"Indistinct" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a voice so low and faint it might have been a whisper of the wind in the palisades of the corral. But, indistinct as it was, it was the voice of a man he was thinking of as far away, and it sent a thrill of alternate awe and pleasure ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... reptile. If he gained admission it was to the "Negro pew" in the "organ loft." If he secured the precious "emblems of the broken body and shed blood" of his Divine Master, it was after the "white folks" were through. If the cause of the Negro were mentioned in the prayer or sermon, it was in the indistinct whisper of the moral coward who occupied the sacred desk. And when the fight was on at fever heat, when it was popular to plead the cause of the slave and demand the rights of the free Negro, the Church was the last organization in the country to take ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... had had the care of her infancy, rude legends of the ancient greatness of her country, and of the regal grandeur of the O'Connors, her maternal ancestors; and over such dim traces of Cathleen's legends as floated in her memory, fragments wild, shadowy, and indistinct, as the recollections of a dream, did the poor Irish girl love to brood. Visions of long-past splendour possessed her wholly, and the half-unconscious reveries in which she had the habit of indulging, gave a tinge of romance and enthusiasm ...
— Honor O'callaghan • Mary Russell Mitford
... so indistinct that Charlotte looked at her in amazement to see two great tears rolling slowly down her cheeks. "Oh, Melina, is he worse, and is that what makes you feel so bad?" she ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... the northern sky, followed by thunder like the indistinct noise of a battle. Havill and Dare retired to the trees. When the dance ended Somerset and his partner emerged from the tent, and slowly moved towards the tea-house. Divining their goal Dare seized Havill's arm; and the two worthies entered the building unseen, by first passing ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... you to find a footing in the trenches." We started out the front door of the shattered house, turned to the right past the driving shed where a sentry sharply challenged us. It was one of those moonlight nights with a bit of a haze making objects indistinct and exaggerating them. We started out across the fields towards the trenches. There was plenty of light to see our way across several ditches. The ground was perfectly flat and the outlines of several pollard willow stubs, with a bundle of small ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... remember exactly the answers she had given in her cross-examination.[5] That may be possible, although she did not always say the same thing. It is none the less certain that after the lapse of a year she retained but an indistinct recollection of some of the important acts of her life. Finally, her constant hallucinations generally rendered her incapable of distinguishing between ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... seemed to visualize her body floating limply in the water. It was all very vague and indistinct, and I understood that this was not what she had seen, but what she thought had happened. The impressions grew wilder, swirled, grew gray and indistinct. Then I had a view of Mercer's face, so terribly distorted it was barely recognizable. Then a kaleidoscopic ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... indistinct impressions are liable to be wrongly classed. Sensations answering to a given colour or form, are, when faint, easily confused with other sensations, and so an opening occurs for illusion. Thus, the impressions received from distant objects are frequently misinterpreted, and, as we shall ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... that the clearer the lay of the land and water became, the more indistinct grew Old Jacob's remembrance of where his father had told him that the schooner ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... nerve in her body seemed to tremble and throb with quick, spasmodic pain, then to stand still as though the chill of death were creeping over her. Her eyes grew dim with an awful darkness, and Claire's voice seemed far off and indistinct. Then the world faded from her altogether and she fell at Claire's feet all in a little heap, in a ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... guessed, of trying to knock away some of her pursuer's spars, though from the distance they were apart it seemed to me with very little chance of success. The schooner showed no colours, but presently I saw a flag fly out from the peak of the ship, which, though indistinct, I was nearly sure was that of the Peruvian Republic. That the schooner was the dreaded craft which had so long haunted my imagination I felt perfectly certain, as I was that her piratical character was known, and that ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Greyhound with Ben and others, and she knew precisely what was to be done in order to get the boat under way. She understood how to move the tiller in order to make the craft go in a given direction, and had an indistinct idea of beating and tacking; but she was very far from being competent ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... dark by the time the little party from "the Moorings" reached the wreck, and things were beginning to get indistinct a little distance off; but, soon after their arrival on the spot, the silvery moon rising at the full, passing through occasional strata of dark cloud that veiled her light at intervals, illumined the sky with her weird beams, making it bright as day, but with a ghostly radiance ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the fell from the protruding head of the Castle Rock, he paused and looked about him. Yes, he was somewhat too high. He began to descend. The rock's head sheltered him from the wind now, and in the silence he could hear the thud of a pick or hammer, and then the indistinct murmur of a man's voice singing. It was Sim's voice; and here was Sim's cave. It was a cleft in the side of the mountain, high enough and broad enough for a man to pass in. Great bowlders stood above and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... poor figure with your cheerfulness, which was not asked for. Some daring person perhaps introduces another topic, and uses the delicate flattery of appealing to Touchwood for his opinion, the topic being included in his favourite studies. An indistinct muttering, with a look at the carving-knife in reply, teaches that daring person how ill he has chosen a market for his deference. If Touchwood's behaviour affects you very closely you had better break your leg in the course of the day: his bad temper will then vanish at once; ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... table near by broke into cries of applause, in which other parties joined—in a moment the room was full of clapping and shouting; half the diners were on their feet, crowding up, and on the outskirts the hastily summoned proprietor was giving indistinct vocal evidences of his desire to put an end to this thing as ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... fit for instant use. Further off, in one of those indistinct distances immortalized by the pencil of Turner—now softened into sober beauty by "the autumnal hue, the sear and yellow leaf," as an immortal bard expresses it, in language which the present writer does not imitate, and could not, without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... each hearty bacchanal! thrice waving the clear tinkling crystal, ere he emits that joyful burst, fresh from the heart, which from his uncontrolled emotion, meets the ear husky and indistinct. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... making the arch of sky more clearly visible. The air perceptibly freshened, with a chilly mountain wind beating against our faces and rustling the leaves of the phantom trees that lined the way. The woman rode silently and well. I could make out her figure now, dim and indistinct as the outlines were in that darkness and wrapped in the loose folds of an officer's cloak. She was sitting firm and upright in the saddle; I even marked how, with the ease and grace of a practical horsewoman, ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... trifling memorial she had assigned especially for him, aloft in the air. Her arm shook—her eyes, now becoming glassy with the death-damps, were cast toward her brother's face. She smiled pleasantly, and as an indistinct gurgle came from her throat, the uplifted hand fell suddenly into the open palm of her brother's, depositing the tiny volume ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... watched each rank of linked arms as it came abreast, the faces indistinct above the polo shirts, the voices blent in a paean of triumph—and then the procession passed through shadowy Campbell Arch, and the voices grew fainter as it wound eastward ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... she sat alone dreaming, and gazing as she loved to do out into the desert, that stretched away below the hill she lived on towards the setting sun, visions of the kings and princes and lovers of her stories assembling in crowds at her own Swayamwara,[28] floated with indistinct and unimaginable beauty in the blue haze of the sand, with an intoxicating fascination that almost took away her breath, till she was amazed and even frightened to find her own heart furiously beating, and shaking into agitation the wave of that bosom which there was nobody to see, as ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... song to a halt as Betty appeared, but it was some seconds before the inspired expression in her eyes gave place to human greeting. Her face happened to be in shadow, and for the moment Betty saw her black. Her finely cut features were indistinct, and the ignorant fanaticism of a not remote grandmother looked from her eyes. "Harriet!" exclaimed Betty. "I don't want to be unkind, but you must not do that again. If you want to keep your secret, never sing a hymn again as long as ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... it was a mere indistinct vision. Anton was dimly conscious of walking about with Fink, of talking and laughing with him and others, of bowing before the lady of the house, and murmuring his thanks; of having his paletot reached him by a servant, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Let them share it With me, their sire and brother! What else is Bequeathed to me? I leave them my inheritance! Oh, ye interminable gloomy realms 30 Of swimming shadows and enormous shapes, Some fully shown, some indistinct, and all Mighty and melancholy—what are ye? Live ye, or ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... saw a small gun glitter for a moment; then there was a sharp report, and a bullet had nearly sent Quesada to his long account, passing so near to the countenance of the general as to graze his hat. I had an indistinct view for a moment of a well-known foraging cap just about the spot from whence the gun had been discharged, then there was a rush of the crowd, and the shooter, whoever he was, escaped discovery amidst ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... long unseen by him, stirred emotion at once pleasant, sweet and almost painful in his heart, and he felt weighed down by a kind of pleasant oppression. Slowly his thoughts wandered; their outlines were as vague and indistinct as the outlines of the clouds which seemed to be wandering at random overhead. He remembered his childhood, his mother; he remembered her death, how they had carried him in to her, and how, clasping his head to her bosom, she had begun to wail over him, then had glanced ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... clearly the tread of a shoe. It is remarkably broad; a splay-foot, one would say. Curious, because, so far as one can trace any footmark in this mud-stained corner, one would say it was a more shapely sole. However, they are certainly very indistinct. What's this under the ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... to catch Mrs Murridge and the shutter in his strong arms as they were about to be swept into the kennel. He could do no more, however, than hold them there, the wind being too much even for him. While in this extremity he received timely aid from some one, whom the indistinct light revealed as a broad-shouldered little fellow in a grey uniform. With his assistance the shutter was affixed ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... up and trying to see over the bank. The boat bumped unexpectedly among the reeds, and the tall, fair-haired man disappeared suddenly, having apparently fallen back into the invisible part of the boat. There was a curse and some indistinct laughter. Hagshot did not laugh, but hastily clambered into the boat and pushed off. Abruptly the boat passed ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... to recollect exactly what had happened that fatal morning after Brenchfield had left the shack on the side of the road at Carnaby, but all was more or less hazy and indistinct. He remembered deciphering the note and crumpling it up in his despair and worry. Later, he recollected gathering up the loose papers and other material evidences of Brenchfield's guilt, stuffing them into the ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... surrounded by dark, savage figures that showed indistinct in the half-light. The girl's eyes rested for a moment upon Lapierre, whose thin, handsome features, richly tanned by long exposure to the Northern winds and sun, presented a pleasing contrast to the ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... ago as the renter of this farm, of which soon afterward I became the owner. The time before that I like to forget. The chief impression it left, upon my memory, now happily growing indistinct, is of being hurried faster than I could well travel. From the moment, as a boy of seventeen, I first began to pay my own way, my days were ordered by an inscrutable power which drove me hourly to my task. ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... I caught the indistinct figure of a man in white coming up, and threw myself to one side to avoid him, but he stumbled in front of me, and we went sprawling into the corridor below. It was a nasty spill, and I shot out on the matting at full length with my hands thrown before me. The polished teak-wood ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... species of charity, which needs especial consideration. It is that, which induces us to refrain from judging of the means and the relative charities of other persons. There have been such indistinct notions, and so many different standards of duty, on this subject, that it is rare for two persons to think exactly alike, in regard to the rule of duty. Each person is bound to inquire and judge for himself, as to his own duty or deficiencies; but as both the resources, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... the distance she could hear the grating noise of the front door being opened and the rush of wind that accompanied it. It was closed sharply in a moment and she could catch the sound of steps in the hall and the master's voice making some remark. Another voice replied, gruff and muffled and indistinct, and then again the master spoke. Evidently the late caller had arrived, and a moment later she heard the library door shut, and it was plain that he and ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... word or two that made Ellen feel how deep was the interest her mother had in the things she read of, and how pure and strong the pleasure she was even now taking in them; and sometimes there was a smile on her face that Ellen scarce liked to see; it gave her an indistinct feeling that her mother would not be long away from that heaven to which she seemed already to belong. Ellen had a sad consciousness too that she had no part with her mother in this matter. She could hardly go on. She came to that beautiful ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... nearly all that night under the infliction, when I fell asleep and dreamed this dream. Observe that throughout I was as real, animated, and full of passion as Macready (God bless him!) in the last scene of Macbeth. In an indistinct place, which was quite sublime in its indistinctness, I was visited by a Spirit. I could not make out the face, nor do I recollect that I desired to do so. It wore a blue drapery, as the Madonna might in a picture by ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... That pedestal—that curtain—then a voice That called on Galatea! At that word, Which seemed to shake my marble to the core, That which was dim before, came evident. Sounds, that had hummed around me, indistinct, Vague, meaningless—seemed to resolve themselves Into a language I could understand; I felt my frame pervaded by a glow That seemed to thaw my marble into flesh; Its cold, hard substance throbbed with active life, My limbs grew supple, and I moved—I lived! Lived in the ecstasy of ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... from which arose staves bearing the tricolor; and farther away, in a bluish haze, a line of tree tops marked the location of a road. To the right she could see Saint-Denis and the towering basilica; at her left, above a line of houses that were becoming indistinct, the sun was setting over Saint-Ouen in a disk of cherry-colored flame, and projecting upon the gray horizon shafts of light like red pillars that seemed to support it tremblingly. Often a child's balloon would pass swiftly ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... line is of invisible thickness. Wherefore O painter! do not surround your bodies with lines, and above all when representing objects smaller than nature; for not only will their external outlines become indistinct, but their parts ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... and the silence was emphasized by the faint splash of water. After a time, he came down to lower ground where broken dykes divided straggling fields, but there was no sign of life until as he turned a corner an indistinct figure vanished among the dry fern in the shadow of a wall. Foster thought this curious, particularly when he passed the spot and saw nobody there, but there was an opening in the dyke for ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... east was a great flare of pink with small golden clouds floating across, all seen uncertainly between branches of pine. A mist lay above Bull Run—on the high, opposite bank the woods rose huddled, indistinct, and dream-like. The air was still, cool, and pure, a Sunday morning waiting for church bells. There were no bells; the silence was shattered by all the drums of the brigade beating the long roll. Men rose from the pine needles, shook ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... invention; in fine, the whole popular idea of Faust and the devil, is a modern contrivance, and originated in this manner: Some bookmaker, about the year 1580, undertook to write a history of printing; he had an indistinct recollection of Professor Faustus of the University of Wittenberg, and in his book blended as many of his adventures as he could remember with the memoirs of John Fust the printer; and from that day a succession of ignorant chroniclers have considered two men, of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... days had her Mather Byles, Portsmouth had her Dr. Joseph Moses. In their quality as humorists, the outlines of both these gentlemen have become rather broken and indistinct. "A jest's prosperity lies in the ear that hears it." Decanted wit inevitably loses its bouquet. A clever repartee belongs to the precious moment in which it is broached, and is of a vintage that does not usually bear transportation. ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... were both in a cab and rattling through the silent streets on our way to Charing Cross Station. The first faint winter's dawn was beginning to appear, and we could dimly see the occasional figure of an early workman as he passed us, blurred and indistinct in the opalescent London reek. Holmes nestled in silence into his heavy coat, and I was glad to do the same, for the air was most bitter and neither of us had broken our fast. It was not until we had consumed some hot tea at the station, and taken our places in the Kentish train, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... so? I often fancy one's general outlook would be nicer, if one had an indistinct human background and a clear foreground of unspoiled Nature. But that may be a ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... of me saying I'm sorry?" he asked savagely. "I acted for the best. The chances were ten thousand to one against me being spotted. But there you are! You never know your luck." He spoke meditatively, in a rather hoarse, indistinct voice. "All owing to Florrie, of course! When it was suggested we should have that girl, I knew there was a danger. But I pooh-poohed it! I said nothing could possibly happen.... And just look at it now!... ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... horse bounded along like a crazy thing, but he kept his footing, though every moment I expected him to tumble headlong. The men behind must have ridden more warily, for the sound of hoofs, though still audible, became more faint and indistinct. ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... who pass over the heights of mountains see the clouds sweep below, veiling the plains and valleys from their gaze, while they, only a little above the level, survey the movements and the homes of men; even so from your lofty eminence ye behold but the indistinct and sullen vapours—while from my humbler station I see the preparations of the shepherds, to shelter themselves and herds from the storm which those clouds betoken. Despair not, my Lord; endurance ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... appeared to retreat into the distance, and again it came floating back until it seemed about to smother her. There was a droning note in her ears; the words spoken by the other two sounded mixed and indistinct. ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the rectangle lay an indistinct, crumpled, oblong figure. Puzzled, Maya studied it. It looked like a ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... lazar-house in the eleventh book of the Paradise Lost with the last ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome details, and takes refuge in indistinct but solemn and tremendous imagery—Despair hurrying from couch to couch to mock the wretches with his attendance, Death shaking his dart over them, but, in spite of supplications, delaying to strike. What ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... its Gothic door a sort of indistinct slightly musky perfume, like that said to frequent Oriental bazaars, hovers around. Everything is of perfect finish—the mahogany-railed gallery—the tiny ladders—the broad-winged lecterns, with leathern cushions on the edges to keep ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... and friends in the Culdee brotherhood at Lochleven, while Malcolm reigned in the Lothians. And a little later, in connection with the complications into which Malcolm was forced through his fortunate marriage with Margaret, sister of the Atheling, we have traces—somewhat indistinct, truly, but still historical—of an inroad by the grim conqueror of England—William, and of a meeting between him and Malcolm at Forteviot. All this might have proved instructive in detailed exposition, but I must content myself with this condensed ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... faster, and beat harder and harder against the wings, as it tried to find its way between the oily outside feathers, into their skins. The earth was hidden by fogs; lakes, mountains, and woods floated together in an indistinct maze, and the landmarks could not be distinguished. The flight became slower and slower; the joyful cries were hushed; and the boy felt the cold more ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... and vales of the earth are one vast garden. All is indistinct at first; expanses of misty colour and tint; but by degrees the scene resolves itself into more definite form. The whole is intersected and watered with streams, more or less clear and pure, which arise and are replenished from a bright vapour, the Spirit of Life, which shines, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... onwards, leaving the fisherman grumbling at the rottenness of his tackle. He offered a short prayer of gratitude, and in a few minutes ventured cautiously to resume his oars. He heard the breaking of the waves, but seamanship on the unknown and indistinct coast was useless. Two sharp blows, striking the boat in rapid succession, told him that he had touched a submerged rock; the strong tide carried him off it, but the water poured in through a gaping rent. He was now, however, on a sandy bottom: he ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... against the Dingley Dellers, and that at the Swan—otherwise the Blue Lion—the Pickwick fellowship shared the conviviality of the rival teams, until Mr. Snodgrass's notes of the evening's transactions faded away into a blur in which there was an indistinct reference to "broiled bones" and "cold without". The stately ruins of a Benedictine Abbey, founded by Bishop Gundulf, give to the town an attraction of a ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... eye is brought too close to it, its edges must become too confused to be distinguished; as it happens with objects close to a light, which cast a large and indistinct shadow, so is it with an eye which estimates objects opposite to it; in all cases of linear perspective, the eye acts in the same way as the light. And the reason is that the eye has one leading line (of vision) which dilates with distance and embraces with true discernment large ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... quiet river flecked with spots of white foam and at the indistinct silhouettes of boats trailing along in midstream. She breathed in deeply the calm that surrounded her and felt a resurgence of her ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... path up the Wye toward Haddon. Thomas was riding a short distance behind his accommodating mistress, and as they approached the Hall, I recognized something familiar in his figure. At first, the feeling of recognition was indistinct, but when the riders drew near, something about the man—his poise on the horse, a trick with the rein or a turn with his stirrup, I could not tell what it was—startled me like a flash in the dark, and the word "John!" sprang to my lips. The wonder of the ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... of wood lice, ants, of which it is very fond, and of other insects which it finds upon the ground or upon trees. The female differs from the male in appearance, the black strips upon the sides of the throat being very indistinct or wanting entirely. ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... childlike, clinging woman to the man who stood there on the quay, so good-looking and efficient in his white clothes, and moreover the most important man she knew at the moment. She did not take any notice of the wavering, indistinct, lambent Birkin, who stood at his side. One figure at a time occupied ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... impracticable. Except for these fires, the most complete calm reigned, for no enemy was visible, no human voice troubled the silence of the night. However, the fog grew more and more dense, the stream disappeared from view, and even the fires looked only like pale and indistinct lights under the shadowy outline of ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... little severe, and you are not quite strong enough." Then, as Prudence remonstrated, "Oh, yes," he granted, "you shall stay with her, but if it is very serious a nurse will be of great service. I will have one come at once." Then he paused, and listened to the indistinct sobbing that floated up from the kitchen. "Can't you send those girls away for the night,—to some of the neighbors? It will be ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... the shot, as I felt sure that the .577 rifle would cripple the beast, and that we should find it when severely wounded; otherwise it might disappear and give us several hours' hard labour to discover. Taking a very steady aim low down in the indistinct mass, I fired. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... genius and enthusiasm for art, from England I think I must have got my common-sense, and the capacity of keeping the money which I make; also a certain natural coldness of disposition, which those who only know me as a public character do not dream of. All my earliest memories are very vague and indistinct. I remember tramping over France and Italy with a man and woman—they were Italian, I believe—who beat me, and a fiddle, which I loved passionately, and which I cannot remember having ever been without. They are very shadowy presences now, and the name of the ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... and die, Gibber and sign, advance and fly, While nought confirmed could ear or eye Discern of sound or mien. Yet darkly did it seem, as there Heralds and pursuivants prepare, With trumpet sound and blazon fair, A summons to proclaim; But indistinct the pageant proud, As fancy-forms of midnight cloud, When flings the moon upon her shroud A wavering tinge of flame; It flits, expands, and shifts, till loud, From midmost of the spectre ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... asked the prince some question, but the latter did not reply, or if he did, he muttered something so strangely indistinct that there was nothing to be made of it. The officer stared intently at him, then glanced at Evgenie, divined why the latter had introduced him, and gave his undivided attention to Aglaya again. Only Evgenie Pavlovitch observed ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... with careless freedom the real beginning of his woodland life. Even thus early, what may be called the nocturnal instinct was strong within him. He was alert and playful chiefly at night, when, deep in the underground hollow, nothing could be heard of the outer world but the indistinct, monotonous wail of the wind in the upper passages of the "set." Droll, indeed, were the revels of the young badgers when the parents were hunting far away. The little creatures, awakened from a heavy sleep that had ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... says Mr. M'Fadden, muttering some indistinct words as he returns to the tavern, followed by a humorous negro, making grimaces in satisfaction of "mas'r's" disappointment. Now friends are gathered together, chuckling in great glee over the large reward offered for the lost parson, for the capture of which absconding ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... years ago, in London, I ran across Neave at Christie's. He was the same little man we'd known, effaced, bleached, indistinct, like a poor "impression"—as unnoticeable as one of his own early finds, yet, like them, with a quality, if one had an eye for it. He told me he still lived in Rome, and had contrived, by fierce ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... For miles over the smooth prairie not a human habitation was to be seen. In the other direction stood the mysterious forest. How black and dismal seemed the trunks of the trees in the shimmering moonbeams! She gazed timidly at their indistinct ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... fifteen seconds after he had gone, the strident cry of a Signal boy was heard in the distance, faint and indistinct at ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... grand element in the landscape, especially when their huge trunks rose by the side of the limpid water of the stream that intersects the vale of Pritie. Between their topmost boughs, to the north, the amphitheatre of hills which I have mentioned lifted up their indistinct forms, round which the shades of night were gathering, towards the heavens, that soon began to glisten with ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... be the chosen companions of nobles and princes, obtaining all that heart could desire of riches and honor,—we turn away and say, Poor Walter Scott! How desolately touching is the account in Lockhart, of his dim and indistinct agony the day his wife was brought here to be buried! and the last part of that biography is the saddest history that I know; it really makes us breathe a long sigh of relief when we read of the lowering of ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... only those black, indistinct figures, leaping out of the smoke, converging on the coach, their naked arms uplifted, their voices mingling in savage yells. Like lightning he worked his rifle, heart throbbing to the excitement, oblivious to all else; almost without realization he heard the deeper bellow of Moylan's ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... to-night, gracing my board and filling my heart with gladness; for I am old enough to remember the day when such a gathering would not have been possible in this land. Suppose, too, that, as the years went by, this man's memory of the past grew more and more indistinct, until at last it was rarely, except in his dreams, that any image of this bygone period rose before his mind. And then suppose that accident should bring to his knowledge the fact that the wife of his youth, the wife he had left behind him,—not ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... arm—her own drawn through his, and her hands clasped together—looking up into his face with a tender and confiding regard. I could not help noticing her manner, and the expression of her countenance. And yet it seemed to me that something of concern was on her face, but so indistinct as to be scarcely visible. Of this I ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... had risen by nine o'clock. Before half-past we were in sight of the rock on which stands the town of Yezdi-Ghazt, towering, shadowy and indistinct, over the moonlit plain. This is unquestionably the most curious and interesting village between Resht and Bushire. The post-house stands at the foot. As we rode to the latter through the semi-darkness caused by the shadow of the huge mass of boulders and mud on which the town is situated, ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... A long, indistinct, and uninteresting account of this project is here omitted, which Harris alleges might have transferred the whole commerce of Europe to the Dutch, but for which opinion he advances no substantial reasons, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... wondrous, perfect bliss were quite disproportionate to, and could not be explained by, the things we saw and experienced in the dream. I remember a dream of a bare, gray room, without windows or furniture, and moving about in a corner some indistinct object, whose terrifying weird impression could make me shudder even by day; another one of a small, narrow, square courtyard enclosed by high walls overgrown with ivy, which was also gruesome and appalling beyond description, - and then again blissful dreams ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... novelty of my strange position in this desolate region, it was some time before I could compose myself and sleep. It was a night of dreams. Sounds indistinct but numerous troubled my brain, until I was fully roused to wakefulness by horrible visions and doleful cries. The chuck-will's-widow, which in the south supplies the place of our whippoorwill, repeated his oft-told ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... that would enrich the Finder thereof for his life: and this should be his by right that could persever to come at it. What then? Quid multa? The Adventurer pass'd the Gates, and for a whole day's space his Friends without had no news of him, except it might be by some indistinct Cries heard afar off in the Night, such as made them turn in their restless Beds and sweat for very Fear, not doubting but that their Son and Brother had put one more to the Catalogue of those unfortunates that had suffer'd shipwreck on ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... count the pebbles on the bottom. The willows shaded it, and the grassy bank sloped down to the water's edge. I approached, I touched the water with my foot. I stepped in knee-deep, and not content with that, I laid my garments on the willows and went in. While I sported in the water, I heard an indistinct murmur coming up as out of the depths of the stream; and made haste to escape to the nearest bank. The voice said, 'Why do you fly, Arethusa? I am Alpheus, the god of this stream.' I ran, he pursued; ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... overcome with emotion and uttered some indistinct words. Iakov lowered his head, dissimulating a smile. Serejka was impassible, and he even yawned a little, at the same time ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... had even yet made up his mind would be to give him praise which was not his due. He was still doubting, though in his doubts the idea of marrying Polly Neefit became more indistinct, and less alluring than ever. By this time he almost hated Mr. Neefit, and most unjustly regarded that man as a persecutor, who was taking advantage of his pecuniary ascendancy to trample on him. "He ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... her till there was nothing to be seen but her flying sails, till the sails were one white wing on a dim violet sea, till the white wing was a gray dot, indistinct on ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... examined on a warm Summer day, a considerable number of bees will be found standing on the alighting board, with their heads turned towards the entrance, the extremity of their bodies slightly elevated, and their wings in such rapid motion that they are almost as indistinct as the spokes of a wheel, in swift rotation on its axis. A brisk current of air may be felt proceeding from the hive, and if a small piece of down be suspended by a thread, it will be blown out from one part of the entrance, and drawn in at ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... turns we held the sheet as the swift canoe glided over the sunlit waves till the island we had left began to grow dim in the distance and its mountains to sink, as it were, beneath the wave, while the place to which we were going grew less misty and indistinct. ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... swore, the driver snapped his whip furiously. The passengers in "coupe," "rotonde," and "interieure" popped out their heads, the passengers on the "banquette" stared, until at last, just as the postillions were dismounting to reconnoitre, twelve figures rose up from behind the barricade, indistinct in the gloom, and bringing their rifles to their shoulders ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... greater difference betwixt a ciuill and brutish vtteraunce then cleare distinction of voices: and the most laudable languages are alwaies most plaine and distinct, and the barbarous most confuse and indistinct: it is therefore requisit that leasure be taken in pronuntiation, such as may make our wordes plaine & most audible and agreable to the eare: also the breath asketh to be now and then releeued with some pause or stay more or lesse: besides that ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... there was an inn in the village. It was marked out to travellers by a sign-board dependent from a beam projecting over the footpath. Something had once been painted on the board, but it had become so blurred and indistinct under the corroding action of sun and rain, that it would be quite impossible now to decide whether the features delineated on it were those of a landscape, a lion, or a ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... smile. In the distance some fleecy cloudlets, driven by the breeze, now floated over Paris like a flock of swans. Huge gaps were being cleft in the fog; a momentary glimpse was given of the left bank, indistinct and clouded, like a city of fairydom seen in a dream; but suddenly a thick curtain of mist swept down, and the fairy city was engulfed, as though by an inundation. And then the vapors, spreading equally over every district, formed, as it were, ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... thing; but I'm fond of 'em they are all I've got—I was afraid he'd laugh at me that time, so I wouldn't let him look—it was father's birthday, and I felt bad about him and Sanch—" Ben's indignant voice got more and more indistinct as he stumbled on, and broke down over the last words. He did not cry, however, but threw back his little treasures as if half their sacredness was gone; and, making a strong effort at self-control, faced around, asking of Miss Celia, ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... with a feeling of reviving energy at such times. Sometimes a text of Scripture seemed to flash before my eyes and disappear. On these occasions I made terrible efforts to grasp the text, and have an indistinct sensation of increased strength resulting from the mere efforts, but most of the texts faded as quickly as they came, with the exception of one—"God is our Hope." Somehow I seemed to lay firm hold of that, and to feel conscious of holding it, even when sense was slipping away, ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... with him. Still, he might after all be a friend. I would banish the subject from my mind. I did so. In the next week we had fine weather and a fair breeze, till the land, stretching away in the north, blue and indistinct, was seen on our larboard bow. We hauled up for it till we got near enough to distinguish objects on shore. I cannot say that the appearance of that part of the new country which was to be our future home ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... naturalists with regard to petrifaction are so vague and indistinct, that no proper answer can be given to them. They in general suppose water to be the solvent of bodies, and the vehicle of petrifying substances; but they neither say whether water be an universal menstruum, nor do they show in what manner a solid body has been formed ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... stood under the north-west bastion, letting early night make its impressions on her. Her motionless figure, in indistinct garments, could not be seen from the river; but she discerned, rising up the path from the water, one behind the other, a row of peaked hats. Beside the hats appeared gunstocks. She had never seen any English, but neither her people nor the French showed ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... feature that is very clear or distinct, and that is a beautiful face that is always bending over me, and always seems full of love and tenderness. Sometimes there are other faces in the background, but they are confused and indistinct,—I can only recall this one that is so beautiful. Then there is always a general sense of light and beauty, and sometimes I seem to hear music; and then it is all suddenly succeeded by an indescribable terror, in which ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... impression which the visitor makes upon them. Still, Krall seems to know, by certain imperceptible signs, that this is not going to be a bad day. Muhamed quivered with excitement, snorts loudly through his nostrils, utters a series of indistinct little whinnyings: excellent symptoms, it appears. I take my seat on the corn-bin. The master, standing beside the black-board, chalk in hand, introduces me to Muhamed in due form, as ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... barge-master, whose feeling towards us, I was convinced, was anything but friendly, I thought it wiser to be less frank. Therefore, covering the action with a negligent motion of my hand, I screwed the glasses close together, so that in looking through them there was to be seen only a mass of indistinct objects looming up in a blurred cloud of light, and so handed them to him. Naturally, neither he nor Tizoc arrived at any very satisfactory conclusion in regard to the real use of them; and from their talk it was evident that they conceived the ceremony in which we had engaged in turn so earnestly ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... the girl's face, however, that had left an impression on the mind of Jean Marot not easily effaced. It was too indistinct and unemotional, this impression, to inspire analysis, but it was there, so that, under the lamp, Jean had at once recognized the ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... the enemy depreciating considerably. At 4.18 p.m. the third enemy ship was seen to be on fire. The visibility to the north-eastward had become considerably reduced, and the outline of the ships very indistinct. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... of greater focal length than that which makes the emergent pencils about equal in diameter to the pupil of the eye. On the other hand, the eye-glass must not be of such small focal length that the image appears indistinct and contorted, or dull for ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... long afterward, the wish to prosecute experiments; that is to say, to evoke phenomena under different determined conditions. The rational experimentalist does not proceed at hazard, but acts under the guidance of hypotheses, founded on a half indistinct and more or less just intuition of the connection existing among natural objects or forces. That which has been conquered by observation or by means of experiments, leads, by analysis and induction, to the discovery of empirical laws. These are the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... posture, I was half surprised to see that she had moved as far as the next pillar, following the sunshine. This time, however, she addressed me with some trivial salutation, civilly enough conceived, and uttered in the same deep-chested, and yet indistinct and lisping tones, that had already baffled the utmost niceness of my hearing from her son. I answered rather at a venture; for not only did I fail to take her meaning with precision, but the sudden disclosure of her eyes disturbed me. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be fully a couple of miles in the rear. But she kept on till she judged that fifteen minutes more must bring her to the encampment at Hickory Bush. Then through the hush of the night came to her ear a far off, indistinct sound, which resembled galloping thunder. She knew not what it could mean, unless indeed it was the tumult of some distant waterfall, borne hither now because, mayhap, a storm was brewing, and the ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... her sleep, and one or two broken words dropped from her unconscious lips. Greatly interested, and a little startled, Doucebelle bent over her. But she could make out nothing connected from the indistinct utterances. It sounded as if Belasez were dreaming about somebody whose face she could not see. "Hid faces," Doucebelle heard her murmur. It was probably, she thought, some reminiscence connected with the tumults which had brought her to seek shelter at the Castle. Doucebelle ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... rising, the chain broken here and there by a more abrupt peak, environ the city, crowned with dark pines and the famous cypress of Monterey (Cypressus macrocarpa.) Before us the bay lies calm and blue, and away across, can be seen the town of Santa Cruz, an indistinct white gleam ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... clatter behind her; the waiter had come into the room. Bertha ate but little, and drank her wine very quickly. She grew sleepy, and leaned back in the corner of the divan. Her thoughts gradually grew indistinct; there was a ringing in her ears like the echoes of the organ which she had heard in the church. She shut her eyes and, all at once, as though evoked by magic, she saw the room in which she had been with Emil the previous evening, and behind the red curtains she perceived the gleaming ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... he moved along the level way between pollard willows growing indistinct in the twilight, and soon confronted the outmost lamps of the town—some of those lamps which had sent into the sky the gleam and glory that caught his strained gaze in his days of dreaming, so many years ago. They winked their yellow eyes at him dubiously, and as if, though they had been ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... themselves again to the gloom. She passed along the facade of the house until she came to the corner, where the breeze surprised her, and whence she could discern the other house and, across the indistinct hedge, the other garden. Where was Edwin Clayhanger? Was he wandering in the other garden, or had he entered the house? Then a brief flare lit up a lower window of the dark mass for a few instants. He was within. She hesitated. Should she go forward, or should she go back? At length ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... says in its song, a child says in its prattle. 'Tis the same hymn; a hymn indistinct, lisping, profound. The child has what the bird has not, the sombre human destiny in front of it. Hence the sadness of men as they listen, mingling with the joy of the little one as it sings. The sublimest canticle to be heard on earth is the stammering of the human soul on the ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... eleven o'clock, a yellowish twilight brimmed the nave like the oil of a sacred cruet. From on high and from a great distance came strange gleams, the sombre purple of a window, a red pool on violet ones, indistinct figures encircled by their black settings. Against the high wall of night the blood-like gleam of ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... that gave special point to His memorable instruction, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." This was followed by the further injunction: "and unto God the things that are God's." Every human soul is stamped with the image and superscription of God, however blurred and indistinct the lines may have become through the corrosion or attrition of sin;[1111] and as unto Caesar should be rendered the coins upon which his effigy appeared, so unto God should be given the souls that bear His image. Render unto the world the stamped pieces that are made legally current ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... by 146 deg. E. long.) on his way to the discovery of those Islands afterwards denominated the Philippines. This group was named by him Islas de las Velas. [18] Legaspi called them the Ladrones. [19] Subsequently several navigators sighted or touched at these Islands, and the indistinct demarcation which comprised them acquired the name of Saint ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... a minute, a gray, wet veil had been drawn across the farther side of the valley, hiding it from the professor's sight. Even the outer limits of the garden grew indistinct. The leaves of the trees bobbed ceaselessly up and down, and glistened and dripped; the shrubs and flowers seemed to lift themselves higher from the earth, and stretch out their green fingers to the plenteous shower. The tinkle ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... also indistinct. How he raged at us, this wrath-snorter, because we understood him badly! But why did he not speak ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... broken references to the morrow coupled with the name Vivian had assumed,—needed the unerring instincts of love more cause for terror?—terror the darker because the exact shape it should assume was obscure and indistinct. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... save for the wild beat of the storm, there was silence. Then, clapping the receivers to his ears, Curlie uttered an exclamation. He was getting something, or at least thought he was. Yes, now he did get it, a whisper. Faint, indistinct, mingled with static, yet audible enough, there came the ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... came to the hospital every day with the English papers, and looked in to leave me the Mirror, for which he would never accept any payment. He had very few teeth and talked in an indistinct sort of patois and insisted on holding long conversations in consequence! He told me he would be enchante to bring me some novels bien choisis par ma femme (well chosen by my wife) one day, and in due course they arrived—the 1 franc ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... Coutras followed her, but waited outside in obedience to her gesture. As she opened the door he smelt the sickly sweet smell which makes the neighbourhood of the leper nauseous. He heard her speak, and then he heard Strickland's answer, but he did not recognise the voice. It had become hoarse and indistinct. Dr. Coutras raised his eyebrows. He judged that the disease had already attacked the vocal chords. Then Ata ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... the previous November. We started about six o'clock, and pulled merrily on through fog and rain, the beautiful wooded shore on our right, passing bergs here and there, the largest of which, though not over two hundred feet long, seemed many times larger as they loomed gray and indistinct through the fog. For the first five hours the sailing was open and easy, nor was there anything very exciting to be seen or heard, save now and then the thunder of a falling berg rolling and echoing from cliff to cliff, and ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... way to the front, gets excited again; for, you see, illness and weakness make these strong men as children, not least in the patient unmurmuring resignation with which they suffer. I think my Irish friend had an indistinct idea of a "muddle" somewhere, which had kept him for weeks on salt meat and biscuit, until it gave him the "scurvy," for he is very anxious that I should take over plenty of vegetables, of every sort. "And, oh! mother!"—and it is strange to hear his almost plaintive ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... beam now, than on the quarter; but I thought little of that, in the astonishment of seeing her once more. It was only a glimpse, I caught of her—dim and wavering, as though I looked at her through the convolutions of heated air. Then she grew indistinct, and vanished again; but I was convinced now that she was real, and had been in sight all the time, if I could have seen her. That curious, dim, wavering appearance had suggested something to me. I remembered the strange, wavy look of the air, a few days ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... dream, or was it really the young sailor coming back? He could not tell; he did not even know that the hoarse, harsh, rattling sound came from the boatswain who lay by his side; but in an indistinct way he saw the man coming down quickly till he was where the two buckets stood, and he shouted something to him whose sound fell like a blow ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... creeping and crawling from shelter to shelter. By the river bank, and partly protected by a narrow open space, crouched the Crees and voyageurs. Their eyes could see nothing, and only in vague ways did their ears hear, but they felt the thrill of life which ran through the forest, the indistinct, indefinable ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... course of other inquiries, I have had to do with fossil remains which looked quite plain at a distance, and became more and more indistinct as I tried to define their outline by close inspection. There was something there—something which, if I could win assurance about it, might mark a new epoch in the history of the earth; but, study as long as I might, certainty eluded ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... fellow-passengers, and took his seat. The coach was once more moving towards the metropolis, and again I endeavoured to lull myself to sleep. The same expressions proceeded from the lips of the travellers, and they were growing more and more indistinct and shadowy, when I was startled all on a sudden by one of the most palpable sounds that had ever disturbed and confounded a dreamer. I sat up and listened, coughed to convince myself that I was certainly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... did not discern that they cared about the things represented,—only about the representatives. The American was different. He, I think, cared about the ideas, though he cared about them in the wrong way. I mean that he claimed to find everything distinct, whereas the big things are naturally indistinct. They loom up in a shadowy way, and the American was examining them through field-glasses. But my other friends seemed to me to be only interested in the people who had the entree, so to speak—the priests of the shrine. They had noticed ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bliss. He declared the cherubim to be dismissed and the flaming sword to be sheathed, which had been appointed at the fall, to keep from man "the way of the tree of life." Faint, before this period, had been the hope, indistinct the prospect, which even good men enjoyed of the heavenly kingdom. Life and immortality were now brought to light. From the hill of Calvary the first clear and certain view was given to the world of the everlasting ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... young mother was looking at the old man, her child, as she used to look at him so many, many years ago. He stood still as if in a waking dream, his eyes fixed on the drawings till their outlines grew indistinct and they ran into each other, and a pale, sweet face shaped itself out of the glimmering light through which he saw them.—What is there quite so profoundly human as an old man's memory of a mother ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... of the mansion. There was, not long after, a noise of several persons descending the stairs. Surprised at these unusual sounds in their lonely habitation, she remained for a few moments in a state of trembling, yet indistinct apprehension, when the servant rushed into the room, with terror in her countenance, and informed her that her father was carried off ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... was gloom, with the tall pillar-like tree trunks standing up grey and indistinct; on the other side there was the bright fire, which was as dangerous, I thought, as it was useful, for though it served to keep off wild beasts it was likely to attract savage men, just as moths fly to ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... known. Mercury is a very difficult object to observe on account of its proximity to the sun. It is never visible at night; it must be examined in the twilight just before sunrise or just after sunset, or in the full daylight. In either case the glare of the sun renders the planet indistinct, and the heat of the sun disturbs our atmosphere so as to make accurate visibility almost impossible. The surface of Mercury is probably rough and irregular and much like the moon. Like the moon, too, it has practically no atmosphere. Mercury rotates on its axis once in 88 ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... me that translation from one language into another, if it be not from the queens of languages, the Greek and the Latin, is like looking at Flemish tapestries on the wrong side; for though the figures are visible, they are full of threads that make them indistinct, and they do not show with the smoothness and brightness of the right side; and translation from easy languages argues neither ingenuity nor command of words, any more than transcribing or copying out one document ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of his poetic powers exhibits the foundation upon which his later life was built. The figure of Beatrice, which appears veiled under the allegory, and indistinct in the bright cloud of the mysticism of the "Divina Commedia," takes her place in life and on the earth through the "Vita Nuova," as definitely as Dante himself. She is no allegorized piece of humanity, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... Villefort was continually haunted by an apparition—an apparition of a white face and white draperies, such as he had seen as he fell. Sometimes it was here, sometimes there, sometimes near him, and sometimes indistinct and far away. Sometimes he called out to it and tried to extend his arms; again he lay and watched, it murmuring gentle words, and ...
— "Le Monsieur De La Petite Dame" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... after the object that was quickly growing more and more indistinct in the dim moonlight, gazing with a strange heaviness in the region of his heart. He had to shut his teeth firmly together to conquer the momentary weakness that threatened to overpower him. But his resolution remained ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... for some years after her child was born had called herself Mrs. Murray,—who had been discarded by her own relations, and had taken herself to live with a country tailor. As years had rolled by the memory of what had really occurred in Applethwaite Church had become indistinct; and, though the reader knows that that marriage was capable of easy proof,—that there would have been but little difficulty had the only difficulty consisted in proving that,—the young heir and the distant Lovels were not assured of it. Their interest was adverse, ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... away, we headed in the only direction in which the wind was favorable. We left camp about three o'clock in the afternoon, following the shore with the wind quartering in our faces. We had gone but a mile from camp when I caught an indistinct outline of a bear feeding on the grass at the edge of the timber, about 125 yards away. I quickly fired, missing ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... diameter, and more or less disguised by a green coating of chrysocolla. The color of the mineral itself is a glistening grayish lead color, resembling chromite somewhat in appearance, but the crystals of an entirely different shape, being highly modified or indistinct rhombic prisms. The specific gravity is over 5, and the hardness 4. Before the blowpipe on a piece of wood charcoal it gives off fumes of sulphur, fuses, boils, and finally leaves a globule of copper. In nitric acid it dissolves, but the sulphur in combination with it separates ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... much time, as the anchor was so heavy that we could not move it without the aid of my complex machinery of blocks and pulleys. A steady breeze was blowing off shore when we set sail, at a little before sunset. It swept us quickly past the reef and out to sea. The shore grew rapidly more indistinct as the shades of evening fell, while our clipper bark bounded lightly over the waves. Slowly the mountain top sank on the horizon, until it became a mere speck. In another moment the sun and the Coral Island sank together into the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... the reader will find none. The designs themselves are, in most instances, little more than spirited sea-pieces, with such indistinct suggestion of local features in the distance as may justify the name given to the subject; but even when, as in the case of the Dover and Portsmouth, there is something approaching topographical detail, I have not considered it necessary to lead the reader into inquiries which certainly ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... A number of chubby innocents returning home from school, stopped and formed a line in front of him, and watched him quietly but firmly for the space of ten minutes or so. "Go away," said he, and they only seemed quietly interested. He asked them all their names then, and they answered indistinct murmurs. He gave it up at last and became passive on his gate, and so at length they ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... in bed," I said to myself, "and I will not disturb her." Yet something drew me towards the little window. I looked in. At first I could see nothing. At length, as I kept gazing, I saw something, indistinct in the darkness, like an outstretched ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... No, here! See how indistinct and confused it is. Your destiny is not yet settled. Frankly, I cannot tell you with certainty. No one can go in advance of destiny. Ah! Young man, I sympathize ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett |
