"Indefinite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... people, who ascribe the creation to very inefficient causes. They state that some things called themselves into existence, and had the property of creating others. But upon all subjects of this nature their ideas are indistinct and indefinite, as they are not naturally a reasoning people, and by no means given to the investigation of causes or their effects; hence, if you inquire why they use such and such ceremonies, they reply, our fathers did so, and we do it; or why they believe so and so, our fathers told us it was ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the sick and wounded is on the whole fairly good now. Six months ago it was very inadequate, too few doctors and not enough hospital accommodation. My men who were in the Base Hospital at Basra spoke very well of it: it had 500 men in it then, and is capable of indefinite expansion. The serious cases are invalided to India by the hospital ship Madras. It is said that 10,000 have gone back to India in this way. It is a curious fact that the Indian troops suffered from heat-stroke every bit as ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... said that "it would be trifling with a very grave affair to pretend that new legislation concerning the issue of bonds can be accomplished at this time, and in the midst of present elements and parties in public life, with elaborate, extensive, and practically indefinite debate." Therefore, he held that "it will be wiser, safer and better for the financial and business interests of the country to rely upon existing law." This plainly amounted to a public confession that Congress was so organized ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... started round, and saw the Dominican friar whose upturned face had so struck him in the morning. Seen closer, the face looked more evidently worn by sickness and not by age; and again it brought some strong but indefinite reminiscences ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... this better than I could explain it. When we reached the Narossara River we left the wagon and pushed on afoot. We were to be gone an indefinite time, and we left N'gombe Brown and his outfit very well fixed. Along the Narossara ran a pleasant shady strip of high jungle; the country about was clear and open; but most important of all, a white ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... territories, it has been permitted in others. Slave territory and free territory have alike been acquired by treaty, and Slave States and Free States alike admitted to the Union. The action of Congress is therefore no precedent for absolute slavery prohibition or indefinite slavery extension. Having never been exercised but by way of compromise it commits the government to neither extreme and is not a conclusive precedent for the constitutional power of Congress ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... pledged (it mattered not how rashly) it was to be redeemed at any price. Hence the sacred obligation of the boon granted by a knight to his suppliant. Instances without number occur in romance, in which a knight, by rashly granting an indefinite boon, was obliged to do or suffer something extremely to his prejudice. But it is not in romance alone that we find such singular instances of adherence to an indefinite promise. The history of the times presents authentic transactions equally embarrassing and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... difference;" i.e., "No difference ever takes place." Shall we say that "place," in this sense, is not a noun of place? To take place, is, to occur somewhere, or anywhere; and the unemphatic word there is but as indefinite in respect to place, as these other adverbs of place, or as the noun itself. S. B. Goodenow accounts it a great error, to say that there is an adverb of place, when it is thus indefinite; and he chooses to call it an "indefinite pronoun," as, "'What is there ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... comparison between the pair. The pose of his sinewy figure and the clear brownness of his skin spoke of arduous labour, sound sleep, and the vigour that comes from a healthful occupation. The steady directness of his gaze and quiet immobility of his face also conveyed an indefinite suggestion of power and endurance, and there was a curious grace in his movements when he ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... if "known to succeed in a given district" and double-starred "if highly successful." North America is thrown into nineteen districts for the purposes of this catalogue (which comprises other fruits besides apples). For our purposes we may combine them into six more or less indefinite great regions: n. e., the northeastern part of the country, Delaware and Pennsylvania to eastern Canada; s. e., the parts south of this area and mostly east of the Mississippi; n. c., north central, from Kansas ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... of the superior attractions of intellectual beauty, when compared with mere external loveliness. The mind, invisible and complicated and indefinite, does not address itself directly to the senses. It is comprehended only by its similitude in others. It reveals itself, even then, but slowly and imperfectly. But the beauty of form and color, the grace of motion, the harmony of tone, are seen and felt and appreciated ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... England much earlier than the reign of Henry the Seventh, and in the third year of that reign the court of Star-Chamber was established. The press and its enemy are nearly coeval. As no positive law against libels existed, they fell under the indefinite class of misdemeanors. For the trial of misdemeanors that court was instituted. Their tendency to produce riots and disorders was a main part of the charge, and was laid in order to give the court jurisdiction chiefly against libels. The offence was new. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... reasons, first, that it appropriates from the Treasury a large sum of money at a time when the revenue is insufficient for current wants and this proposed further drain on the Treasury. The issue of bonds, authorized by the bill to a very large and indefinite amount, would seriously embarrass the refunding operations now progressing, whereby the interest of the bonded debt of the United States is being largely reduced. Second, I do not believe that any considerable portion of the ex-soldiers who, it is supposed, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... that in his time the Exceptores in the Eastern Empire were divided into two corps, the higher one called Augustales, who were limited in number to thirty, and the lower, of indefinite number and composing the rank and file of the profession. The Augustales only could aspire to the rank of Cornicularius; but in order that some prizes might still be left of possible attainment by the larger class, the rank of Primiscrinius was tenable by those who remained ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... afresh the fire on the broad hearthstone and got supper. Her Uncle Jephthah and Blatch Turrentine came in late, weary from their work of hauling corn to that destination which old Nancy had announced as disreputably indefinite. The second son of the family, Wade, a man of perhaps twenty-four, was with them, and had already been told of the ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... stronger day by day, but it was a sympathy akin to that of the solitudes, none the less eloquent because it was wordless. Sothern informed Drennen once, out of the customary silence about the evening camp fire, that he was taking an indefinite vacation; that there was a man in his place with the Northwestern who was amply qualified to remain there permanently if Sothern did not ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... form, common in Breton and occasionally found in Cornish, has been already mentioned in Chap. III. § 2. This is made by placing the preposition yn, en, in, and the indefinite article idn, un, before the infinitive or verbal noun. Its use is chiefly adverbial. Thus, in the Poem of the Passion we find, yn un scolchye, skulking; yn un garme, crying out; yn ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... wonder, and constellate with investigation; at one time obfuscated in the abysm-born vapours of doubt; at another, radiant with the sun-fires of faith made perfect by fruition; it can amaze no considerative fraction of humanity, that the explorer of the indefinite, the searcher into the not-to-be-defined, should, at dreary intervals, invent dim, plastic riddles of his own identity, and hesitate at the awful shrine of that dread interrogatory alternative—reality, or dream? This ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... were running at even a slow speed, the motion imparted to lever L would be indefinite; and this, especially if the governor is fitted to the air valve lever, as in fig. 25, is very undesirable. Therefore, to obtain a definite opening we must set out the cam, as shown in fig. 31. In this diagram the roller ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the National Council of the Judiciary for an indefinite period); Constitutional Tribunal (judges are chosen by ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the aid of its charms doomed to die in oblivion. This is the unity which lives in my symphonies—numberless streamlets meandering on, in endless variety of shape, but all diverging into one common bed. Thus it is I feel that there is an indefinite something, an eternal, an infinite to be attained; and although I look upon my works with a foretaste of success, yet I cannot help wishing, like a child, to begin my task anew, at the very moment that my thundering appeal to ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... long as I haven't—" said Catherine illogically. Her conception of her prospective wealth was as yet very indefinite. ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... ability may become a great writer or speaker, a statesman, a lawyer, a man of science, painter, sculptor, architect, or musician. That even development of all a man's faculties, which is what properly constitutes culture, may be effected by such an education, while it opens the way for the indefinite strengthening of any special capabilities with ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... people into a situation from which they cannot reasonably hope to escape without making important concessions to the Federal Government. Their effort now is to convince the misguided population of the South that the required concessions will be more intolerable than the indefinite continuance of a hopeless and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Branston may live for an indefinite number of years, during which you will be wasting your life ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... hand levelled upon the house of Don Gregorio Montijo. They can see, as once before, two heads over the parapet, and, as before, recognise them; but not as before, or with the same feelings, do they regard them. All is changed now, everything doubtful and indefinite, where it might be supposed everything had been satisfactorily arranged. But it has not—especially in the thoughts of Crozier; whose dissatisfaction is shown in a soliloquy to which he gives utterance, as Telegraph Hill, interfering with ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... again attain; of pure, noble hearts, and patient, skillful hands, toiling, but in a spirit that made the toil a holy prayer—carrying out the builder's thought—great thought greatly executed—all was too much for me, the more so in that while I felt it all I could not analyze it. It was a dim, indefinite wonder. I tried stealthily and in shame to conceal my tears, looking surreptitiously at him in fear lest he should be laughing at me again. But he was not. He held his cap in his hand—was looking with those strange, brilliant eyes fixedly toward the high altar, and there was some ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... able man, was imbued with all the extravagant notions of the alchymists. He believed in the philosopher's stone, and wished to engage Descartes to devote his energies to the discovery of the elixir of life, or some other means by which the existence of man might be prolonged to an indefinite period. He gave his wife, the beautiful Venetia Anastasia Stanley, a dish of capons, fed upon vipers, according to the plan supposed to have been laid down by Arnold of Villeneuve, in the hope that she might thereby preserve her ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... electric lamp—even if any of the lamps above referred to had fulfilled that requirement. The other principal features necessary to subdivide the electric current successfully were: the burning of an indefinite number of lights on the same circuit; each light to give a useful and economical degree of illumination; and each light to be independent of all the others in regard to its ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... our happiness, our moral and intellectual power, every thing valuable to us, depend. And after all the cultivation which we can bestow, in this life, upon this mysterious principle, it will still be in embryo. The progress which it is capable of making is entirely indefinite. If by ten years of cultivation, we can secure a certain degree of knowledge and power, by ten more, we can double, or more than double it, and every succeeding year of effort, is attended with equal success. There ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... possible to decide with perfect certainty what was the norm applied by the last reviser in forming his estimates of the past. In the Books of Kings there can be no doubt on this point. The writer deals not only in indefinite references to the will of Jehovah, which Israel ought to obey, but resists; he speaks now and again (1Kings ii. 3, 2Kings xiv. 6, xvii. 37) of the written Torah in which the judgments and statutes of Jehovah ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... be made to an indefinite extent, but enough has been said to show that the term citizen, in the language of Justice Daniel, conveys the idea "of identification with the State or Government, and a participation in its functions." Beyond question, therefore, the first section of the XIV. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... rarely deep pink, solitary, 3 to 8 in. across, deliciously fragrant, floating. Calyx of 4 sepals, green outside; petals of indefinite number, overlapping in many rows, and gradually passing into an indefinite number of stamens; outer row of stamens with petaloid filaments and short anthers, the inner yellow stamens with slender filaments and ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... Grimcke and Long could not be far off, and a vigorous hunt was likely to discover one or both of them, but the king gave orders that no attempt of the kind should be made. It was his intention to leave the village for an indefinite time, and he wished every one of his warriors to remain while he was absent. It cannot be said that he was afraid of such an insignificant force, but there was a strong vein of superstition in his nature, which caused a vague fear ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... present, afforded ages rising to 1,640 millions of years for archaean and 1,200 millions for Algonkian time. Becker, applying the same method, obtained results rising to quite incredible periods: from 1,671 to 11,470 millions of years. Becker maintained that original lead rendered the determinations indefinite. The more recent results of Mr. A. Holmes support the conclusion that "original" lead may be present and may ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... removes from it the personal thought of the giver, and makes its acceptance more a matter of mercenary than of friendly interest. If, however, such exchange is made at the suggestion or with the approval of the giver, it still remains a personal gift. The indefinite way in which many people choose wedding gifts for their friends, following only the conventional ideas of what is suitable, has taken a great deal of personal interest from the gift at ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... this, for to him it was indeed a new experience. His past with its hopes and ambitions seemed to have floated away to an indefinite distance, and he to have awakened to a new life—a new phase of existence. In the exaltation of the hour he felt that, whatever might be the result, he had received a revelation of capabilities in his nature of which he had not dreamed, and which at the time promised to compensate ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... "the expression of my grief I know is painful to thee, but a dismal foreboding obtrudes itself upon my mind, which I strive in vain to banish. Alas! it is fraught with a most fearful, but indefinite anticipation; a woeful presage that freezes ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... and its limitations are inherent, fixed and immutable in the seed from which it is developed and are made up of the balanced sum of the different tendencies it receives in varying degree from each of its ancestors back for an indefinite number of generations. A very slight difference in the character or the degree of any one of the tendencies which go to make up this sum may make a most material difference in the balance and so in the resulting ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... night? Entering by train, you see it as a huge vault of lilac shadow, pierced by innumerable pallid arclights. The roof flings itself against the sky, a mountain of glass and interlacing girders, and about it play a hundred indefinite and ever-changing tones. Each platform seems a lane through a dim forest, where the trees are of iron and steel and the leaves are sullen windows. Or where shall you find a sweeter pastoral than that field of ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... danger in which Isolina was placed indefinite: it was not so indefinite, after a fair analysis; it was directly traceable to the presence ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... enclosed between the banks of houses—all summer's glow and glory of exceeding brightness. The blue panel overhead has but a stray fleck of cloud, a Cupid drawn on the panel in pure white, but made indefinite by distance. The joyous swallows climb high into the illuminated air till the eye, daunted by the glow, can scarce detect their white breasts ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... on slowly. Neither spoke as they mounted the ascent of the bridge; and they halted where they could hear the flow of the water below them. Heavy darkness surrounded them. The broad stream stretched itself out in gray, indefinite outlines; red lights in the distance, floating above the water, awoke answering gleams from its surface. Trembling stripes of light reached down from the shore they had just left; on the other side of the bridge the river ...
— The Dead Are Silent - 1907 • Arthur Schnitzler
... Little importance is to be attached to 2Kings xviii.22. The narrative of the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem is not a contemporary one, as appears generally from the entirely indefinite character of the statements about the sudden withdrawal of the Assyrians and its causes, and particularly from xix.7, 36, 37. For in this passage the meaning certainly is that Sennacherib was assassinated soon after the unsuccessful ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... completely absorbed over this letter. Some passages I read a second time; and the state of agitation into which it threw me did not at once pass away. I remained for an indefinite time without a notion of what was going on around me, entirely wrapped up in the past or ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... ... That is to say, he recalled clearly all that had led up to that vicious blow from out of the darkness which had found his jaw with such surprising accuracy; and he was visited by one or two rather indefinite memories ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... But we must bear in mind that the law is only so far observed as is necessary to maintain the characters of the species. Within that range there is every possible variety, and for a very obvious reason. Every individual represents immediately two others, and, indirectly, an indefinite number. This is done by uniting in himself qualities and features drawn from each parent, without any obvious principle or law of selection and combination. One parent may be, apparently, more fully represented than the other; the defects of the parent may be transmitted, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... and love, George robs the till, and mingles in the world which he is destined to ornament. He outdoes all the dandies, all the wits, all the scholars, and all the voluptuaries of the age—an indefinite period of time between Queen Anne and George II.—dines with Curll at St. John's Gate, pinks Colonel Charteris in a duel behind Montague House, is initiated into the intrigues of the Chevalier St. George, whom he entertains at his sumptuous ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his sensuous nature should be modified, and that in the indefinite series of possible determinations one alone should become real. One perception must spring up in it. That which, in the previous state of determinableness, was only an empty potency becomes now an active force, and receives contents; but, at the same time, as an active force ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... activity" for the allied fleet in European waters, including the Mediterranean, is the first intimation of the geographical limits of the reprisal order. Its limits were not given more exactly, the Allies contend, because Germany was equally indefinite in proclaiming all the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland a "war zone." The measures adopted are those of a blockade against all trade to and from Germany—not the historical kind of blockade recognized in international law, but a new and ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... is also recognized. Vast territories inhabited by uncivilized masses are occupied by more highly civilized States, and made subject to their rule. Higher civilization and the correspondingly greater power are the foundations of the right to annexation. This right is, it is true, a very indefinite one, and it is impossible to determine what degree of civilization justifies annexation and subjugation. The impossibility of finding a legitimate limit to these international relations has been the cause of many wars. The subjugated nation does not recognize this right of subjugation, and ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... income in the year, he has, the year after, in those which follow, and through all eternity, an income always equal, inexhaustible, perpetual. Capital, then, is remunerated, not only once or twice, but an indefinite number of times! So that, at the end of a hundred years, a family, which has placed 20,000 francs, at five per cent., will have had 100,000 francs; and this will not prevent it from having 100,000 more, in the following century. In other words, for 20,000 francs, which represent its labor, ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... make my story brief, and can only say that not long after this I found myself in another town, where it became necessary for me to do something to support myself. This was difficult, for I am an indefinite man, and definiteness seems necessary to success in any line. Happening one day to pass a house with open lower windows, I heard the sound of children's voices speaking in unison, and knowing that this must be a ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... Washington are looking well. Winter wheat, crocusses and indefinite postponements were never in a more thrifty condition. Quite a number of people are here who are waiting to be confirmed. Judging from their habits, they are lingering around here in order to become ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... correct bow on his tan oxford when he happened to glance out of the window. It was early, altogether too early, he reflected, to appear in the breakfast-room of the hotel. Winthrop's indefinite soliloquy melted into the rapt silence of imagination. Below on the smooth black pavement pattered two laden burros. On their packs hung dusty, weatherworn canteens, a pick and shovel, and a rifle in its soiled and frayed scabbard. The sturdy, shaggy ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Democratic leaders, since it omitted to demand the sweeping away of the doctrine of malicious conspiracy or the prohibition of the issuance of injunctions to protect business rights, which had regularly been asked by the American Federation of Labor since 1904. In its place was substituted an indefinite statement against the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes where none would be allowed if no labor dispute existed and a declaration in favor of jury trial on the charge ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... have our hands full of important work on Top Notch Trail, for an indefinite time," was ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Though we continue to use stone more than the ancients and more bronze for decoration and ornament than they, yet both are subordinate to the use of iron. General as the above classification is, it helps in an indefinite way to give us a central idea of progress and to mark off, somewhat indefinitely, ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... yea, of God was made, that is, reputed, sin for us (Isa 53; 2 Cor 5:21). Were we under the curse of the law by reason of sin? Christ was made under the law, and bare the curse thereof to redeem (Gal 4:4, 3:13; Rom 3:24). Had sin set us at an indefinite distance from God? Christ has become, by the price of his redeeming blood, a reconciler of man to God again (Col 1:20). Were we by sin subject to death? Christ died the death to set us free therefrom (Rom 6:23). Had our sins betrayed us into and under Satan's slavery? ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... pp. 105, 106, rejects Berkeley's specific name, flavicomum, because it refers to the somewhat indefinite, characteristic color. As this is no valid reason for change, we have restored Berkeley's specific name, which by general consent has ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... been so long since a certain event!"—an hour, for example, since the doctor was summoned—but Reason would say, "No, it has been only a few minutes: your thoughts and feelings are caused by the hasheesh." Nevertheless, I was not able to shake off, even for a moment, this sense of the almost indefinite prolongation of time. Gradually the periods of unconsciousness became longer and more frequent, and the oppressive feeling of impending death more intense. It was like a horrible nightmare: each successive paroxysm was felt to be the longest I had suffered. As I came out of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... stepmother, and weeps when he secretly fears her recovery. He greets his friend in the street with so clear a countenance, so fast a closure, that the other thinks he reads his heart in his face, and shakes hands with an indefinite invitation of "When will you come?" and when his back is turned, joys that he is so well rid of a guest; yet if that guest visit him unfeared, he counterfeits a smiling welcome, and excuses his cheer, when closely he frowns on his wife for too much. He shows well, and ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... promptly to plan and set on foot concise military campaigns to reduce the insurgent States to allegiance. Even the great military genius of General Scott was unable to do more than suggest a vague outline for the work. The problem was not only too vast, but as yet too indefinite, since the political future of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri still hung in more ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... residence at the court of Saul must have been long enough to give time for his gradual rise to popularity, and thereafter for the gradual development of the king's insane hatred,—that further back still there was an indefinite period, between the fight with Goliath, and the first visit as a minstrel-physician to the palace, which was spent at Bethlehem, and that that visit itself cannot have been very brief, since in its course he became very dear and familiar to Saul,—it will not ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... a great number of definite and indefinite articles, and prefixes, which they apply in a peculiar manner. The article te often stands before proper names; also before God, Te Atua; sometimes o, which then appears to be an article; as, O Pomare, O Huaheine, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... distinct enough, and for the first time his position was an uncomfortable one. He had met the Franklands at Exonbury as parishioners, had been attracted by Frances, and had floated thus far into an engagement which was indefinite only because of his inability to marry just yet. The Franklands' past had apparently contained mysteries, and it did not coincide with his judgment to marry into a family whose mystery was of the sort suggested. So he sat and sighed, ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... Darrell, slowly, "if this were a question of accommodation to yourself, of coming into your office and helping you out personally, I would gladly do it; salary would be no object; but to take a merely clerical position for an indefinite time when I have a good, lucrative profession does not seem to me a very wise policy. There must be plenty of assaying to be done in Ophir; why couldn't I ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... left me in your own house without one word of good-by, when you expected to be absent an indefinite time. Did you suppose that I would remain there an hour ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... but it is affirmed also that the definite character ceases at a particular period of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes,(211) down to which the very campaigns of the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties are noted, but subsequently to which the prophetic tone becomes more vague and indefinite. Hence the conjecture has been hazarded that it was written in the reign of Antiochus by a Palestinian Jew, who gathered up the traditions of Daniel's life, and wrote the recent history of his country in eloquent language, in an apocalyptic form; which, after the literary fashion ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... day there was not difficult. The novelty of the position was great; the interest of the thing immense. Indefinite hopes of the future were strong, and they had plenty to say and speculate about during the passing hours. When night came, preparation was made for departure. The provision bags were slung, a moderate sip of water indulged in, and they set forth, ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... light played at glances with the steel bows, and say: "Let us pray!" Then would come that soft stir and hush as the people took the attitude of prayer. Marcia sometimes joined in the prayer in her heart, uttering shy little petitions that were vague and indefinite, and had to do mostly with the days when she was troubled and homesick, and felt that David belonged wholly to Kate. Always her clear voice joined in the slow hymns that quavered out now and again, ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... slow as to materially increase the period that milk remains sweet. Within recent years, attempts have been made to preserve milk so that it could be shipped long distances by freezing the product, which in the form of milk-ice could be held for an indefinite period without change.[130] A modification of this process known as Casse's system has been in use more or less extensively in Copenhagen and in several places in Germany. This consists of adding a small block of milk-ice (frozen milk) to large cans of milk ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... sphere of such a world as I conceive. Even he who has never thought of his moral destination, if any such there could be, or who, if he has thought about it at all, has never entertained the slightest purpose of ever, in the indefinite future, fulfilling it—even he derives his world of the senses and his belief in the reality of such a world no otherwise than from his idea of a moral world. If he does not comprehend it through the idea of his duties, he certainly ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... not all. For years to come, this child that for nine months was carried inwardly and for a much longer period outwardly, by its mother, must now be fed, washed and clothed for an indefinite number of years, and guided through a thousand perils and dangers that Nature has set before it, with disease as Nature's agent, crouching and ready to destroy the child's life, not in open combat, but invisibly concealed ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... assured that Diego would not return in the immediate future, yielded to Jose's persuasion and departed at once for Guamoco on the news of the revolution's close. Simiti had remained unmolested; and now, with the assurance of indefinite peace, the old town dropped quickly back into her wonted state of listless repose, and yielded to the drowsy, dreamy influences that hover always about this scene ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... with leaves alternate, oval, serrate, finely dentate with very short and stiff hairs. Flowers of a strong, rather agreeable odor, axillary, in panicles. Calyx, 4 sepals. Corolla, 4 petals. Stamens indefinite, expanding at the upper end and bearing 2 anthers. Carpels 3, with ovules indefinite in two ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... majority of the race in every age,—so far as we can gather any thing from history,—compare it with that of the immense majority at the present moment;—what does it tell us? Why, surely, that, if there be a destiny of indefinite "progress" in religion and virtue for the race collectively, the hand of the great clock moves so immeasurably slow that it is impossible to note it. The experience of the individual, nay, of recorded history,—if we can say there is any such thing,—fails to trace the movement of the ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... with which they had some acquaintance, or of which they could form some idea, while, from the character of the language, and the extreme brevity of the record, the treatment of even these few subjects must have been of a vague and indefinite character. Traces of a deeper knowledge there might be, but they would not lie upon the surface. They must be carefully sought for, and then they would be discernible only by those who were in possession of the key which would unlock their ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... purely personal one, and may be expressed in the indefinite word "style." It is only in a mechanical sense that style is "the adequate expression of thought," or "the peculiar manner of expressing thought," or any other of the definitions that are found in the rhetorics. ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... friends (or perhaps acquaintance would be the truer word) had been known to describe Philippa Harford as an "odd girl," and if this indefinite adjective meant that she was somewhat different from the majority of young women of her generation, there was truth in the description. For while freedom of action and of speech are notably characteristic of the young of the present day, there was about her a reserve, ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... some throughout this page of Chirino are too indefinite to be verified): II Paralipomenon (the appellation, in Roman Catholic versions of the Bible, of the books named "Chronicles" in the Protestant version), 16. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... controls the world and the lives of human beings. An illustration of this stage of religious consciousness is afforded by Mr. Risley, who, in dealing with the religion of the jungle dwellers of Chota Nagpur, India, says that "in most cases the indefinite something which they fear and attempt to propitiate is not a person at all in any sense of the word; if one must state the case in positive terms, I should say that the idea which lies at the root of their religion is that of a power rather ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... with this difference, that his are a wolf's teeth, and yours a lamb's. Besides, this alliance with Urbino is all incomplete as yet. You had been better advised to have sent away the envoy with some indefinite promise that would have afforded you respite enough in which to seal matters with the house of Montefeltro. As it is, your days are numbered. Upon that message you have sent him Caesar will act at once. For my own part, I have no mind to fall a prey to ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... standing injurious conditions better than higher ones (but is not this most difficult to show?) is equally favourable to sea-transport, to continental connexions, and all other means. Pray do not suppose that I fancy that if I could show that nearly all seeds could stand an almost indefinite period of immersion in sea-water, that I have done more than one EXTREMELY SMALL step in solving the problem of distribution, for I can quite appreciate the importance of the fact you point out; and then the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... conceived the idea of ordering a banquet for an indefinite time:—not to know whether he, for whom one must wait, will come at one, at two, at three,—in the evening, or ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... "Musikfreunde," with the request that they will in future regard me as quite inadmissible as a conductor. Your question whether I attach "any special importance" as to how the different parts should be filled, I answer simply thus: arrange things wholly and entirely as you think best. The few indefinite suggestions in my last letter are of importance only in so far as they agree with your competent arrangement, otherwise in no way. One point only I should like adhered to in the Vienna performance, namely that no foreign ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... returning to Nantes; and there, by employing the newly found weapon of his oratory, excite the people into sheltering him as the first victim of the persecution he had foreseen, and against which he had sworn them to take up arms. But the idea was one which he entertained merely as an indefinite possibility upon which he felt no real impulse ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... and the fare was very low. It was convenient, therefore, for those too poor to be in a hurry, and for travellers like me whose purpose could be better served by loitering than by haste. The train proceeded leisurely, giving ample time for deliberate survey of the land, and the frequent pauses of indefinite length afforded opportunity for walks through the streets of remote hamlets and even into the country about, where the peasants with true Teuton Gemuethlichkeit always welcomed a man ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... gratification, and yet in its radical sense it was thoroughly so. He delighted in it because of the benefit it brought himself. He had long felt a void within his heart, a want or craving for something, something indefinite, intangible certainly—something that no sensual indulgence could appease, that no light pleasure could distract, and now all at once it seemed to him that long-felt vacuum was filling up. A something, just as ethereal as his craving had been, was creeping into his ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... father of European medicine, must have derived his knowledge not merely from his own observations, but from the writings of men unknown to us and from systems practised for an indefinite period. The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Hercules and Aesculapius,—that is, benefactors whose fictitious names alone have descended to us. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and Chiron. Twelve hundred years before Christ temples were erected to Aesculapius ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... the corner where the Peterborough and Great North Roads meet, and on the west side of the latter. It was therefore a very short distance from the barracks. Why the Government purchased so large a field for the purpose it is impossible to say, unless they anticipated a very indefinite duration of the war. Not more than a small quarter of it has apparently been consecrated by the ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... with the other prisoners, but they were a melancholy lot, not to be cheered. They were all thinking of a long, in truth, an indefinite, imprisonment in Canada, and they mourned. Many people had been taken into Canada by French and Indians in former forays ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... on page 56 have been greatly exceeded during the past year or two. I should add also that the Comstockian imbecilities described in Chapter IV are still going on, and that the general trend of American legislation and jurisprudence is toward their indefinite continuance. ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... Buddha and Kapila were both atheists, and that Buddha borrowed his atheism from Kapila. But atheism is an indefinite term, and may mean very different things. In one sense every Indian philosopher was an atheist, for they all perceived that the gods of the populace could not claim the attributes that belong to a Supreme ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... and consequently solidaire, society, there may be some who possess, labor, and consume, while others have neither possession, nor labor, nor bread. Finally Malthus, or political economy, reasons erroneously when seeing in the faculty of indefinite reproduction—which the human race enjoys in neither greater nor less degree than all animal and vegetable species—a permanent danger of famine; whereas it is only necessary to show the necessity, and consequently the existence, of a law of ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... being left alone in the dark. When I was very young I was sent to bed at eight or nine o'clock, and the maid who slept in the room went away as soon as I was in bed, leaving me alone in the dark till she came to bed herself. All that time I was in an agony of fear of something indefinite, I could not tell what. The joy, the relief, when the maid came back, were such that I instantly fell asleep. Now that I am a widow and old, although I always have a night-lamp, such is the power of early impressions that I rejoice ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... failed to accomplish anything. Indeed, his indifferent attack was not at all worthy the excellent soldiers he commanded, and when I learned that it was his intention to withdraw from the enemy's front, and this, too, on the indefinite report of a signal-officer that a "brigade or division" of Confederates was turning his right flank, and that he had not seriously attempted to verify the information, I ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... itself. Witness his descriptions, wherein he seems to circle like an eagle bathing in the blue streams of air, controlling with his eye broad sweeps of champaign or of sea, and rarely fulmining in the sudden swoop of intenser expression. He was fonder of the vague, perhaps I should rather say the indefinite, where more is meant than meets the ear, than any other of our poets. He loved epithets (like old and far) that suggest great reaches, whether of space or time. This bias shows itself already in his earlier poems, as where ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... But still you do go, although but slowly; and in both cases we must take the foul wind with the fair. If a ship were to furl her sails until the wind again was favourable, her voyage would be protracted to an indefinite time; and, if an author were to wait until he again felt in a humour, it would take a life to write ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... could bring back to his memory no distinct recollection of that first night spent in the monastery. There was an indefinite remembrance of the steady, monotonous clang of a bell in the first hours, doubtless the tolling of the matins, calling the elect to ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... seemed to divine a compliment in this indefinite speech. She said: "Well, I don't see myself why they ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... in all these privileges. It seemed, indeed, "a heaven to go to heaven in." But still she found emotions of loneliness, at times, which she could not explain—an indefinite fear lest she become so filled and satisfied with these religious luxuries as to lose sight of stern diligence in the ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... obeyed. He liked to talk. Garry found his plans indefinite and highly romantic. It was plain the notion of footsore penance had taken vigorous hold of his imagination and his love of adventure. Characteristically, since the actor on the highway was himself, he saw no chance ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... he seemed picturesque enough to have or be and that was just anything that one chose to believe or to desire. His appeal was all the more persuasive and alluring in that it was to the imagination alone, in that it was as indefinite and impersonal as those cults of idealism which so have their way with women. What he had was that, in his mere personality, he quickened and in a measure gratified that something without which—to women—life is no better than sawdust, and to the desire for which most ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... hazard is that where people speaking precisely the same dialect are not numerous, and are thrown into constant contact on equal terms with others of differing dialects and languages, gesture is necessarily resorted to for converse with the latter, and remains for an indefinite time as a habit or accomplishment among themselves, while large bodies enjoying common speech, and either isolated from foreigners, or, when in contact with them, so dominant as to compel the learning and adoption of their own tongue, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... universally, or which even to the writer's feeling was exaggerated, but because it was expressed coarsely, and as a physical power: now, every thing physical is measurable by weight, motion, and resistance; and is therefore definite. But the very essence of whatsoever is supernatural lies in the indefinite. That power, therefore, with which the minds of men invested the emperor, was vulgarized by this coarse translation into the region of physics. Else it is evident, that any power which, by standing above all human control, occupies ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... corn. In his speech he remarked that the purpose and principle of the corn-laws were protection to the landed interest. It was alleged that the British farmers could not compete with the foreign grower without protection. He considered this principle indefinite and unjust. The motion was seconded by Sir William Molesworth, who drew a gloomy picture of the operation of the corn-laws. Through them, he said, there was an excess of farmers without farm, shopkeepers without customers, lawyers without briefs, clergymen without cure of souls, doctors without ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... most things you say, frightful nonsense. And what sort of a laugh, moreover, is it that you offer that unfortunate Dorothy for her feeble participation? Nothing of a healthy, wholesome, vigorous, vital, individual, personal kind; but some pitiful pretence of wit or humor, having for its vague or indefinite object ideal or general, abstract, impersonal, or, so to speak, invisible intangible subjects, wanting all the vivacious pungent stimulus that belongs to real individual absurdity, and the direct ridicule of it, judiciously and dexterously applied; the only efficient—I had almost ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... that has taken place in him offends his sense of what is fitting. He looks for the causes outside himself and fails to find them; he begins to look for them inside and finds only an indefinite feeling of guilt. It is a Russian feeling. Whether there is a death or illness in his family, whether he owes money or lends it, a Russian always feels guilty. Ivanov talks all the time about being to blame in some way, and the feeling of guilt increases in him at every juncture. ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... threw Davidge into a complex dismay. Here was another of Mamise's long-kept secrets. The success of her plan meant the loss of her, or her indefinite postponement. It meant more ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... room, lined with books, and the furniture was solid and shabby with long service. There was an indefinite atmosphere of peace and repose about it, of leisured days haunted by no grey thoughts, very typical of the owner. The window stood open, though a fire burned clearly on the plain brick hearth, beneath a big ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... Distomas, or the common jelly-fish, of which M. Quatrefages says excellently well—"Who would not exclaim that a miracle had come to pass, if he saw a reptile come out of the egg dropped by the hen in his poultry-yard, and the reptile give birth at once to an indefinite number of fishes and birds? Yet the history of the jelly-fish is quite as wonderful as that would be." Ask him if he knows about all this; and if he does not, tell him to go and look for himself; and advise him (very respectfully, of course) to settle no more what strange things cannot ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with in definite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definiteness." Music embodied in a golden mist of thought and sentiment— this ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... school, a priori, so far as respects any organism, habit, and psychological constitution in the whole animal kingdom, in which man is also included, signifies whatever in them is fixed and permanently organized; whatever is perpetuated by the indefinite repetition of habits, organs, and functions, by means of the heredity of ages. The whole history of organisms abounds with positive and repeated proofs of this fact, which no one can doubt who is not absolutely ignorant of elementary science. Every day adds to the number ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... define the disease with diverse and indefinite theories, showing that science on the subject ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... reached the limits not of the bearer's good-will, but of equilibrium. The Spider would adopt an indefinite further number of foundlings, if the dimensions of her back afforded them a firm hold. Let us be content with this. Let us restore each family to its mother, drawing at random from the lot. There must necessarily be interchanges, but that is of no importance: ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... a terrible authority over their persons as well. He could issue orders for the arrest and arbitrary imprisonment of any one he pleased. Without trial or formality of any sort, a person might be cast into a dungeon for an indefinite period, until the king happened to remember him again or was reminded of him by the poor man's friends. These notorious orders of arrest were called lettres de cachet, i.e., sealed letters. They were not difficult ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... by its name. He thought the first principles to be numbers, and those symmetries in them which he styles harmonies; and the composition of both he terms elements, called geometrical. Again, he places unity and the indefinite binary number amongst the principles. One of these principles ends in an efficient and forming cause, which is Mind, and that is God; the other to the passive and material part, and that is the visible world. Moreover, the nature ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... has all been consumed locally. Bolivia has much land suitable for coffee raising; and it is estimated that production has reached as high as 1,500,000 pounds a year, but transportation conditions are such as to hold back development for an indefinite time. Small amounts are ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... way which is entirely appropriate and induced by the fault itself: this is the purpose and the cause of our pecks of trouble. The battle has to be fought—and won—by each of us: the only effect of temporary surrender is indefinite delay. The battle has still to be fought again with added difficulties later on. "The popular-class composer nowadays is not infrequently a thoroughly competent and well-read musician who, if he chose, could write really ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... and "had them good." Gloom was closing in on all sides; he could n't tell why, unless the growing fear of exposure to Honey was taking hold on his subconsciousness and manifesting itself in chronic, indefinite apprehension. ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... apportioned among them, that little difficulty is anticipated from conflicting claims, or from doubtful boundaries; and, both in quality and extent, there can be no doubt but that the region allotted to them will be amply sufficient for their comfortable subsistence during an indefinite period of time. ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... little more in fact and less in words to safeguard the rights of humanity. Our initial blunder was in turning away the Belgian Commissioners, when they first presented the wrongs of their crucified nation, with icy phrases as to a mysterious day of reckoning in the indefinite future. An act of justice now will be worth a thousand future "accountings" after the long agony of the world is over. "Now is the accepted time, this the day ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck
... is a prevalent tendency to pronounce, in a general and uncritical fashion, many things to be “Roman” which are only ancient and of indefinite date; an easy way of getting out of a difficulty. Possibly we may trace to this source the origin of the Lincolnshire expression, descriptive of anything or anybody out of the ordinary, that it is, or he is, or ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... as if in answer to his question, the darkness seemed to lighten. But the process was gradual; seconds passed before Halder gained the impression of a very large room of indefinite proportions. Twenty feet away was the rim of a black, circular depression in the flooring. At first, his chair seemed the only piece of furnishing here; then, as the area continued to brighten, Halder became aware of several objects at some ...
— The Other Likeness • James H. Schmitz
... the barge which is to carry me to its shore." A slight derangement of our accustomed habits, a little perturbation of the faculties, and a romantic tinge on the feelings, give no indifferent promise of genius; of that generous temper which knowing nothing of the baseness of mankind, with indefinite views carries on some glorious design to charm the world or to make it happier. Often we hear, from the confessions of men of genius, of their having in youth indulged the most elevating and the most chimerical projects; and if age ridicule ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli |
