"Vague" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fresh and attractive conception. The book deals almost wholly with the outside aspects of things, with picturesque rather than moral traits, though a breath of feeling true and sweet is wafted across it and heightens its fine vague beauty. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... their India rubber soles slithered on the wet decks. "We shall see from here, eh? See something at last?" He still whispered. O'Malley's sudden anger died down. He could not give vent to it without making noise, for one thing, and above all else he wished to—see. He merely felt a vague wonder how long Stahl ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... colouring, showing a perfect knowledge of perspective, but their details not arranged according to the rules of composition acknowledged by our artists—wanting, as it were, a centre; so that the effect was vague, scattered, confused, bewildering—they were like heterogeneous fragments of a ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... period of enlistment having expired, and the difficulty of obtaining other troops prevented anything being attempted on the St. John for a year or two. Lawrence and Shirley, however, continued to discuss the details of the proposed expedition. Both governors seem to have had rather vague ideas of the number of the Acadians on the river and the situation of their settlements. Shirley says he learned from the eastern Indians and New England traders that their principal settlement was about ninety miles ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... still hesitated—in truth, the summons had turned my vague misgiving into intense though equally vague alarm and even terror, which as unmanly and unworthy I strove to repress, but which asserted its domination in a manner as unwonted as unwelcome—he drew aside a fold of his robe, and showed within the silver Star of the Order, supported by the golden ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... conspirators the information given by the traitor was vague and general. Nor was the city able to elicit from the informant of this man, who had been promptly arrested and subjected to examination, any disclosures of a more specific or satisfactory character. He was, in truth, in possession of but few particulars ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... them and asked for arguments; at the same time he, like every one else, felt the influence of a vague dread of some imminent and terrible disaster hanging over the earth and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... made of the whole retrospect; and the ethnological scheme remains so vague and shadowy that it fails to displace crude conceptions of mankind's beginning which still dominate religious thinking, and keep back the spiritual progress of the age. The decadence and ultimate disappearance of Atlantean civilisation ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... to warn him. From experience, he would recognize the first vague blurring, narrowing of vision, and other signs of anoxia. Despite this, the "blackout" explanation was accepted ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... Madame Pfeiffer's about Frederick "paying his score to the Austrians," is somewhat vague. The facts are these. In 1757 Frederick the Great of Prussia invaded Bohemia, and laid siege to Prague. Before this city an Austrian army lay, who were attacked with great impetuosity by Frederick, and completely defeated. But the town was defended with great valour; and during ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... the dying man's eyes lit up as they rested on her pink face and brown eyes filled with a vague wonder. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... now—the decision that had been taking vague form for several hours, and which had crystallized as he trudged across the spacefield toward the Valhalla. "I brought you back Steve, Dad. You still have one son aboard ship. I want off. I'm resigning. I want to stay behind on Earth. By our charter ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... peccata mundi' and such things mean. But when one, like I, has been initiated from earliest childhood in the mystical sanctuary of our religion; when there one does not know whither to go with all the vague but urgent feelings, but waits with a heart full of devotion for the divine service without really knowing what to expect, yet rises lightened and uplifted without knowing what one has received; when one deemed ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a century later in a cold and critical light, Bonaparte's proclamations of the same period seem stilted, jerky, and theatrical. In them, however, there may still be found a sort of interstitial sentimentality, and in an age of romantic devotion to ideals the quality of vague suggestiveness passed for genuine coin. Whatever else was lacking in those compositions, they had the one supreme merit of accomplishing their end, for they roused the French soldiers to ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... vague idea that it was some one connected with my forgotten dream, some one who had been at me in my sleep, some one of great strength and great ability—or great force—quite an unusual personality—and, I was ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... had heard of a retired naval officer named Foraker, who was supposed to be in command. As a matter of fact, there was a Captain Foraker aboard the schooner who navigated her and instilled the "run and jump" discipline that had so excited Code's admiration. Outside of this vague fact, ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... the portrait of a woman with a swelling bosom and alluring eyes and be seized with desire, either at their sight or only on remembrance. This desire is not concentrated especially on the sexual act, as with an adult who is already experienced in these matters; it is more generalized and vague, ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... was no game I detested more than "consequences," and no young ladies less open to instruction than the Misses Redwood, I did not jump at the offer. It was evident, however, Tempest and Redwood wanted to talk, and with a vague sense that by leaving them to do so I was somehow acting for the benefit of Low Heath, I sacrificed myself, and sat down to assist in the usual composite stories; how, for instance, the square Dr England met the mealy-faced Sarah (the little girls knew my nickname as well as the ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... and a woman in soft black skirts whispered in. The room was lighted only by the radiance from the sky, and the mysterious woman was mysteriously vague against ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... sentences in which Milton speaks of his hard fate in being tied by accident or law to the constant companionship of people with whom he had no sympathy, while those whom he really cared for were distant or dead, may have been read by Dati with only a vague general construction of their meaning, and perhaps would not have been written by Milton to any one capable of a more exact construction from knowledge of the circumstances. We can now discern in them, however, a reference by Milton to his domestic troubles, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... alarmed and shouting lustily. My voice raised echoes in the deserted thoroughfare, which brought vague flickers of faces to unexpected chinks and cracks in the doors, telling me that this desert of a city was really inhabited by a race made panic-striken prisoners in their own houses by the sudden entry of avenging European troops. There were really ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... began to come to herself she had no knowledge of where she had been, or for how long her mind had been astray; all was irretrievable confusion, crossed with cloud-like trails of blotted dreams, and vague survivals of gratitude for bread and pieces of money. Everything she became aware of surprised her, except the child in her arms. Her story had been plain to every one she met, and she had received thousands of kindnesses which her memory could not ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... Only in the vague conception of a harmonising or formative structural influence derived from the germ, perishing in each cell from internal causes, but handed from cell to cell till the formative influence itself degrades into molecular discords, does it seem possible to form any physical ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... appropriate to the herd. When he saw his delicate originalities, as well as his faint flourishes of draper's fantasy, squashed flat under the calm and solid foot of vulgar Dame Fortune, he fell into fits of depression bordering on mysticism, and talked to his wife in a vague way of higher influences and the angel Israfel. She, poor lady, was thoroughly scared by Israfel, and completely unhooked by ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... through from the dilapidated roof. Between the oft-repeated figures of Hercules were frescoed niches, wherein heads of Roman emperors and other illustrious historical characters had been depicted in glowing tints; but all were so vague and dim now that they were but the ghosts of pictures, which should be described with the shadows of words—ordinary terms are too substantial to apply to them. The very echoes in this deserted hall seemed startled and amazed ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... would ask your friend . . . but I will ask You, sir, how if in place of numbers vague, Your sad exceptions were to break that mask They wear for your cool mind historically, And blaze like black lists of a PRESENT plague? But in that light behold ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to be an adequate instrument for the regeneration of humanity. It was understood that Passion only survived to point a moral or provide the materials of an awful tale, while Duty, Kinship, Faith, were so far paramount as to govern Destiny and mould the world. A vague, decided flavour of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity was felt to pervade the moral universe, a chill but seemly halo of Golden Age was seen to play soberly about things in general. And it was with confidence anticipated that those perfect days ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... wind abated its rage and the thunder pealed faint with distance, while ever and anon the gloom gave place to a vague light, where, beyond the flying cloud-wrack, a ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... contradictory stories told by the men who had entered the portals of inland America. It is not surprising, therefore, that theories and prophecies about the interior were vague and conflicting nor that most of the schemes of statesmen and financiers for the development of the West were all parts and no whole. They all agreed as to the vast richness of that inland realm and ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... previously determined to quit Oxford, and this new goad did but quicken my departure. My preparations were soon made; and from some vague, and to myself undefined ideas, partly of expedition, and partly of letting the president, the college, and the whole university see that I, Hugh Trevor, was no ordinary person, a chaise and four waited my ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... parcel post system was extended so that it embraced the sister Provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the rate remaining at 25c per lb. Apparently the weight and size of a parcel acceptable by the postal authorities still remained delightfully vague and indefinite and was simply limited by "the carrying capacity of an ordinary ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... in the sewage machina is, of course, a germ—the Bacillus typhosus of Eberth. The astonishing recentness of much of our most important knowledge is nowhere better illustrated than in the case of typhoid. Although there had been vague descriptions of a fatal fever, slow and lingering in its character and accompanied by prolonged stupor and delirium, which was associated with camps and dirty cities and famines, from as far back as the age of Caesar, the first ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... though it is to be noticed that the narrator falls to motivate the hero's return to the house that he had apparently left for good when he was paid off. The episode of the shooting is obscure, and appears to be only a vague echo of the detail definitely connected with one of the three gifts in some of the European literary forms. Again, in "Cecilio" the musical instrument is a guitar instead of the usual violin or fife; while in the variant "Andoy" the magic cane is the only enchanted ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... trifling obstacle with which I was about to come into collision, I was far more cast down than I ought to have been. Then I would devise vast plans, would dream of glory, and betake myself to work; but a pleasure party would divert me from the noble projects based on so infirm a purpose. Vague recollections of these great abortive schemes of mine left a deceptive glow in my soul and fostered my belief in myself, without giving me the energy to produce. In my indolent self-sufficiency I was in a very fair way to become a fool, for what is a fool but a man ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... of the room, sending with me the impression that inside the frock-coat, behind the bland gold-rimmed spectacles, there was yet something left of manhood and that vague quality called fight, which is surely hard put to live long between four ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... cocked its head. "Ain't ye afeard o' me?" It gave a feeble chirp. "Well, I'm damned!" said the man, and after this mild expression of his feelings, forgot to curse again. He even began to eye the island with a vague questioning wonder, as if asking himself what means might be thought of that would enable him to reach it; but the problem seemed to be beyond solution. The wreckage, like a great lump, lay supinely on the surface of the water; he could not hope ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... country theatricals displayed in his Adventures of a Strolling Player, or may be a story suggested by them. All this part of his career, however, in which he must have trod the lowest paths of humility, are only to be conjectured from vague traditions, or scraps of autobiography ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... are, perhaps, the most puzzling. These are the true Sylvia, the real wood-birds. They are small, very active, but feeble songsters, and, to be seen, must be sought for. In passing through the woods, most persons have a vague consciousness of slight chirping, semi-musical sounds in the trees overhead. In most cases these sounds proceed from the warblers. Throughout the Middle and Eastern States, half a dozen species or so may ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... himself as pleased to oblige her, but he would probably have been somewhat chagrined had he known how little Helen really attended to his remarks; her mind was in a whirl, and all that he said sounded distant and vague; her one wish was that he might stay and give ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... flickering on all the home-like objects, and her new-blown roses breathing her a sweet good-night. She no longer felt an injured, hard-working, unhappy Polly, but as if quite burdened with blessings, for which she was n't half grateful enough. She had heard of poverty and suffering, in the vague, far-off way, which is all that many girls, safe in happy homes, ever know of it; but now she had seen it, in a shape which she could feel and understand, and life grew more earnest to her from that minute. So much to do in the great, busy world, and she had done so little. ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... taking with it all its own wild sweetness and daring. Even the young-eyed cherubim, choiring on meadows of asphodel, might cease their harping for a time to listen to a tale of the vanished earth, told by that golden tongue. Some vague thought of this was in our minds as we looked at her; and somehow it comforted us. Not even the Judgment was so greatly to be feared if after it we were the SAME, our own ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... easily observable. Men did not write on that brand. So much gained. Then she recalled a French play in which a perfume had convicted a person of theft. She held the envelope to her nose; nothing, not even tobacco. She tried the letter itself. Ah, here was something tangible: heliotrope, vague, but perceptible. Who among her friends used heliotrope on her kerchief? She could not remember; in fact, any or all of them might have worn it, so far as she could recall. She would go over her invitations and visitors' cards; she would play detective; ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... I imagine." Ask him if his ambition and pride are gratified, and he will tell you "Yes." Ask him if ambition and pride can fill his life to the exclusion of all else; he will tell you "No." Ask him again if he has a thousand vague, passionate desires unfulfilled, and his handsome face will cloud and his ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... that he would receive only an agent sent him "with the view of securing peace to the people of our one common country." The rebel Secretary of State proposed, in order to make the instructions "as vague and general as possible," the simple direction to confer "upon the subject to which it relates"; but his chief refused the suggestion, and wrote the following instruction, which carried a palpable ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... the character and bent of their thoughts upon such points, that we are very likely to misunderstand and misrepresent their real opinions. It appears to me that different tribes give a different account of their belief, but all generally so absurd, so vague, unsatisfactory, and contradictory, that it is impossible at present to say with any certainty what they really believe, or whether they have any independent belief at all. Mr. Moorhouse, who has taken great pains in his inquiries among the natives around Adelaide upon questions of this nature, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... him, he returned to Leipsic, more than ever determined to find them. It was the only idea he had: to find them—to find them—to find them. His other thoughts were without stimulating power—irresolute, vague, uncertain. This one idea grew and grew until it became an obsession. He could no longer bear the sound of music; so it was no sacrifice to him to give up his profession. He hated the very streets he walked in, for had Elene not walked in them? He must find her; he must ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... to show you more fun in five minutes, than you'll get over there in two: (with a vague suspicion that this is rather a lame conclusion)—in ten, I should say! This 'ere's a simple enough little game, when you know the trick of it, and I'm on'y a learnin' it myself. I ain't doin' ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... endorsement of such diverse protagonists as Royall and Randolph, the wording of the executive order was in part both vague and misleading. The vagueness was there by design. The failure to mention either segregation or integration puzzled many people and angered others, but it was certainly to the advantage of a president who wanted to give the least offense ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... melancholy manner called baying. All dogs do not do so; and, according to Houzeau (21. ibid. 1872, tom. ii. p. 181.), they do not then look at the moon, but at some fixed point near the horizon. Houzeau thinks that their imaginations are disturbed by the vague outlines of the surrounding objects, and conjure up before them fantastic images: if this be so, their feelings may almost be ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... of yelps and howls from our dogs, it was not a welcome visit. Above the medley rose one big, deep, full voice that I knew at once belonged to Sounder. Then all was quiet again. Sleep gradually benumbed my senses. Vague phrases dreamily drifted to and fro in my mind: "Jones's wild range—Old Tom—Sounder—great name—great ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... him, turning her profile. Her expression was inscrutable. After a silence he dropped her wrists with a vague laugh. ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... ground that, "after more than seventy years of wear and tear, of collision and abrasion, it should be no cause of wonder that the machinery of government is found weakened, or out of repair, or even defective." Frequently he uttered the wish, vague and of fine sound, but enervating, that the Republicans might "meet secession as patriots and not as partisans." On November 9 the Democratic New York "Herald," discussing the election of Lincoln, said: "For far less than this our fathers seceded ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... shrewdly that perhaps it would relieve the stranger from embarrassment to engage him in conversation, with beautiful tact brought him to tell the company of his own country, remarking that "We insular people have but a vague idea ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... watching him with a puzzled frown. She wondered why his hands gave her such a vague sense of discomfort as she watched him light another cigarette. It was not until she was in her bunk that night that she remembered that his nails were bitten and ragged—one ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... crossed the fearful dust flat Carmena was walking as slowly as the pony. At the far side she sank down beside a thick-stemmed cactus. Lennon, half delirious from fever, sought to spring off, with the vague idea of forcing her to ride. He succeeded only in tumbling upon the sand. The startled pony shied clear. With a smothered cry, Carmena leaped up ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... verge of a vast stony level, upheaved so far above the surrounding country that its vague outlines, viewed from the nearest valley, seemed a mere cloud-streak resting upon the lesser hills. The rush and roar of the turbulent river that washed its eastern base were lost at that height; the winds that strove with the giant pines that half way climbed its flanks spent their fury below ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... happen to keep a grocery store in the country, or to run the village post-office, it is not unlikely that you know what a green-goods man is; but in case you don't, and have only a vague idea as to how he lives, a paragraph of explanation must be inserted here for your particular benefit. Green goods is the technical name for counterfeit bills, and the green-goods men send out circulars to countrymen all over the United States, offering to sell them $5,000 worth of counterfeit ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... spirit a divine prevision Of vast vague passions stored in days to be When some strong souls shall conquer their division And two shall ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... the black population a degree of reluctance to labour far exceeding the reality. Those who pay a reasonable price for work, and are punctual in their payments, do not fail to get as many labourers as they require. I assert this not from any vague hearsay, but from various unquestionable and authentic documents, amongst which are the examinations taken by Committees of the House of Assembly appointed to inquire into the causes and difficulties alleged to exist in ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... you remember me, ma'am," said the Baron, in rather a loud voice; for, as the lady was elderly, he had a vague idea that she was deaf—which impression, I may mention, was altogether unfounded—"I suppose you remember me, ma'am? But I haven't had the pleasure of a regular introduction to you; so we'll waive ceremony, if you choose, and I'll introduce ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... repeated her scornful laugh, which this time but ill concealed a certain vague terror that was rising in her mind. "Is our chancellor mad, or does he sport with us? This rebel, whom you talk of sentencing—of condemning, we presume, to the block—stands at the head of a greater army than his Majesty can ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... off, this was the darkest hour of the night, so that even the sounds of dockland were muted and the riverside slept as deeply as the great port of London ever sleeps. Vague murmurings there were and distant clankings, with the hum of machinery which ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... and Southern Europe. Most of the countries, that he had been compelled to hurry over, I had loitered through in days past, and I ought to have been shamed by the contrast in our recollections—his, so clear and systematical—mine, so vague and dim. An intellectual American travelling through strange lands does certainly look at nature, animate and inanimate, after a practical business-like fashion peculiar to his race; but it would be unfair ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... had a vague hope that the shock of the accident might have destroyed the impression of the dream; but ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... the prince knew nothing. When he understood from what they said that she had disappeared, and that she must have gone somewhere in the said direction, he plunged at once into the wood to see if he could find her. For hours he roamed with nothing to guide him but the vague notion of a circle which on one side bordered on the house, for so much had he picked up from the talk he ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... unsuspecting, pure, and extremely modest, she was far from dull—she was not now to learn the difference between the language of ordinary trifling and general compliment, and that to which she now listened, and which, however vague, was still so particular as to induce her to remain silent. The looks and manner of the youthful female, at that moment, would have been a study to those who love to dwell on the better and purer beings of creation. ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... happy hours of ease, When thought is still, the sight of some fair form, Or mournful fall of music breathing low, Will stir strange fancies, thrilling all the soul With a mysterious sadness, and a sense Of vague yet earnest longing. Can it be That the dim memory of events long past, Or friendships formed in other states of being[74], Flits like a passing shadow ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... the sewing club was in full activity, but even apart from the affairs of that enterprise, Wenna Rosewarne seemed to be everywhere throughout the village, to know everything, to be doing everything that prudent help and friendly counsel could do. Mrs. Trelyon grew to love the girl in her vague, wondering, simple fashion. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... machinery down-stairs sent a faint quiver through the planks under his feet. "The mill will net a good profit this year," he said to himself, absently. "'Thalia can have pretty nearly anything she wants." And even as he said it he had a sudden, vague misgiving: if she didn't have everything she wanted, perhaps she would be happier? But the idea was too new and too subtle to follow up, so the result of that troubled hour in the mill-chamber was only that he made no ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... them with a cry, "Here. . . . Here it is!" The old folks tried to run, almost falling at every step. All the family were soon grouped around a heap of earth in the vague outline of a bier, and beginning to be covered with herbage. At the head was a cross with letters cut in deep with the point of a knife, the kind deed of some of his comrades-at-arms—"DESNOYERS." . . . Then in military abbreviations, the rank, ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... conventional as this we drop readily into purely geometric forms, as will be seen further on. These and the preceding drawings are all executed on broad surfaces, where fancy could have free play. The modifying or conventionalizing forces are, therefore, quite vague. Variation from natural forms is due partly to a lack of skill on the part of the painter, partly to the peculiar demands of ceramic embellishment, and partly to the traditional style of treatment acquired in still more primitive stages of ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... intoxicating, and yet ... Joan would have to push the disturbing thoughts from her and run to find Gilbert if he were anywhere in their tiny domain, to perch on the arm of his chair and rub her face against his coat. His presence could drive away the vague feeling of uneasiness, his hands could win her back to placid contentment or wake in her the restless passionate desire which ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... seen similar burying-places of the Chaco Indians, and he knows as much about them as he cares to know. Nor is his object, in returning to this particular one, of a very definite character; but rather because a vague idea or instinct has come into his mind which prompts him to the act—a sort of presentiment that he may there see something to throw light on much of what has been all along mystifying him. To go thither will in no way interfere with his duties ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... compassion which attended his fate. The public, where their own prejudices are not concerned, are easily engaged on the side of disinterestedness and humanity, admired Wilson's behaviour, and rejoiced in Robertson's escape. This general feeling was so great, that it excited a vague report that Wilson would be rescued at the place of execution, either by the mob or by some of his old associates, or by some second extraordinary and unexpected exertion of strength and courage on his own part. The magistrates thought it their duty to provide ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... attack was known to Penautier sooner than to his own family: then the papers about the conditions of partnership disappeared, no one knew how, and d'Alibert's wife and child were ruined. D'Alibert's brother-in-law, who was Sieur de la Magdelaine, felt certain vague suspicions concerning this death, and wished to get to the bottom of it; he accordingly began investigations, which were suddenly brought to an ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... fringe; whispering leaves and crackling twigs sounded sharp as a shower of stones in the stillness. Great trees reared their majestic heads to mingle their foliage and shut out the light; every creeping, flying, walking creature seemed awed into a vague murmuring that was deeper than silence. The Grove of Mysteries was a semicircular space of cool, mossy sward, bowered in great trees and tangled vine screens; its background was the bare rock of the cliffside itself—actually, though unknown to the ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... vague in the whistling dark, loomed beside him and gave him a steadying hand. He could barely hear the blond giant's bull tones: "Ha, easy there, lad. Methinks the sea horse road is too rough for ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... next moment looking after it, as it went, with envy. The most extraordinary thing that had happened to him—though he had given that name to other matters as well—took place, after his immediate vague stare, as a consequence of this impression. The stranger passed, but the raw glare of his grief remained, making our friend wonder in pity what wrong, what wound it expressed, what injury not to be healed. What had the man had, to make him by the ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... Romans were not to blame for the war itself, but that on the contrary, the foolish perfidy and the feeble temerity of the Greeks compelled the Roman intervention. The abolition of the mock sovereignty of the leagues and of all the vague and pernicious dreams connected with them was a blessing for the country; and the government of the Roman commander-in-chief of Macedonia, however much it fell short of what was to be wished, was yet far better than the previous confusion and misrule of Greek confederacies and Roman commissions. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... thirteen members of the confederacy in proportion to the assessed value of their real estate, and it was not provided with any means of enforcing these requisitions. On this point the articles contained nothing beyond the vague promise of the states to obey. The power of levying taxes was thus retained entirely by the states. They not only imposed direct taxes, as they do to-day, but they laid duties on exports and imports, each according to its own ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... Yan went up and Guy went down in the old man's opinion, for he spoke his own mind that day when he gave first place to grit. He invited Yan to come to his shanty to see a pair of snow-shoes he was making. The invitation was vague and general, so the whole Tribe accepted. Yan had not been there since his first visit. The first part of their call was as before. In answer to their knock there was a loud baying from the Hound, then a voice ordering him back. Caleb opened the door, but now said ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... treaty. In these treaties we have been more than just to the Indians; we have been abundantly generous, for we have paid them many times what they were entitled to; many times what we would have paid any civilized people whose claim was as vague and shadowy as theirs. By war or threat of war, or purchase we have won from great civilized nations, from France, Spain, Russia, and Mexico, immense tracts of country already peopled by many tens of thousands of families; ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Beaconsfield called the Turf a vast engine of national demoralization, he uttered a broad general truth; but, unfortunately, he did not go into particulars, and his vague grandiloquence has inspired a large number of ferocious imitators, who know as little about the essentials of the matter as Lord Beaconsfield did. These imitators abuse the wrong things and the wrong people; they mix up causes and effects; they are acrid where they should be tolerant; ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Vague reports had reached Jack before he had left on his trip, of the uprising of the people, and of the guerrilla warfare being carried on by the straggling armies of the North and South. Still he did not think he would be molested, and he felt in good spirits, ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... my tutor and is now my frequent correspondent. Not a bad sort of mentor, either!" The new arrival paused and smiled reflectively. "Only recently I received a letter from him, with private details of the flight of the king and vague intimations of a scandal in the army, lately ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... very content to remain where we were. The night had fallen; the streets, as they lost themselves in dim turnings, in mysterious alleyways, and arches that seemed grotesquely high in the vague blur of things, were filled for us with the charm of a new and lovely beauty. At one end the street ended in a towering mass of stone; that doubtless was the cathedral. At the right, the narrow houses dipped suddenly; their roof-lines were lost in vagueness. Between the slit made by the street ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... which swathed the court-yard. Eugenie found a novel charm in the aspect of things lately so insignificant to her. A thousand confused thoughts came to birth in her mind and grew there, as the sunbeams grew without along the wall. She felt that impulse of delight, vague, inexplicable, which wraps the moral being as a cloud wraps the physical body. Her thoughts were all in keeping with the details of this strange landscape, and the harmonies of her heart blended with the harmonies of nature. When the sun reached ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... Schillingschen would die, for it was a hard problem what to do with him. He had no papers in his possession, beyond a diary written in German schrift that even Will could not make head or tail of, for all his knowledge of the language; and a very vague map bearing the imprint of the British government, filled in by himself with the names of the villages he had passed on his way. There was no proof that we could find that would have condemned him of nefarious practises in ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... tell me! I am very much interested. Do you never have any remembrance of your former existence? Do not odors or sounds or sights bring some vague ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... Suddenly a vague shadow loomed up from amongst the grass which grew so rankly in the cemetery. Up, up it rose, black even against the background of utter darkness in which the forest was bathed. Hervey leaned forward, his eyes straining and every nerve tense-drawn. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... 'The vague impressions which are all that many people carry away from the concert-room would be replaced by ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... vest, no shoes. In one hand he held a crumpled collar and a high, black silk stock; with the other he grasped the julep. His hair was tousled, his face shriveled up and pinched by his heavy nap, his eyes watery and vague. He reminded me of the man one sometimes meets in the aisle of a sleeping-car when one boards the train at a way station in ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was sure, were departing from me, and I had a vague idea that I was falling through unlimited space, while wild winds and loud thunders were all around me; then all became a ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... followed, and more interesting, than ever, though our hopes are all vague, and we neither guess how or by whom they are ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... splendidly; presents were made to him, which, being considerably in debt, he gladly accepted; but as regards his mission he was put off with evasions and blandishments, and he returned home with a reply from the king containing some vague promises of reform in financial and other matters, but an absolute refusal to modify the decrees against heresy. Rather would he sacrifice a hundred thousand lives, if he had them, than concede liberty of worship in any form. For some months however no attempt was made ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... of his glorious mind." One of his chief delights, as he mentioned in his "Memoranda," was, when bathing in some retired spot, to seat himself on a high rock above the sea, and there remain for hours, gazing upon the sky and the waters[1], and lost in that sort of vague reverie, which, however formless and indistinct at the moment, settled afterwards on his pages, into those clear, bright pictures which will ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... him and pained him. He was nearly thirty-five, and hitherto all had been admiration, vague aspiration and despair; he had produced in painting nothing but a few sketches and studies, and in literature only a few ephemeral articles, a collection of youthful letters and a pamphlet on the Resurrection; moreover, to none of his work had anyone paid the slightest ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... to a quadrille party at night. City people and rather dull. Intensely cold coming home, and vague reports of a fire somewhere. Frederick says the Royal Exchange, at which I sneer ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... in black," whom he hurried across the street to meet, could be heard of, or was seen for full two days afterwards, to the great disappointment of the young Mays. Ursula, especially, who had been entertaining vague but dazzling thoughts of a companionship more interesting than Janey's, more novel and at the same time more equal than that which was extended to her by the Miss Griffiths in Grange Lane, who were so much better off and had so ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... a little angular, most winningly and girlishly awkward, as she wanders on to the stage with an air of vague distraction. Her shoulders droop, her arms hang limply. She doubles forward in an automatic bow in response to the thunders of applause, and that curious smile breaks out along her lips and rises and dances in her bright light-blue eyes, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... shoulder. Taking for a guide the first Indian whom I met, I made long excursions, less occupied in shooting than in admiring the magnificent scenery. I knew a little Spanish, and soon acquired a few Tagaloc words. Whether it was for excitement's sake, or from a vague desire of braving danger, I know not, but I was particularly fond of wandering in remote places, said to be frequented by robbers. With these I occasionally fell in, but the sight of my gun kept them in ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... all very well, Lawrence," said Lewis, with a touch of sarcasm, "to talk in a vague way about the sun's action, but it's quite plain, even to an unphilosophical mind like mine, that the sun can't lift a block of stone some tons in weight and clap it on the top of a pillar of ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... two Krishnas are the same. Nothing, however, is stated of this early Krishna's career and although parts of the sage's teachings have been compared to passages in the Gita,[3] Krishna himself remains a vague and ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... so, Since she first heard the name of the city, that Zoe Dreamed of life in New York. It was thither she turned To smother the heart that with restlessness burned, And to quiet and calm an unsatisfied mind. Her plans were but outlines, crude, vague, undefined, Of distraction and pleasure. A snug little home, With seclusion and comfort; full freedom to roam Where her fancy and income permitted; new faces, New scenes, new environments, far from the places Where brief joy and long sorrow had dwelt with her; free From the curious eyes that seemed ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... I believe, affords a fair idea of the opinion of educated and unprejudiced Englishmen on the Irish question. They do not know much about Irish history; they have heard a great deal about Irish grievances, and they have a vague idea that there is something wrong about the landlords, and something wrong about the ecclesiastical arrangements of the country. I believe a careful study of Irish history is essential to the comprehension of the Irish question; and it is obviously ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... association was not yet a force. Each state, being in square miles ample enough for an empire, retained to a great extent the consciousness of an independent nation. The state was near and palpable; the central government seemed a vague and distant thing. Loyalty was conceived as binding one primarily ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... was a mention of something—in a vague sort of way—that I was to inherit when I grew up. Whether it was land or money no one can tell. The reference is so veiled. Even Uncle John, and he is a stock and bond broker, you know, says he is puzzled. ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... turn their conversation had taken had filled her with a vague unrest as she looked back at the life she had led. Three or four years ago it had seemed filled with glamour and excitement, and she had entered on its pleasures with eager zest, but of late she had begun to find them wearisome. They no longer satisfied her. If ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... any definite intentions, and scarce knowing what I was about, I seized and clung to the branches of a small tree with the tenacity of a drowning man—unable to open my eyes while sticks and leaves, huge limbs of trees and deluges of water flew madly past, filling my mind with a vague impression that the besom of destruction had become a veritable reality, and that we were all about to be swept off the ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere, Of memories that stay not and go not, Like music heard once by an ear That cannot forget or reclaim it, A something so shy, it would shame it To make it a show, A something too vague, could I name it, For others to know, As if I had lived it or dreamed it, As if I had acted or schemed ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... buttressed trunks, and by the stems of colossal vines, hanging from the boughs like cables, or the arms of an oriental banyan; while their luxuriant tops rolled in union with the leafy roofs that supported them. The vague and shadowy prospects opened by these occasional glades stirred the imagination, and produced a feeling of solitude in the mind, greater perhaps than would have been felt had the view been continually bounded by a green wall ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... where the precipice sinks steepest; while a more ruinous though much more modern pile of building, perforated by a double row of windows, occupies the rest of the area. The square keep has lost its genealogy in the mists of the past, but a vague tradition attributes its erection to the Norwegians. The more modern pile is said to have been built about three centuries ago by a younger son of M'Donald of the Isles; but it is added that, owing to the jealousy of his elder brother, he was not permitted ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... sand-heap. The roaring Easter with its shrieks and whistles at her ribands was not favourable to speech. His 'Anywhere!' had a penetrating significance, the fuller for the break that left it vague. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bordering upon the upper Mississippi and the Ohio on the one hand, and of the merchants and planters of the Gulf on the other. Thus he was fully prepared to enter warmly into the idea that had taken possession of the minds and hearts of the people of the Northwest. From a vague longing this idea had now grown into a deep and settled sentiment. Indeed in all the West the opening of the Mississippi played a part that can only be realized by comparing it with the prevailing sentiment of the East, ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... should place before them what is good and then allow them to make a good choice as they please. I do not know which Leandra chose; I only know her father put us both off with the tender age of his daughter and vague words that neither bound him nor dismissed us. My rival is called Anselmo and I myself Eugenio—that you may know the names of the personages that figure in this tragedy, the end of which is still in suspense, though it is plain to see it must ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... he hailed loudly. Then, guided as it seemed by instinct, almost as much as by the vague direction of the moaning call, he ploughed his way through brush and briar, on ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England |
