"Vacantly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and went, scribbling hasty notes in dog-eared notebooks, he, a human statue of Amaze, gazed at the open window, continuously and vacantly. Jostled by the crowds of curious and interested visitors, he stood, the most surprised man in ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... the bed with a kitten-like motion and, stretching her arms above her head, lay taut for a second, then relaxed suddenly. Head tucked in the pillow, she apparently was lost in thought, for her brown eyes, slightly narrowed, stared vacantly at the frilling of the pillow-slip. Then she gave a soft little sound that had it not been so pretty would have been a giggle, wriggled round, and slipped off the bed. She ran to the mirror and began to take down her tumbled hair. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... she was silent—vacantly contemplating the bare floor. There had been no revelation. She was not taken unaware. She had watched his purpose form. Long before, she had perceived the issue approaching, and had bravely met it. But ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... went into the hall and stared vacantly at the pond and the village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese ... God sent the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... gossip. But she had far less confidence in Jacques Monnier's wisdom, and thought it not inexpedient to go downstairs, after the doctor's departure, and give her customer a word of exhortation. He was seated at the table as before, twirling the glass in his fingers, and gazing vacantly out of window. ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... Jack's fall might have seemed to her bewildered fancy as a part of her frantic act, for she fell forward vacantly on the railing. But by this time Jack had grasped her arm as if to help himself to ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Morey settled back and looked vacantly at the ceiling. They were seated now in the conference ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... said vacantly, "—that is a strange word on my lips to-night, is it not? Well, Nehushta, you have the best of the argument. All you say is quite true, if a little over-coloured. Of course, Miriam is quite right not to marry me if she has scruples, and, of course, I should be quite wrong to take advantage of ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... was ferried across the busy Scheldt, the white blaze of his passion cooled; but the biting irony of his estate ate, corrosive, into his soul. Hollow-eyed he glared vacantly into space, pale lips unmoving, his ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... it and about in ever narrowing circles, heard herself commended for her promptitude in leaving Wanless, answered enquiries as to Ingram's behaviour under what Mrs. Percival otiosely called "his bereavement," echoed speculations at to his whereabouts—played, in short, vacantly an empty part, and kept her mother upon tenterhooks. She gained ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... again, and made deep dints with his nails to mark the place in the book of dialogues to which we were to learn by heart. Woloda began working diligently, but I was too distracted to do anything at all. For a long while I stared vacantly at the book; but tears at the thought of the impending separation kept rushing to my eyes and preventing me from reading a single word. When at length the time came to repeat the dialogues to Karl (who listened to us with blinking eyes—a very bad sign), ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... followed his example, and the other members of the council bowed and retired. The Margrave of Baden and Count von Starhemberg remained standing by the green table, while the emperor, who had crossed the room, now stood vacantly staring out of a window, drumming with his fingers ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... impulse was to awaken her brother, but, after a moment's thought, she concluded to wait a short time. A few more sounds were heard, when they entirely ceased. During this time, Rosalind, although suffering an intense fear, had been gazing vacantly toward the point or clearing nearest the house. As her eyes rested upon the spot, she caught the shadowy outlines of a dark body moving stealthily and noiselessly ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... many people about, mostly in groups chatting with each other; but he recognized no one. Perhaps he was looking out for Colonel and Mrs. Ross; perhaps for a slender figure in black, with blue beads; at all events, he was gazing somewhat vacantly around when some one turned close by him. Then his heart stood still for a second. The sudden light that sprang to her face when she recognized him blinded him. Was it to be always so? Was she always to come upon him in a flash, as it were? What chance had the ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... were all sitting under the trees before the hotel, resting rather vacantly after a hard romp. Celia perched high on a root, her curls against the brown bark, her hat dangling by its elastic from a forefinger, her lips parted, her eyes vacant. Gerald leaned gracefully against the trunk. Bobby sat cross-legged on the ground watching her—and ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... The prisoner stared vacantly in front of him and all his movements had to be directed. But he was alive and his thumb was ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... he wanted to eat. It was a treat to see him. He accepted these things without surprise, without spoken thanks; just as he would have accepted an increased supply of work and kicks. Before his little fire he squatted all day, gazing vacantly off into space, or gnawing on a piece of the meat he always kept roasting on sticks. He spoke to no one; he never smiled or displayed any obvious signs of enjoyment; but from him radiated a feeling of ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... remaining space on the card was left blank to receive the statement of regimen, etc. A nurse was giving the patient an iced drink. After swallowing feebly, the man relapsed into a semi-stupor, his eyes opening and closing vacantly. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and began to dress, her nervous hands fumbling at the buttons on her clothes. Her eyes, deeper and shadowed in dark rings, stared vacantly at the white canvas before her. Lawrence was talking again, and she listened. Presently he started across the room and bumped into a chair. The incident was one which had become long familiar to her, and ordinarily she would have thought nothing of it, but this morning she flushed with sudden ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... an automatic bow. Then a bewildered, struggling look came into his face, then a helpless look, and he stood staring vacantly, like a somnambulist, at the waiting audience. The moments of painful suspense went by, and he still stood as if struck down. I saw how it was; he had ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the Narcissus, who was staring vacantly after the flying torpedo, he rang for Full Speed Ahead, and called down the speaking tube to the chief to hook her on for all he had; then, with his helm still hard-a-starboard, he swung the ship in as small a circle as possible and headed her at full ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... about being late at his employment, and John Smith slowly felt his way to his own door. His wife, already up, opened it. "Thee varmint! thee never gi'ed I that shilling last night for the baker." Smith felt hopelessly in his pocket, and then looked at her vacantly. "Thee drunken, nasty old——," said the infuriated woman, almost unconsciously lifting her hand. Perhaps it was that action of hers which suggested the same to his mind, which was in a mechanical state. Perhaps the stinging words of last night had at last sunk deep ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... saw there startled them beyond measure, for seated on a log, outside of the cattle-shed, was a man, with a straggling, unkempt beard, vacantly gazing ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... cigar, leaned back in his chair and looked vacantly at the ring of smoke which floated in the still air. A smile played on his lips, but his eyes were grave. Then he looked at the captain. There was in his gross obesity something extraordinarily repellent. He had the plethoric self-satisfaction of ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... my father looked vacantly from me to him and from him to me, and at last, his old hospitable instincts coming uppermost, he said, "Thou hast not asked thy cousin ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... to speak, eat, or drink, I asked one of the girls who they were, and where they lived; but she only stared vacantly, muttering something that could ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Notting Hill. Still I loitered, spellbound... I was aware of some one at my side, some one asking me a question. 'I beg your pardon?' I said. The stranger was a tall man, bronzed and bearded. He repeated his question. In answer, I pointed silently to the ruin. 'That?' he gasped. He stared vacantly. I saw that his face had become pale under its sunburn. He looked from the ruin to me. 'You're not joking with me?' he said thickly. I assured him that I was not. I assured him that this was indeed the club to which he had asked to be directed. 'But,' he stammered, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... line of thought, suggested perhaps by the last remark, made her glance in passing at Martin. It was so quick that only Martin saw it. At all events, Paul Deulin appeared to be looking rather vacantly in ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... Let me see," said Ermentrude, rising; but at the window her pale blue eyes gazed vacantly as if she did not know what she was looking at ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this king of Yonder Kingdom,—tall and straight, thin-lipped and white and tawny. So, again, this last day, she strove to burn life into his singularly sodden clay,—to put his icy soul aflame wherewith to warm her own, to set his senses singing. Vacantly he heard her winged words, staring and curling his long mustaches with vast ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... would bound shrieking after him in among the trees and disappear! Martin usually wakened at this point, and found the marmoset gazing in his face with an expression of sorrowful solemnity, and the old sun-dried trader staring vacantly before him as he steered his light craft down the broad stream of ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... extraordinary things. But he encountered a surprise today. With the words 'Off with your hats, gentlemen! a genius,' Eusebius laid down a piece of music. We were not allowed to see the title-page. I turned over the music vacantly; the veiled enjoyment of music which one does not hear has something magical in it. And besides this, it seems that every composer has something different in the note forms. Beethoven looks differently from Mozart on paper; the difference resembles that between Jean Paul's and Goethe's prose. But ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... Paul gazed vacantly from the zenith to the nadir, and from west to east, when suddenly his eyes fell on the Abbot of Antinoe. His face grew pale with a holy terror, and his eyeballs ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... suspense, then seated himself on his place and stared at me, got down again, and repeated the same proceedings several times. It was not until after a long hour that he laid the hatchet on one side, remained sitting on the waggon, and contented himself with gaping vacantly at me every now and then. At the end of a second hour we reached the station where my servant was, and I did not allow him to leave ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... his hand with silent sympathy. She did not know what to say, and was so afraid of speaking wrongly, that she was silent. But when his attitude had remained unchanged for more than half-an-hour, his eyes gazing vacantly and fixedly at the fire, no sound but now and then a deep- drawn sigh to break the weary ticking of the clock, and the drip-drop from the roof without, Mary could bear it no longer. Anything to rouse her ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... window gazing vacantly at the scene below. All the morning I had sat there with that empty feeling in my soul. From time to time my mother spoke to me, but I answered without turning my head. Since my illness I seemed to have lost all interest in life, and this, although everybody was kind to me. My mother gave ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... to say I can't find Master Piers anywhere in the house or garden, Sir Beverley," he said, looking straight before him and blinking vacantly at the lamp. "I'm inclined to believe, sir, that he must ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... and the young man were alone, there was a silence of some moments, during which he stood at the fire, looking rather vacantly at the dying embers, whilst her ladyship busied herself ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... again in spasms of pain. When he revived, Marlowe Mann had come. The boy lifted his eyes to his beloved teacher vacantly; then the light of intelligence came back to them, ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... looked up, cast a furtive glance at the interlocutor, then stared vacantly, but with head erect, before him. His eyes were glassy and ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... around and looked into the depths of his desk, staring vacantly. His rounded shoulders suggested grief. Orne settled his wallet more firmly, pressing on the outside of the buffalo coat. His face again sagged with sympathy. "Mr. Britt, it's only like what most ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... sat on the side of the bed, her chin resting on her clasped hands, her gaze fixed vacantly on the floor,—"Poor baby! Dead,—thank God!" was all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... creature as would creep into a wet ditch an' perish o' want an' misery—an' all because you're so full o' Greek an' Latin an' fine airs that you can't even tell how many beans make five!" Having said which, all in a breath, she turned and, mounting the ladder, left me staring vacantly at the crumbling wall and greatly humbled since all these indictments I knew for very truth. Sitting thus, I heard her descend the ladder, felt her hand upon my bowed shoulder and glancing up, saw her eyes ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... "Last night?" echoed Don vacantly. He remembered then that Lawton roomed in Number 20 Billings, directly above Number 6. "What about ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... a garden in the middle of the square, and he walked round and round it. He gazed vacantly at a statue in the middle of the garden, and then walked round the rails again. The darkness was gathering fast, the gas was beginning to blaze, and he was like a creature in the coil of a horrible fascination. That word, that name over the music hall, fizzing and crackling in ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Mulcahy looked vacantly down the room. Bid a boy defy his father when the pantomime-cab is at the door; or a girl develop a will of her own when her mother is putting the last touches to the first ball-dress; but do not ask an Irish regiment to embark upon mutiny on the eve of a campaign; when it has ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... things to look at, but it was rather awful, too, to sit in almost perfect silence and listen to the remarks of Mrs Fotheringham and Miss Munnion. Opposite to Iris there was a long low window, through which she could see part of the lawn and a path leading to the kitchen-garden. She sat gazing vacantly out upon this, when suddenly she ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... A man with a bell, which he rang most energetically at the door, shortly after summoned the company, the auction being about to commence. On a table inside, a negress, of a little over middle age, was standing, vacantly gazing with grief-worn countenance on the crowd that now thronged to the table. On the floor stood two children, of about the ages of ten and thirteen respectively. The auctioneer, with the customary volubility of such men ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... in the big room, Nicol Brinn staring down vacantly into the empty fireplace, Paul Harley standing watching him in a state of almost stupefied mystification. Muffled to a soothing murmur the sounds of Piccadilly penetrated to that curtained chamber which held so many records ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... to make of Boyd, for the discovery of our mistake seemed to produce no impression on him. He stood at the edge of the woods, gazing vacantly across the little clearing where the Indian houses straggled on either side ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... therefore, be made to sound. Only once, for a few minutes, they seemed to resume their elasticity, and they vibrated again. Old melodies were played, and played in time. Old images seemed to start up before him. They vanished—all glimmering of reason vanished, and he sat again staring vacantly around, without thought, without mind. It was to be hoped that he did not suffer anything. His dark eyes had lost their intelligence; they looked only like black ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... he answered. His eyes looked vacantly around him. By this time they had left the more thickly-settled parts of the village considerably behind them. But a few more dwellings lay along the path on which they were approaching. On the left, a gorge ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... silence on the face of Mr. Garie—the brow was still knit, the eyes staring vacantly, and the marble whiteness of the face unbroken, save by a few gouts of blood near a small blue spot over the eye where ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... in solemn silence, hands crossed on his breast and thumbs revolving rapidly. His lips made odd movements, although from them came no sound, and vacantly he stared ahead of him, in his eyes no expression, in his manner no hint of what was coming. Short and fat, with face round and red, hair red and curly, and ears of a prodigious size, he made a ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... alone over my cheerless hearth, gazing vacantly on the glowing embers, when a coal fell from a mass of others which had formed themselves into a hollow body in the fire, leaving a tinge of deeper red over the spot, in the midst of which the letter, T, appeared indistinctly, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... ran to him, to find the dwarf on his feet and staring vacantly at the wall against which Soa had been sitting. She was gone, but there on the floor lay the ropes with which she ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... his eyes, and was looking vacantly and sleepily round him. "I'll go home," was all he said. He got up and walked rather shakily, but without ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... to his feet and, supporting him by an encircling arm, led the way to where even now Alexis, having received first aid treatment at the hands of his brother, was sitting up and gazing about somewhat vacantly. ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... Men who stood vacantly staring in muttered, "Beast!" women, shrinking from the unsightly spectacle, whispered, "Beast!" and children, gazing in silent horror with the rest, stared "Beast!" out of their wonder-stricken eyes. So hard ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... when she came into their little apartment. The parrot greeted her, flapping his brilliant wings and shrieking from his perch; the goldfish goggled his eyes and swam 'round and 'round. She stood still in the centre of her room looking vacantly about her. An immense, overwhelming sense of loneliness came over her; she turned as the rush of tears blinded her and flung herself full length among the pillows ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... how little I've ever understood, how little I've ever known myself," she thought, staring vacantly at a severe spinster, with crimped hair and a soured expression, who sat before the opposite window. "I've gone on in the dark, making mistakes and discoveries from the very beginning, undoing and doing over again, creating illusions and then destroying them—always moving, always ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... passing his fingers tremulously back and forward along the top of the mantelpiece, like a man in search of something, and continued so, looking along it, feebly and vacantly, although ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... grasped convulsively at the coverlet. As I gazed at her, tears welled into my eyes. She looked so small, so transient, yet bore the traces of such mental and physical anguish. After a moment or two she slowly opened her eyes, gazed vacantly at me without apparently realising my presence, and in a feeble, plaintive voice made some remark in Russian. Kosinski was at her side immediately and answered her in soothing tones, evidently pointing out my presence. The woman fixed on me her large ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... had not in them founded for myself a home, and begotten strong children to take care of me in the days when I could not take care of myself; and thinking of these things, I became sadder and sadder, and stared vacantly upon the fire till my eyes ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... for the mind are the good Archbishop's sermons, but a medicine, unhappily, not suited to Tina's case. She sat with the book open on her knees, her dark eyes fixed vacantly on the portrait of that handsome Lady Cheverel, wife of the notable Sir Anthony. She gazed at the picture without thinking of it, and the fair blonde dame seemed to look down on her with that benignant ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... in his haggard, bloodshot eyes; I saw him stare at me half vacantly, then with a crafty yet wondering look; and then I saw the devil of murder begin to peep forth from those hideous eyes, and the lips to part as in a sneer, and the wolfish teeth to bare themselves. But I was not what I had been. Fear gave me a new and a desperate composure—a courage ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... got within half a mile he broke into the "double," and never pulled up until he reached the round white circle upon the cliff. Poor old Tom! when I came up, his mood had changed, and he was standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing vacantly before ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... congregation. The celebrant offered the bread and wine to Our Father in Heaven. And all this took time; the children were tired by their tense concentration; their prayers had all been said two and three times over; and they were now vacantly waiting and longing, looking at their clothes, at the stained-glass windows in the choir or St. Anne in her crimson cloak, or counting the stars that were painted high up on the ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... is lost, his vision has deserted him. It may be that weariness has overcome the power of his illusion, for he stares vacantly about. He looks back, and the breadth of what he sees conveys no meaning. The woods, with the sound of life coming up to him in deadly monotony of tone; the hills, beyond, rising till the sun, like a ball of deep red fire, seems to rest upon their now lurid glacial fields, but is powerless ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... down on my couch, and for a moment gazed almost vacantly at the meat and wine in my hands. I had not touched either for a year, and now I could see that my fingers, as they closed on the food nervously, were thin and bloodless, and I realized that my clothes hung loose upon ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... under the dignity of the money-they don't!" says a stalwart companion, attempting to gain a position by the side of his fellow on the steps. He gives a leering wink, contorts his face into a dozen grimaces, stares vacantly round the hall (sliding himself along on his hands and knees), his glassy eyes inflamed like balls of fire. "It'll be all square soon," he ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... on the centre light of her little domain, fitted with a charming shade of Japanese silk, and removing her coat (purchased locally at a price which she had considered preposterous) she stood gazing vacantly into the little square mirror above the mantelpiece behind the china clock. It reflected the figure of a slim girl wearing a blue serge skirt, a blue jersey coat and a grey velour hat—a very pretty girl indeed, her colour heightened by ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... staring vacantly out of the Bantam coffee-room window, between the gilt labels, 'Hot Soups' and 'Dinners,' he was suddenly seized with a fit of virtuous indignation at the disreputable frauds practised by unprincipled ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... time of the Yellow-grass the Fire Eater had sat for hours, without moving, beside his tepee, looking vacantly out across the hills and speaking to no human being. His good squaws and even his much cherished children went about the camping-space quietly, not caring to disturb the master. He was tired of the lazy sunshine of home; the small cackle of his women, one to another, annoyed him; he was strong ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... vacantly; he no longer understood the French language. In his fever, all recollection of it had vanished. Instinct had effaced all that art had inculcated, and Madou understood and spoke nothing save his savage dialect. At this moment, ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... had sat long before her toilette-table that evening, gazing vacantly at the looking-glass. Not that the reflection of the eight curl-papers she had neatly twisted up was conveyed to her brain. She was in a brown study, during which the following thoughts passed through her mind, and ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... news- paper, might have passed them, if his horse had not shied and snorted. He pulled the cart crossways, and held down his whip. "Hallo! Where are YOU going to?"—Pigling Bland stared at him vacantly. ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... backward slips the badger to his den; The whir, the fatal strike of rattlesnake, A staring buzzard floating in the blue, And, now and then, the curlew's eerie call,— Lost, always lost, and seeking evermore. All else is mute and dormant; vacantly The sun looks down, the days run idly on, The breezes whirl the dust, which eddying falls Smothering the records of the westward caravans, Where silent heaps of wreck and nameless graves Make milestones for the old ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... came in, bringing a calming draught. Mariana was sitting, as usual, her hair loose, her dress the same robe they had put on her at first, her eyes fixed vacantly upon the whited wall. To the proffers and entreaties of her nurse she ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... at the window—for even the dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life and companionship in it—while he was standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a distant church-clock strike ten. Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the house ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... leisurely dinner at a near-by hotel, during most of which time Kennedy gazed vacantly at his food. Only once did he mention the case, and that was almost as if ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... quickly away, and left the captain in the centre of the garden staring vacantly before him, in ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... certainly very pretty," he repeated in a meditative manner; and stared so long and vacantly at a fricandeau which a footman was just offering him, that any less well-trained attendant must have left ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Cameron had anything so surprising happen to him. He looked at the girl, whom he managed to carry to the couch; he turned to the dog whose faithful eyes rather steadied him, then he applied all the remedies that one does at such times. Eventually Joan revived, but she stared vacantly at the face above her and did not ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... partly to fill up the time, and went up languidly to the deserted room, which looked so miserable and desert a place without her who put a soul into it and made it home. He did not know what to do with himself, poor boy, but sat down vacantly, and stared into empty space, seeing, wherever he turned, the rows of faces, the ladies making signs to each other, the red robes of the judge, the lawyers contending, and that motionless pale figure in the witness-box. He shut his eyes ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... matter, William?" she asked tenderly, as loving hands lay him upon the lounge before her. But the tongue which had bid her good-bye so fondly that morning could not utter a word, and the eyes that had gazed so sweetly into hers bespoke the bitter anguish of his soul as they stared vacantly at her. "He's done fer," said one of the men, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand. "The doctors seen him and says he ain't fer long." "Speak to me, William," cried Mrs. Sikes, bending low and pressing her cheeks against her husband's. ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... his porter, and even while he was still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt to arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his eyes staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my observation, looked up at me, and put out a spiritless hand for his newspaper. Then he glanced again in ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... out of the suit, shook it straight and hung it back on the wall. He was sure now. As sure as he was that the little biochemist and his wife and quintet of daughters would not want for neo-hyperacth or anything else any longer. He giggled a little, thinking of Jason crouched on the bench, glaring vacantly, utterly unconscious of Lonnie passing across the grass so close ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... of every nationality on earth. There were Turkish regulars in their queer conical khaki helmets, and wild-looking levies who had no kin with Europe. There were squads of Germans in flat forage-caps, staring vacantly at novel sights, and quick to salute any officer on the side-walk. Turks in closed carriages passed, and Turks on good Arab horses, and Turks who looked as if they had come out of the Ark. But it was the rabble that caught ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... you, Miss Benham," he said. He essayed to turn, staggered, looked vacantly around the room, his lips in a queerly cold half-smile, and then without uttering a sound pitched forward, one shoulder against the door jamb, and slid slowly to his knees, where he rested, his head sinking limply to his chest. He heard the girl cry out sharply and ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... She opened her eyes and looked timidly around the dim ward. All was strange and unaccountable. She feared that she was in another world. But as she raised her hand to her head, as if to clear away the mist of uncertainty, a sparkle from the diamond caught her eye. For a long time she stared vacantly at it, with the weak, vague feeling that in some sense it might be a clew. Its faint lustre was like the glimmer of a star through a rift in the clouds to a lost traveller. Its familiar light and position remind ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... should call on her and see her husband, bade him a cordial adieu. He stood there watching her out of sight with an unconscious smile of the most refined and subtle cynicism. Then he sat down and stared vacantly at the close-cropped grass on the opposite side of the path. By what handle should he lay hold ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... were idly contemplating the street windows, and as he talked he did not turn them toward the men whom he described. Occasionally he looked at Benton and then vacantly back to the street parade, or the red end of his ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... but Ivan walked up and down before the tent. A huge fire had been made, which was amply fed by the wood of the river bank, and it blazed on high, showing in bold relief the features of the scene. Ivan gazed vacantly at everything; but he saw not the dark and glancing river—he saw not the bleak plain of snow—his eyes looked not on the romantic picture of the tent and its bivouac-fire: his thoughts were on one thing alone. He it was who had brought them to that ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... Bagarag saw as in a dream the shattered door, shattered by the bar, remembering dimly as a thing distant in years the netting of the Queen, and Noorna chained upon the pillar; he remembered Shagpat even vacantly in his mind, as one sheaf of barley amid other sheaves of the bearded field, so was he overcome by the awfulness of that sight behind the veil of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... your name when you were strange to me, Where it stood blazoned bold with many more; I passed it vacantly, and did not see Any great glory in ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... to wrench himself free. "Huh," he said vacantly. He stared at the youth for a moment. At last he spoke as if dimly comprehending. "Oh! Inteh ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... with us?' exclaimed Darnell, and his pipe dropped from his hand on to the grass. He was stupefied by the thought of Aunt Marian as a boarder, and sat staring vacantly before him, wondering what new monster the night would ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... loiterer. Fred was father enough to turn with anxiety to the child. But his trembling nervous fingers and bemused eyes could make nothing of the "case" thus so suddenly brought before him. He turned fiercely and vacantly upon his wife and demanded why everything was suffered to go to ruin when Nettie was away. Mrs Fred, screaming and terrified, began to recriminate. The pallid figure of the child on the table gave a certain air of squalid tragedy to the scene, ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... for Glasgow, and pursued there the same course. He traversed the Trongate and Argyle Street for hours, and strode down to the Broomielaw, and stared vacantly at the bustle going on on the river. But in nothing could he take any interest. Change of scene could bring no change to his mind. Weeks and months were spent in this rambling and unsatisfactory life, and again he resolved to retrace his ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... the circumstances that surrounded him, and gazed vacantly at the judge and jury. He was a dull, stupid fellow, and did not readily comprehend ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... a block, and met her. She was childishly swinging the basket on her arm and humming a song. She smiled vacantly into his face. He caught the look of shrewd intelligence and saw through her masquerade. A single word from her lips now would send her to the gallows and ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... figure attracted my attention. His face—of a Caucasian type—was framed in a handsome beard. He haunted me. I saw him standing for hours together on the stone quay, with the handle of his walking stick in his mouth, staring down vacantly, with his black almond-shaped eyes into the muddy waters of the harbor. Ten times a day, he would pass me by with the gait of a careless lounger. Whom could he be? I began to watch him. As if anxious ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... confused to make any reply. Utterly exhausted as he had been, his deep sleep seemed to still hold him, and he sat gazing vacantly at his brother, who added in ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... they ate a crust of bread together, and drank some of the water of the fountain. In the afternoon, there they sat, and Bellerophon had thrown his arm around the child, who likewise had put one of his little hands into Bellerophon's. The latter was lost in his own thoughts, and was fixing his eyes vacantly on the trunks of the trees that overshadowed the fountain, and on the grapevines that clambered up among their branches. But the gentle child was gazing down into the water; he was grieved, for Bellerophon's sake, that the hope of another day should be deceived, like so many before it; and ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various |
