of this sort, but it does not seem necessary. The salient fact which is evident to any one at all conversant with business affairs is, that in almost every line of trade the restriction of competition is in force to a greater ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling the woodland. With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the branches Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whispers. Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline's heart, but a secret, Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror, As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of the swallow. It was no earthly fear. A breath from the region of spirits Seemed to float in the air of night; and she felt for a moment That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a phantom. With this ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... with courage to lead where multitudes would follow—some to whom a kind Providence has given liberty of action? It is far from our intention to excite rebellion in families, or tempt away from the manifest calls of duty; but can not some one begin what others will continue? And we must not be indefinite: begin what? continue what? A system which, in this Protestant land, would give to the poor outcast, the little criminal, the child of the State, a mother as well as a father; that would give to the wretched of all ages a sister as ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... as to Virginia. But it is said that appearances exist that indicate an intention on our part to interfere with some of the institutions of the South. We ask for the proof. None is forthcoming—nothing but the most vague and indefinite suspicion. ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... former tutor were not complicated. He had to be properly dressed, to smell of scent, to listen to Kamyshev's idle babble, to eat and drink and sleep—and apparently that was all. For this he received a room, his board, and an indefinite salary. ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the rules for the interpretation of auguries and omens, were far too indefinite and vague to answer the purpose for which they were now appealed to. The most unequivocal distinctness and directness in giving its responses is a very essential requisite in any tribunal that is called upon as an umpire, to settle disputes; ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Caribs. Their language appears to belong to the great branch of the Caribbee and Tamanac tongues. It displays the same analogies of roots and grammatical forms, which are observed between the Sanscrit, the Persian, the Greek, and the German. It is not easy to fix the forms of what is indefinite by its nature; and to agree on the differences which should be admitted between dialects, derivative languages and mother-tongues. The Jesuits of Paraguay have made known to us another tribe of Guayanos* in the southern hemisphere, living in the thick forests of Parana. (* They are also ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... powers which European civilization exercised upon Russia, the Russians perceived its weak sides, which they studied by the light of the ideal which they promised themselves to attain in some indefinite future, a future which they nevertheless ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... evidently fallen from the cliff as it had been eaten back by waters toiling through countless bygone ages. Many of these masses of rock lie at some distance from the foot of the falls, and on the partially decayed surfaces of some of them vegetation had evidently been flourishing for an indefinite period of time. Huge masses of rocks and boulders, as you look down the river, seem almost to block up its route towards the western sea, and indeed so completely seem to fill up the pass, that one ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... were as mystical as they were assuring: one, in a female hand, told her that her son Levin was being tenderly watched, and another, in man's writing, enclosed some money, and said her son would soon be home. Mrs. Dennis was far from happy in this indefinite state of mind, and her heart told her, also, that the absence of James Phoebus was a different strain. She loved that absentee already too ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... played upon my enthusiasm. But never mind; the offense, if any, was so charming, I almost wish you would offend again. As for certain poetic left-handers in your panegyric, those I cheerfully concede to the indefinite privileges of the poet. Upon the whole, it was quite in the lyric style—a style I always admire on account of that spirit of Sibyllic confidence and assurance which is, perhaps, its prime ingredient. But come," glancing at his companion's glass, "for a lyrist, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... the singular, denotes an age, a period of indefinite, but limited, duration, which may be either long or short. In the plural, the word denotes ages, or periods, that may be extended, and even vast, but ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... Indefinite and undefined,—there was no thought beyond the moment; no wish to take this young girl into his arms and to call her "wife" had shaped itself in his brain. It was enough for both that they were in one another's presence, that they breathed ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... authors you have acquired are supreme in this field. Ray Cummings and Captain Meek need no introduction. And Harl Vincent is a notable addition whose stories of "Indefinite Extension" and interplanetary travel are well known to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... indefinite, but Margaret felt that something more was coming, of a nature which Mrs. Rushmore considered fortunate in the extreme, and in a short time she had learned the news, but with no ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... my brother and my fellow-countrymen to have landed on this coast, whither the wind and the tide bore them? What our schooner has done, their boat may have done! They surely did not start on a voyage which might prolonged to an indefinite time without a proper supply of provisions! Why should they not have found the resources as those afforded to them by the island of Tsalal during many long years? They had ammunition and arms elsewhere. Fish abound in these waters, water-fowl also. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... was off on the best trip he'd had yet—he was going back to Vienna for his skis, to go down into the Tyrol and work along the glaciers to the battery positions. Another man, a Budapest painter, started off for an indefinite stay with an army corps in Bessarabia. He was to be, indeed, part of the army for the time being, and all his work belonged to the army first. As this is being written a number of painters sent out on ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... circuitous routes sought his residence on this occasion, with tales of distress and petitions for succour; but one and all departed with their mission unfulfilled. The doughty James was not to be found. Urgent business of indefinite duration, at an even more indefinite destination, had called him hence. No one regretted the mischance so much as stalwart Mrs. Burton, who imparted the information, no one deplored the lost opportunity for distinction so much as she; but nevertheless the fact ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... water-sheds, dividing the streams tributary to the Gulf of Mexico, from those of Hudson's Bay. He described the portage as consisting of twelve pug-gi-de-nun, or resting places, where the men are temporarily eased of their burdens. This was indefinite, depending on the measure of a man's strength to carry. Not only our baggage, but the canoes were to be carried. After taking breakfast, on the nearest dry ground, the different back-loads for the men were ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... anxious to see the Review. God grant we may lose no ground; I tremble when I think of my own articles, of two of which I have but an indefinite recollection. ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... them unwonted power on occasions like those of which I have been speaking. To us they come like special prophecies of what we look on as a century now closing. To those others they came freighted with hope for an indefinite and unknown future. And what an inspiration they must have given to the venture they were making; a venture so entirely one of faith, that it is not too much to say of those who made it that they ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... prompt little woman. Instead of finishing her tea she postponed that meal to an indefinite season, threw on her bonnet and shawl, and left her ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... seemed to regard these annual phenomena with a grim philosophy,—a relic, perhaps, of the Calvinistic determinism of his ancestors. He preached the same indefinite sermons, with the same imperturbability, to the dwindled congregations in summer and the enlarged ones in winter. But Hodder was capable of no such resignation —if resignation it were, for the self-contained assistant continued to be an enigma; and it was not without compunction ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... some day leave them; they refuse to accept this natural law; they lament over it to-day as they lamented in the days of the Old Testament. The truth is, children are always children to the parents; paternal and maternal authority believes its right indefinite. ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... same writer adds: "It appears to me most probable that the Areopagus retained the right of adjudging cases of homicide, and little besides of its ancient constitutional authority; that it lost altogether its most dangerous power in the indefinite police it had formerly exercised over the habits and morals of the people; that any control of the finances was wisely transferred to the popular senate; that its irresponsible character was abolished, and that it was henceforth rendered accountable ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... who had now remained almost two years a prisoner in the Tower, presented a petition to the house of lords, praying that his imprisonment might not be indefinite. Some of the tory lords affirmed that the impeachment was destroyed and determined by the prorogation of parliament, which superseded the whole proceedings; but the contrary was voted by a considerable majority. The ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... and delicate organization of Chopin with an intensity of admiration which consumed him, as a wine too spirituous shatters the fragile vase; we cannot now call up other names from the dim limbus of the past, in which so many indistinct images, such doubtful sympathies, such indefinite projects and uncertain beliefs, are forever surging and hurtling. Perhaps there is no one among us, who, in looking through the long vista, would not meet the ghost of some feeling whose shadowy form he would find impossible to pass! Among the ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... spoke the word as though it were an indefinite, elusive thing that you could not offer ...
— George Loves Gistla • James McKimmey
... or return of a trifle in cash from seller to buyer, as that in vogue in horse-dealing, still exists in selling corn; it goes by the indefinite name of "custom," and in Worcestershire it was a fixed sum of 1s. in every sixty bushels of wheat, and 1s. in every eighty bushels of barley; each of these quantities formed the ancient load. I think the payment of "custom" arose when ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... numbers, and as to lucky days of purchase; of marvellous coincidences—three capital prizes drawn consecutively by the same town; a ticket bought by a millionaire and given to his boot-black, who won a thousand dollars upon it; the same number winning the same amount an indefinite number of times; and so on to infinity. Invariably it was the needy who won, the destitute and starving woke to wealth and plenty, the virtuous toiler suddenly found his reward in a ticket bought at a hazard; the lottery was a great ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... peculiar. You may see him hopping among the limbs, exploring then under side of the leaves, peering to the right and left, now flitting a few feet, now hopping as many, and warbling incessantly, occasionally in a subdued tone, which sounds from a very indefinite distance. When he has found a worm to his liking, he turns lengthwise of the limb and and bruises its head with his ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... proved, that the blacks are to remain, at least for an indefinite period in this country, (we do not say that it will be forever, but of this we shall speak in another place,) we naturally ask whether there is anything in the African character that is possible of future progress ...
— The Future of the Colored Race in America • William Aikman
... anything. Indeed, his indifferent attack was not at all worthy the excellent soldiers he commanded, and when I learned that it was his intention to withdraw from the enemy's front, and this, too, on the indefinite report of a signal-officer that a "brigade or division" of Confederates was turning his right flank, and that he had not seriously attempted to verify the information, I ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... themselves, should not be looked upon as a merit appertaining to the authors of the poems. Almost every devout admirer of the old bards, if demanded his opinion of their productions, would mention vaguely, yet with perfect sincerity, a sense of dreamy, wild, indefinite, and he would perhaps say, indefinable delight; on being required to point out the source of this so shadowy pleasure, he would be apt to speak of the quaint in phraseology and in general handling. This quaintness is, in fact, a very powerful ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a sudden, strange, and indefinite suspicion; to fling myself in his way; to take him by the shoulders as if he were a child, and turn his craven face, perforce, towards the board, were with me the work of ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... convinced that the adult dancer is totally deaf. He did not experiment with the young, but he says he thinks they may be able to hear, since the necessary structural conditions are present. This guess which Rawitz made on the basis of very indefinite and uncertain knowledge of the histology of the ear of the young dancer is of special interest in the light of facts revealed by my own experiments. Unfortunately the study of hearing made by Rawitz is casual rather ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... Florida Indians are not nomads. They have fixed habitations: settlements in well defined districts, permanent camps, houses or wigwams which, remain from year to year the abiding places of their families, and gardens and fields which for indefinite periods are used by the same owners. There are times during the year when parties gather into temporary camps for a few weeks. Now perhaps they gather upon some rich Koonti ground, that they may dig an extra quantity of this root and make flour from it; now, that ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... wretched grub in the muddy bed of the stream, throws off its shackles, gives its wings a shake, and soars into the glorious June atmosphere, happy to be free, so does the poor caged bird rejoice, after grubbing for an indefinite period in a cramped cell, to leave darkness and dirt and gloom (though not, like the may-fly, for ever), and flee away on wings the mighty steam provides until he finds himself once again in the fresh green fields he loves ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... orders were—Halifax with despatches; thereafter, the West India Station for an indefinite time. Six or eight weeks at Halifax, varied by some knocking about off the Nova Scotia coast, did not tend to relax Watty's depression, but rather the contrary. For just before the frigate took her departure from those ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... clearing from New York, and in close alliance with our legitimate trade; and that down-town merchants of wealth and respectability are extensively engaged in buying and selling African Negroes, and have been, with comparatively little interruption, for an indefinite number of years."[39] Another periodical says: "The number of persons engaged in the slave-trade, and the amount of capital embarked in it, exceed our powers of calculation. The city of New York has been until of late [1862] the ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... happiness of the one was necessary to that of the other, the great secret of their existence was never fully revealed to them, until they felt they were about to be separated from each other for an indefinite period; Kate to accompany her only relatives to America and poor Barry to enter the British army, under a pressure of poverty too dreadful to relate. As already intimated, the prospects of both had been blighted through oppression and villainy, brought to bear upon ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... tell truth—I hope that in a low gown she would be scraggy, so slight even to meagreness is she! But how thoroughly made the most of! What a shapeless pin-cushion fit my gown seems beside the admirable French sit of hers! How hard, how metallic its tint beside the indefinite softness of that sweep of smoke-color! What a stiff British erection my hair feels beside the careless looseness of these shining twists! What a fine, slight hand, as if cut ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... no higher bravery than facing an indefinite terror such as this, as the colonel was at pains to point ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... observed however with regard to the opinions both of Major Rennell and other intelligent persons among Park's friends, who disapproved of the expedition, that their objections appear for the most part to have been too general and indiscriminate; proceeding perhaps too much upon vague and indefinite ideas of the dangers which experience had shewn to be incidental to such a journey, and being therefore equally conclusive against any new attempt to explore the interior of Africa. To these objections it may be sufficient to oppose ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... TOWARD EXPRESSION.—Each of these groups of impressions may be subdivided and extended into an almost indefinite number and variety, the different groups meeting and overlapping, it is true, yet each preserving reasonably distinct characteristics. A common characteristic of them all, as shown in the diagram, is that they all point toward expression. ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... him with imagination; To cast aside from poetry all that is not inspiration, That it no longer shall dare to mock with the aspersion of madness Cast on the inspired by the tame high finisher of paltry blots Indefinite or paltry rhymes, or paltry harmonies, Who creeps into state government like a caterpillar to destroy; To cast off the idiot questioner, who is always questioning, But never capable of answering; who sits with a sly grin ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... very drunk. He was lying under an azalea bush, in pretty much the same attitude in which he had fallen some hours before. How long he had been lying there he could not tell, and didn't care; how long he should lie there was a matter equally indefinite and unconsidered. A tranquil philosophy, born of his physical condition, suffused and saturated his ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... mediaeval work has some faults, so the indefinite modern work has some virtues, its very uncertainty enabling it to appeal pleasantly to the imagination (though in an inky manner, as described above, Vol. III. Chap. x. Sec. 10), and sometimes securing qualities of color which could no otherwise be obtained. It ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... choice worthy alike of my family and of myself. They were eager to impose the Marquis de Montespan upon me as a husband; and albeit he was far from possessing those mental perfections and that cultured charm which alone make an indefinite period of companionship endurable, I was not slow to reconcile myself to a temperament which, fortunately, was very variable, and which thus served to console me on the morrow for what had ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... An indefinite period passed. Then, for the last time, I saw the earth—an enduring globule of radiant blue, swimming in an eternity of ether. And there I, a fragile flake of soul dust, flickered silently across the void, from the distant blue, into the expanse of ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... edition of the Journal the philosopher showed signs of considerable advance (pp. 174-5). The effect of changed conditions is further developed. The checks to indefinite multiplication are insisted on, while the tendency of every species to increase geometrically is clearly pointed out. In the place of the former concluding sentence we find the following: "To admit that species generally become rare before they become ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... inspired by sincere and respectful devotedness to his interests. But he is anxious, and not without cause, as to the time, which cannot be far distant, when our troops must evacuate Rome. For Europe cannot allow the occupation, which has already lasted ten years, to be prolonged for an indefinite period. But when our army shall be withdrawn, what will be left behind? These are questions of the importance of which none are ignorant. But, believe me, in order to solve them, we must, considering the ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... "our circumstance and course of thought," which he adopted when he pleased,—as, for instance, when he feared lest he should dismiss the murderer to heaven, or half-believed that his blameless father was tormented in sulphurous flames for having endured a horrible death. But however obscure and indefinite the religion of Hamlet may be, and partly because it is so, and hence of universal experience, it adds reach and depth to his struggle with the world. His soul flies out of bounds and away in airy liberty on these excursions to the vast unknown, and escapes at last victorious with ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... certain part of Florida (obvious reasons will show themselves for leaving it indefinite) I enjoyed the acquaintance of two Southern gentlemen,—gentlemen, however, of widely different kinds. One was a general, a lawyer, a rake, a drunkard, and white; the other was a body-servant, a menial, an educated man, a fine man-of-business, a Sir Roger in his manners, and black. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... kinds were often comprised in one, and it is even not improbable that the first one may have been but a variety of the general tribute-lands devoted to the benefit of the conquering confederates. Still the evidence on this point is too indefinite to warrant such ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... mind scarcely realised that they would surely meet again. At the end of the second year the thought had receded into an almost indefinite past. She was beginning to feel that she had lived two lives, and that this life had no direct or vital bearing upon her previous existence, in which David had moved. Yet now and then the perfume of the Egyptian garden, through which she had fled to escape from tragedy, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... These instructions recited the character and duration of the contest, the widespread losses it entails, the burdens and restraints it imposes upon us, with constant disturbance of national interests, and the injury resulting from an indefinite continuance of this state of things. It was stated that at this juncture our Government was constrained to seriously inquire if the time was not ripe when Spain of her own volition, moved by her own interests and every sentiment of humanity, should put a ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... is absent acting under my orders he said, with perfect respectfulness, yet in a tone suggesting military finality. He meant to set an indefinite yet effective rebuke ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... their engagement was so indefinite, that they had hardly any hope of being married for at least two years, perhaps added a little to the gene of these meetings. The instant they were separated he began to long to see her alone again. Daphne felt sure she must be really in love ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... moment the bell ceased its clangor. It was a distant sound, and its location was indefinite even to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... telephoned to the Anita Lawton Club, only to learn that Miss Brunell had sent in her resignation as secretary early that morning, but told nothing of her future plans, except that she was leaving town for an indefinite period. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander |
