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Vaguely   Listen
adverb
Vaguely  adv.  In a vague manner. "What he vaguely hinted at, but dared not speak."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vaguely" Quotes from Famous Books



... from Johnny and slouched along, with an aimless garrulity talking of his hard luck, now curiously shot with hope. Which irritated Johnny vaguely, since instinct told him whence that hope had sprung. Still, sympathy made him kind to Bland just because Bland was ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... me too, for I felt that till that moment I had not so much as known that there were cocks and hens among lobsters, but had vaguely thought that in the matter of matrimony they were even as the angels in heaven, and grew up almost ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... street, and over the green fields, to the hills that rose dimly in the distance. The mild air softly fanned her cheek, pleasant sights were round her everywhere, and at the garden gate she lingered, vaguely striving under their influence to cast ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... remains which we still possess of this famous orator, no such wrong could have been done. I, from my childhood, had been a reader, nay, a student of Demosthenes; and, simply, for this reason, that, having meditated profoundly on the true laws and philosophy of diction, and of what is vaguely denominated style, and finding nothing of any value in modern writers upon this subject, and not much as regards the grounds and ultimate principles even in the ancient rhetoricians, I have been reduced to collect my opinions ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... other, a good action attaches the doer to the recipient; so, in the case of Fritz, apart from the brotherly affection which he had vaguely vowed to entertain for the two young girls that had so unexpectedly appeared amongst them, he now regarded the life of Mary as identical with his own, and felt that her death would inevitably shorten his own existence; ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... a large handful of papers as he spoke, glanced at them disdainfully, and, pointing vaguely across the inlet, continued, "Is not an hour's contemplation of such a prospect better than ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... dropped down to earth. It was as she had sometimes dreamed mothers might talk with their own children. And God had granted this unspeakable gift to her! Was it real? Would it last? Or was she only dreaming? Once it vaguely passed through her mind that she would not be sure of the reality of the whole thing until she had seen Ellen. If she could talk with Ellen about it, tell her what she was going to do, show her the children, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... orders and answering inquiries at every point, with a sharp, short, decisive air, as of commanding powers in the last half-hour before a great battle; steward and his underlings ubiquitous; passengers roaming vaguely to and fro, in quest of nothing particular, and in ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... that I perceive the weak points. My power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought is very limited; and therefore I could never have succeeded with metaphysics or mathematics. My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have observed or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing, or on the other hand in favour of it; and after a time I can generally recollect where to search ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... hope that in this way they may more surely come into the hands of young people, youths and girls at the period of adolescence, who have been present to my thoughts in all the studies I have written of sex because I was myself of that age when I first vaguely planned them. I would prefer to leave to their judgment the question as to whether this book is suitable to be placed in the hands of older people. It might only give them pain. It is in youth that the questions ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... know whether Evolutionism can claim that amount of currency which would entitle it to be called British popular geology; but, more or less vaguely, it is assuredly present in the minds ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... about him which, dim and unreal in itself, served to make all things dim and unreal. He did not know whether he was asleep or awake, so strange was life, so vivid were his dreams. Mummie, Uncle John, the baby, Toby himself came with a flicker of the veil and disappeared vaguely without cause. It would happen that Toby would be speaking to Uncle John, and suddenly he would find himself looking into the large eyes of the baby, turned stupidly towards the ceiling, and again the baby would be Toby himself, a hot, dry little body without legs or arms, that swayed suspended as ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... Truck will be disposed to reason so vaguely. In the first place, he will be apt to say that his ship was regularly cleared, and that he had authority to sail; that in permitting the officer to search his vessel, while in British waters, he did all that could be required ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... favor of insanity. However, I made no change in my mode of life. I called, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I had a passion for the society of my kind which I had never felt before; I hungered to be among the realities of life; and at the same time I felt vaguely unhappy when I had been separated too long from my ghostly companion. It would be almost impossible to describe my varying moods from the 15th of May up ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... Patroclus appears to him, says that he is forgotten, and begs to be burned at once, that he may pass the gates of Hades, for the other spirits drive him off and will not let him associate with them "beyond the River," and he wanders vaguely along the wide-gated dwelling of Hades. "Give me thy hand, for never more again shall I come back from Hades, when ye have given me my due of fire." Patroclus, being newly discarnate, does not yet know that a spirit cannot take a living man's hand, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang

... were comfortably clothed like farmer and overseer, and showed a respectful bearing to the third. This was a man of about thirty years, but looking younger, tall, slender, elegant and proud. Not yet calm, Clemenceau vaguely recalled the refined, winning, though dissipated visage; this was the gentleman in the Harmonista who had enlightened him unawares on the antecedents of Fraulein von Vieradlers. He did not notice ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas

... down dazed and exhausted, and surveyed the scene. The ostrich was perfectly quiet, and would never kick again, and the lady too was quiet. He wondered vaguely if the brute had killed her—he was as yet too weak to go and see—and then fell to gazing at her face. Her head was pillowed on the body of the dead bird, and its feathery plumes made it a fitting resting-place. Slowly it dawned on him that the face was very beautiful, ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... adjustment. I had now a clue to the import of these wells, to the ventilating towers, to the mystery of the ghosts; to say nothing of a hint at the meaning of the bronze gates and the fate of the Time Machine! And very vaguely there came a suggestion towards the solution of the economic ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... entanglements of any kind, until they had effected the exterior transformation which was to be the first stride—and a very long one, they felt—toward the conquest of the world that commands all the other worlds. Several men aboard knew Palmer slightly—knew him vaguely as a big politician and contractor. They had a hazy notion that he was reputed to have been a thug and a grafter. But New Yorkers have few prejudices except against guilelessness and failure. They are well aware that the wisest of the wise Hebrew race was never ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... not be surprised, I hope, to hear from me; I only wish I had written to you long ago. But until quite recently we could not speak with so much confidence concerning the Melanesian Mission, and it is of little use to write vaguely on matters which I am anxious now ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... fluttered, and the eyes gazed vaguely up into Betty's sweet ones. The lips moved and Betty bent down ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... absently returned. She was looking now at the booth. Quite as vaguely she added: "In ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... Gambardella was not prepared to answer truthfully, and he had not foreseen it. He vaguely wondered what the woman who had once loved him so well would say and do if she knew that he had sunk to the condition of a paid Bravo, and had taken money from one person to cut Ortensia's throat and from another to deliver her up a prisoner, and was just ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... he was a captive. His mind had made its first impulse to the mysteries of night and solitude during the few moments between his entry into another forest and the encounter with the bear; it now made its first real opening. He was vaguely troubled by the embryonic thoughts that in their maturity come to men who have lived and suffered, when they are alone in a forest at night, far ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... hut, then rise to his feet and saunter carelessly towards the fort. The very boldness of the act made it successful. The convict on guard no doubt thought the figure one of his companions, needlessly exposing himself to a bullet from the hut, and only wondered vaguely at his taking needless risks and perhaps speculated dully as to what was the nature of the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... new and miraculous thing, a self-made woman. I must have been the first "common" person she had ever known intimately. She had seen us afar off, and wondered vaguely about us, consoling herself with the reflection that we probably did not know enough to be unhappy over our sad lot in life. But here I was, actually a soul like herself; and it happened that I knew more than she did, and of things ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... use me then?" said open-eyed Molly. She was vaguely ill at ease; but the other shammed stupid. All she could ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... Scott Decision (1857).—In his inaugural, Buchanan vaguely hinted that in a forthcoming decision the Supreme Court would settle one of the vital questions of the day. This was a reference to the Dred Scott case then pending. Scott was a slave who had been taken by his master ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... no means be picked up even in a day, or even in a matter of weeks. Ivory has been looked upon by the African savage, from time immemorial, not as an article of use, but as currency, and as such it is vaguely revered. He does not often of his own free will put it into circulation; in fact, his life may well pass without his once seeing it used as a purchasing medium; but custom sits strong on him, and he likes to have it by him. An ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne

... her golden head in an orderly circle. Like a daisy bud herself, Rodney agreed in his mind, his eyes smiling at her, his affection, momentarily turned that way, groping for the wild, remote little soul in her that he only vaguely and paternally knew. The little pretty. And clever, too, in her own queer, uneven way. But what was she, with it all? He knew Kay, the long, sweet-tempered boy, better. For Kay represented highly civilized, ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... was not the case. When Mr. Darwin said it was "conceivable that a naturalist might" arrive at the theory of descent, straightforward readers took him to mean that though this was conceivable, it had never, to Mr. Darwin's knowledge, been done. If we had a notion that we had already vaguely heard of the theory that men and the lower animals were descended from common ancestors, we must have been wrong; it was not this that we had heard of, but something else, which, though doubtless a little like it, was all wrong, whereas this was obviously ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... used vaguely to describe unseen powers or superhuman beings that are not properly thought of as divine. Thus the witch of Endor saw "Elohim ascending out of the earth" (1 Sam. xxviii. 13), meaning thereby some beings of an unearthly, superhuman character. ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... his dungeon. All he knew was that Sergeant Perkins returned, and stood looking at him, picking his teeth with a quill. This little Bolshevik had stood the water-cure longer than any man whom Perkins had ever known, and he wondered vaguely what sort of damned fool he was, what he thought he was ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... at home among the common people was Vater Fritz—Father Fred. A king every inch of him, though without the trappings of a king; in a Spartan simplicity of vesture. In 1786 his speakings and his workings came to finis in this world of time. Editors vaguely account this man the creator of the Prussian monarchy, which has since grown so large in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... scarcely in bed when the recollection of Francesca which, since the evening before, had been floating vaguely through my mind, haunted me with strange persistency. I thought of her nearly the whole night, and by degrees the wish to see her again seized me, a confused desire at first, which gradually grew stronger and more intense. At last I made up my mind to spend the next day in Genoa to try and find ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... spiral eyebrows, and lips slashed like the fossa of a heraldic dolphin, but vulgarity had stamped the mask, making its features common, coarse and dull. The habit of servile compliance had deprived them of all true expression; she squinted, her smile was vaguely stupid, and she wore an air of spurious good-nature, indicative of country birth; a dark merino dress, cloak of sombre hue, a bonnet under which stood out the many ruffles of a rumpled cap, completed ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... keeps them in cages to be amused by their twitterings. This is not a question of morality, nor of sentimentality, as some may imagine; but rather of taste, of the sense of fitness, of that something vaguely described as the feeling for nature, which is not universal. Thus, one man will dine with zest on a pheasant, partridge, or quail, but would be choked by a lark; while another man will eat pheasant and lark with equal pleasure. Both may be good, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson

... He had planned—vaguely, inconclusively—to leave by the area door when the raiders turned their attention to the basement, presenting himself to the crowd in the street in the guise of an officer, and so make off. But now—with his fingers on the bolts—misgivings assailed him. He was physically ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... I'm sure," murmured his visitor, vaguely alarmed. "You can't understand my feelings then. But that's really what I felt when I saw her. It was a revelation, one of those swift certain intuitions of the soul, and I—you don't mind my telling you this, do ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith

... that her eyes were sweet and kind. "Some day, dear," she said, "when you are a man, you will remember with shame and sorrow that you once spoke hard to a broken-hearted, homeless woman." Tom had gone home wondering and vaguely unhappy, and could not ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung

... was at a standstill and not before a station. Indeed, there was not a building in sight: only a dreary waste of sunburnt prairie-grass extended flatly to the glare of the burning horizon. She looked about wonderingly, vaguely aware that they must ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray

... pretty, celestial roar of laughter, followed by certain words of easy comprehension, came down through the trap. The cunning advocate, blowing out his candle, saw through the cracks in the boards caused by the shrinking of the door a light, which vaguely explained the mystery to him, for he recognised the voice of his wife, and that of the combatant. The husband took the duenna by the arm, and went softly at the stairs searching for the door of the chamber in which were the lovers, and did not fail to find it. Fancy! that like ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... Thus vaguely are these questions proposed and discussed at present. But their being proposed at all implies much thought, and suggests more. Many women are considering within themselves what they need that they ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... course you didn't know," cried Hawker, sneering; "because I had no row. It isn't that, I tell you. But I know well enough"—he shook his fist vaguely—"that she don't care an old tomato can for me. Why should she?" he demanded with a curious defiance. "In the name of Heaven, why ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... Faria is often defective in dates, and always confused. The events about this time are only vaguely stated as having happened during the government of Duarte Menezes, between the years 1522 and 1524, both inclusive. Among the confused mass of ill-digested and often indistinctly related events, many of which possess hardly any interest, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... that vaguely, and that he was speaking, but not until he touched her shoulder did she hear the words: "Anne, are you unhurt—has—for heaven's ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... recreations were severely limited, depending upon our own ingenuity. For the first few days we could do nothing beyond promenading, discussing the war and our situation. These two subjects were speedily worn thread-bare since we knew nothing about the first topic and were only able to speculate vaguely about the second. The idea of being made to work never entered our heads for a moment. Were we not civilian prisoners of war: the victims of circumstances under the shield of the best traditions ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... She felt vaguely sorry for these girls; but she realized nothing of their life. Nor did she associate funerals and illness ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... Had capitulated to Irish at first sound of TIM's low voice; quite a different thing with inconsiderable people like the Scotch or Welsh. Almost haughtily protested against possibility of alteration. "Members," he said, vaguely remembering copy-book heading, "are made for business, not business for Members." That settled it. Motion for Adjournment carried; Young GOSSET, with his beaver up, advanced to remove Mace, and House ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various

... no new plea to be advanced on either side of this eternal question, nor is it one upon which I ever felt strongly, but just then I felt tempted to speak as though I did. I will not now dissect my motive, but it was vaguely connected with my mission, and not unrighteous from that standpoint. I said it was not a question of harm at all, but of what one admired in a woman, and what one did not: a man loved to look upon a woman ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... net, of spider's web fineness, to be laboriously traversed; hills of difficulty to be climbed, whence far horizons disclosed themselves; dainty flower-gardens, crossed by open paths, and hedged about with curves, sinuous and full of pretty impediments. And there were, to her, vaguely agitating and even fearful things in this lacework also—confusions of outline, broken purposes, multiplicity of opposing intentions, struggle of good and evil powers in the intricacies of some rich arabesque; or monotonous repetitions ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... high-aspiring youth has grown into the calmest man, yet with increase and not loss of ardour, and with aspirations higher as well as clearer. For he has conquered his unbelief; the Ideal has been built on the Actual; no longer floats vaguely in darkness and regions of dreams, but rests in light, on the firm ground of human interest and business, as in its true scene, on ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... and softly crouched beside his head. Her gaze that seemed to pierce his inmost thought, Keen as the ready knife her hand had sought, And through the open door the slant moonbeams Smiting the sleeper's face awaked him not. He vaguely muttered in his wandering dreams Of "medicine," and of the Thunder-Bird. As if to go, her knife she half returned; Whether her woman's heart with pity stirred, Or superstitious awe, she slightly turned, But gazing ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... leave of them. A week afterward he went to dine at a beautiful villa on the Caelian Hill, and, on arriving, dismissed his hired vehicle. The evening was charming, and he promised himself the satisfaction of walking home beneath the Arch of Constantine and past the vaguely lighted monuments of the Forum. There was a waning moon in the sky, and her radiance was not brilliant, but she was veiled in a thin cloud curtain which seemed to diffuse and equalize it. When, on his return from the villa (it was eleven o'clock), Winterbourne ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James

... points in connection with my approaching task. I had often done the same in the long solitary hours in my cell, and worked out innumerable figures and details in connection with it on my prison slate. Most of them, however, I had only retained vaguely in my head, for it is one of the intelligent rules of our cheerful convict system to allow no prisoner to make permanent notes of anything that might be of possible service ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges

... does the eye linger longest—which draws the heart? Once called her beautiful; his praise had given her beauty Oratory will not work against the stream, or on languid tides Parliament, is the best of occupations for idle men Passion is not invariably love Past fairness, vaguely like a snow landscape in the thaw Peace-party which opposed was the actual cause of the war Peculiar subdued form of laughter through the nose People with whom a mute conformity is as good as worship People ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Aubrey was counting on her, and it would be unsporting to let him down; she would have to keep her promise, but she would be glad when it was over. Aubrey married would settle definitely the possibility of any further disagreements between them. She wondered vaguely what the future Lady Mayo would be like, but she did not expend much pity on her. American girls as a rule were well able to care for themselves. She stroked her horse with a little smile. Aubrey and his possible wife seemed singularly uninteresting beside the vivid interest ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... at parting was so full of teeth, that it confused old Sol, and made him vaguely uncomfortable. He went home, thinking of raging seas, foundering ships, drowning men, an ancient bottle of Madeira never brought to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... Anna, but it was their advance, their soft stir at her back as they came upon their fallen leader, that had hushed her cries. At the rift in the wood she had leaned on a huge oak and as body and mind again failed had sunk to its base in leafy hiding. Vaguely thence she presently perceived, lit from behind her by sunset beams, the farther edge of the green opening, and on that border, while she feebly looked, came ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... half a dozen heavy lines had been pencilled, and these in turn checked through with little vertical dashes; below were the sketchily-drawn supports, which indicated a bridge, and upon this bridge a procession of people vaguely outlined as to body, but elaborated as to face to such a degree of artistic cleverness that Dave uttered ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... He woke with shock and distress, his pulse racing. But the feverish state began again, and dreams with it—of the House of Commons, the election, the faces in the Hartingfield crowd. Diana was among the crowd—looking on—vaguely beautiful and remote. Yet as he perceived her a rush of cool air struck on his temples, he seemed to be walking down a garden, there was a scent of limes ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... a hideous thought, and, in spite of his squared shoulders, his stiffened back, his spirit, for the time, was crushed under the burden so unjustly thrust upon him. He thought of Peter Blunt, and wondered vaguely what he would say. He wondered what would be the look in the kindly gray eyes when he spoke the words of comfort and disbelief which he knew would await him. That was it. The look. It was the thought behind the words that mattered—and ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... softened under her father's cajolery; not that she was more fond of him than of her mother; but these two had more ground for mutual sympathy and understanding; and pity for his vaguely harassed countenance was never far absent ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... arithmetic, of course (Elizabeth Ann thought it just her luck!), and of course it was those hateful eights and sevens, and of course right away poor Betsy got the one she hated most, 7x8. She never knew that one! She said dispiritedly that it was 54, remembering vaguely that it was somewhere in the fifties. Ralph burst out scornfully, "56!" and the teacher, as if she wanted to take him down for showing off, pounced on him with 9 x 8. He answered, without drawing breath, 72. Elizabeth Ann shuddered at his ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield

... at eight o'clock in the morning Mme. Derline awoke with an uneasy feeling. She had passed a troubled night—she, who usually slept like a child. The evening before at the opera, in the box, Mme. Derline had vaguely felt that something was going on around her. And during the entire last act an opera-glass, obstinately fixed on her—the prince's opera-glass—had thrown her into a certain agitation, not disagreeable, however. She wore a low dress—too much so, in her mother's opinion—and two or three ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy

... sought to find the explanation in the occurrence of ovulation. This theory is, however, unsupported by facts, and eventually rests on the exploded belief that ovulation is the cause of menstruation. Rosner, following Richelet, vaguely attributes it to the diffused hyperaemia which is generally present. Van de Velde also attributes it to an abnormal fall of vascular tone, causing passive congestion of the pelvic viscera. Others again, like Armand Routh and MacLean, in the course of an interesting ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... had gone, Orde stood long by the front gate looking up into the infinite spaces. Somehow, and vaguely, he felt the night to be akin to her elusive spirit. Farther and farther his soul penetrated into its depths; and yet other depths lay beyond, other mysteries, other unguessed realms. And yet its beauty was the simplicity of space and dark ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... repeated, vaguely, saying in the next breath, "then they are not already married," muttering the words more to herself than to the man. "Where does this girl, Dorothy live?" she ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey

... sometimes exceeded 20 inches in diameter, but was short; its chamber, for containing the powder-charge, being about as long, but much narrower both within and without. There were also very diminutive varieties of it. It has been vaguely called by some writers basilisk, and by the Dutch donderbass. Used to assail a town, fortress, or fleet, by the projection of shells from mortars. It was also the name of a barrel, or large vessel for liquids; hence, among other ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... herself to her knitting. She was making a rainbow shawl of seven colours and an intricate pattern, and she had to count her stitches; conversation was impossible. Constance, vaguely restless, picked up a book and laid it down, and finally sauntered out to the terrace with no thought in the world but to see the moon ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster

... the Count de Vandeuvres was craning his neck in conversation behind Blanche's sturdy shoulders, while Fauchery, out of the corners of his eyes, took stock of the Muffats, of whom the count appeared very serious, as though he had not understood the allusions, and the countess smiled vaguely, her eyes lost in reverie. But on a sudden, in this uncomfortable state of things, the applause of the clapping contingent rattled out with the regularity of platoon firing. People turned toward the stage. Was it Nana at last? This Nana made ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... never to look ahead or picture the blankness of his days as they must become with no hope of ever seeing Sabine. He supposed vaguely that the pain would grow less in time. He should have to play a lot of games, and take tremendous interest in his tenants and his property and perhaps presently go into Parliament. And if all that failed, he could make some expedition into the wilds again. He was too healthy and ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn

... matter?" asked Mollie Billette, raising her eyes reluctantly from a book she was devouring and looking vaguely at Amy's ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope

... strict connection with poetry in the abstract, and with the old British poems 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 ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... There was something vaguely alarming in the knowledge that Pink claimed the name of Philip. Long ago Mary had taken the story of The Three Weavers to heart, and vowed that no one could be her prince who did not fit her ideals "as the falcon's ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... with which to answer her. He folded his arms across his chest and looked out vaguely into the slant of room beyond. The folding doors were open and on the sideboard he could see a basket full of peaches, at this season an extravagance denied his own table. On the mantelshelf to his right hand were some exquisite hot-house flowers, carelessly ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris

... Vaguely amused, yet without scorn, McNamara and Forest got up to shake his hand. "I'll look after him," Melville assured them. "Never ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... to me, my child. These bracelets are beautiful; they may aid us, perhaps, in finding a resemblance which presents itself vaguely to my remembrance and which I am trying ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur

... quietly, as it were, walked through the door. Even by this time I hardly think I felt frightened. What I had seen had passed too quickly for me as yet to realise its strangeness. Still I felt perplexed and vaguely uneasy, and I hurried on to my sister's room. She was standing by the toilet-table, searching for the ribbon. I think I must have looked startled, for before I could speak she called out, 'Maggie, whatever is the matter with you? You look ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth

... at my watch. It was ten minutes to seven. There was no sign of my mysterious friend. I wondered vaguely, too, what had become of my porter. True, there was nothing of importance in Semlin's bag, but a traveller with luggage always commands ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... exclaimed, vaguely, slowly, vexed with herself as soon as she had spoken for having uttered the words as a protest, whereas she wished to draw her companion out. To correct this impression ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James

... very tall trees in the United States, and there are also some of great height in the valley of the Amazon River. I have heard of giant gum trees five hundred feet high, but their location has always been given very vaguely, and nobody knew by whom they had been measured. There is one giant gum tree on Mount Baw-Baw, in Gippsland, that has been officially measured by a surveyor and found to be four hundred and seventy-one feet high. What ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox

... as far as possible, to exclude regret and desire, and yield himself to the improvement of the present with an absolutely disengaged mind. America is here and now—here, or nowhere: as Wilhelm Meister finds out one day, just not too late, after so long looking vaguely across the ocean for the opportunity of the development of his capacities. It was as if, recognising in perpetual motion the law of nature, Marius identified his own way of life cordially with it, "throwing ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... silence. The shooters knew vaguely that Hugh's visit was in some way connected with Considine, and that Considine had refused to do what Hugh wanted. But the hospitality of the buffalo camp is as the hospitality of the Arabs of old—the stranger is made welcome whatever ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... angularity of the wide cane-seated couch and low, square chairs. There was a deep crystal bowl of midsummer flowering roses on the table, laden with books, by which Claire often sat long hours reading poetry and volumes written by modern poets and authors of whom her husband had only vaguely heard and ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... entering silently, he stood for a moment gazing through the open window toward the bright sunlight of a cloudless day, then turned to behold the angel face upon the pillow. Awed in the presence of death, the meaning of which he began vaguely to understand, he stood listening to a "solemn wind" that began to blow—"the saddest that ear ever heard." What followed should appear in De Quincey's own words: "A vault seemed to open in the zenith of the far blue sky, a shaft which ran up forever. I, in spirit, rose as if ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... Passelourdin. That there is something in the theory is possible. Perrault found the subjects of his stories in the tales told by mothers and nurses. He fixed them finally by writing them down. Floating about vaguely as they were, he seized them, worked them up, gave them shape, and yet of scarcely any of them is there to be found before his time a single trace. So we must resign ourselves to know just as little of what Gargantua and Pantagruel ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... can larn, Cardiff's your port, though I don't say a 'andy one. Fact is, there's no 'andy one. They seem to say the place lies out of everyone's track close down against the Somerset coast—or, it may be, Devon: they're not clear. Anyway," he wound up vaguely, "at Cardiff there may be pleasure steamers runnin', or something ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... I sat up, staring vaguely about me, and then became aware of a curious stiff feeling in the skin of my face. Putting my hands to my head, to still the throbbing smart of it, I found that my hair was all clogged with some sticky kind of liquid which, upon looking at my hands, I found to be blood, evidently ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... Deroulede both vaguely wondered whither they were being led; to some other prison mayhap, away from the fury of the populace. They were conscious of a sense of satisfaction at thought of being freed from that pack of raging ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... patriotism" is invariably quoted as a denial of this, there prevails in modern schools a definite inclination towards unsentimental cynicism in the matter. This does not necessarily denote an unhealthy spirit, but an increase of intellect that, whether with justification or not, vaguely asks for something wider or ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell

... check this pure and fervid flow of happiness with doubts and fears. I did not rouse myself to inquire whether this great truth concerning us might not, owing to some peculiarity of my organization, be clearly and perfectly revealed to me, and me alone; so that the truth being but dimly and vaguely foreshadowed to her mind, the effect could not be as permanent and living as in mine. I did not ruffle my soul's serenity with dark forebodings and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... sobre que tenian mui sangrientas batallas." (Montesinos, Annales, Ms., ano 1525.) The conquest of Quito by Huayna Capac took place more than thirty years before this period in our history. But the particulars of this revolution, its time or precise theatre, were, probably, but very vaguely comprehended by the rude nations in the neighbourhood of Panama: and their allusion to it in an unknown dialect was as little comprehended by the Spanish voyagers, who must have collected their information from signs much more than words.] At length, after ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... Don's funeral, Ramon received a summons which he had been vaguely expecting. He was asked by Mr. MacDougall's secretary over the telephone to call, whenever it would be convenient, at ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... aged lion steals The instinct of approaching death, Whose numbing grasp he vaguely feels In trembling limbs and labored breath, He shuns the garish light of day, And leaving mate and whelps at play, ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... as she dragged the burro down the canyon trail. She sat down only to rise. She hurried only to stop. Driven, pursued, barred, she had no way to escape the flaying thoughts, no time or will to repudiate them. The death of her girlhood, the rending aside of a veil of maiden mystery only vaguely instinctively guessed, the barren, sordid truth of her life as seen by her enlightened eyes, the bitter realization of the vileness of men of her clan in contrast to the manliness and chivalry of an enemy, the hard facts of unalterable repute as created by slander and fostered ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... listening with a stricken face, and the heart of Vance thundered with his excitement. Vaguely he felt that there was something fine and clean and honorable in the heart of this youth which was being laid bare; but about that he cared very little. He was getting at facts and emotions which were valuable to him in the ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand

... anxious to find in them? The date of a pious foundation—the name of some monkish imagier or copyist— the price of a loaf, of an ox, or of a field—some judicial or administrative enactment—all that, and yet something more, a Something vaguely mysterious and sublime which excited my enthusiasm. But for sixty years I have been searching in vain for that Something. Better men than I—the masters, the truly great, the Fauriels, the Thierrys, who found so many things—died at their task without having been ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... them, her ears caressed by the czardas of the musicians. The big barge disappeared in the distance in a luminous haze; but the Tzigana could still vaguely perceive the little beings perched upon the shoulders of the men, and waving, in sign of farewell, pieces of white cloth which their ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Ethan became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds. The wind continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He could hear nothing; he could think ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... but she vaguely felt that she ought to, so she bobbed her head slowly and fell to puzzling over the queer ways of the world. Fortunately for the whole household, the last week of preparation for the holiday season was a very busy one, so Peace had ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown

... an incident occurred which is of some historical importance, not because, as is sometimes vaguely suggested, it did anything whatever towards the emancipation of the slaves, but because it certainly increased, not unnaturally, the anger and alarm of the South. Old John Brown had suspended for a time his programme of murder and mutilation in Kansas and returned to New England, where he ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... back in her carriage; the rain lashed the carriage-blinds. The passers-by seemed merely shadows wavering in the mire of the street; and, pressed close to each other, they observed all these things vaguely with a calm disdain. Under various pretexts, he would linger in her room for an ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... the most famous of the Nor'-westers). The upper course of this river and its northern affluents were annexed as British by David Thompson; the lower course did not at once become the political property of the United States, but was considered vaguely to be the joint property of both nations, till the Oregon settlement of 1846. By the treaty of 1792, the southern boundary of central Canada was agreed upon as being the 49th degree of north latitude, but only between the ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... contretemps would have exposed me to the unpleasantness of at least being shunned afterwards as a man entertaining principles inimical to southern interests—and, however resolute I felt to pursue an independent course while I remained in Charleston, I could not shake off a fear I vaguely entertained of a public recognition by a deeply prejudiced and ignorant populace, who, once set on, do not hesitate to proceed to disagreeable extremes. This fear was enhanced in no little degree by the operation ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... imagined that Hosmer lost little time in preliminary small talk. He introduced himself vaguely as from the West; then perceiving the need of being more specific as from Saint Louis. She had guessed he was no Southerner. He had come to Mrs. Lafirme on the part of himself and others with a moneyed offer for the privilege of cutting timber from her land for a given number ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... you know that he is much away?" asks Virginia, feeling vaguely hurt at his words ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various

... vaguely, having no wish to finish his days on the gallows; as men had done ere now, for little more than a hint that the reigning Sovereign ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... to Samuel, sent of God to Bethlehem; [1] and under cover of the expressed opinions of others, Dr. Hodge says vaguely: "Here, it is said, is a case of intentional deception commanded. Saul was to be deceived as to the object of Samuel's journey to Bethlehem." Yet, whoever "said" this was guilty of a gratuitous charge of intentional deception, against the Almighty. ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull

... no doubt that the person alluded to was my patron. No new light was thrown upon his character; unless something were deducible from the charge vaguely made, that his wealth was the fruit of illicit practices. He was opulent, and the sources of his wealth were unknown, if not to the rest of the community, at least to Thetford. But here had a plot been laid. The fortune of Thetford's ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... in rows on the cornices, have been peeled, as it were, by the fire; they no longer have faces or fingers, and, with their human forms, which still persist, they look like the dead drawn up in files, their contours vaguely indicated under ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... Archie knew vaguely that the Field had something to do with his wife's fortune, but understood that it had been mostly "cashed in" as ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... drew a huge log from beside the hearth and sat on the driest end of it, while their guest occupied the stool. The young man, without turning away from his discontented, peevish brooding over the fire, vaguely reached backward for the whiskey-bottle and Uncle Billy's tin cup, to which he was assisted by the latter's hospitable hand. But on setting down the cup his eye ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... down in the middle of her bed with wild brown hair swirling madly about a laughing but mutinous face. The visitor, hurrying forward, received the impetuous little girl in her arms, while the nurse described her own sentiments of horror and detestation of such performances, and hinted vaguely at Retribution that might with safety be looked for no later than the morrow. Nobody listened. Miss Levering nodded smiling across Sara's nightgowned figure to the little boy hanging over the side of the neighbouring ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... it does on the high Saskatchewan plains, and he was conscious of a strange, bracing but vaguely disturbing quality in the keen air. One felt moved to adventure and a longing for something new. Men with brain and muscle were needed in the wide, silent land that would soon waken to busy life; but one must not give way to romantic ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... visited by foreigners from every part of the world. Mrs. Ogilvie frequently showed the works of the great masters herself, strolling along the polished floor of the gallery, and telling the story of this picture and that with the inimitable grace of manner which was vaguely resented by her country neighbours, delighting the distinguished foreigners who came to see the pictures. She herself hardly ever glanced at the old masters for her own pleasure; although full of technical knowledge on the subject she had no love of art. It used to weary ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan

... thing which the people had vaguely feared had not come upon them; though at first they paused, half-hearted, when they passed the house of the Tintoret, where the quaint figure of "Ser-Robia," the Pasquino of Venice, had often a bit of news that the people cared to hear, ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... against it, while her heart beat almost audibly, and her voice was even petulant in its tone as she answered her lover's questions. Ethelyn was making a terrible mistake, and she knew it, hating herself for her duplicity, and vaguely hoping that something would happen to save her from the fate she so much dreaded. But nothing did happen, and it was now too late to retract herself. The bridal trousseau was prepared under Mrs. Van Buren's supervision, the bridal guests were ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes

... citizen. There is no Territorial law forbidding any act which he is here charged with committing. Neither has the body social in this thriving community placed upon its records any local law, any indication that a man may not, without let or hindrance, do any act such as those charged vaguely against this good young man, who has only availed himself of his right under the Constitution to bear arms, to assemble in public, and to engage in the pursuit ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... social forces. Later the terms interests, sentiments, and attitudes made their appearance in the literature of economics, social psychology, and sociology. Finally the concept of the wishes, first vaguely apprehended by sociologists under the name "desires," having gained a more adequate description and definition in the use made of it by psychoanalysis, has been reintroduced into sociology by W. I. Thomas under the title of the "four wishes." This brief statement ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... kindred theory of Papal Infallibility, it is a true chameleon, changing constantly in different minds, always denying the absurdity of which it is made the synonym, ever qualifying itself safely, yet never ceasing to take on a vaguely miraculous character. Various theories are given in the books in which theological students are mis-educated, all of which unite in claiming that which they cannot agree in defining. The Westminster Confession of Faith may ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... murmured vaguely. "There ain't no coward would of done it!" Whereat Sam, seeing himself a hero, wisely accepted fate and ceased to argue. The big arm tightened manfully, and into his blue eyes came the look ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... following references may suffice. J.M. Kemble published (London, 1848) "The Dialogue of Solomon and Saturnus," for the Aelfric Society. "Of all the forms of the story yet preserved," says Mr. Kemble, "the Anglo-Saxon are undoubtedly the oldest." He talks vaguely of the intermixture of Oriental elements, but assigns a northern origin to one portion of the story. Crimm had argued for a Hebrew souice, thinking Marcolf a name of scorn in Hebrew. But the Hebrew Marcolis (or however one may spell it) is simply Mercury. In the ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams

... an altar beside the stream, to which for several years we brought all the snakes we killed during our excursions, no matter how long the toil—some journey which we had to make with a limp snake dangling between two sticks. I remember rather vaguely the ceremonial performed upon this altar one autumn day, when we brought as further tribute one out of every hundred of the black walnuts which we had gathered, and then poured over the whole a pitcher full of ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... round a table, shaded by the big horse-chestnut tree he once more beheld his father, his mother, and his elder brother at dejeuner. To his father, Michel Froment, he could give no distinct lineaments; he pictured him but faintly, vaguely, renowned as an illustrious chemist, bearing the title of Member of the Institute, and leading a cloistered life in the laboratory which he had installed in that secluded, deserted suburb. However he could ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... study of spirit consists in following up intelligently and according to definite method the same principle that now only flashes upon us at intervals fitfully and vaguely. When we once realise that this universal and unlimited power of spirit is at the root of all things and of ourselves also, then we have obtained the key to the whole position; and, however far we may carry our studies in spiritual science, we shall nowhere ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... had reached the hearth-rug, dropped on one knee in front of the large chair, and took the vaguely groping ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... abusing a distinguished Austrian critic who visited the University—"These foreigners are always talking about Art!" Foreigners and long-haired aesthetes were one and the same thing to my atrabilious instructor. The latter was an exact man. No wonder he detested a word which is used so vaguely and in so many contrary senses; which is sometimes applied to a poem or a novel as if its "art" were an ornamental thing separate from the poem or the novel; or as if it were a mere synonym for style or ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... machine. Never again, would he hear his mother's shrewish voice or feel her heavy, greasy hand about his ears. He was free—free to read, free to sleep, free to talk, free to drink in the beauty of the lazy hours. Vaguely he was conscious that one of the wonders that would come would be his own expansion. He would learn many things which he did not know, things that would fit him for his high estate. He looked down upon the foreshortened figure ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... should I hasten to dissuade this northern bear? I have no hope, alas, of interesting Blue Beard in my martyrdom. It seems to me that I perceive vaguely that the mistake of this Dutchman in my person may serve this adorable little creature. If that is so, I shall be delighted. Once having reached England, the mistake will be discovered and I set free; and, as ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

... others when they approach this subject, speaks timidly, and in consequence somewhat vaguely and obscurely; but his meaning is, that we must expect the Bible, on scientific subjects, to speak, not according to science, but according to the prevailing ideas of their times on scientific subjects; and that we are to regard the Bible as our teacher, not on every subject to which ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... and fall at the foot of her crucifix. There she remained, broken-hearted, absorbed, and overwhelmed by her grief, forgetful and indifferent to everything but her profound sorrow;—a grief she only vaguely realized—as though by instinct. In the midst of this wild tumult of thoughts, La Valliere heard her door open again; she started, and turned round, thinking it was the king who had returned. She was deceived, however, for it ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... money lender; and Kitty was warm-blooded, Irish, emotional. The fiddle called poignantly to the Irish in her. She wanted to go roving with this man; with her hand on his shoulder to walk in the thin air of high places. Through it all, however, she felt vaguely troubled; the instinct of the trap. The sinister and cynical idea which had clandestinely taken up quarters in her mind awoke and assailed her from a new angle, that of youth. Something in her cried out: "Stop! Stop!" But her lips were mute, her ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... idle mariners, and filling the roads with begging and starving seamen. These were driven to go to sea if they could find a berth, often half starved and brutally treated, and always underpaid, and so easily yielded to the temptation of joining some vessel bound vaguely for the "South Sea," where no questions were asked and no wages paid, but every hand on board had a share in ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... them flying over the country among the clergy on his own responsibility. They answered their purpose. They led to widespread and sometimes deep searchings of heart; to some they seemed to speak forth what had been long dormant within them, what their minds had unconsciously and vaguely thought and longed for; to some they seemed a challenge pregnant with danger. But still they were but an outburst of individual feeling and zeal, which, if nothing more came of its fragmentary displays, might blaze and ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... knew less than we do. Their voluptuous art, in deifying the human form, held down thought to earth. The "Moses" of Michelangelo beheld God, heard that voice of thunder, and bears the terrible impress of what he saw and heard on Mount Sinai: his profound eye is scrutinizing the mysteries he vaguely sees in his prophetic dreams. Is it the Moses of the Bible? I cannot say. Is it in this way Praxiteles and Phidias would have represented Lycurgus and Solon? We may deny it boldly. The legislators in their hands would have been the embodiment ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... of Mexico, limited by the traditional and vaguely defined boundaries of an ancient Indian empire or confederation of that name previous to the Spanish conquest. The word is said to signify "country by the waters'' in the old Aztec language; hence the theory that Anahuac was located on the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... middle-aged people and the young people into his house, the manager makes his romance as young as he can. Youth will indeed be served, and its profound instinct is to be not only scornfully amused but vaguely angered by middle-age romance. So, standing beside his mother, George was disturbed by a sudden impression, coming upon him out of nowhere, so far as he could detect, that her eyes were brilliant, that she was graceful and youthful—in a word, that ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... newspapers, often through the hanging of some culprit. Even the unthinking public, always clamoring for severe penalties, does not believe that the example of punishment deters. The public forbids the exhibition of pictures of hangings and of crimes. Somehow, vaguely and dimly as most men see everything, the public realizes that instead of punishments preventing crime, punishments suggest crime. In the olden days when men admitted that vengeance and punishment went together, they were at least more logical, ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... dull indeed had she failed to perceive the earnestness of his tone. She did perceive it, and was vaguely conscious that in this student of ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... with its longing for instant action, its continual revolt against self-contained speculation, there arose a dull fear of the future, a longing for deliverance. It was not a merry existence for a young man who heard the brave currents of life sounding around and calling him vaguely to come and adventure himself with the rest. He knew that the sons of the men who laughed at his grandfather laughed also at him, and regarded him with a somewhat impertinent wonder, but he dared explain himself to none, and dared seek companionship ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... personal display. In character and general talents he was beneath mediocrity. Beside these were the reckless but unstable De Heze, who had executed the coup; d'etat against the State Council, De Berselen, De Capres, D'Oyngies, and others, all vaguely desirous of achieving distinction in those turbulent times, but few of them having any political or religious convictions, and none of them possessing experience or influence enough, to render them useful—at ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... "Yes," said Cecile vaguely, "that's the news." She was still quiet—so quiet that one would suppose she scarcely felt. This was true; the blow was so sudden and sharp that it produced no pain as yet, but her usually sweet and tranquil ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade

... perhaps become a superior woman, as I have always desired to do; but I need much study and close application to bring me to that point; above all, must I chain my wandering fancies, and not suffer them to stray about so vaguely ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... much as it delighted him to experience this frank and direct joy of a child. He caught the inkling of an idea that perhaps his years were an illusion. He had latterly been thinking of himself as middle-aged; the grey hairs thickening at his temples had vaguely depressed him. Now all at once he saw that he was not old at all. The buoyancy of veritable youth bubbled in his veins. He began walking up and down the room, regarding new halcyon visions with a sparkling eye. He was no longer conscious ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... little, and by the end of another, to walk about—just a few steps at a time of course. One Sunday morning, Rodney carried her up-stairs to the nursery to see her babies bathed. This was a big room at the top of the house which Florence McCrea had always vaguely intended to make into a studio. But, in a paralysis of indecision as to what sort of studio to make it (book-binding, pottery and art weaving called her about equally) she had ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... reptile, however, was the conventional mythical scorpion of the Zodiac, and only vaguely represented the evil-looking, venomous beast with which I subsequently became, according to her prophecy, acquainted, in all its ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... objurgation, and Lidgerwood continued his round of inspection, trying vainly to recall the identity of the chance-met man whose face, half hidden under the drooping brim of a worn campaign-hat, was vaguely familiar. The recollection came at length, with the impact of a blow. The "chuckle-headed fool" of Gridley's malediction was Richard ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... been many troubles over censorship, of which he knew but vaguely through General Charteris, who looked upon us as his special "cross." We had fought hard for liberty in mentioning units, to give the honor to the troops, and for other concessions which ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... the affections of the nation. The parliament, in justifying its opposition, had declared that taxes in France could be laid only by the Estates-General. The people had almost forgotten the very name, and were entirely ignorant of what that body was, vaguely supposing that, like the English Parliament or the American Congress, it was in some sense a legislative assembly. They therefore made their voice heard in no uncertain sound, demanding that the Estates should meet. Louis abandoned his attitude ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... of this vaguely desired government, the country obtained the feeble and irresolute Directory, composed for the moment of the voluptuous Barres, the intriguing Sieyes, the brave Moulins, the insignificant Roger Ducos, and the honest but somewhat too ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... battle of Winchester, and the defeat of Stonewall Jackson by General Shields, Miss Dada and Miss Hall were ordered thither to care for the wounded. Here they were transferred from one hospital to another, without time to become more than vaguely interested in the individual welfare of their patients. At length at the third, the Court-House Hospital, they were permitted to remain for several weeks. Here many interesting cases were found, and they became much attached to some of the ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... her husband and became her very courteous, very distant lover. He made no claims, and took nothing for granted. He simply began all over again from the very beginning. His conscience was vaguely appeased by the illusion of the new leaf, the rejuvenated innocence of the blank page. They had never been married (so the illusion suggested). There had been no revelations. They met as strangers in their own house, at their own table. In support of this pleasing fiction he set about ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... which he had learned from the Brahmins, attracted Wilhelm greatly; it made many things clear to him which he himself had vaguely felt possible ever since he had learned to think. "The phenomenon of things on this earth," said Dr. Schrotter, "is a riddle which we try to read in vain. We are borne away by a flood, whose source and whose mouth are equally hidden from us. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... just heard, briefly and vaguely, of the difficulties between my father and your brother, and of the remedies you, Mr. Landholm, are employing. I do not know the truth nor the details of anything beyond the bare outlines. Those are enough, and more than I know how to bear. I don't wish to have anything explained ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner

... isolated instance, and so immediately followed by the change and fresh life of school that it had not left a mark behind. Nothing had yet occurred to generate in me any fear before the face of man. I had been vaguely uneasy in relation to my grandmother, but that uneasiness had almost vanished before her death. Hence the faith natural to childhood had received no check. My aunt was at worst cold; she had never been harsh; while over Nannie I was absolute ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... the rim of the cup are dull. This is why, when you are looking, say at some one's face across the room, only the face and a few inches around it are seen perfectly clear and sharp, while the rest of the room is seen only vaguely. ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... prostrate before him, his gray eyes twinkled beneath his shagged eyebrows; scenes, images, incidents, kept breaking upon his mind as he proceeded, mingled with touches of the mysterious and supernatural as connected with the heart of Bruce. It seemed as if a poem or romance were breaking vaguely on his imagination. That he subsequently contemplated something of the kind, as connected with this subject, and with his favorite ruin of Melrose, is evident from his introduction to "The Monastery;" and it is a pity that he never succeeded in following ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... verily, I say unto you, that ye are they of whom I said, other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd."[879] The Jews had vaguely understood Christ's reference to other sheep as meaning in some obscure way, the Gentile nations; and because of their unbelief and consequent inability to rightly comprehend, Jesus had withheld any plainer exposition ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... only has Lady Mallow been false to the promise of her girlhood. She has not achieved success as a poet. The Duchess wonders vaguely at this, for though she had often found it difficult to keep awake during the rehearsal of her daughter's verses, she had a fixed belief in the excellence of those efforts of genius. The secret of Lady Mallow's silence rests between her husband and herself; and it is just possible that some too ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... the manner of its delivery fantastic, yet there was something vaguely formidable in the stranger's tone, as if a great person had spoken, one absolutely sure of himself and of ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... the serene beauty of the morning there was something vaguely troubling. To think that all this loveliness of the clear dawn, all this freshness of the sweet air which to her and to David meant the joy of an exquisite fairyland, could yet mean to others only the beginning of another day of sorrow, of death, and squalid misery! How could ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott

... my waking thoughts could be called valuable, for my habit is to lie in bed and wonder vaguely what time it is, and if you start the day in that way and write it solemnly on paper you may just as well keep a diary of what you had for luncheon and where you had tea and all that kind of twaddle, which people write because blotting paper is provided on the opposite page. But on the morning ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley



Words linked to "Vaguely" :   mistily, vague



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