"Indistinctly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will be found real and important by men versed in the school philosophy, without which no dictionary shall ever be accurately compiled, or skilfully examined. Some senses however there are, which, though not the same, are yet so nearly allied, that they are often confounded. Most men think indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness; and consequently some examples might be indifferently put to either signification: this uncertainty is not to be imputed to me, who do not form, but register the language; who do not teach ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... happily at least tranquilly. It was matter of wonder to her now, as she looked back at her past life, that her guilt had sat so lightly on her shoulders. The black unwelcome guest, the spectre of coming evil, had ever been present to her; but she had seen it indistinctly, and now and then the power had been hers to close her eyes. Never again could she close them. Nearer to her, and still nearer, the spectre came; and now it sat upon her pillow, and put its claw upon her plate; it pressed upon her bosom with its fiendish strength, telling her that ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... you that bright new quarter if you think it is so pretty," he said, and of course it couldn't have been emotion that cut his voice off so indistinctly. ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... camp, orders were ringing out. Though the two cadets near Battle Monument heard indistinctly, they knew it was the call for ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... with hectic, rested on one small hand. The other arm was thrown over the bed-clothes. Her eyes sparkled like diamonds. Her lips murmured indistinctly—the mind was ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... of a boy's voice calling newspapers is heard faintly in the distance; then the hoarse tones of a man shouting indistinctly; then a chorus of men and boys comes nearer and nearer calling of some calamity. Dartrey hurries out through the outer door. Gilruth stands ashamed. He does not want to leave his friend in bad blood. ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... justice, but a wretched consolation to his family, by whom, as the youngest, and amiable as he was gentle, he was most fondly loved. His father and sister, I believe, were never made acquainted with the true cause of his death. A letter of Henry's relating, though indistinctly, for evident reasons, to the sad occurrence, will be placed before the reader. Harriet, as I have said, the only sister (who married a Dr. Leath, a physician in the army, who resides still at Bayswater) died not very long ago, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... length came to the conclusion that the word must have been rumourers, and that from its unfrequent occurrence (the only other example of it at present known to me being one afforded by the poet) the printer mistook it for runawayes; which, when written indistinctly, it may have strongly resembled. I therefore think that we may ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... doorway of the kitchen. There he stopped short. A woman was seated in the kitchen rocker; a stout woman, with her back toward him. The room, in contrast to the bright sunshine without, was shadowy, and Seth, for an instant, could see her but indistinctly. However, he knew who she must be—the housekeeper at the bungalow—"Basket" or "Biscuit" his helper had said was her name, as near as he could remember it. The lightkeeper ground his teeth. Another female! Well, he would teach this ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... brown fog wreathing the houses and fading away above their tops into a dull, slate-blue sky. The wet street looked like a black canal; the blurred forms, less like vehicles than nondescript boats, moving over its inky surface, were indistinctly reflected therein; the gas-lights flared redly through the murky haze. It was not a pleasant evening in which ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... but indistinctly see the face of the man, half hidden in his bed of fresh leaves. Not far from the hut was a covered fire where, cooking slowly, after the fashion of buccaneers, was a year-old boar. The stove or gridiron was formed by four forks driven into the earth, on which ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... statue assumed a lifelike semblance that was at once startling and wonderful. Color flies with the sun, and the white marble did not depend now on tint alone to differentiate it from flesh and blood. Seen thus indistinctly, it might almost be a graceful and nearly nude woman standing there, and some display of will power on the girl's part was called for before she approached nearer and stifled the first breath of apprehension. Then, delighted ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... and with a child, rattling pretty speedily down hill;—people looking at us from the open doors and windows;—the children staring from the wayside;—the mowers stopping, for a moment, the sway of their scythes;—the matron of a family, indistinctly seen at some distance within the house, her head and shoulders appearing through the window, drawing her handkerchief over her bosom, which had been uncovered to give the baby its breakfast,—the said baby, or its immediate predecessor, sitting at the door, turning round ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... accessible to us, and confine ourselves to their consideration. Every conclusion drawn from our observation is, as a rule, premature, for behind the phenomena which we see clearly are other phenomena that we see indistinctly, and perhaps behind these latter, yet others which we ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... he lay shivering close to the foot-deep carpet of needles under him, while his heart thumped against his ribs, and his whiskers stood out in mortal fear. There followed a weird and appalling silence, and in that stillness Peter quested vainly for the sunlight he had lost. And then, indistinctly, but bringing with it a new thrill, he heard another sound. It was a soft and distant rippling of running water. He knew that sound. It was friendly. He had played among the rocks and pebbles and sand where it was made. His courage came back, and he rose up on his legs, and made his way toward ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... made, the Wain Through the still night proceeds again; No Moon hath risen her light to lend; But indistinctly may be kenned 510 The VANGUARD, following close behind, Sails spread, as if ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... produced from spermatozoa or pollen without an ovule. Approaching the subject from the side which attracts me most, viz., inheritance, I have lately been inclined to speculate, very crudely and indistinctly, that propagation by true fertilisation will turn out to be a sort of mixture, and not true fusion, of two distinct individuals, or rather of innumerable individuals, as each parent has its parents and ancestors. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... that they have no solution upon this side the grave. Lured by the light, the child rose softly, approached the window, and, resting her upturned face upon both hands, gazed long into the heavens, communing evidently with herself, for her lips moved and murmured indistinctly. Slowly she retired from the casement, and again seated herself at the foot of the bed, disconsolate. And then her thoughts ran somewhat thus, though she might not have shaped them exactly in the same words: "No, I cannot understand it. Why was I contented and happy before I knew him? Why ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he would, if permitted, visit her as his father had visited his mother." But while he thus stood in suspense, Amine's eyes were turned upon him: she beheld him, but a thick cloud now obscured the moon's disc, and the dim light gave to his form, indistinctly seen, an unearthly and shadowy appearance. She recognised her husband; but having no reason to expect his return, she recognised him as an inhabitant of the world of spirits. She started, parted the hair away from her forehead with both hands, and ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the wiser, though, I confess, they were not far removed from the door. The great men inside talked indistinctly and technically, and once Doctor Dillon was so unfeeling as to crack a joke—they could not distinctly hear what—and hee-haw brutally over it. And poor little Mrs. Sturk was taken with a great palpitation, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... companion seemed inclined to be very loving, but I did not appreciate her advances, being altogether unaccustomed to such things. The champagne was brought, and I was persuaded to drink freely of it. The consequence was that I soon became helplessly intoxicated. I can indistinctly remember the dancing lights, the popping of champagne corks—the noise, the confusion, the thrumming of a piano, and the boisterous laughter—and then I fell into ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... meadows were falling before the scythe. As the boy sank to the earth, a few laborers were eating their scanty dinner of bread and milk so near him, that only a dry low ditch ran between him and them. They had heard his words indistinctly, and one of them was putting the milk bottle to his lips when, attracted by the voice, he looked in the direction of the speaker, and saw him fall. They immediately recognized "the poor scholar," and in a moment were attempting ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... upon it with as much concentration as if it had been a recipe for the Philosopher's Stone; he reproduced the lines and angles on fresh paper, and labored over the writing with a magnifying-glass and a dictionary. At times he would mutter indistinctly to himself, lift his eyebrows, nod or shake his head, bite his lips, and rub his forehead, and anon fall to work again with fresh vigor. At last he leaned back in his chair, thumped his hand on the ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... to emulate the verdant clothing of the plain—its receding rays were gradually withdrawn, like a transparent veil of light from the landscape. Over the pure cloudless sky was the glow of the last light. In the distance and beyond the Zab, Keshaf, another venerable ruin, rose indistinctly into the evening mist. Still more distant, and still more indistinct, was a solitary hill overlooking the ancient city of Arbela. The Kurdish mountains, whose snowy summits cherished the dying sunbeams, yet struggled with the twilight. The bleating of sheep and lowing of cattle, at first ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... to as marking the south-east angle of the lake, I again saw; but so indistinctly, though the atmosphere was very clear, that I imagined it to be at least forty miles distant. It is due east of my station on Observatory Hill. I further draw my conclusions from the fact, that all the hills on the country are much about the same height—two or ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... recalled, and examined in great detail, with a view to ascertain whether any indication of the presence of a second person having visited the chamber with Merton was discoverable. Nothing, however, appeared, except that the valet mentioned the noise and the exclamations which he had indistinctly heard. ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... known before, my mother died when I was a very little child, scarcely three years old. I remember her but very indistinctly. The woman who is now my father's wife, was his housekeeper in my mother's life-time. She, of course, came from the common walks of life, her father being a very poor butcher. How she ever became my father's wife, I do not know; but my old nurse used to intimate to me ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... indistinctly, but he bent his head before the storm of this fierce woman's wrath and ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... win, for the first time in my life I felt a desire to get money that way. But I had no money to bet. That day as I went into the vault I saw under a lower shelf—the Devil drew my eyes that way—a bank note. I hardly knew it was a bank note, for I saw but a piece of paper indistinctly in the dim light. I picked it up. Oh, God! if I hadn't touched it! I looked at it. My heart jumped in my throat and choked me; my head swam. In my ears were strange voices, saying: 'Take it! Put it in your pocket!' Perhaps ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... a friend of Miss Grant's—I seem to remember you, though I have only seen you at a distance, and then indistinctly. Are you not the young man who lived in the flat ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... A few steps took him to the doorway. The chamber before him was darker than the corridor, so that he could just indistinctly make out the objects in the room. He saw a sleeping dais near the center, with a darker blotch of something lying on the marble floor beside it. He moved a step farther into the doorway and the scabbard of his sword scraped against the ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... benumbing the mental as well as the corporeal faculties, was very striking in this man, as well as in two of the young gentlemen who returned after dark, and of whom we were anxious to make inquiries respecting Pearson. When I sent for them into my cabin, they looked wild, spoke thick and indistinctly, and it was impossible to draw from them a rational answer to any of our questions. After being on board for a short time, the mental faculties appeared gradually to return with the returning circulation, and it was not till then that a looker-on could easily ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... fading gradually away to the south and east, its town roosting on its barren rock, and indistinctly seen; its low lands covered with a luxuriant growth of lime and other trees; and lastly, by way of seasoning, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the churchyard, with its marble slabs indistinctly outlined in the darkness, like a phantom graveyard, as immaterial and ghostlike itself as the spirits of the earliest settlers at rest there beneath the sod. This was the last indication of the presence of the town, the final impression to carry away into ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... case so utterly hopeless? I cannot, I will not, believe it!" came indistinctly from the young ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the first solar rays, and as we journeyed on, the valley of Ghotfa widened, till we found ourselves traversing an immense plain, at the extreme north of which, and on the west, we saw the palms of Sockna. We had seen them yesterday indistinctly from the peaks of Gibel Asoud. We continued our route for four hours, when we arrived at Sockna. There is still a goodly number of palms, notwithstanding the thousands destroyed by Abd-El-Geleel when besieging this place. The trunks of the destroyed palms still remain, and look like a leafless ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... cell, who lay, stretched at his fall length, upon a stone bench, and who paused in his deep breathing as if he were about to wake. But he rolled over on one side, let his arm fall negligently down, drew a long sigh, and murmuring indistinctly, fell ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... sap, and is composed mainly of water. Imbedded in the granular lining of the sac is a roundish body (n), which itself has a definite membrane, and usually shows one or more roundish bodies within, besides an indistinctly granular appearance. This body is called the nucleus of the cell, and the small one within it, ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... He growled something indistinctly in his beard, which I interpreted as assent, but I watched his great form disappear in the direction of the fire, my own mind far from satisfied; the man was so lacking in brains as to be a poor ally, and so obstinate of nature as to ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... literary man I ever knew. He loves all epochs and phases of literature, but his passion is the Charles Lamb period and all Lamb's friends. He loves them as if they were living men; and Lamb would have loved him if he could have known him. He speaks rapidly, and rather indistinctly, and when you meet him and say Good day, and you suppose he answers with something about the weather, ten to one he's asking you what you think of Hazlitt's essays on Shakespeare, or Leigh Hunt's Italian Poets, or Lamb's roast ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... their comrades? Wearied in body, and tormented with fears for their friends, they commenced preparing for the night. A sound was now heard. They seized their rifles, and stood ready, expecting the Indians. Two men were seen indistinctly approaching. "Who comes there?" cried Boone. "White men and friends," was the answer. Boone knew the voice. In an instant more, his brother Squire Boone, with another man, entered the cabin. These two men had set out from Carolina for ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... the afternoon of an intensely cold day, which caused the spray to congeal as it dashed against the bulwarks and cordage of the vessel, that we descried with great pleasure looming indistinctly in the distance, the shores of Sandy Hook, a desolate-looking island, near the coast of New Jersey, about seven miles south of Long Island Sound. This the captain informed me was formerly a peninsula, but the isthmus was broken through by the ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... was a shallow, stony river, but deep enough at one point for gingerly swimming. Stefan seemed never to have been cool through the summer except when he was squatting or paddling in this hole. He remembered only indistinctly the boys with whom he bathed; he had no friends among them. But there had been a little girl with starched white skirts, huge blue bows over blue eyes, and yellow hair, whom he had admired to adoration. She ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... grandson of a judge who was a Commissioner of the Union, and a gentleman of birth and property—which last would, had he lived long enough, have come to Smollett himself. But he suffered in his youth from some indistinctly known family jars, was apprenticed to a Glasgow surgeon, and escaping thence to London with a tragedy in his pocket, was in undoubted difficulties till (and after) he obtained the post of surgeon's mate on board a ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... smallest item of public expenditure to which they were invited by the Executive to contribute, have vied with each other in their subscriptions to purposes of British interests in response to calls of humanity, or munificence for objects but indistinctly heard of at the distance of ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... contradiction, without more words. 67 my sa[gh]es soghe, etc., my saws (words) sow, etc. 77 typped schrewes, great sinners; literally, extreme, tip-top, schrews. 78 ta me, take me, seize me. 82 mansed, cursed. 94 glwande, glowing, bright; gloumbes, sees (indistinctly). ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... plunged desperately through the frozen snow which one moment supported their weight and the next splintered in broken ice-cakes beneath them. Slowly the mole grew until in the gathering shadows it took on indistinctly the shape of a building, and just as the rising moon crested the ridge of the Pembina hills the travellers swung up at the door. Arthurs had carried the key of the padlock in his hand for the last mile; everybody was out of the sleighs in a moment, and the next ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... Every twentieth word or so is placed between two vertical lines, regarding which the reader is kept in the dark until he comes to this postscript: "In great haste, owing to business affairs, I add a sort of lexicon of indistinctly written words, which I have placed within brackets. This will probably make the letter appear very picturesque and piquant. The idea is not so bad. Adio, clarissima Cara, cara Clarissima." Then follows the "lexicon" of twenty words, including his ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... longer. When consciousness is first regained, the subject appears confused, stupid, and usually complains of headache. He has no recollection of what has occurred during the attack, he pronounces words indistinctly, and if he attempts to walk, he staggers like a drunken man. Sometimes, several attacks occur so closely together that there is no interval ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... these last words so indistinctly that Hermann could scarcely hear them; he seemed to be speaking to himself rather than to his friend. Then he raised the forefinger of his right hand, and after moving it slowly from right to left, in imitation of the swing of a pendulum, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... child; the warm sun has gone down; and 'tis a good time to close one's eyes, when all without looks gray and chill: methinks it is easier to wish thee farewell, Morton, when I see thy face indistinctly. I am glad I shall not die in the daytime. Give me thy hand, my child, and tell me that thou art not angry with thine old uncle for thwarting thee in that love business. I have heard tales of the girl, too, which made ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... last day of February, before the setting-out for Iceland. Gaud was standing up against her room door, pale and still. For Yann was below, chatting to her father. She had seen him come in, and indistinctly heard his voice. ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... early part of the service, longing to hear again that rich, strong, thrilling voice. But alas for Tode! It was not the bishop who preached that day. It was a stranger, whose low monotonous voice reached the boy so indistinctly, that he soon gave up all attempts to listen, and before the sermon was half over he was sound asleep. Fortunately he was used to hard resting-places, and he slept so quietly that the occupants of the pew did not discover ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... sprung to her feet without delay. "I also," she interposed, "indistinctly noticed the shadow of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... be made out in the distance, flitting indistinctly against the gloomy border of the forest, and near the river two bronze figures, leaning on tall spears, stood in the sunlight under fantastic head-dresses of spotted skins, warlike and still in statuesque repose. And from right to left along the lighted shore moved ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... Captain, indistinctly. "Well let's have another drink . . . It's not a long job ours, a little drink and then . ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... order to be blind to all this, and like a ghost, diffidently and in a quavering voice, he goes on repeating beautiful words which he declares descend to him from higher spheres, but whose sound he can hear only very indistinctly. The artist who happens to be moulded according to the modern pattern, however, regards the dreamy gropings and hesitating speech of his nobler colleague with contempt, and leads forth the whole brawling mob of assembled passions on a leash in order to let them loose upon modern ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... this land and the father of the seven sons is variously and indistinctly named. One legend calls him the White Serpent of the Clouds, or the White Cloud Twin, Iztac Mixcoatl.[1] Whoever he was we can hardly mistake the mountain in which or upon which he dwelt. Colhuacan means the bent or ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... this sentence I started, and for a moment paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)—it appeared to me that from some very remote portion of the mansion there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... a broad-brimmed, conical hat, beneath the shadow of which a wild visage was indistinctly seen, floating away, as it were, into a dusky wilderness of mustache and beard. His eyes winked, and turned uneasily from the torches, like a creature to whom midnight would be ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his, he led her down to his study, and seated her on a couch drawn near the window. The confused sound of many voices and the tread of dancing feet, keeping time to a band of music, came indistinctly from the parlors. Dr. Hartwell closed the door, to shut out the unwelcome sounds, and, seating himself before the melodeon, poured a flood of soothing, plaintive melody upon the air. Beulah sat entranced, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... D'Entragues was a bold and skilful soldier, with a great desire to distinguish himself. He wished to review this regiment, and had commenced business before the dawn. While the light was still uncertain and feeble, and his battalions were under arms, he indistinctly perceived infantry troops forming at the end of the street, in front of him. He knew by the order's given on the previous evening that no other review was to take place except his own. He immediately feared, therefore, some surprise, marched at once to these ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to be Will, first examined if the candle in his dark lantern burnt well; and then they both set off, followed by Edward, who had heard quite enough to satisfy him that they were bent upon a burglary—if not murder. Edward followed them, so as to keep their forms indistinctly in sight, which was as much as he could do at twenty yards' distance: fortunately the wind was so high that they did not hear his footsteps, although he often trod upon a rotten stick, which snapped as it broke in twain. As near as Edward ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... was mumbling indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, and gave no sign of ascending, his master dived down to him, leaving me vis-a-vis with the ruffianly bitch and half a dozen four-footed fiends that suddenly broke into a fury, while I parried off ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and lost it, till the bank came to him again. Once more he held a five. The other men saw that he was losing and put up all they could. Orsino hesitated. Some one observed justly that he probably held a five again. The lights swam indistinctly before him and he drew another card. It was a four. Orsino laughed nervously as he gathered the notes and paid back what he ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... clear the table, she found her mistress pale and moist with perspiration, in spite of the season. Flore felt like a woman who had fallen to the bottom of a precipice; the future loomed black before her; and on its blackness, in the far distance, were shapes of monstrous things, indistinctly perceptible, and terrifying. She felt the damp chill of vaults, instinctive fear of the man crushed her; and yet a voice cried in her ear that she deserved to have him for her master. She was helpless ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... the rear ranks had heard indistinctly or not at all, and pressed on those in front to know the meaning of the sudden recoil,—for the men had instinctively given back,—and being told, buzzed it on to those behind them; and there began in the crowd a low, deep hum, growing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... dies out, the remaining guests depart, the musicians leave the gallery and depart also. RICHMOND goes to a window and pulls back one of the curtains. Dawn is barely visible in the sky, and the lamps indistinctly reveal that long lines of British infantry have assembled in the street. In the irksomeness of waiting for their officers with marching-orders, they have lain down on the pavements, where many are soundly sleeping, their heads on their knapsacks and ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... 6.45 P.M., I visited the burn with Miss Langton (and not Miss Freer). After looking a little I saw (a); the white was very plain, and the head clearly outlined, but the vision was for the fraction of a second. I was conscious of it indistinctly for a few minutes, and there seemed a good deal of movement. Suddenly I was again conscious of the figure as shown in (b), full-face, as though gazing at me; again the white part was very distinct, but ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... A moment more, and the vivid glare of the fires flared luridly through the wild tangle of the undergrowth. Against this red glare many black shadows—the dark forms of the firemen—could now be indistinctly seen moving like evil spirits around the ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... rather indistinctly in the uncertain light. Kurt, however, made out his eyes and they were regarding ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... No doubt Frenchwomen do walk well. He says her eyes are terrible traitors; I need not quote Palmet. The sort of eyes that would look fondly on a stone, you know. What her reputation is in France I have only indistinctly heard. She has one in England by this time, I can assure you. She found her match in Captain Beauchamp for boldness. Where any other couple would have seen danger, they saw safety; and they contrived to accomplish it, according ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... love which exists in the divine nature, tarnished and darkened by earthly—I may say by hellish—passions. Even then, and from that very night, she altered much: as one passed her, she muttered indistinctly; often she would lift up her hands in the air, clench them, and shake them as if at some figure that she saw in the clouds; and at times she slunk into corners, refused all comfort or society, and ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... the music of flutes and hautboys—which, for a time, had been only indistinctly heard—breaking upon the ear with a clearer sound, and the van of the procession suddenly emerging into full view from behind the Circus Maximus, and, accompanied by the ringing shout of thousands spreading abroad new and louder ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... simplest, though an imperfect form of Heliotropion, marking indistinctly the length of a shadow at different times of the year, especially the extremes of length and shortness at mid-winter and mid-summer. It is perhaps interesting to mention that travellers have recorded, in various places, various devices ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... office, and looked up and down the street. Close by, a carter stood at the head of an impatient horse that stamped and rattled its harness, and a hoist clanked as a bale of goods went up to a top story; but except for this the street was quiet Farther off, one or two moving figures showed indistinctly, for rain was falling and the light getting dim. Foster, who had arrived in Newcastle that morning, had waited, thinking it might suit him better to leave the town in ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... right—he's coming in now," he cried, and sat down. Rupert and I could hardly help feeling the beginnings of a sort of wonder as to who this person might be who was the first member of this insane brotherhood. Who, we thought indistinctly, could be maddest in this world of madmen: what fantastic was it whose shadow filled all these fantastics with so ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... straight at her for a moment, and then suddenly relaxed his hold and dropped down on the path at her feet. Mr. Crayshaw, feeling, perhaps, that he would gain nothing by stopping to scold, and just a little afraid of being seized by the other leg, muttered something indistinctly and walked into the house, limping a little, for Godfrey's feet and fingers had left their mark. Angel stooped down and laid her hand on the little boy's shoulder, and he caught hold of her dress and looked up ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... gaze of the latter, wandering over the surface of the stream, detected a dark object some distance to the right, as it showed indistinctly on the surface, disappearing, and then slowly coming to view again farther down. He required no one to tell him that it was the victim of his marksmanship, drifting out of sight, as many a one had done before, when trying to stay ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... what a fool I was to get wet. I stood up and looked round me. A colossal figure, carved apparently in some white stone, loomed indistinctly beyond the rhododendrons through the hazy downpour. But all else of ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Forrest, on rising, was received with applause. He was indistinctly heard at the reporter's table, owing to the distance which separated him from it, and the constant hum of conversation, which by this time was becoming general. He was understood to express the proud satisfaction he felt at being present that evening, and more especially ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... we heard, at first indistinctly, toward the front of the column continued cheering. Following on, it grew louder and louder. We reached the foot of a long ascent, from the summit of which the shout went up, but were at a loss to know what called it forth. Arriving there, there loomed ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... moved, had his excellent brains in full working-order. "Very distinctly as regards its outline, but quite indistinctly, indeed not at all, as regards the details inside the outline. The passage is of such length that anyone in the middle of it appears quite black against the light at the other end." The witness lowered his steady eyes once more ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... the woman who had saved him, heard a low tapping at the door. It might be an enemy, and she advanced, and opened it with caution. A figure, seen indistinctly in ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... in the court. She had written her article for the "Daily Review: in pencil during the break for luncheon; but, as time wore on, the heated atmosphere of the place, which was crammed to suffocation, became intolerable to her. She grew whiter and whiter, began to hear the voices indistinctly, and to feel as if her arms did not belong to her. It would never do to faint in court, and vexed as she was to leave, she took the first opportunity of speaking ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Vanderbilt Hall loomed indistinctly. To the ignorant it may be necessary to explain that its courtyard is open to Chapel Street, but that an iron grill stretches from wing to wing and keeps out the town. This grill is high enough for Hagenbeck, and it used to be a favorite game with us to play animal behind ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... under the stylus. The separate signals of the message could no longer be distinguished by the ear, and the instrument seemed to be speaking in a language of its own, resembling 'human talk heard indistinctly.' Immediately it flashed on the inventor that if he could emboss the waves of speech upon the paper the words would be returned to him. To conceive was to execute, and it was but the work of an hour to provide a vibrating diaphragm or tympanum fitted with an indenting stylus, and adapt ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... near her, and she could hear their voices indistinctly. She did not try to hear what they said, she was too tired to think. She snuggled closer in the soft pillows and sighed contentedly, but before long a voice near her separated itself from the rest, ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... Lady Blanche then murmured some few words indistinctly, in a very sweet voice, but showed no indication of feeling, except, as Helen gave one glance, she thought she saw a slight colour, like the inside of a shell, delicately beautiful; but it might be only the reflection from the crimson silk curtain near which she stood: it was gone, and ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... a bird in its nest, murmured indistinctly, her eyelids quivered a second, then the blue eyes opened wide, and directly she was ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... sanctified by the heads of the mighty departed. They rarely spoke to one another, but exchanged regards of mutual distrust and scorn; and if by chance they did converse it was in tones of weary, brusque disillusion. They could at best descry each other but indistinctly in the universal pervading gloom—a gloom upon which electric lamps, shining dimly yellow in their vast lustres, produced almost no impression. The whole establishment was buried in the past, dreaming of its Titantic yore, when there were doubtless giants who could fill those fauteuils ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... yucca trees presents a grotesque appearance. If indistinctly viewed in the hazy distance they are easily mistaken for the plumed topknots of a band of prowling Apaches, particularly if the imagination is active with the fear ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... arroyo. Indistinctly movements of blurred masses were visible. The figure of a man detached itself from the gloom and crept along the sandy wash. A second and a third took shape. The dry bed became filled with vague motion. Sanders waited no longer. He crawled back ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... knew that it had been successful, before the film cleared from his eyes and he saw his assailant groveling in the snow. He rose to his feet, dazed and staggering from the effect of the blow on his head and the murderous grip at his throat. Half a pistol shot down the trail he saw indistinctly the twisting of black objects in the snow, and as he stared one of ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... herself, to come between the soul and its Creator. It is face to face, "solus cum solo," in all matters between man and his God. He alone creates; He alone has redeemed; before His awful eyes we go in death; in the vision of Him is our eternal beatitude. "Solus cum solo:"—I recollect but indistinctly the effect produced upon me by this volume, but it must have been considerable. At all events I had got a key to a difficulty; in these sermons (or rather heads of sermons, as they seem to be, taken down by a hearer) there is much of what would be called ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... letter, he was received with great cordiality by the superintendent and assured that any request of Senator Beck would be cheerfully granted. Just as he was reaching out for the fragrant bouquet the superintendent was graciously presenting, the closing words of the Senator were indistinctly recalled, and in a manner indicating no small measure of self-confidence, the member remarked, "By the way, Mr. Smith, I am a great admirer of your countryman, Jimmy Burns." "Jimmy Burns! Jimmy Burns! Jimmy Burns!" exclaimed the overwhelmingly indignant ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... a noise at the door of the cell now—the key was being turned in the lock, and when the door opened, Adam saw indistinctly that there were several faces there. He was too agitated to see more—even to see that Mr. Irwine's face was one of them. He felt that the last preparations were beginning, and he could stay no longer. Room was silently made for him to depart, and he went ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... they marched their hapless prisoner back to town, and the leader's words kept ringing in his ears, "Be a man and face the music!" Suddenly a new thought flashed through his brain. Why had he not followed them? It wasn't too late yet. He could still see their forms indistinctly moving across the desert, and by following their lead, would sooner or later reach Silver Bow himself. Stepping out from the clump of Spanish bayonets which had formed his retreat, he set out on ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... spectacle of a dissecting-room; seen indistinctly by the partial glimmerings of a lanthorn. Whoever has been in such a place will recognise the picture. Here preparations of arms, pendent in rows, with the vessels injected. There legs, feet, and other limbs. In this place the intestines: in that ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... peasantry. The family consisted of the father and mother, and of their son and daughter, both grown up. Between the father and son there had long been ill-blood. The cause of this want of family harmony is but indistinctly stated, but apparently it was due to the irregular habits of the son, and to the severity of the father; while all this domestic misery was rendered doubly bitter by the almost abject want of the household. On the night of November the 9th, 1856, Venanzio Bonci, the ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... cooed the Dove, and with a gentle flutter they disappeared through the window. Indistinctly Marjorie heard the Ark cast away from the windowsill. And the voice of Capt. Noah came faintly to ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... bank, and then, as it were, fell into the water, to float there for a generation, the most proper vessel for the lake. I remember that when I first looked into these depths there were many large trunks to be seen indistinctly lying on the bottom, which had either been blown over formerly, or left on the ice at the last cutting, when wood was cheaper; but now they ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... tide rolled many fathoms deep, we held on our way. We thus progressed nearly two miles, and yet the ignus fatuus which tempted us upon the mad journey shone as distant as ever. Our own feeble light but served to show, indistinctly, the dangers with which we were surrounded. I was young, and loved life; nay, I was even about to plead in favor of turning toward the shore that I might preserve it, when my companion, his eye burning with excitement, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... had not gone the length of three streets, when he saw another of the shawled figures in advance of him, at which he looked so keenly that perhaps its mere shadow indistinctly reflected on the wet pavement - if he could have seen it without the figure itself moving along from lamp to lamp, brightening and fading as it went - would have been enough to tell him who was there. Making his pace at once much quicker ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... unlimited wall stares me in the face. Do I still dream, or is this actually one of 'le mie prigioni'? I rub my eyes for a third time, and look about the semi-darkened vault. Somebody is snoring. I gaze in the direction whence the sound proceeds, and observe indistinctly an object huddled together in a corner. So, this is no dream, after all; and that heap of sleeping humanity is not Napoleon, but my ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... Zone police, who, though but twenty-six, was a full corporal, was for that night on duty as "train guard," and was waiting at the rear steps of the last car. As Aintree approached the steps he saw indistinctly a boyish figure in khaki, and, mistaking it for one of his own men, he clasped the handrail for support, and ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... a whisper. "To hear that off here after all these years!" Suddenly the voice stopped. There was a murmur within. It came to him indistinctly. "She has forgotten the rest," he said. Instantly and almost involuntarily ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... intention of sending instantly for a doctor, he stopped her, and said: "No, he would go on with dinner, and go afterwards to London." And then he made an effort to struggle against the fit that was fast coming on him, and talked, but incoherently, and soon very indistinctly. It being now evident that he was ill, and very seriously ill, his sister-in-law begged him to come to his own room before she sent off for medical help. "Come and lie down," she entreated. "Yes, on the ground," he said, very distinctly—these were the last words he spoke—and he ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... of the "pike," in the angle formed by a junction with the narrow mountain road, stood a humbler sign-post, lettered so indistinctly that it deserved the compassion of all observers because of its humility. Swerving in his hurried passage, the tall stranger drew near this shrinking friend to the uncertain traveller, and was suddenly aware of another presence in ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... a wee, Muster Alick!' rejoined Jerry confidently, if indistinctly, seeing his mouth was full at the moment. 'Before the summer's out I'll engage that my scholards will sing "The Blue Bells of Scotland" without a single false note! And when they do, I'll get a good price for each on 'em from a chap I knows of in London, who ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... paused for the merest moment for breath and for a quick glance into the dark lane of the diverging street. The double row of stone houses, blank-faced and shouldering one another like paper dolls cut from a folded newspaper, stood back indistinctly against the night, most of the high stoops cushioned in untrod snow, the fourth of them from the right, lean-looking and undistinguished, except that the ash-can at its curb was a ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... realized the necessity, the danger, of his predicament ... the money!—he must guard it, take it back with him. Above, in a heated, orange mist, the woman's face loomed blank and inhuman; farther back Mr. Ottinger's features were indistinctly visible. ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... away from the wall. In his eyes burned a curious greenish flame, and his face was set with the hardness of iron. In that iron was molded indistinctly the terrible smile with which he always went into battle or fronted "his man." Slowly he turned, pointing a long arm at each of the four ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... the conversation. Olive resumed her own knitting, seeing it but indistinctly. Her husband did not continue his newspaper reading. Instead he rose and, saying something about cal'latin' he would go for a little walk before turning in, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... dismount and crawl to the edge of the creek. But a fog lay over the water, and he could see the geese but indistinctly. Leaving the creek bank, he ran silently to where the watercourse made a turn and then crawled forward in the brush. Soon the fog lifted once more, and he saw the geese resting on the water close to the bend. He fired quickly and brought down the largest ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... large linen sheets protected the balcony and the boxes. The orchestra was covered with a huge dust-cloth, which, being turned back at the edges, left room for a few human figures, indistinctly seen in the gloom: actors, scene-shifters, costumiers, friends of the manager, mothers and lovers and actresses. Here and there shone a pair of eyes from the ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... expeditions or enterprises within the jurisdiction of the United States, or usurp and exercise judicial authority within the United States, or where the penalties on violations of the law of nations may have been indistinctly marked, or are inadequate—these offenses can not receive too early and close an attention, and require prompt ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington
... pouring in a flood from the clouds, completely enveloped the party on the wharf; another second and a shout was indistinctly heard amid the tumult of the winds and waters; a lighter cloud passed over, the bay was partially seen again; but neither the white sails of the Petrel nor her buoyant form could be traced by the eager eyes on the wharf. She had been struck by the ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the promenade and met together in the salons of the Club. Raphael remained alone by a window for a long time. His back was turned upon the gathering, and he himself was deep in those involuntary musings in which thoughts arise in succession and fade away, shaping themselves indistinctly, passing over us like thin, almost colorless clouds. Melancholy is sweet to us then, and delight is shadowy, for the soul is half asleep. Valentin gave himself up to this life of sensations; he was steeping ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... consultation with her father. My eye caught an article that interested me, and I read it through, forgetting for a moment all about my call there. Fully ten minutes elapsed, when of a sudden I heard the voice of a man speaking somewhat indistinctly in a room above that in which I was sitting. He seemed to be talking low and gruffly, so that I was unable to distinguish what was said. At last, however, the girl returned, and, asking me to follow her, conducted me to a ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... bed slid smoothly under the glittering cylinder. Although George had often been in his stepfather's printing works he now felt for the first time the fascination of manual work, of artisanship, in art, and he regretted that the architect had no such labour. He could indistinctly hear Mr. Prince ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... they returned to the side of the hall. Out of the haze he heard words, and knew indistinctly ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... was laid on his bed, Mr. Rotherham had been seated at the sick man's side, watching the course of his attack, and ready to interpret any of the patient's feebly and indistinctly expressed wishes. We say indistinctly, because the baronet's speech was slightly affected with that species of paralysis which reduces the faculty to the state that is vulgarly called thick-tongued. Although a three-bottle man, Mr. Rotherham ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Then a fury seized him. Clutching the knife firmly, and holding the lamp aloft, he sprang toward the ungainly object in the corridor. It was then that the officers, still advancing cautiously, saw a little more clearly, though still indistinctly, the object of the surgeon's fury, and the cause of the look of unutterable anguish in his face. The hideous sight caused them to pause. They saw what appeared to be a man, yet evidently was not a man; huge, awkward, shapeless; a squirming, lurching, stumbling ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... slope; mighty trees also adorn it, giant elms, the nearest of which, when the sun is nigh its meridian, fling a broad shadow upon the face of the pool; through yon vista you catch a glimpse of the ancient brick of an old English hall. It has a stately look, that old building, indistinctly seen, as it is, among those umbrageous trees; you might almost suppose it an earl's home; and such it was, or rather upon its site stood an earl's home, in days of old, for there some old Kemp, some ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... have said of New England must not, however, be applied indistinctly to the whole Union; as we advance towards the West or the South, the instruction of the people diminishes. In the States which are adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, a certain number of individuals may ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville |
