"Indecisive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... major standing in front of Delmonico's, interviewing a large, bare-headed personage in brown cloth spotted with brass buttons. The major was in search of his very particular friend, Mr. John Hardy of Madison Square, and the personage in brown and brass was rather languidly indicating, by a limp and indecisive forefinger, a route through a section of the city which, correctly followed, would have landed the major ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... wove my leafy Jasmin bowers, Hoping to hide my pleasure and my shame, Where the Lantana's indecisive flowers Vary from palest rose ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... (in January 1831), both Sabagadis and Marie were killed, and Ubie retired to watch events from his own province. Marie was shortly succeeded in the ras-ship of Amhara by Ali, a nephew of Guxa and a Mahommedan. But Ubie, who was aiming at the crown, soon attacked Ras Ali, and after several indecisive campaigns proclaimed himself negus of Tigre. To him came many French missionaries and travellers, chief of whom were Lieut. Lefebvre, charged (1839) with political and geographical missions, and Captains Galinier and Ferret, who completed for him ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... creature; but yours is the character of decision and firmness, I see. If you value her conduct or happiness, infuse as much of your own spirit into her as you can. But this, no doubt, you have been always doing. It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm. Here is a nut," said he, catching one down ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Bagdad with less than a division of mixed Anglo-Indian troops—some 16,000 to 20,000 strong. At Ctesiphon he found a Turkish army of four divisions, with two others in reserve, awaiting him. After a two days' indecisive battle, Townshend, recognizing he had insufficient forces, retired on his forward base at Kut-el-Amara. The Arabs in the neighborhood awaited the issue of the battle, ready to take sides, for the time being, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... the passage of Thermopylae was disputed, he Greek fleet advanced and took position in the strait of Artemisium, to prevent the Persian fleet from advancing farther into Greek waters. During the battle the fleets were also engaged in an indecisive conflict. A storm, however, arose and destroyed two hundred of the Persian ships. When Thermopylae fell there was no longer reason for defending Artemisium, and the Greek fleet returned to defend the approach to Athens at ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... six vessels had separated by common consent, October 10, 1600, in order to facilitate their trade. Van Neck in the vessels with him, skirted Celebes, and went to Ternate, where he was cordially received by the natives. There the usual troubles with the Portuguese began, which ended in an indecisive naval battle. Shortly after, the Dutch left for China, leaving six men to watch their interests among the natives. "On the nineteenth [of August] they anchored near the island of Coyo, one of the Philippines. There they sent a small ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... in 1979 after the ruling shah was forced into exile. Conservative clerical forces subsequently crushed westernizing liberal elements. Militant Iranian students seized the US Embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979 and held it until 20 January 1981. During 1980-88, Iran fought a bloody, indecisive war with Iraq over disputed territory. The key current issue is how rapidly the country should open up to the modernizing influences of the ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... subjects to send men, arms, money, and horses, for defence of the king and maintenance of the law; at Nottingham, where the royal standard was raised; at Coventry, where the townspeople refused the king entrance and fired upon his troops from the walls; at Edgehill, where the first great but indecisive battle was fought between the contending parties; in short, as Dud Dudley states in his petition, he was "in most of the battailes that year, and also supplyed his late sacred Majestie's magazines of Stafford, Worcester, Dudley Castle, and Oxford, with ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... victories, and had never lost them by any defeat or disaster. His invasion was a challenge to Saplal either to fight for his ill-gotten gains, or to give them up. The Hittite king accepted the challenge, and a short struggle followed with an indecisive result. At its close peace was made, and a formal treaty of alliance drawn out. Its terms are unknown; but it was probably engraved on a silver plate in the languages of the two powers—the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the now well-known Hittite picture-writing—and ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... fascination of utter horror. DEA attempts drawing GWYMPLANE away, but he resists, becoming again a victim to the old charm. The slave girl, with a wild gesture, offers herself to him. Simultaneously, DEA motions him with prayer to go with her. He makes some pitiful indecisive motions between them. DEA wrings her hands; the slave girl smiles; when, with a sudden gesture of despair, GWYMPLANE takes out his knife and makes a motion of cutting out his heart, then sinks upon the ground, and suddenly holds up his heart dripping with blood ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... surrendered the advantage which the initiative has, of effecting a concentration, but subjected their own fleets to being beaten in detail, subject only to the skill of the opponent in using the opportunity extended to him. The results, at best, were indecisive, tactically considered. The one apparent exception was in June, 1794, when Lord Howe, after long vainly endeavoring a better combination with a yet raw fleet, found himself forced to the old method; but although then ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... of Leicester landed in Norfolk with a body of foreign troops, but was defeated by the justiciar and the Earl of Cornwall, who took him and his wife prisoners. The year closed with truces in both England and France running to near Easter time. The first half of the year 1174 passed in the same indecisive way. In England there was greater suffering from the disorders incident to such a war, and sieges and skirmishes were constantly occurring through all the centre and ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... conviction, or of high and comprehensive purpose, among the majority of the influential persons who, perhaps for decorum's sake, have made it, as to leave cause for apprehension that, if any such scheme were to be proposed, it would be in the first instance very limited in its compass, indecisive in its enforcement, and niggardly in its pecuniary appointments. Many of our legislators have never thought of investigating the condition of the people, and are unaware of their deplorable destitution of all mental ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... as he was waiting for, was afforded him. The old warrior, growing impatient of this indecisive manoeuvring, began to press his adversary harder, and to follow him up with an apparent determination to bring matters to a speedy issue. Atollo retreated before him, until he was driven to the edge of the brook, where he paused, as if resolved to make a stand. Wakatta now seemed ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... people of Israel only very indecisive traces of this fundamental dogma. The Sadducee, who did not believe it, was in reality faithful to the old Jewish doctrine; it was the Pharisee, the believer in the resurrection, who was the innovator. But in religion it is always the zealous sect which innovates, which progresses, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... my Maryland," rises in grand appeal. The now national "Dixie" tells not of fields to be won. It is a dark presage of the battle morrow. Behind grim redan and salient, the footsore troops rest from the day's indecisive righting. The foeman is not idle; all night long, rumbling trains and busy movements tell that "Uncle Billy Sherman" never sleeps. His blue octopus crawls and feels its way unceasingly. The ragged gray ranks, whose guns are their only pride, whose motto is "Move by day; fight always," ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... admirable fidelity' — says the 'Jessamy Bride' (afterwards Mrs. Gwyn) — 'as he actually lived among us; nothing can exceed its truth' (Prior's 'Life', 1837, ii. 380). In other words, it delineates Goldsmith as his contemporaries saw him, with bulbous forehead, indecisive chin, and long protruding upper lip, — awkward, insignificant, ill at ease, — restlessly burning 'to get in and shine.' It enables us moreover to understand how people who knew nothing of his better and more lovable qualities, could ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... For herself she cared less; but she knew that Sinclair, now that he had begun, would not stop. In whichever way her thoughts turned, wretchedness was upon them, and the day went in one of those despairing and indecisive battles that each one within his own heart must fight at ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... fresh energy into the war; and Gonsalvo found his own forces greatly out-numbered. In the late autumn there was a sharp but indecisive contest at the Garigliano Bridge. Gonsalvo held to his position, despite the destitution of his troops, until he received reinforcements. Then, on December 28, he suddenly and unexpectedly crossed the river; the French retired rapidly, gallantly covered by the rear-guard, hotly attacked by ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... that he had not taken a more prominent part in the councils of the young Chevalier, or held a more distinguished position in the field. His integrity, his strong sense, and moral courage might have had an advantageous influence over the wavering, and confirmed the indecisive. In the field, his would have been the desperate valour which suits a desperate cause; but his resources were few, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... for granted that everybody there was at least a good Radical, and as stoutly opposed as himself to the "wild-cat" and "Jingo" policy of the Government on the Indian frontier, where one of our perennial little wars was then proceeding. News had arrived that afternoon of an indecisive engagement, in which the lives of three English officers and some fifty men of a Sikh regiment had been lost. Mr. Barton, in taking up the evening paper, lying beside Diana, which contained the news, had made very much the remark foretold ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... now approved, we put the principle by, and before long we are at one another's throats about things involving no principle. It is not necessary to particularise. Note any meeting for the same general conditions: a chairman, indecisive, explaining rules of order which he lacks the grit to apply; members ignoring the chair and talking at one another; others calling to order or talking out of time or away from the point; one unconsciously showing the futility of the whole business ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... ability, and his work was accomplished in spite of the intrigues of politicians and the opposition of the executive, and in face of the military genius of Generals R. E. Lee and T. J. Jackson. At the Antietam he forced the Confederates to give battle, and although tactically indecisive, the engagement caused the withdrawal of Lee's army into Virginia. McClellan's successors were far less competent, and the magnificent Army of the Potomac met with frequent disasters, until it formed the solid nucleus ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... been indecisive as to his course. His force was little more than a fourth of that of the advancing foe. He had, for some time, been aware of the storm which was preparing against him. Vaudreuil, the governor, had at first intended to send a body of Canadians and Indians, under General Levis, down the valley ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... somehow felt, were a screen; something else lay beneath them. He watched the tall figure with its always present odor of tsin-tsin blossoms move forward in a few indecisive steps, then back again, considering. The smile and the easy words were a ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... A few indecisive but sanguinary engagements were fought in the neighborhood of Pesqueira, a town in the hills about one hundred miles from the seaboard. These proved that General Russo was a valiant fighter but a poor tactician—and ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... beyond that, no substantial advantage had been gained by either side. Battles had been fought of as great severity as had ever been known in war, over ground from the James River and Chickahominy, near Richmond, to Gettysburg and Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania, with indecisive results, sometimes favorable to the National army, sometimes to the Confederate army; but in every instance, I believe, claimed as victories for the South by the Southern press if not by the Southern generals. The Northern press, as a whole, did not discourage these claims; a portion of ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... insensibly. Full oft the quiet and exalted thoughts 210 Of loneliness gave way to empty noise And superficial pastimes; now and then Forced labour, and more frequently forced hopes; And, worst of all, a treasonable growth Of indecisive judgments, that impaired 215 And shook the mind's simplicity.—And yet This was a gladsome time. Could I behold— Who, less insensible than sodden clay In a sea-river's bed at ebb of tide, Could have beheld,—with undelighted heart, 220 So many happy youths, so wide and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... animals about the dwellings, all appearing to be thoroughly domesticated. The largest of these creatures resembled our common hog in the structure of the body and snout; the tail, however, was bushy, and the legs slender as those of the antelope. Its motion was exceedingly awkward and indecisive, and we never saw it attempt to run. We noticed also several animals very similar in appearance, but of a greater length of body, and covered with a black wool. There were a great variety of tame fowls running about, and these seemed to constitute the chief food ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... time she tried to dodge him. In her haste to make up for those precious lost seconds she upset a pair of twins belonging to an already overburdened mother. These she righted and went dashing on her way. Groups waylaid her; people with time to kill sauntered in front of her; wandering, indecisive people tried to stop her for information; and she reached the gate just as it was closing. Through it she could see—down a discouraging length of platform—a Balmacaaned ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... in due time, he began to let fall an occasional remark, impeded considerably by hiccups, and an odd Deo Gratias, or Laus Deo, uttered in that indecisive manner which indicates the position of a man who debates within himself whether he ought to rest ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... blown them away, looking up, you would find the stars gone, and the sky a veil of palest blue. In this indirect approach of dawn there was something ineffably mysterious. One could see, but the things seen were indecisive and vague, just as they are in the gloaming of ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... 480 Xerxes invades Greece. Indecisive actions between the Persian and Greek fleets at Artemisium. Destruction of the three hundred Spartans at Thermopyae. The Athenians abandon Attica and go on shipboard. Great naval victory of the Greeks ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... of the ground over which our armies were constantly called upon to manoeuvre explains "why the numerous bloody battles fought between the armies of the Union and of the secessionists should have been so indecisive. A proper understanding of the country, too, will help to relieve the Americans from the charge, so frequently made at home and abroad, of want of generalship in handling troops in battle,—battles that had to be fought out hand to hand in forests, where artillery and cavalry could play no ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... of himself, with the inherited rifle smoking, gave augury of fighting effectiveness. So sanguinary had been this fight, and so dangerously had it focused upon the warring clans the attention of the outside world, that after its indecisive termination, they made the compact of the present truce. By its terms, the Hollmans held their civil authority, and the Souths were to be undisturbed dictators beyond Misery. For some years now, the peace had been unbroken save by sporadic assassinations, none ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... business was of too delicate a character to be trusted to the wires that would whisper the secret to every curious operator along the line. In my embarrassment, I caught at a slender thread of hope, and tried to derive consolation from it. I knew Mrs. Lincoln to be indecisive about some things, and I hoped that she might change her mind in regard to the strange programme proposed, and at the last moment despatch me to this effect. The 16th, and then the 17th of September passed, and no despatch reached me, so on the 18th I made all haste to take the train for New York. ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... definite plan, the vast continents have grown to their present size and form; to see how animal and vegetable life have evolved successively higher and higher forms; to see where in this wondrous drama of creation, this strange unfolding of life, the first faint, indecisive traces of man's presence are to be found; to learn what great changes in climate, in Geogony, and in life, had occurred before man's appearance, let us pass in brief review the history of early ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... An indecisive moment passed, as though the man were nerving himself for an ordeal of courage and cunning. With a gesture resigning himself to whatever might befall, he entered the court, careful to observe that the way out was no more intricate than the ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... oil production and lack of new exploration investment turned Indonesia into a net oil importer in 2004. The cost of subsidizing domestic fuel placed increasing strain on the budget in 2005, and combined with indecisive monetary policy, contributed to a run on the currency in August, prompting the government to enact a 126% average fuel price hike in October. The resulting inflation and interest rate hikes dampened ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... of this indecisive contest the American Congress met to consider the selection of a commander-in-chief for the revolutionary armies. Their choice fell on General George Washington, a Virginian soldier who, as has been remarked, had served with some distinction in ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... most indecisive of Napoleon's victories, one which had almost been a defeat and which left both armies so exhausted that months passed before either was in condition to resume the war. It was the month of June before the armies ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... couched in suitably mysterious terms, to the effect that really earnest seekers after divine truth might, after necessary probation, etc., join a brotherhood of such—which, it was darkly hinted, could give more than it dared promise. Up to this point Narcissus had been indecisive. He was, remember, quite in earnest, and to actually accept this new evangel meant to him—well, as he said, nothing less in the end than the Himalayas. Pending his decision, however, he had gradually developed a certain austerity, and experimented ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... artillery and a thousand men, and, going southward from Spring River, reached the Grand about sundown.[294] Watie was three miles away and, Doubleday continuing the pursuit, the two forces came to an engagement. It was indecisive,[295] however, and Watie slipped ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... Coligny knew too well that the same influence which had brought Alva to Brussels would soon create an exterminating army against their followers. Hostilities were resumed with more bitterness than ever. The battle of St. Denis—fierce, fatal, but indecisive—was fought. The octogenarian hero, Montmorency, fighting like a foot soldier, refusing to yield his sword, and replying to the respectful solicitations of his nearest enemy by dashing his teeth down his throat with the butt-end of his pistol, the hero of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... provisions by sea. After three years of struggle, the town was obliged to surrender, thanks to the skilful operations of Ambrose Spinola, who was placed at the head of the Spanish army. After further indecisive operations, a twelve years' truce was finally declared, on April 9, 1609, between the United Provinces and Spain. Philip III virtually recognized the independence of the Republic and even allowed the Dutch merchants to trade with the West Indies, a privilege which he had refused to his own ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... If the war were indecisive or left all the combatants more or less prostrated, peaceful immigration might give a big impulse to the gradual growing up of powerful States in the temperate zone of the extreme South. The situation there, and the evolution of our own power, make it perhaps ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... indecisive actions in European waters, or near the West Indies, the British raiding policy was transferred to a new region, namely, the southern States, which thus far had known little of the severities of war. In December, 1778, an expedition under Prevost easily occupied Savannah, driving ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... reach of the ships. The fire of McRea was silenced the first day; but on the second a northwest wind had so lowered the water that the ships could not get near enough to reach the fort. The affair was entirely indecisive, being necessarily ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... of which, though the light penetrates through it all, you perceive every part to be charged with vapor. Notice particularly the half-indicated forms even where it is most serene, behind the snowy mountains. And now, how are the sunbeams drawn? no longer indecisive, flushing, palpitating, every one is sharp and clear, and terminated by definite shadow; note especially the marked lines on the upper cloud; finally, observe the difference in the mode of indicating the figures, which are here misty and indistinguishable, telling only ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... apostle pronounces that "the forbidding to marry is a doctrine of devils." WESLEY, who published "Thoughts on a Single Life," advised some "to remain single for the kingdom of heaven's sake; but the precept," he adds, "is not for the many." So indecisive have been the opinions of the most curious inquirers concerning the matrimonial state, whenever a great destination has engaged ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Toots takes courage, when they whisper a kind thought to him; and by slow degrees and with many indecisive stoppages on the way, approaches Florence. Stammering and blushing, Mr Toots affects amazement when he comes near her, and says (having followed close on the carriage in which she travelled, every inch of the way from London, loving even to be choked by the dust of its wheels) that he never was ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... trench warfare is unlikely to supervene immediately, nor to be brought about until something fairly important has happened; and it will not continue to the end unless the result of the conflict is to be indecisive. In 1918 there was nothing to choose between British divisions which had had no existence in August 1914 and those which had fought as the point of England's lance at Le Cateau, on the Marne and on the Aisne. But wars will not always last four years. Nor will the belligerent ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... shudders both at it and the operator—but, nevertheless, it may have been the wisest course to pursue. As a general rule, every one will admit that—if war there must be—it is better that it should be short and violent, than long and indecisive; for there is nothing so mischievous, so destructive of the industry and moral character of a people, as a war which, so to speak, domesticates itself amongst them. Put aside "the saint" entirely,—let us see only the soldier,—and Cromwell's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... took J——- and R——- in a carriage, and went to see the Carnival, by driving up and down the Corso. It was as ugly a day, as respects weather, as has befallen us since we came to Rome,—cloudy, with an indecisive wet, which finally settled into a rain; and people say that such is generally the weather in Carnival time. There is very little to be said about the spectacle. Sunshine would have improved it, no doubt; but a person must have very broad sunshine within himself to be ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... followed them thither, and again fought them for two days, in all which time the Portuguese ships could never board them by reason of their unwieldy bulk. At length the English stood away, shewing black colours in token that their captain was slain. In these long indecisive actions, the English and Portuguese both lost a number of men. The English made for Surat, followed still by De Cunna; on which they left that port, and De Cunna ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... compelled fighting when armed vessels of nearly equal strength met; but such contests, though wholly laudable from the naval standpoint, which under ordinary circumstances cannot afford to encourage retreat from an equal foe, were indecisive of general results, however meritorious in particular execution. They had no effect upon the issue, except so far as they inspired moral enthusiasm and confidence. Still more, in the sequel they have had a distinctly injurious effect upon national opinion in ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... in his instruments. Law was always hesitating and doubting. Chunda Sahib, although clever to plan, was weak in action; indecisive, at moments when it was most necessary that he should be firm. So then, in spite of the entreaties of Dupleix, he had detached a considerable force to besiege Clive. Dupleix, seeing this, and hoping that Clive ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... formidable force, he had but to show himself there in order to overpower the exhausted forces of the Saxons and brilliantly to commence his new career by the reconquest of that kingdom. But, contented with harassing the enemy with indecisive skirmishes of his Croats, he abandoned the best part of that kingdom to be plundered, and moved calmly forward in pursuit of his own selfish plans. His design was, not to conquer the Saxons, but to unite with them. Exclusively occupied with this important ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... given the title La Vittoria after the sea-fight of Toulon, though the issue of the conflict was indecisive. ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... Peter's anguish came but one solution, and that vague and indecisive. He must wait and watch for Miss Vost, and take what drastic measures he could devise to recapture ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... hesitation. It was common enough for the pickets on either side to grow friendly both before and after those terrific but indecisive battles so characteristic of the Civil War, a habit in which the subordinate officers sometimes shared while those of a higher rank closed their eyes. It did no military injury, and contributed ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... was thus established, although its purpose remained indecisive. The founder's romantic dream of a crusade in Holy Land, though never realized, gave an object of immediate interest to the associated friends. Meanwhile two main features of its historical manifestation, the propaganda of the Catholic faith and unqualified devotion to the cause of the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... determination to give the Indians a punishment that they would remember held the pursuing party together, and three days afterward he fought a battle with the wily raiders, surprised in a canyon on the Frenchman River, which, though indecisive, gave Iron Hand's band a wholesome ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... won great fortune—As soon as the war was over, and it wouldn't be long now—Before long he began to dominate the conference, the judge growing more and more silent, looking more and more indecisive. ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... hung upon this conflict; which was no mere affair of outposts, but a struggle to the death as to whether the Crescent or the Cross was in time to come to be supreme in the tideless sea. And yet—such is the irony of fate—this battle proved indecisive, and it was not until thirty years later, at the battle of Lepanto, that this momentous question was set ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... ordeal was in store for the virgin fortress and its lord. After much indecisive strife, the whites and the Basutos were, in 1865, again engaged in a serious war. The people of what had then become (see Chapter XI) the Orange Free State had found the Basutos troublesome neighbours, and a dispute had ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... and intemperance. The parents of a nervous child must recognize that they will in all probability be subject to special danger along these lines as they grow up. The nervous child, as it grows up, is quite likely to be erratic, emotional, indecisive, and otherwise easily influenced ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... Grey sat down. As he took his seat he was not at all sure of what he was really willing to say or do. He was not an indecisive person at home, but here in a Northern State, on what might be hostile ground, he was in doubt concerning that which he felt he honourably owed as a duty to his neighbour. The word had for him limiting ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Bactria, Hystaspes, who had a rightful claim to the throne, raised the standard of revolt. Artaxerxes marched against him in person, and engaged him in two battles, the first of which was indecisive, while in the second the Bactrians suffered defeat, chiefly (according to Ctesias) because the wind blew violently in their faces. So signal was victory, that Bactria at once submitted. Hystaspes' fate ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... Wilmot, who commanded eight Houssas of the artillery, was early in the fight wounded in the arm, but continued at his post until, an hour later, he was shot through the heart. A few days afterwards another indecisive fight of ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... overwhelming numbers; while in the south, Soult, forced from his entrenched camp near Bayonne and defeated at Orthez, fell back before Wellington on Toulouse. Here their two armies met in April in a stubborn and indecisive engagement. But though neither leader knew it, the war was even then at an end. The struggle of Napoleon himself had ended at the close of March with the surrender of Paris; and the submission of the capital ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... ignorant that this tub was, within forty-eight hours, to cost him fifty gold. What had shifted his casual interest was the visible prospect of a party of three who were coming down the packet gang-plank. The trio exhibited that indecisive air with which Ah Cum was tolerably familiar. They were looking for a guide. Forthwith he presented ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... capable of addressing himself to the central problem of poetry, no matter what technique be employed—how to achieve a concentrated unity of aesthetic impression. They are all diffuse; they seem to be content to lead a hundred indecisive attacks upon reality at once rather than to persevere and carry a single one to a final issue; they are all multiple, careless, and slipshod—and they are ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... at Quebec was not victory over the Iroquois or victory over the colony of New York. In 1691 this colony sent Peter Schuyler with a force against Canada by way of Lake Champlain. Schuyler penetrated almost to Montreal, gained some indecisive success, and caused much suffering to the unhappy Canadian settlers. Frontenac made his last great stroke in duly, 1696, when he led more than two thousand men through the primeval forest to destroy the villages of the Onondaga and the Oneida tribes of the Iroquois. ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... great contest between England and America.' 'He has survived to see that event,' replied Lord George, with some agitation. Utterly unsuspicious of the fact which had happened beyond the Atlantic, he conceived him to allude to the indecisive naval action fought at the mouth of the Chesapeake early in the preceding month of September between Admiral Graves and Count de Grasse, an engagement which in its results might prove most injurious to Lord Cornwallis. Under this impression, 'My meaning,' said he, 'is, that if I ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... right thing to be done amid a thousand possible courses of action,—the power, in short, which gives confidence to will because it gives certainty to vision, and is as much removed from recklessness as from irresolution,—this power fades in mental age into that pausing, comparing, generalizing, indecisive intelligence, which, however wise and valuable it may be in those matters where success is not the prize of speed, is imbecile in those conjunctures of affairs where events match faster than the mind can syllogize, and to think and act a moment too late ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... However indecisive the last-mentioned picture may be in regard to the coiffure of the ancient Sikyatki women, plate CXXIX, a, affords still more conclusive evidence. This picture represents a woman of remarkable form which, from likenesses to figures at present made in sand on an altar in ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... too indolent to acquire the vast store of facts indispensable for correct generalization on the varied theatre of human affairs, and often drew hasty and incorrect conclusions from the events which particularly came under his observation. Thus the repeated indecisive battles between the fleets of Charles II. and the Dutch, drew from him the observation, apparently justified by their results, that sea-fights are seldom so important or decisive as those at land. The fact is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... the fifteenth of October, nothing of sufficient importance transpired to require mention here. Upon that day an indecisive battle was fought at Bristoe Station, which was followed by another calm that continued until the nineteenth of October—a black day in the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... was indecisive, both parties claiming the victory. Staremberg wrote to Charles that he had captured all the enemy's guns, and had killed six thousand of them; while the French claimed that they had totally defeated the allies, ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... next post I will write you more particularly. The British arms will not, probably, effect anything in America this season, as they had not begun to act the 8th of August, and that brings winter to the very door, as I may say, and an indecisive campaign must prove to Great Britain a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... unique and irrefragable position. The Fourth Symphony of Sibelius is such a composition. It is a very synthesis of all his work, the reduction to its simplest and most positive terms of a thing that has been in him since first he began to write, and that received heretofore only fragmentary and indecisive expression. In its very form it is essence. The structure is all bone. The style is sharpened to a biting terseness. The coloring is the refinement of all his color; the rhythms have a freedom toward which Sibelius's rhythms have always aspired; the mournful melody of the adagio is well-nigh ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... had learnt to spare distress, might not triumph over a man in the hour of lowliness and dejection. When Ingild afterwards provoked Harald by wrongfully ravishing his sister, Harald vexed him with long and indecisive war, but then took him into his friendship, thinking it better to have him for ally than ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... watching him unperceived. The old man's face had lost its aggressive jauntiness. There was an odd pucker about the brows. His mouth, above the well-trimmed goatee, seemed small and indecisive. Joe could see the clear blue veins on the back of the hand as ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Macleans; the Camerons: Lochiel The Macdonalds; Feud between the Macdonalds and Mackintoshes; Inverness Inverness threatened by Macdonald of Keppoch Dundee appears in Keppoch's Camp Insurrection of the Clans hostile to the Campbells Tarbet's Advice to the Government Indecisive Campaign in the Highlands Military Character of the Highlanders Quarrels in the Highland Army Dundee applies to James for Assistance; the War in the Highlands suspended Scruples of the Covenanters about taking ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of the session lies in the persistent warfare waged between Sydenham and the advocates of a more extended system of autonomy. The result, as will be shewn, was indecisive, but, under the circumstances a drawn battle was equivalent to defeat ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... share in the responsibility in this matter lies with Great Britain, who not only followed France's error, but in certain ways made it worse by a number of intemperate requests. Italy had no influence on the proceedings owing to her indecisive policy. Only the United States, notwithstanding the banality of some of her experts (lucus a non lucendo), spoke an occasional word ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... this running fight was kept up; then the two fleets came face to face with each other off the town of Calais. The first day's encounter was indecisive; the Spanish fired over the heads of the English, while the little vessels, low down in the water, poured their broadsides full into the huge bulk of the Spanish galleons; yet when night came it ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae
... them. When, on May eighth, the French reached Dresden, they found that their enemy had blown up the bridges, and were entrenched in the Neustadt on the right, or north, shore. Thus the victory of Luetzen was, after all, indecisive. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... gesture tying up bunch after bunch of violets. He felt a desire to be out in the country, to be away from houses and people. There was a line of men and women buying tickets for St. Germain; still indecisive, he joined it, and at last, almost without intending it, found himself jolting through Neuilly in the green trailer of the electric car, that waggled like a duck's tail when ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... everyday use, but the cases which present themselves in life are too complicated, and our decisions require to be taken too rapidly, to admit of waiting till the existence of a phenomenon can be proved by what have been scientifically ascertained to be universal marks of it. To be indecisive and reluctant to act, because we have not evidence of a perfectly conclusive character to act on, is a defect sometimes incident to scientific minds, but which, wherever it exists, renders them unfit for practical emergencies. If we would succeed in action, we must judge by indications which, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... on his hand, which he loses no opportunity of displaying, is our friend Jones, with vulgarity as usual stamped on every feature, and displayed in every movement which he makes; the tall slim fellow, with an air of feeble fastness, an indecisive mouth, a habit of running his hand through his light-coloured hair, and a gaze which usually settles in fixed admiration on his faultless boots, can be no one but Howard Tracy; the third, a fellow with far more meaning and ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... his successor Trajan, in the tenth year of his reign A. D. 108, began the third persecution against the christians. While the persecution raged, Pliny 2d, a heathen philosopher wrote to the emperor in favor of the Christians; to whose epistle Trajan returned this indecisive answer: "The christians ought not to be sought after, but when brought before the magistracy, they should be punished." Trajan, however, soon after wrote to Jerusalem, and gave orders to his officers to exterminate the stock of David; in consequence of which, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... ironclad of novel design, which had already wrought terrible destruction amongst the wooden frigates of the Federals. She was neutralised, however, by her Northern counterpart, the "Monitor," and after an indecisive action she had remained inactive for nearly a month. The York was less securely guarded. The channel, nearly a mile wide, was barred only by the fire of two forts; and that at Gloucester Point, on the north bank, was open to assault from ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... end could be reached, the fulfillment of a design, formed about twenty-seven years ago, of one day presenting to the world, if I might, something like a complete grammar of the English language;—not a mere work of criticism, nor yet a work too tame, indecisive, and uncritical; for, in books of either of these sorts, our libraries already abound;—not a mere philosophical investigation of what is general or universal in grammar, nor yet a minute detail of what forms only a part of our own philology; for either of these plans falls very ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... defects, because it is made and administered by men, and not by the Wise Gods. It cannot be concise and sharp, like the despotic. When its ire is aroused it develops its latent strength, and the sturdiest rebel trembles. But its habitual domestic rule is tolerant, patient, and indecisive. Men are brought together, first to differ, and then to agree. Affirmation, negation, discussion, solution: these are the means of attaining truth. Often the enemy will be at the gates before the babble of the disturbers is drowned in the chorus of ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... condescended to speak to Frederick Massingbird upon the subject at all; Sibylla had refused him for the other of her own free will; and there he let it rest. But the evening previous to the marriage day, Lionel appeared strangely troubled; indecisive, anxious, as if he were debating some question with himself. Suddenly he went straight up to Frederick Massingbird's chamber, who was deep in the business of packing, as his unfortunate brother John had been, not two short ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... which the most effectual way of conferring a favor is condescending to accept one. I have known Harden long and most intimately—a more respectable man, either for feeling, or talent, or knowledge of human life, is rarely to be met with. But he is rather indecisive—requiring some instant stimulus in order to make him resolve to do, not only what he knows to be right, but what he really wishes to do, and means to do one time or other. He is exactly Prior's ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... endeavouring not to be observed in doing so. She had seen Lord Dumbello's failure and wrath, and she had seen her son's victory and pride. Could it be the case that he had already said something, which was still allowed to be indecisive only through Griselda's coldness? Might it not be the case, that by some judicious aid on her part, that indecision might be turned into certainty, and that coldness into warmth? But then any such interference requires so delicate a touch,—as Lady Lufton was well aware.—"Have you had ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... had learned that one Archibald Purdy, a grocer in the indecisive residential district known as Linton, was talking of opening a butcher shop beside his grocery. Looking up the ownership of adjoining parcels of land, Babbitt found that Purdy owned his present shop but did not own the one available lot adjoining. He ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... something must be done. Yet who but he, Joseph's first friend in Russia, had the faintest chance of success: of once more setting those purposeless feet on the upward path?—Thus, in the end, with his mood an indecisive mixture of pity and revolt, Ivan prepared ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... advanced to Cam-po-Santo, where he encountered the Imperial and Pied-montese forces, commanded by the counts Traun and Aspremont. The strength of the two armies was nearly equal. The action was obstinate and bloody, though indecisive. The Spaniards lost about four thousand men, killed, wounded, or taken. The damage sustained by the confederates was not quite so great. Some cannon and colours were taken on both sides; and each claimed the victory. Count ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the 5th, there were three separate duels in the air between French and German aviators, one of which was visible from our trenches. Two of the struggles were, so far as could be seen, indecisive, but in the third the French airmen were victorious, and brought down their opponents, both of whom were killed by machine gun fire. The observer was so burned as ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... these consequences of its original principle were assiduously repressed by the First Assembly, they were proclaimed by the Second, and roused the threatened Powers to intervene. Apart from this inflaming cause the motives of the international conflict were indecisive. The emperor urged the affair of Avignon, the injury to German potentates who had possessions in Alsace, the complicity of France in the Belgian troubles, and the need of European concert while the French denied the foundations of ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... the swift, Julius Benjamin. The wise hound holds his yap till he smells a hot foot. Them indecisive sacks is hot footses, Julius Benjamin; but it isn't your yap, ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... say but little, as his character is far too common to need a comment; we can only say that his wanderings are not gratuitous, nor is he wavering and indecisive only because the author chooses to make him so. Every feature in his character is formed by education, and it is to this first source that we are constantly referred for a just and sufficient cause of all the wandering passions as they arise ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... losses he had incurred during the campaign against Elam, and could not conduct his attack with the same vigour as had gained him victory on the banks of the Ulai. In the first year he only secured a few indecisive advantages; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the continuance of the War has yet confronted us—that there has grown up in Great Britain a number of firms and businesses to whom a successful prosecution of the campaign would mean ruin, and who have an actual vested interest in the indecisive continuance of hostilities. This is due entirely to the lack of grip and resolution which the Government have displayed in dealing with the ugly phenomenon of War Profits. We know, of course, what happens to those profits at present. Half is taken by the State: ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... poured with trembling hand the bumpers I drained to Saint Jago and old Spain. The infection soon spread. They began to believe that a rescue was at hand. The news was heard with dismay in the forecastle. Brulot alone stood obstinate, but indecisive. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... shameless beyond even the bitter partisan strife of later days. In Parliament the Whigs cheered at military defeats which might serve to discredit the Tory Government. The navy was torn by faction. When, in 1778, the Whig Admiral Keppel fought an indecisive naval battle off Ushant and was afterwards accused by one of his officers, Sir Hugh Palliser, of not pressing the enemy hard enough, party passion was invoked. The Whigs were for Keppel, the Tories for Palliser, and the London mob was Whig. When Keppel was acquitted there were ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... the Germans and the Russians under Brussilov engaged in thrust and counter-thrust along the Styr which caused Czartorysk to change hands again and again, and earned for these operations the nickname of "the Poliesian quadrille"; and the fluctuations on the Strypa were equally indecisive. But the situation in the Balkans suggested the need for something less ambiguous nearer the Rumanian frontier if Rumanian neutrality was to be preserved; and the objective selected for Ivanov's new offensive was Czernowitz ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... Bolvar, who never despaired, immediately got ready for new struggles. He summoned Pez to his aid and prepared for the defense of Calabozo, so that when Latorre arrived he found a well organized army under command of the Liberator. He withdrew, and Bolvar followed him, fighting an indecisive battle. ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... excellent general at the head of an army in the field, but in no way a politician. Bernadotte did not seem to have the capacity or the wisdom to repair the country's fortunes. The eyes of the reformers then turned to General Moreau; although the weakness of his character and his indecisive conduct on the 18th Fructidor raised some fears about his ability to govern. It is certain, however, that lacking an alternative, he was asked to head the party which intended to overthrow the Directory, and was offered the title of ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... attack between La Bassee and Bethune, this being the Kaiser's birthday; the French claim that the German loss is 20,000; indecisive ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... its portraits of self-conscious statesmen faded away and became a little street in Paris, one side in shade and the other baking in the sun; and at a little iron table sat a brown and indiscreet Zouave and Septimus Dix, pale, indecisive, with a wistful appeal in his washed-out blue eyes. Suddenly he regained consciousness, and, more for the sake of covering his loss of self-possession than for that of eating, he recalled the waiter and put some ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... her, that no opportunity for what she felt to be deceit would occur; but, in these intervals of relief, her tortured conscience seemed only to renew its voices, and spring upon her all the more fiercely on the next occasion. The effect, of all these indecisive conflicts upon Mercy's character had not been good. They had left her morally bruised, and therefore abnormally sensitive to the least touch. She was in danger of becoming either a fanatic for truth, ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... to its relief. It was reduced to a single barrel of powder when the Earl's approach forced Charles to raise the siege on the sixth of September; and the Puritan army fell steadily back again on London after an indecisive engagement near Newbury, in which Lord Falkland fell, "ingeminating 'Peace, peace!'" and the London train-bands flung Rupert's horsemen roughly off ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... there hesitating in the powerful sun. How could he change himself to a fish or other shape, unobserved? The sailors from the Mirabelle were everywhere—in the thickets for the shade, as well as along the edge of the cove where he now stood, indecisive. To use the rope was just as impossible, for the beach was broad and Chris was acutely aware that he stood out like a single tree in a field, there on the white ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... and excited the notice of every one, the husband remonstrated, and threatened to take the lady home. In fact, he was urged on to do this by some of the lady's family. I expostulated, but never relaxed my assiduities, and he was indecisive. A storm was, however, gathering round us, which threatened to burst every moment; and dreading that separation which appeared worse than death, at the thoughts of which I was almost frantic, we took the desperate resolution to put it out of the power of any one ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... on a false report; with Monk's haste to attack the Dutch when he was short of ships; and, finally, with his retreat before the enemy into the Thames. Monk, however, did not bear himself like a beaten man. He spoke of the long battle as, at the worst, an indecisive engagement, and said he had given the Dutch as many hard knocks as he had taken, and now knew how to defeat them. He had sufficient influence at Court to be able to retain his command, and so could look forward to trying his fortune again ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... The battle, though indecisive, had an important influence in preventing St. Leger from effecting a junction with Gen. Burgoyne, which would have materially assisted the latter's intention to cut off New England from the rest of the colonies. ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... Chateau-Renault was so indecisive as to obey this directive, and the galleons entered the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... was—knew at a glance what manner of woman he had found here in this lodging house. It was the face of a woman who never intentionally does any evil and yet rarely gets a chance to do any good—a weak, indecisive, commonplace face; and every line in it was a line of ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... indecisive of all letters: I don't write to tell you that the French are not landed at Deal, as was believed yesterday. An officer arrived post in the middle of the night, who saw them disembark. The King was called; my lord ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... stars began to show. The firing slackened, died to occasional sullen outbursts, then to silence. On both sides the loss was heavy; the action remained indecisive. The grey rested on the field; the blue presently took up again their line of retreat toward White Oak Swamp. They left in the hands of the grey their dead, several hundred prisoners, and twenty-five hundred men in hospital. In the hot and sultry night, dark, with presage ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... judgment is sound, and generally correct, his powers of discrimination acute, and his knowledge of mankind greater than that of most sovereigns; but with all these advantages he is cursed with such a wavering and indecisive temper, that when, which is usually the case, he has come to a right conclusion, he can never prevail upon himself to carry his theory into practice; and with all his acuteness, his discernment, and his knowledge of the world, his mind is always ready to receive any impression from the person who ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... character from the influence of the temptations around him, in the very place which ought to have strengthened and improved it. But in most cases those who come with a character of positive good are benefited; it is the neutral and indecisive characters which are apt to be decided for evil by schools, as they would be in fact ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... shining on them. And on the banks of the stream which bears its silvery murmuring waters along the principal street, I had only seen a few houses in little gardens, like small crenelated fortresses. All that remained in my memory would be an indecisive outline, seized in flight from between the steam puffs of our engine. And why are these houses always in a state of defence? Because Elisabethpol is a fortified town exposed to the frequent attacks of the Lesghians of Chirvan, and these ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... if selfish are not, or are not felt to be, anti-social. The individual owner of a fetish does not feel that his ownership does or ought to cut him off from membership of the community. And so long as such feeling is common, so long an indecisive struggle between ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... became the earnest wish of Commissioner O'Neill that these hot-stuff articles should be written for him by his friend V.V., of the reformatory passions and the pen of a ready writer. And, the whole subject having been discussed several times in an indecisive sort of way, O'Neill one night whacked ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... thousand ants, act in obedience to streams of influence which appear to emanate from small and scattered groups, sometimes in the van and sometimes in the rear. When the army is on the march, the entire column will suddenly halt, remaining indecisive and motionless, as if paralysed. Of a sudden, the initiative will be taken by some small group of ants whose members rush about among the others, striking these on the head; then the temporary leaders start off, and the whole army is ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland |
