"Tentatively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was devoted to the problematical Prince Charming whose mission it would be to keep me young, then I asked tentatively:— ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... associated parts of Mark or Luke. Of John's contributions one—the feeding of the multitudes—is clearly located by its identity with a narrative found in all the other gospels. The visit to Jerusalem at the unnamed feast can be only tentatively placed. ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... of the reasons that bade him adopt the attitude of the Mysterious Unknown—except his sensitiveness on the point of his profession. He would rather die than appear before her imagination in the green silk tights of Petit Patou. I asked tentatively whether he had spoken much ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... been here sketched is not planned so much as a criticism in form on Herrick's poetry as an attempt to seize his relations to his predecessors and contemporaries. If we now tentatively inquire what place may be assigned to him in our literature at large, Herrick has no single lyric to show equal, in pomp of music, brilliancy of diction, or elevation of sentiment to some which Spenser before, Milton in his own time, Dryden and Gray, ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... "biographic documents" has to make what he can. Nor is this quite all. Teufelsdroeckh is further utilised as the mouthpiece of some of Carlyle's more extravagant speculations and of such ideas as he wished to throw out as it were tentatively, and without himself being necessarily held responsible for them. There is thus much point as well as humour in those sudden turns of the argument, when, after some exceptionally wild outburst on his eidolon's part, Carlyle sedately reproves him for the fantastic character ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... pssed his seventeenth birthday, and reckoned himself a man. He was in love again, but tentatively. He had read 'Don Juan,' and had learned a thing or two. He conceived that he had rubbed off the first soft bloom of youth, and the idea, natural to his time of life, that he was aged and experienced had ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... much in shelter as the nature of the porch admitted; but for all that, he was deplorably drenched below the waist. His hose began to freeze almost at once. Death from cold and exposure stared him in the face; he remembered he was of phthisical tendency, and began coughing tentatively. But the gravity of the danger steadied his nerves. He stopped a few hundred yards from the door where he had been so rudely used, and reflected with his finger to his nose. He could only see one way of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... protest. "Every form of conveyance you have mentioned is drafty. Coming from the hot climates I have lived in so long—" He paused and coughed tentatively. "But what is the use of all this thrust and parry?" pressing his advantage. "Are you or are you not going to give me ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... fragments. This is of less importance than in civil practice, because an injury by a bullet of small calibre, capable of seriously displacing fragments, has probably at the same time produced grave changes in the cord. In the presence of severe immediate symptoms we may tentatively assume that a simultaneous destructive lesion has been produced. In such injuries pain, combined with a tendency to improvement in the paralytic symptoms and return of reflexes, is the only point in favour of bone pressure, unless considerable ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... direct question, she really did not know. She groped, proffering tentatively some of the arguments half remembered from Rowlee's editorial columns. But she confronted now a lawyer, sure of himself. Keith explosively, and contemptuously demolished her contentions. Everything ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... surmises has been heard hinting tentatively at a possible re-grouping of European Powers. The alliance of the three Empires is supposed possible. And it may be possible. The myth of Russia's power is dying very hard—hard enough for that combination to take place—such is the fascination that ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... had no personal union with Jesus. To them He was only 'Jesus whom Paul preached.' They spoke His name tentatively, as an experiment, and imitatively. To command 'in the name of Jesus' was an appeal to Jesus to glorify His name and exert His power, and so when the speaker had no real faith in the name or the power, there was no answer, because there was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... said the doctor, glancing at him quickly. He added, tentatively: "She asked two questions that ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... librum de vita solitaria, qaem scripsit sororibus suis anachoritis apud Tarente. But Bishop Simon of Ghent, who died in 1315, could not have written the book, if it dates, at latest, from the early 13th century. It has been tentatively attributed to Richard Poor, who was connected with Tarrant, and was actually a benefactor of the monastery. But the adoption of Prof. Kolbing's early date would ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... precedes an adventure, yet sufficiently self-possessed to note the becoming nature of the light flannel suit axed rather rakish Panama he had pushed back from his forehead. It was not until she had almost passed him that he straightened up, lifted the Panama, tentatively, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... huge and accurately formed, made Spud pause in thought; the massive metal door that came up from below to fit that ring snugly—that, too, looked more like the work of human hands than of demons. The pilot was frankly puzzled as he tentatively moved a lever down below that door and saw the ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... few passes with his hand in front of the baby's face. Then he gave it a little poke in the ribs, tentatively. The effect was like adding ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... the murderer, he was walking rapidly backwards and forwards in the parlor, audible but not visible at first, being engaged with something or other in that part of the room which the door still concealed. What the something might be, the sound soon explained; he was applying keys tentatively to a cupboard, a closet, and a scrutoire, in the hidden part of the room. Very soon, however, he came into view; but, fortunately for the young man, at this critical moment, the murderer's purpose too entirely absorbed him to allow of his throwing a glance to the staircase, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... explanation of homosexuality has already been tentatively put forth. Thus, Iwan Bloch (Sexual Life of Our Time, ch. xix, Appendix) vaguely suggests a new theory of homosexuality as dependent on chemical influences. Hirschfeld also believes (Die Homosexualitaet, ch. xx) that the study of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... larger part here than it does in those sciences whose subject-matter is more amenable to direct observation. In the latter the chief function of the imagination will be the increase of knowledge by means of hypotheses which tentatively transcend the region ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... instances of the decline of true popular sympathy is the gradual disappearance in our time of the habit of singing in chorus. Even when it is done nowadays it is done tentatively and sometimes inaudibly; apparently upon some preposterous principle (which I have never clearly grasped) that singing is an art. In the new aristocracy of the drawing-room a lady is actually asked whether she sings. In the old democracy of the dinner ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... his friend whispered. Churchill coughed tentatively. The two voices drew nearer. To confuse the sentries, should they be listening, the one officer talked nonsense, laughed loudly, and quoted Latin phrases, while the other, in a low and distinct voice, said: "I cannot get out. The sentry suspects. ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... loved to adjust them tentatively, with various hypotheses as to the precise manner in which they thus went together. Meantime they have figured plausibly as representative of Attic sculpture at the end of its first period, still immature indeed, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... good-looking, "sort of distinguished, when he wants to be," had a line, and was properly inconstant. In fact, he summed up all the romance that her age and environment led her to desire. She wondered if those were his dancing-shoes that fox-trotted tentatively around the ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... exorcised one. Doubts I could stand. Imaginings I could stand. But doubts and imaginings together made a force so fell that I was driven to accept any reading of the mystery which might presumably afford a foothold for satisfying thought. And so I came to accept tentatively the Vampire theory—accept it, at least, so far as to examine it as judicially as was given me to do. As the days wore on, so the conviction grew. The more I read on the subject, the more directly the evidences pointed towards this view. ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... the origin of that system of representative government which has gone on from Sunderland's day to our own. But though William showed his own political genius in understanding and adopting Sunderland's plan, it was only slowly and tentatively that he ventured to carry it out in practice. In spite of the temporary reaction Sunderland believed that the balance of political power was really on the side of the Whigs. Not only were they the natural representatives ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... present the constructive results of the modern historical and literary study of the Bible, not dogmatically but tentatively, so that the reader and student may be in a position to judge for himself regarding the conclusions that are held by a large number of Biblical scholars and to estimate their practical ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... without releasing it. Then he called to mind that his spears always threw better when they were hurled heavy end first. So he turned the little shaft and applied the small end to the bow-string. Then he pulled the string tentatively, and let it go. The arrow, all unguided, shot straight up into the air, turned over, fell sharply, and buried its head in a bit of soft ground. Grom felt that this was progress. The spectators opened their mouths ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... slowly back toward the cabin, feeling old and uncertain, not quite knowing what to do with himself. Old Tom was over by the lean-to, sniffing and pawing tentatively at the fresh earth where Ed had filled in the hole. As Ed came up, he came over to rub against ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... 19 years of age for compulsory military service; conscript service obligation - 12 months; 18 years of age for volunteers; plans are to phase out conscription, tentatively moving to an all-professional force by 2007; under current law, every citizen is entitled to serve in the ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... doubtless, would gladly have amputated their legs, if the ministers had so decreed, and they apologized to the world every time an unforseen circumstance uncovered a portion of these offensive legs. In fact, they denied the existence of "said members," and alluded to them tentatively and with ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... of the most important of his life. He had married Minna Planer, who is said to have been a very pretty woman and quite incapable of understanding her husband and his artistic aspirations; and he began, slowly and tentatively, to shape a course through life for himself. He continued to gain experience in the production of other composers' operas; he studied incessantly, and at last he hit upon the idea of writing a grand opera in the Meyerbeer style, and going to Paris with it, in the hope of getting it produced ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... Bates, the butler, a faithful retainer who had served the father of Lucy Varr and her sister a full decade before passing with the house and land into the keeping of the younger daughter and her husband. At the time of Mr. Copley's death, Varr had tentatively suggested letting the man go, but his wife had protested against that idea and had gained her point by shrewdly convincing her husband that good servants were becoming increasingly difficult to find and that Bates could never be replaced for less than twice his wages. It was ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... several times to the office of her agents, one of the big English trading firms, to inquire how the wreck was getting along, and what the prospect was for a return to Capiz before Christmas. The man at the desk did not look characteristically English, and on my first appearance I addressed him tentatively in Spanish. He answered in that language, and we continued to use it. On one of the later visits this gentleman was not visible, but in his place a red-headed, freckled youth, with the map of Scotland outlined on his rugged ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... mate, and in turn made Bill Blunt make many a trip to the shelter of the galley whence he inspected his superior quizzically. At length, when the hands were getting their supper, eating on the forecastle head in order to maintain their attitude of alertness, the mate joined Bill and remarked tentatively: ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... but he looked at the curly head, and felt a pang of distaste. The idea of Darsie Garnett sobered and disciplined out of recognition was distinctly unpleasant. He wriggled in his chair, and said tentatively: "It will take more than one old lady to tame you, young woman! You'll have lots of fun yet—perhaps more than ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... assumption. The sum of our conclusions, therefore, was that we had here the name-device of a priest-king who had ruled the Aztec tribe during some portion of the first migration. And, assuming that he had lived during the period to which my codex referred, and accepting the system of dates tentatively adopted by Senor Ramirez, we even fixed the ninth century of our era as the period in which ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... adoration at his divinity, inquiring mutely whether that divinity would permit a common warrior like himself to come and kiss her hand. She saw him finally and extended one hand idly; at which Hec dropped his ears, wagged his tail uncertainly, and came on slowly up the stair. He nozzled his head tentatively against her knee; and so, receiving sanction, went into delighted waggings, licking tenderly the soft white hand ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... last, and the other two were of course Leithgow and Friday. But had they survived the outrush of air? Carse felt in his left glove for the suit's gravity control lever; found it and tentatively moved it. His acceleration slowly increased. He brought the lever part-way back. Then, into the microphone encased ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... the threshold I heard a chair pushed back, and a very old gentleman rose to welcome me at the far end of the cool and shadowy room; a tall white-haired figure in a loose suit of holland. He did not advance, but held out a hand tentatively, as if uncertain from what direction I was advancing. Almost at once I saw that he ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Jarvis you were here, Beth," he said one evening as he passed the chocolates to Mrs. Coulson. Annie looked interested. "I suppose Mrs. Jarvis would not recognize Elizabeth now," she said tentatively. ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... that ultimately resulted in the adoption of a new constitution and presidential election in 2004. On 9 October 2004, Hamid KARZAI became the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan. The new Afghan government's next task is to hold National Assembly elections, tentatively scheduled ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... ten dollars for that," she said hesitatingly, "and I could have got more for a larger one, but I had to do that in my room, during recreation hours. If I had more time and a place where I could work"—she stopped timidly and looked tentatively at Jack. But he was already indulging in a characteristically reckless idea of coming back after he had left Sophy, buying the miniature at an extravagant price, and ordering half a dozen more at extraordinary figures. ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Gussie, who is a bit of a poet in his way, 'is vaudeville's springtime. All over the country, as August wanes, sparkling comediennes burst into bloom, the sap stirs in the veins of tramp cyclists, and last year's contortionists, waking from their summer sleep, tie themselves tentatively into knots. What I mean is, this is the beginning of the new season, and everybody's ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... dwelling was the great dancing-house of the town, and when we had bade him good-night, and turned to go back to the inn, I rather tentatively suggested to Marnier that, perhaps, it would be interesting to look in there ...
— Desert Air - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... the war? may be given, in Quaker fashion, by another question: What will happen to the index number of the prices of commodities? It seems fairly probable that both these questions may be answered, very tentatively and diffidently, by the expression of a hope that after a time, when peace conditions have settled down and all the merchant ships of the world have been restored to their peaceful occupations, the general level of the price of commodities ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... been harvested, some filtering software companies use automated key word analysis tools to evaluate the content and/or features of Web sites or pages accessed via a particular URL and to tentatively prioritize or categorize them. This process may be characterized as "winnowing" the harvested URLs. Automated systems currently used by filtering software vendors to prioritize, and to categorize or tentatively categorize the content and/or features of a Web site or page accessed via ...
— Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) Ruling • United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
... coach seemed to fly along the road, beside the river. As usual, he did not speak to her, but stared straight in front of him, the ribbons seeming to lie quite loosely in his slender, white hands. Marguerite looked at him tentatively once or twice; she could see his handsome profile, and one lazy eye, with its straight fine ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... influence of the monastery long lay over him, beneath which he continued to manifest those eccentric habits which his prolonged state of loneliness had engendered. He looked askance at the amenities which his associates tentatively held out to him. He sank himself deep in study, and for weeks, even months, he shunned the world of people and things. He found no stimulus to a search for his ancestral palace within the city, nor for a study of the Rincon records which lay moldering ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... him Dryden and the eighteenth century, regarding poetry generally as a thing apart, followed the latter sort; but when the Romantic Revival brought poetry back to ordinary human life there reappeared, tentatively, of course, a simpler blank verse in Thomson, Crabbe, Cowper, and Wordsworth. A clear example is the opening ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... apparently would come upon her like a fresh discovery, and she would become hysterical. But I do not think that she really SAW me. She looked at the riata and sniffed it disparagingly, she pawed some pebbles that were near me tentatively with her small hoof; she started back with a Robinson Crusoe-like horror of my footprints in the wet gully, but my actual personal presence she ignored. She would sometimes pause, with her head thoughtfully between her fore-legs, and apparently say: "There is some extraordinary presence ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... honest couple with the courage of their convictions," I remark to Josephine, tentatively. "Before the sermon has begun they will be on the river and they will come home delightfully tired just in ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... inclination dictates. This adds to variety, and as digestion is better when the food is better relished, no doubt, in this case, that which pleases the taste best is the best to eat. At least, we can hold this view tentatively ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... are." He rubbed his face tentatively with his bandaged hand; then smiled blandly at his mother. "Yes, there ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... mentally, and began to probe tentatively in this new part of his mind. He could feel Horng too reaching slowly for contact; his presence was comfortable, mild, confused but unworried. As his thoughts blended with Horng's the present faded perceptibly; this confusion was merely a moment in centuries, and soon too it would pass. Rynason ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... lingered undecided. He was now standing in the M.B. waistcoat and the pink bed-gown. The sleeves were more obtrusive than ever. The minister was reminded of his official duties. He said tentatively— ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... course, because matters had taken such a sudden and unexpected turn that these unpractised minds were not prepared for it, and had come to a standstill, like a stopped clock, under the shock. But after a little the machinery began to work again, tentatively, and by twos and threes the men put their heads together and privately buzzed over this and that and the other proposition. One of these propositions met with much favor; it was, to confer upon the assassin a vote of thanks for removing Flint Buckner, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... duration, for a suitor usually stood at her doorstep almost as the funeral procession ended. The most generally known, of such incidents, was the pursuit of Cicely Jordan, upon the death of her husband Samuel. Within two days Reverend Greville Pooley pressed his suit. The widow tentatively agreeing, but evidently pregnant with the unborn child of her deceased husband, insisted that she would marry no man until she was "delivered." In the meantime, William Farrar, named administrator of her ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... prevent, a child from doing harmful actions. If it wants to touch a hot iron, say clearly it is hot, and will burn, but do not move it. Then, if the child persists, it will touch the iron tentatively, and the small discomfort will teach it that obedience would have been better. Let it learn as far as possible by the hard, but wholesome, road ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... peg and bow aside and blew softly and steadily on the glowing point. It spread still more and now a small tongue of flame rose and flickered. Instantly Harrigan laid small bits of wood criss-cross on the pile of tinder. The flame licked at them tentatively, recoiled, rose again and caught hold. The ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... as well as the amateur shop-lifter has always presented to me an interesting phase of criminality," remarked Kennedy tentatively, during a lull in their mutual commiseration. With thousands of dollars' worth of goods lying unprotected on the counters, it is really no wonder that some are tempted to reach out and take what ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... they were traitors, traitors to God and their country at once. Their aim was to draw the Church of England farther away from the Protestant Churches, and nearer to the Church which Protestants regarded as Babylon. They aped Roman ceremonies. Cautiously and tentatively they were introducing Roman doctrine. But they had none of the sacerdotal independence which Rome had at any rate preserved. They were abject in their dependence on the Crown. Their gratitude for the royal protection which enabled them to defy the ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... "Otto," he said tentatively, without raising his voice above the tone he had used for Polly. The man did not stir. "Otto," a little louder. ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... evening air, the Earl seated by Miss Willoughby, Scremerston smoking with Logan; while the white dress of Lady Alice flitted ghost-like on the lawn, and the tip of the Prince's cigar burned red in the neighbourhood. In the drawing-room Lady Mary was tentatively conversing with the Jesuit, that mild but probably dangerous animal. She had the curiosity which pious maiden ladies feel about the member of a community which they only know through novels. Certainly this Jesuit ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... water, and we creep forward steadily. On the bridge the village is assembled. Foreign devils are a rarity. The gold-brown faces are not unfriendly, merely curious. They peer in rows over the rail with grunts of nasal interest. Tentatively, experimentally, as we pass they spit down upon us. Not that they wish us ill, but it can be done, and the temptation ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... volunteered. Sid decided to go upstairs with Tony Lattimer, and Gloria Standish decided to go upstairs, too. Most of the party would remain on the seventh floor, to help Selim von Ohlmhorst get it finished. After poking tentatively at the escalator with the spike of her ice axe, Martha led the ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... man in black-rimmed spectacles, with a distended nose and long upper lip and chin, was tentatively fumbling ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... working the re-enforcement of power or emotion resulting from gregarious living. This study is concerned, however, with a "social" rather than a "religious" taboo,—if such a distinction can somewhat tentatively be made, with the admission that the social scruple very easily takes ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... be wiser to proceed tentatively and not commit ourselves for more than six weeks to start with. It is just conceivable that the treatment might stimulate extravagance instead of economy. Financial thrombosis is not unknown as one of the obscurer forms of megalomania. Still, as I have said, the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, June 2, 1920 • Various
... couldn't stan' it," said Miss S'mantha, tentatively. Under all her man-fear and suspicion ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... of Miss Dickinson's poetical melange is a little poem which needs only a slight revision of the initial stanza to entitle it to rank with some of the swallow-flights in Heine's lyrical intermezzo. I have tentatively tucked a rhyme into ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... whom I spoke to at random but have no space to write of, assured me that they were quite satisfied with their treatment at the works, and repudiated—some of them with indignation—the suggestion that I put to them tentatively that they suffered from a system of sweating. For the most part, indeed, their gratitude for the help they were receiving in the hour of need ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... our peaceful sunny corner, the two pests, the saddest in the world, the jest which insists on being funny at any cost, and the cry which insists on being the latest scream! [The BLACKBIRD is heard tentatively whistling, "How sweet to fare afield".] You, Cock, who had the sense to prefer the grain of true wheat to the pearl, how can you allow yourself to be taken in by that villainous Blackbird! A bird who practises ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... asking friends to visit her, only to be brought up sharply by the realization that hers was not a home to which such women as she had known would care to come. Once she spoke to her husband tentatively of sending ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... elegance! Now will the senor ride in splendor that will dazzle the eyes to look upon!" Teresita bantered, poking a slipper-toe tentatively towards the saddle, and clasping her hands in mock rapture. "On every corner, silver crescents; on the tapideros, silver stars bigger than Venus; riding behind the cantle, a whole milky way; Jose will surely go mad with rage when he sees. ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... understand that the best thing it could do to forward this prosperous tendency of things was to do nothing; for this is a lesson which has not yet been learned by any legislature in the world. For several years they had been tinkering, at first modestly and tentatively, at a scheme of internal improvements which should not cost too much money. In 1835 they began to grant charters for railroads, which remained in embryo, as the stock was never taken. Surveys for other railroads were also proposed, to cross the State ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... jubilation among the three. This was precisely the kind of information the U-League—and everybody else—had been hoping to obtain. 112-113 tentatively could be assumed to be a kind of monitor of the station's activities. It could be induced to go into action and to activate the other plasmoids. With further observation and refinement of method, its action undoubtedly ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... that they were new priests; the previous ones had all been boiled for letting the Holy Waters cease. They found out I was there only to help them restore the flow of the waters. They bought this, tentatively, and we all heaved out of the tub and trickled muddy paths across the floor. There was a bolted and guarded door that led into the pyramid proper. While it was being opened, the First Lizard ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... had left the ground uncultivated and the buildings in ruins. The missionaries found the residence of Notre-Dame-des-Anges plundered and partly destroyed; but they went to work cheerfully to restore it, and before autumn it was quite habitable. Meanwhile Le Jeune had begun his labours tentatively as a teacher. His pupils were an Indian lad and a little negro, the latter a present from the English to Madame Hebert. The class grew larger; during the winter a score of children answered the call of Le Jeune's bell, and sat at his feet learning the Credo, the Ave, and the ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... "Yes," replied Carroll, tentatively. His was not the order of mind which could realize its own aggrandizement by wholesale criticism of a great railroad system for the sake of criticism, and, moreover, he had a certain pride and self-respect about maintaining the majesty of that which he must continue to patronize ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to Farraday at his office, complete all but three chapters, of which she enclosed an outline. With it she sent a purely formal note, asking, in the event of the book being accepted, what terms the Company could offer her, and whether she could be paid partly in advance. She put the request tentatively, knowing nothing of the method of paying for serials. In another week she had a typewritten reply from Farraday, saying that the serial had been most favorably reported, that the Company would buy it for fifteen hundred ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... brown sporangia with short black stipes, borne often as Dr. Peck found them, assembled on living leaves, distinguish this little species. In the former edition this form was tentatively enrolled under S. axifera (Bull.); but see further under ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... the experiment, which is now being planned for a workshop and school concerned with the production of play materials, I am hoping that educators and industrial managers may readily make the application to other lines of industry. The plan is tentatively confined to a two years' course. It may be found that two years is too long a time to confine the pupils to the work and the problems of the shop. It may be found in the first year that the pupils will be interested in following some of the problems ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot
... it if I wasn't here?" Meg asked tentatively. The old Meg in her thrilled at the idea of dancing on a good floor with good partners. Freddy had told her of Michael's record as a dancer, so she knew that she could count on two partners, at least, for Freddy and she had learnt dancing together, and had enjoyed ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... occasions, when, without detracting from the omnipotence of Shakespeare's dramatic instinct, one may tentatively infer that Shakespeare gave voice through his created personages to sentiments which were his own. The Shakespearean drama must incorporate somewhere within its vast limits the personal thoughts and passions of its creator, even although they are for the most part ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... Such were the words uttered with a somewhat different intonation, which last month, in speaking of Mr O'Connell's crusade against the peace of Ireland, we used tentatively, almost doubtfully, but still in the spirit of hope, in reference to the crisis then apparently impending, that the agitation might prolong itself by transmigrating into some other shape, for that case we allowed. But in any result, foremost amongst the auguries ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... a cap below, sir," Pangbourn announced, with serenity, and Thorpe, who had been tentatively fingering the big, flaring sombrero, thrust it back upon its peg as if it had ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... item, resolving to add it to my list of curious Americanisms. Already I had begun a narrative of my adventures in this wild land, a thing I had tentatively entitled, ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... it into extremes, it can be gradually amended until it shows no sign of discordance or failure anywhere, and even serves as a guide to new and previously unsuspected phenomena. When that stage is reached, it is provisionally accepted and tentatively held as a step in the direction of the truth; though the mind is always kept ready to improve and modify and enlarge it, in accordance with the needs of more thorough investigation and fresh discovery. It was so, for instance, with Maxwell's electromagnetic ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... a long chair slanted across the hearthrug. Derry got into a gray dressing gown and threw himself into the chair. Muffin, with a solicitous sigh, sat tentatively on his haunches. His master had had no word for him. Things were very bad indeed, when Derry had no word ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... particularly sharp lookout for the possible black curls of Susie Smith. She would have liked to take a ride in the pretty boats, herself, but the sign said "Five cents" a trip, and she did not have any money with her. She smiled hopefully into the faces of several women, and twice she spoke tentatively. But no one spoke first to her, and those whom she addressed eyed her coldly, ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... to lead the subject back to the case of men who disappeared, turned in the deck-chair where he was sitting enjoying a light breeze which had sprung up after dark, and said tentatively: 'I can't quite understand, you know, a man disappearing altogether and ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... talked—most of them blunderingly—of things they would not have mentioned without derision in pre-war days. Premonitions, dreams, visions, telepathy were not by any means always flouted with raucous laughter and crude witticisms. Even unorthodox people had begun to hold tentatively ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of Gardeners, one and all eviscerated, speak of similar customs. They are the victims of the females when the latter have no further use for them. For four months, from April to August, the insects pair off continually; sometimes tentatively, but usually the mating is effective. The business of mating is all but endless ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... one of his cards. "I wish to make inquiry about young Mr. Madden—Mr. Michael Madden," he said, holding the card forth tentatively. "I have only just heard of his illness, and it has been ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... he talked to her whenever he could take an opportunity. The valley became the world for him, and the world beyond the mountains where men lived in sunlight seemed no more than a fairy tale he would some day pour into her ears. Very tentatively and timidly he spoke ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... based upon them, which have forced me step by step over the long way from the position of supernaturalistic traditionalism in its Christian form, still occupied by you, to that of naturalistic scientism in its socialist form which I am now occupying, as tentatively as possible, pending further study in the light of additional facts, for which (some six years ago, when I was desperately battling to prevent the shipwreck of my faith in the god and heaven of orthodox Christianity) I appealed to about 800 outstanding theologians, among them yourself, ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... a steady stare with Mrs. Gould, added, tentatively, as it were, "And yet, if we had could ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... arrange their action. The principium movendi, the central force which organizes and assigns its place in the system to all the other forces, these are quite undetermined by any mere arithmetical recitation of the agencies concerned. Often these primary principles can be deduced only tentatively, or by a regress to the steps, historically speaking, through which they have arisen. Sometimes, for instance, the population, as to its principle of expansion, and as to its rate, together with the particular influence socially ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... En route, Laro said—stiffly? Tentatively? Hilton could not fit an adverb to the tone—"Master, have you then decided to destroy me? That is of course ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... in tentatively committing himself to the conclusion we are criticising, it seems to us that Sir Oliver Lodge loses sight of the very essence of his own contention: his conclusion, in effect, contradicts his premises. Syllogistically, and, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... declined to be drawn into a discussion, even into an expression of opinion, and the young man continued, with apology in his tone: "It may be bad taste on my part, of course. But one hears it said on every side. If you could tell me what I ought to read ... or, perhaps, advise me a little?" he ended tentatively. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... four of his Raiatea men bent to the oars. As they landed on the beach he looked curiously at the women under the schooner's awning. He waved his hand tentatively, and they, ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... the past developed with endless clews, which she could not follow aloud. After waiting for her to resume, Sommers asked tentatively: ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... overlooked, or arbitrarily and falsely misinterpreted. With all the more profound and large-minded men of this century, the real general tendency of the mysterious labour of their souls was to prepare the way for that new SYNTHESIS, and tentatively to anticipate the European of the future; only in their simulations, or in their weaker moments, in old age perhaps, did they belong to the "fatherlands"—they only rested from themselves when they became "patriots." I think of such men as Napoleon, Goethe, Beethoven, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... provided for establishment of a plural political system; supplanted on 20 October 2004 by a provisional constitution approved by the parliament which extended the transition; a 28 February 2005 popular referendum ratified the new constitution which set ethnic quotas for government positions, and tentatively scheduled general elections for ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... at all. But I can't help seeing resemblances. And sometimes they are quite appalling. Now you, for instance,"—here she laid a hand tentatively on mine—"you, in your mysterious ideas of religion, actually believe that persons who lead evil lives and encourage evil thoughts, descend the scale from which they have risen and go back to ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... doesn't. I really don't see," said Mary tentatively, "why one shouldn't regard dressing as a form of art; I mean, of course, as long as one keeps it in its proper ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... taxi-cabs and private motors are almost as abundant as in peace-time, and the peril of pedestrianism is kept at its normal pitch by the incessant dashing to and fro of those unrivalled engines of destruction, the hospital and War Office motors. Many shops have reopened, a few theatres are tentatively producing patriotic drama or mixed programmes seasonal with sentiment and mirth, and the cinema again unrolls ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... tentatively, my dear; We will say two bottles, and we will make the first inroad on our poultry yard. We had twenty eggs, this morning; and the woman downstairs reports that two of the hens want to sit, though how they explained the matter to ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... "Life and Letters" of George Ticknor. There one has a pleasant picture of a booklover, traveler, and friend. But in his public speech he was arrogant, unsympathetic, domineering. "Sumner is my idea of a bishop," said Lincoln tentatively. There are bishops and bishops, however, and if Henry Ward Beecher, whom Lincoln and hosts of other Americans admired, had only belonged to the Church of England, what an admirable Victorian bishop he might have made! Perhaps his best service to the cause of union ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... quite sentimental and poetical had he not noticed that the gray eyes which often rested tentatively and meaningly on himself, even while apparently listening to Richards, were more than ever like the eyes of the mustang on whose scarred flanks her ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte |
