"Vague" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... comprehensive.] It is not, therefore, alone to these two general propositions—'whatsoever is, is'; and 'it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be'—that this sort of self-evidence belongs by any peculiar right. The perception of being, or not being, belongs no more to these vague ideas, signified by the terms WHATSOEVER, and THING, than it does to any other ideas. [These two general maxims, amounting to no more, in short, but this, that THE SAME IS THE SAME, and THE SAME IS NOT DIFFERENT, are truths known in more particular instances, as well ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... But Matthias was now disposed to play the despot. He arrested the Lord of Inzendorf, and closed his church. He demanded of all the lords, Protestant as well as Catholic, an unconditional oath of allegiance, giving vague promises, that perhaps at some future time he would promulgate a decree of toleration, but declaring that he was not bound to do so, on the miserable quibble that, as he had received from Rhodolph a hereditary ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... that the mass of writing must in any age neglect construction. We write to establish a record for a few days: or to send a thousand unimportant messages: or to express for others or for ourselves something very vague and perhaps very weak in the way of emotion, which does not demand construction and at any rate cannot command it. No writer can be judged by the entirety of his writings, for these would include ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... born in Leipzig. His father, a police official of some vague sort, died when he was a few months old, and his mother went to Dresden and married Ludwig Geyer, an actor. Richard, however, had no great luck in the matter of fathers, for six years later Geyer also died. Dresden was, as things were in those days—ninety years ago—a fairly musical ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... Griffon entirely lost his senses. He threw himself into the sea, but M. Savigny saved him with his own hands. His words were vague and unconnected. A second time he threw himself in, but, by a sort of instinct, kept hold of the cross pieces of the ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... have seemed unusual, considering the taciturn habit of Indians, had he not remembered seeing Willetts speak to the trio. What had he to do with them? Shefford was considering the situation with vague doubts when, to his relief, the three strangers rode off into the twilight. ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... is a matter of which most people have a very vague and imperfect knowledge. I believe I am very near the truth when I state the gross proceeds of The Times at 45,000l., a year. The present proprietor of The Morning Chronicle gave for it, I believe, 40,000l. The absolute property of The Courier, according ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various
... identifies it with I-chin hien, the great port on the Kiang for the export of the Yang-chau salt. This is possible; but I-chin lies west of the canal, and though the form Chinju would really represent I-chin as then named, such a position seems scarcely compatible with the way, vague as it is, in which Tinju or Chinju is introduced. Moreover, we shall see that I-chin is spoken of hereafter. (Kingsmill in N. and Q. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... influence of his models. He used especially the meter of the common evangelical hymns, and cultivated the vague personification of the poets of the eighteenth century. He himself, however, was essentially a romantic poet, as was evinced by his fondness for Byron and Marlowe. His common style is represented by the following lines from his poem entitled On ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... far off, this was the darkest hour of the night, so that even the sounds of dockland were muted and the riverside slept as deeply as the great port of London ever sleeps. Vague murmurings there were and distant clankings, with the hum of machinery which ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... wells, greasers, rum-drinking Indians, testy old cavaliers flourishing whiskers and sovereignty, or perhaps an idyllic peasantry la Jean Jacques, assailed by the prospect of smoky industrialism, and fighting for the Rights of Man. What does the word "Japan" evoke? Is it a vague horde of slant-eyed yellow men, surrounded by Yellow Perils, picture brides, fans, Samurai, banzais, art, and cherry blossoms? Or the word "alien"? According to a group of New England college students, writing in the year 1920, an alien was the following: [Footnote: The New Republic: December ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... exceptional voice, as was the case with the roles written for Martin. This singer must have possessed either a strong tenor voice with exceptional low tones, or a baritone voice with perhaps an unusual command of the falsetto—history furnishes but vague information on this point. In any case, the roles written for him—called Martin-tenor or Martin-baritone parts—are now assigned to the ordinary baritone. Pointage then becomes inevitable, as in the case of Herold's Zampa, the compass required as printed ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... Academy of Philadelphia, who was being feted there. I had never before seen either Monsieur or Mademoiselle Stangerson. I was seated in the room which precedes the Salon des Ambassadeurs, and, tired of being jostled by so many noble personages, I had fallen into a vague reverie, when I scented near me the perfume of ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... had the same vague feeling that Canada, in addition to being an immense distance off, was not quite, well, it wasn't England—that was indisputable—she found herself unreasonably irritated by her ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... should render it expedient. His ruling passion was avarice; and though he had been allured by the hints which his sister had thrown out concerning Mrs. Beaumont's increased jointure, and vast expectancies from Mr. Palmer, yet he was not so rash as to act decisively upon such vague information: he had wisely determined to obtain accurate and positive evidence from Captain Lightbody, who seemed, in this case, to be the common vouchee; but Lightbody happened to be gone out to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... the darkened river Where the moss lies smooth and deep, And the dark trees lean unmoving arms, Silent and vague in sleep, And the bright-heeled constellations pass In splendour through the gloom; Who is it calling o'er the darkened ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... death were told to me by others. My childish recollection held every feature of that first awful scene as tenaciously as if the flames had kindled upon me, and not upon my hapless playfellow. What followed is a hazy kaleidoscope, lurid and vague, until my scattered thoughts settled to the perception that I was making a long visit at Uncle Carter's and sharing Cousin Molly ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... him. "You do that!" He made it an order. There had been no chance to leave Boyd in Calhoun. But there was still Cadiz as a possibility. He did not believe this vague story about Union gold in the bank. And the company might never enter the town in force at all. So that Boyd, left behind, would not attract the unfavorable ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... same time, I saw the neighbors wandering through their gardens, taking care of their flowers, the children playing, parties of friends enjoying themselves, and could hear the bowls rolling and the ninepins dropping, it early excited within me a feeling of solitude, and a sense of vague longing resulting from it, which, conspiring with the seriousness and awe implanted in me by nature, exerted its influence at an early age, and showed itself ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... conversion you knew little about the Holy Spirit. Later on you heard of His dwelling in you, and His being the power of God in you for all the Father intends you to be, and yet His indwelling and inworking have been something vague and indefinite, and hardly a source of joy or strength. At conversion you did not yet know your need of Him, and still less what you might expect of Him. But your failures have taught it you. And now you begin to see how you have been grieving Him, by not trusting and not following ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... nurse, with love intense, Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence; Sweet, when the lost arrive: Sweet the musician's ardour beats, While his vague mind's in quest of sweets, The choicest ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... Jersey, stupid irritating Jersey, where the passengers are always asking which line they are on, and where they are to come out, and whether they have yet reached Elizabeth. Launched into Jersey, one has a vague notion that he is on many lines and no one in particular, and that he is liable at any moment to come to Elizabeth. He has no notion what Elizabeth is, and always resolves that the next time he goes that way, he will ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... defenseless Maria Theresa of Silesia, a strip of territory lying to the southeast of Brandenburg. He accordingly marched his army into the coveted district, and occupied the important city of Breslau without declaring war or offering any excuse except a vague claim to a ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... in midst of all her joy, Hetty went about her duties: vague fears oppressed her. What would Eben do now? What had he meant when he said: "You are no longer ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... England. Why it is that our long line has ever since borne the maternal name (except when one of them now and then took a playful refuge in an alias to avert foolishness), instead of Higgins, is a mystery which none of us has ever felt much desire to stir. It is a kind of vague, pretty romance, and we leave it alone. All the old families ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger
... Three of the remainder (Nos. 1, 3, and 6) may be classed as uncertain in their properties, that is, while the plants themselves seem to possess some medical value, the Indian mode of application is so far at variance with recognized methods, or their own statements are so vague and conflicting, that it is doubtful whether any good can result from the use of the herbs. Thus the Unaste[']tstiy[^u], or Virginia Snakeroot, is stated by the Dispensatory to have several uses, and among other things is said to have been highly recommended in intermittent fevers, although alone ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... looked at him closely: the words had a hidden meaning, and it was clear he was not intended to miss the implied threat. But what was Ku Sui's thought? Back in his mind an anxiety grew, indefinite, vague and devilish. ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... that case, if we are to find Villa let us make all haste forward. And first we must direct ourselves yonder"—he pointed in a vague way towards the mountains—"where we must presently leave our car and go on foot, to the ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... style of 'that pure and reformed part of Christ's Holy Catholic Church which is established in this Realm.' Now and then his attention wandered—once or twice his eyes rested on the well-dressed group directly opposite to him with a kind of vague regret and doubt. There was an emotion working in his soul to which he could scarcely give a name. Instinctively he was conscious that a certain embarrassment and uneasiness affected the ordinary members of his congregation,—he knew that their minds ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... After he had heard these ballads, so diffuse and vague, he failed to see any point of beauty in them; but the plaintive melody of the sound was nevertheless sufficient to drive away his spirit and exhilarate his soul. Hence it was that he did not make any inquiries about the arguments, and that he did not ask about the matter treated, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... fancied that invisible powers would be more efficacious, than those visible motives that evidently invited mortals to the commission of mischief. Every thing was understood to be achieved, by occupying man's mind with gloomy chimeras, with vague, undefinable terrors, with avenging angels; and politics madly believed that its own interests grew out of the blind submission of its subjects, to the ministers of ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... sallowness and his careless assumption, everywhere, from his forehead to his exposed and relaxed blue socks, almost sky-blue, as in past days, of creases and folds and furrows that would have been perhaps tragic if they hadn't seemed rather to show, like his whimsical black eyebrows, the vague, interrogative arch. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... the use of what is commonly called the philosophy of language, is evidently misapplied by those who make it the test of grammatical certainty, it may not be amiss to offer a few considerations with a view to expose the fallacy of so vague a criterion. ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... chose du passe, quelque chose du present et comme un vague mirage de l'avenir. Du reste, ces poemes, divers par le sujet, mais inspires par la meme pensee, n'ont entre eux d'autre noeud qu'un fil, ce fil qui s'attenue quelquefois au point de devenir invisible, mais qui ne casse ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... during the night, each time with the dim idea that something strange and monstrous had occurred, but I presently fell asleep again; in the morning I awoke with the same vague feeling, but presently recollection returned, and I remembered that I had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost. I lay musing for some time on what I had done, and I felt rather stunned, as before; at last I arose ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... met with a very unemotional reception. Its style was peculiar,—almost as unlike that of his Essays as that of Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus" was unlike the style of his "Life of Schiller." It was vague, mystic, incomprehensible, to most of those who call themselves common-sense people. Some of its expressions lent themselves easily to travesty and ridicule. But the laugh could not be very loud or very long, since it took twelve years, as Mr. Higginson tells us, to sell five hundred copies. It ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... is to say, which will hardly admit even of so vague a definition, seeing it is the Indefinite Absolute ...
— Hebrew Literature
... he answered with a vague laugh. "Laura, I didn't come here to bother you with my troubles; I come ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... features of the little college town, in an attempt to put the stranger entirely at her ease after her disquieting experience. So far she had had slight opportunity to observe this latest freshman arrival. She had a vague idea that Jean Brent was an unusually attractive girl, but the side view she obtained of her, as they walked along, was far from satisfactory. The newcomer said little, and only once during the short walk to Harlowe House did she turn ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... Nathan seemed a little startled by this abrupt entrance, and Mary came down the ladder with an anxious look, for this man was the village constable, and with a vague sense of debts that they did not comprehend, both the old man and girl received him with something like apprehension. But he clasped both hands under his coat behind, and looked so complacently first at the corn-stalks, ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... a vague feeling of apprehension when he heard that Joan Clive, the little girl who lived next door, was having a strange cousin to stay for three weeks. All his life, William had accepted Joan's adoration and homage with condescending ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... Torn has fought and sacked and pillaged for the love of it, and for a principle which was at best but a vague generality. Tonight we ride to redress a wrong done to My Lady Bertrade de Montfort, and that, Shandy, is a different matter. The torch, Shandy, from tower to scullery, but in the service ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... oval in its form, and her complexion was dark and clear. But perhaps her greatest beauty consisted in the half-soft, half-wild expression of her face, which, while it seemed to declare to the world that she was mild, gentle, and, for the most part, silent, gave a vague, doubtful promise of something that might be beyond, if only her nature were sufficiently awakened, creating a hope and mysterious longing for something more than might be expected from a girl brought up under the severe thraldom of Madame Charlotte Staubach,—creating a hope, or perhaps it might ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... have any fresh motive for dreading such an occurrence, you are quite right, but if it is only a vague, groundless fear, my love, why should you deprive yourself of a real and innocent pleasure? If you knew how pleased I am when I see you enjoy yourself, and particularly when I witness your ecstacy in listening ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Norman-French, who seized and subdued this island in the year 1066 and following years. The fourth contribution came to us by the aid of the Revival of Learning— rather a process than an event, the dates of which are vague, but which may be said to have taken place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Latin left for us by the Romans is called Latin of the First Period; that brought over by the missionaries ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... and on 4th October 1798 was licensed to preach. He lived in his father's house, where part of the family room was screened off to form a study for him. He delivered some sermons, apparently with little success. He failed to obtain a call from any parish; and there are vague reports of his acting as tutor in some families, and of a rebuff received at the table of the marquis of Tweeddale, father of one of his pupils, which made him resolve to seek for independence by a ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... seen this old woman before. Yet there was a vague remembrance in his mind, as if he had more than once dreamed of some ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... postoffice and waited a good long hour before the mail was distributed. There was nothing in her box except the San Francisco paper. And yet she felt intuitively there must be some news. She returned to her home with a vague feeling of dread and lit the parlor lamp. Mechanically she scanned the headlines of the paper when ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... the great west coast. But the supposed epoch of this alleged immigration must carry us back to the earliest ages; for, that the Incas were (as the greater number of inquirers into Peruvian history pretend) of Asiatic origin, is a mere vague hypothesis, unsupported by anything approximating ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the purpose of Black Magic is simply and obviously to communicate with devils, and if we interrogate our sources of knowledge as to the object of such communication, it must be admitted that the response is vague. Perhaps the object will best be defined as the reinforcement of human ability by diabolical power and intelligence for the operation of evil along the lines of individual desire and ambition. For the fulfilment of what is good man aspires towards God, and to fulfil evil ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... class by themselves, however, were the female labor reform associations, which for some years did excellent work in widely separated cities. These were strictly trade unions, in spite of their somewhat vague name. They seem to have drawn their membership from the workers in the local trades. That of Lowell, perhaps the best known, originated among the mill girls, but admitted other workers. Lowell, as usual, was to the fore in ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... politely and respectfully, as many of you do, and say you are Christians; and there an end. You have simply to take my words (as I fear so many of those that listen to them do) as matters of course, the proper things to be said on a Sunday, and for me to say, which may be very true in some vague, general way, but which have no felt application to you. That is all you have to do. It is quite enough. Negative vices will ruin a man, in mind, body, and estate; and the negative sin of simple indifference avails to put a barrier between you ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... a grand note he can begin and end [155] chapter or paragraph! "When the funeral pyre was out, and the last valediction over:" "And a large part of the earth is still in the urn unto us." Dealing with a very vague range of feelings, it is his skill to associate them to very definite objects. Like the Soul, in Blake's design, "exploring the recesses of the tomb," he carries a light, the light of the poetic faith which he cannot ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... family: then the papers about the conditions of partnership disappeared, no one knew how, and d'Alibert's wife and child were ruined. D'Alibert's brother-in-law, who was Sieur de la Magdelaine, felt certain vague suspicions concerning this death, and wished to get to the bottom of it; he accordingly began investigations, which were suddenly brought to an end by ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... attaining. Great and little aims alike, he never had known what it was to fail. What a curious state of feeling it would be to most men to know themselves able to assert so much! Think of a mind in which disappointment is a thing unknown! I think that one would be oppressed by a vague sense of fear in regarding one's self as treated by Providence in a fashion so different from the vast majority of the race. It cannot be denied that there are men in this world in whose lot failure seems ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... least, would not claim her till he had the use of her for a season, the longer the better; but he felt that he had no right to hope any such thing. The yacht was a beautiful craft, and it was in the very height of the boating season. All his hopes, however, had been very vague, and were not founded on any reasonable basis. He had been considering the remotest of possibilities, rather than ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... Another reason, according to Mr. Talmage, why the Jew bible is inspired, is that prophecies in it have been fulfilled. How do we know that the prophecies were not fulfilled before they were written? They are so vague that you can't tell what was prophesied. If you will read the Jew bible carefully, you will see that there was not a line, not a word, prophesying the coming of Christ. Catholics were right in saying that if the Jew bible was to ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... chants still rose from the depths of the valley to the summit of the hill, like the complaining of a mighty voice; the glare of the funeral torches was still seen afar through the mist of evening; it was the hour of twilight—that strange hour, which gives to the most solid forms a vague, indefinite fantastic appearance—when the sound of firm and regular footsteps was heard on the stony soil of the rising ground, and, between the black trunks of the trees, a ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... in her little side-glance, which at another time would have put me on my guard. But just then I was engrossed with my own vague fears. I forgot even to remove my hand from her arm. So we were standing, when a moment later the silence was broken by the sound of a galloping horse coming fast across the marshes. We started aside. Lady Angela reined in a great bay mare a few yards away from us. Her habit ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... side the vague boundary has varied constantly, influenced by the conflicting Haitian and Dominican claims, the greater or less energy of the border authorities on each side, and the tendency of the rapidly increasing Haitian population to establish homes in the uninhabited frontier region of Santo ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... just as she was coming out of a little grove of cedars, where the high land overlooks the sea, and the dream which came to her overcame her with a vague and yearning sense of pain. Suddenly she heard footsteps behind her, and some one said, "Mary!" It was spoken in a choked voice, as one speaks in the crisis of a great emotion; and she turned and saw those very eyes, that very hair, yes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... obliged him to fix every event to a definite year; and this, in many cases, can only be guess-work, for Suetonius, as may be seen from his extant writings, was often vague in his chronology. ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... to sleep for a long time. From the point where he lay he could now see two of the sentinels walking back and forth, rifle on shoulder. He did not believe that they would continue to do so many hours, and he had a vague sort of desire to prove that he was right. Having nothing else to ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... had reached the conclusion that his chance to be a hero was at hand and not to be despised. Here was the opportunity to outstrip all of his competitors in the race for Rosalie's favour. It might be confessed that, with all his good intentions, his plans were hopelessly vague. The group braced up a little at the sound of ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... learned or unlearned avarice. Let the fruit fall with the leaves still clinging round it. Who would have stripped Southey's walls of the books that filled them, when, his mind no longer capable of taking in their meaning, he would still pat and fondle them with the vague loving sense of what they had once been to him,—to him, the great scholar, now like a ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... reserve wore off, and was succeeded by her usual frankness or gaiety. In her eyes appeared, at times, a new thoughtfulness, but for no longer period than the quick passing of a summer cloud over a sunny meadow. This half-light of brief conjecture or vague retrospection only mellowed the depths of her gaze, and ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... saw with extraordinary vividness all that was going on around her, even to the faces of the boys and girls who passed them in taxis; but she was incapable of concentrated thought. The hurry and excitement in which she had lived for the last two days left her breathless and vague. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... I suppose these vague anticipations added a shade of gloom to that already gloomy place of travel: Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, scowled in my face at least, and seemed to point me back again to that other native land of mine, the Latin Quarter. But when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on; a fresh zest was added to their toil. Each morning Ralph would set out with a vague but pleasurable anticipation of adventure. And as his mind succumbed to the strange influence of the White Squaw, it coloured for him what had been the commonplace events of his daily life. If a buck ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... the grammarian, like the painter, does not strive after a vague, transcendental ideal; he is not as one that beateth the air; his quest for knowledge is definite and positive enough; he throws all care for infinite things, except the infinite of philological accuracy, upon God; and ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... was layin' by the roadside, and the wagon upside down A-leanin' on the gate-post, with the wheels a whirlin' round! And I tried to raise and meet her, but I couldn't, with a vague Sort o' notion comin' to me that ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... lxxxii. belongs to higher poetry; that the author himself there mitigates in ver. 6, in the parallel member, the strength of the expression: "I have said ye are Elohim, and sons of the Most High ye all;" and, finally, that there Elohim is used as the most vague and general name of God, while here El, a personal name, is used. Hendewerk, Ewald, and others, finally, explain "God's hero," i.e., "a divine hero, who, like an invincible God, fights and conquers." But in opposition ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... thought of such a thing as marriage. She had money of her own, and all that money could buy; and her freedom, whatever that was. In this new world about him all the terms of life seemed changed and transposed and vague, and he never quite knew what she meant. Every word that she said when they discussed life and love seemed capable of a double intent, and whether by freedom she meant to yield or to escape something he had never made out. All he ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... the coalition weakened. Loiseau made three jokes that hung fire; everybody beat their brains for fresh instances to the point; and found none, when the Countess, possibly without premeditation and only from a vague desire to render homage to religion, interrogated the older of the two Sisters on the main incidents in the lives of the saints. Now, several of them had committed acts which would be counted crimes in our eyes, but the Church readily pardons such misdeeds when they are accomplished ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... when Wade tried to recall that mad ride, he found it only a vague blur upon his memory. He was conscious only of the fact that he had traveled at a speed which, in saner moments, he would have considered suicidal. Urging the big black over the rougher ground of the higher levels, he rode like a maniac, ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... Vague, perturbing words! Halsey said, "They tell me George Prince is listed for the voyage. I am suggesting, Haljan, that you keep your eye especially upon him. Your duties on the Planetara leave ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... all circumstances that come to our knowledge for the first time—and in Mesmerism every thing is new. An objection may be made that the article has rather a Magazinish air; Mr. Poe having evidently written with a view to effect, and so as to excite rather than to subdue the vague appetite for the mysterious and the horrible which such a case, under any circumstances, is sure to awaken—but apart from this there is nothing to deter a philosophic mind from further inquiries regarding it. It is a matter entirely ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... says the news, that a change has taken place in the king's affections. You know whom that concerns. Afterward, the news continues, people are talking about one of the maids of honor, respecting whom various slanderous reports are being circulated. These vague phrases have not allowed me to sleep. I have been deploring, ever since yesterday, that my diffidence and vacillation of purpose should, notwithstanding a certain obstinacy of character I may possess, have left me unable to reply ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... exactly why he rose in the night and stole out of his room with catlike steps. He had a vague idea that he would move silently in order not to disturb or awaken any ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... impossible to give the symptoms of this disease in an orderly manner, as the affection gives rise to a thousand and one varying and ofttimes vague symptoms. The particular part of the nervous system affected, and also the cause and character of the attacks modify the symptoms. The eminent Dr. Wood says: "Nervous exhaustion may, in the beginning, affect the whole of ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Reformed with one universal sweep of the scythe of persecution, and he felt himself moved and incited to go to some of the Lords and leaders of the Congregation to warn them of what he feared; but, considering that he had only a vague and unaccountable suspicion for his thought, he wavered, and finally returned home. Thus, though manifestly and marvellously instructed of the fruition of some bloody business in hand that night, he was yet overruled by the wisdom ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... I was a little vague. Leila is at the puzzling age. You will find her much altered ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... men would have joined hands, in the name of truth and justice, to suppress it. The only thing that could be done in such circumstances was, to translate their doctrine into the language of their time. They must take the current terms—the vague popular terms—as they found them, and restrict and enlarge them, and inform them with their new meanings, with a hint to 'men of understanding' as to the sense in which they use them. That is the key to the language in which their books for ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... code," which should be something complete and limited to itself. The true sanction of each was the immemorial observance of each, not its place in the Collection, which implied a competent framer. Moreover, in proportion as General Councils were held, and enacted Canons, so did the vague title of mere usage, without definite sanction, become less influential, and the ancient Canons fell into disregard. And what made this still more natural was the circumstance that the Nicene Council did re-enact ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... very weak. As from another world he had heard the shout from above when the body of Harry Shepherd reached the brink, and afterwards some vague murmurs. Presently his fingers slipped and he went down in the black pool. The chill of the water to his face, the sudden choking sensation, brought his senses back for a moment and he struck to ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... interference, in the material world. He ascribes every work, every external act of man, to the innate force or soul of the physical universe. He observes that spiritual agents are so mysterious and unintelligible, so uncertain in their laws, so vague in their operation, so sheltered from experience, that a wise man will have nothing to say to them. They belong to a different order of causes, which he leaves to those whose profession it is to investigate them, and he confines himself to the tangible and sure. Human exploits, human ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... answered, for at the back of my mind I had a vague suspicion that the first lieutenant of the Jackass was not the only member of her ship's company who delighted in pulling ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... the unarmed passenger-ship Sussex was torpedoed without warning, and several Americans lost their lives. The first information about this incident was so vague that the matter was at first treated in a dilatory fashion in Washington. At the time I sent the following report ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... are beautiful passages in it, the most beautiful beginning, I think, 'Desolate is the dwelling of Moina,' and the next place being filled by that address to the sun you magnify so with praise. But the charm of these things is the only charm of all the poems. There is a sound of wild vague music in a monotone—nothing is articulate, nothing individual, nothing various. Take away a few poetical phrases from these poems, and they are colourless and bare. Compare them with the old burning ballads, with a wild heart beating in each. How cold they ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... long come to carry the most moderate meanings; for who has not heard of private persons having the world at their feet in the shape of some half-dozen items of flattering regard generally known in a genteel suburb? And words could hardly be too wide or vague to indicate the prospect that made a hazy largeness about poor Gwendolen on the heights of her young self-exultation. Other people allowed themselves to be made slaves of, and to have their lives blown hither and thither like empty ships in which no will was present. It was not to be so ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... on that fine stretch of yellow sand, one seemed to breathe an atmosphere so pure, and to gaze at a sky so transparent, that some of those undefined longings for surroundings that have never been realized were instinctively uppermost in the mind. It is, I imagine, that vague recognition of perfection which has its effect on even superficial minds when impressed with beautiful scenery, for to what other cause can be attributed the remark one hears, that such ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... for at the mere mention of the word the vague dread seemed to shape itself into a certainty. "Oh, Captain Triggs, don't say that if Adam gets off you don't think Jerrem's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... turning, he was 'ware her looks beheld him Out of the mirror white; And at the window yearning arms she held him, Out of the vague and ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... three years, she had decided to make that pilgrimage ... some time. And now, crossing Union Square on that lovely afternoon late in April, she knew that the time had come. Not that there was any reason for haste. ... At the vague thought her brown eyes rested a moment on the ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... "A vague opinion prevails among men that society is moving onward to its appointed state by what is variously termed the 'force of circumstances,' 'the instinct of the race,' 'the general law of progress,' 'Divine guidance.' These loose opinions are speculative fancies adopted in the absence ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... impression—the result of the teachings of the negro soldiers and Freedmen's Bureau officials—that the Government would support them in idleness. But in the remote districts this impression was vague. The advice of the old plantation preachers held many to their work, and these did not suffer as did their brothers ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... pain, and pleasure, and thought that shook his soul and his bodily frame would have overwhelmed the strongest human being; but in him there was a power of vitality proportioned to the power of the sensations that assailed him. He felt within him a vague immensity of longing that earth could not satisfy. He spent his days on outspread wings, longing to traverse the luminous fields of space to other spheres that he knew afar by intuitive perception, a clear and hopeless knowledge. ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... and in other ways strive to shew that a religious impulse is stirring within them. So far as I have observed, however, the vast mass of the poor toilers in India have little or no religion. Material wants are too pressing. They may have some dumb, vague aspirations after a higher and a holier life, but the fight for necessaries, for food, raiment, and shelter, is too incessant for them to indulge much in contemplation. They have a dim idea of a future life, but none of them can give you anything but a very unsatisfactory ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... However vague and unphilosophical these conjectures may appear, they serve, I think, to show that one's first impulse utterly to reject any theory whatever, implying a gradual acquirement of these instincts, which for ages have excited man's admiration, may at least be delayed. Once grant that dispositions, ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... His pride would not let him think that he was shrinking, but cried out in him, 'Will you be believed?' and whispered that few would believe him guilty of such an act. Yet, while something said that full surely Lady Jocelyn would not, a vague dread that Rose might, threw him back on the luxury of her love and faith in him. He found himself hoping that his statement would be laughed at. Then ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mounting into the hundreds have been negotiated between individual nations, but almost all contain that fatal reservation of questions of "honor and vital interests." Honor and vital interests—could any words be more vague and indefinite? Are these not the very cases which interested nations are least competent to decide? A complete answer to that silly reservation is found in our hundred years' peace with Great Britain. As John W. Foster, that keen student ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... through from the dilapidated roof. Between the oft-repeated figures of Hercules were frescoed niches, wherein heads of Roman emperors and other illustrious historical characters had been depicted in glowing tints; but all were so vague and dim now that they were but the ghosts of pictures, which should be described with the shadows of words—ordinary terms are too substantial to apply to them. The very echoes in this deserted hall seemed startled ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... about seven feet. For twenty feet it ran almost straight in; then they came to a sharp turn to the right, and entered a much narrower passage. The air was so pure and fresh, even after this turn was made, as to lead her to believe there must somewhere be another opening. The vague thought brought with it a throb ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... word she put the well-filled bags into Tom's hands, and received the silver he offered in payment—three bright new dimes. At that moment she caught a glimpse of Ed Brown lurking in the area way of a house at the other end of the block. The sight filled her with a vague misgiving which she could not have explained. She glanced again at Tom; he was nervous ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... improbability of the thing she had done this time was her cover. Who in the world would have dreamed that she would go off with Jevons? I don't really know that I dreamed it myself at the moment. I may be mixing up with my first vague dread the certainty that came later. But sometimes I wonder why Reggie didn't suspect me. I suppose my rectitude that had dished me with Viola saved me ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... would not have wasted much thought over it at the moment. It all worried him and at the same time he could not attend to it. Strange to say, none would have believed it perhaps, but he only felt a faint vague anxiety about his immediate future. Another, much more important anxiety tormented him—it concerned himself, but in a different, more vital way. Moreover, he was conscious of immense moral fatigue, though his mind was working better ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... heard a warning cry. He looked up and saw the mass of metal descending, though the baggage man had not given the word. It was a swift upward glance, and as swiftly he swerved aside. Then he felt a sharp but heavy pain on his shoulder, and fell. He was conscious of a number of voices shouting, of vague forms hurrying towards him, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... struggle against them. He felt that there was a mystery, and that the Earl himself not only knew nothing about it, but could not even suspect it. But what was the mystery? That he could not, or perhaps dared not, conjecture. The vague thought which darted across his mind was one which was madness to entertain. He ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... the deck and panted. He played on the boards like a public fountain. At the back of his mind there was a flickering thought that he wanted to do something, a vague feeling that he had some sort of an appointment which he must keep; but he was unable to think what it was. Meanwhile, he conducted tentative experiments with his breath. It was so long since he had last breathed that he had lost the ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... themselves. "The saint on earth! Alas, if he discern such sinfulness in his own white soul, what horrid spectacle would he behold in thine or mine!" The minister well knew—subtle, but remorseful hypocrite that he was!—the light in which his vague confession would be viewed. He had striven to put a cheat upon himself by making the avowal of a guilty conscience, but had gained only one other sin, and a self-acknowledged shame, without the momentary relief of being self-deceived. He had ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... resolution limited my stay in Helena to a couple of days, which were devoted to arranging for an exploration of what are now known as the Upper and the Lower Geyser Basins of the Yellowstone Park. While journeying between Corinne and Helena I had gained some vague knowledge of these geysers from an old mountaineer named Atkinson, but his information was very indefinite, mostly second-hand; and there was such general uncertainty as to the character of this wonderland that I authorized an escort of soldiers to go that season ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... land with the vague and yet inquiring glance of those who are going out to sea, noticed the church of Notre dame de la Garde, perched on its high hill, and dominating the noisy city, the harbour, the cold, grey squadrons of the rocks and Monte Cristo's ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... to get out some spare sails. I obtained what I wanted from the fo'c'sle, and after a good deal of work managed to "bend" a mainsail and staysail. Being without compass or chart, however, I knew not where I was, nor could I decide what course to take in order to reach land. I had a vague idea that the seas in those regions were studded with innumerable little islands and sandbanks known only to the pearl-fishers, and it seemed inevitable that I must run aground somewhere or get stranded upon a coral reef after I had ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... restlessly, and her heart throbbed anxiously, as she told herself that she had done little to smooth his rugged pathway. The vague feeling, that he had not been entirely to blame, if she had not found perfect happiness by his side, alarmed her. Did not her former conduct justify him in expecting hindrance rather than support and help in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... any one occasion attempt to conceal his person from their observation, I do say, gentlemen, that the means of knowledge of these witnesses are so slight, that if I call witnesses to prove, not by vague surmise, never having seen him before, that he was in their society and company that evening so late, as to render it impossible that he should have been at Dover that night. But supposing that the evidence of alibi should not be satisfactory, it then comes back to the other ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... had made to their room during Mark's illness had brought him into such constant and pleasant contact with Sallie and her brother that they looked upon him as a tried friend. Sallie, he knew, was a friend of the shy, golden-haired sister. So one evening he went to call at the Calkins room, with a vague hope of helping indirectly in bringing ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... interested had died in a provincial town. She was a chronic invalid and morphia was found by her bedside. There was an inquest with an open verdict. Eight days later I went to have a sitting with Mr. Vout Peters. After giving me a good deal which was vague and irrelevant, he suddenly said: "There is a lady here. She is leaning upon an older woman. She keeps saying 'Morphia.' Three times she has said it. Her mind was clouded. She did not mean it. Morphia!" Those were almost his exact ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was taking a bath, and was splashing about in the warm water, laughing with the joyous heart of a boy. With the mild steam rose the vague perfume of violets. Brave as a Crillon though he was, fearless as a Bussy, the Chevalier was something of a fop; not the mincing, lisping fop, but one who loved physical cleanliness, who took pride in the whiteness ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... toward the north scattering out over the mesa and dotting the hills beyond the mountain road. A banner of smoke lay low against the northern horizon, while across the distance came the faint whistle of an approaching train. A vague remembrance came into Marguerite's mind that there was to have been trouble in the town, a battle and bloodshed, after the passing of that train, and that she had been anxious on her father's account. But that all seemed years ago, ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... mother's knee. I have been to your great cathedrals and churches. I saw only lip-service and routine. I heard only stale maxims, weak explanations of the allegories and parables that fill your Biblical records; flowing rhetoric and vague expressions of some undefinable joy and glory in an equally undefinable Hereafter, that was sometimes described as a place, and sometimes as a state. That was all. I feel such things cannot long stand against the tide of advancing thought. Modern Christianity is not the Sermon on the Mount, and ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... it. But to succeed in this excellent enterprise one must have good duplicate specimens; not having them, one must have money. As a conclusion to your letter, the question of money was brought before my assembled colleagues, but the answer was vague and uncertain. I must, then, find resources in some other way, and this is what I propose to do . . .[Here follow some plans for exchange.] Beside this, I will busy myself in getting together authentic ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... and the patch on which they walked seemed still the same patch. They got a glimpse of a white, clumsy-looking stone, a small ravine, or a bundle of hay dropped by a passer-by, the brief glimmer of a great muddy puddle, or, suddenly, a shadow with vague outlines would come into view ahead of them; the nearer they got to it the smaller and darker it became; nearer still, and there stood up before the wayfarers a slanting milestone with the number rubbed off, or a wretched birch-tree drenched and bare like a wayside beggar. The ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... then, the conditions regulating conduct are from the first greatly modified. Instinct, becoming vague and more general, has evolved into "character," while the intelligence finds itself confronted with customs to which it has to accommodate conduct. But how does custom arise? Let us first consider what custom is. It is not merely a habit of action; but ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... was made to Sombrin, and the next day the Battalion left Sombrin late in the afternoon for an unknown destination. Even the Colonel did not know, and there was a vague rumour that the Brigade staff were to look after the unit. The men marched over bad roads and in the dark, and ultimately they were turned into a wood and told there were no billets, and they could bivouac for the night. Officers and men lay down on the damp ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... landscapes and pictures. I will save you a world of trouble, and will instruct you at once to find certain objects frightful and unworthy of notice or esteem. The zest of travel is taken out of one by the necessity of muttering vague formulas of meaningless praise before pictures and statues it is traditional to admire. There's too much of everything in this world. When a man has reached my age and my state of health he feels the necessity of getting at the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... there are other things you could do," pleaded Max, with vague thoughts of setting his own sisters to work to find this erratic child of the riverside some more seemly mode of life than her ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... I know it; and you will one day admit that it is so, you, who at this moment shed tears with me; no one can burden his heart or his skin with another's pain. The measure of our sufferings is in ourselves.—You even understand my sorrows only by very vague analogy. Could you see me calming the most violent frenzy of despair by the contemplation of a miniature in which I can see and kiss her brow, the smile on her lips, the shape of her face, can breathe the whiteness of her skin; which enables ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... that of any other land save Egypt; yet Chinese affairs have not until recently exerted any appreciable influence upon the general current of history. All through ancient and mediaeval times the country lay, vague and mysterious, in the haze of the world's horizon. During the Middle Ages the land was known to Europe ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... details with interest down to the end, where the name of the "famous Chatworth ring" finished the announcement with a flourish. Why "famous"? It was very provoking to advertise with that vague adjective and not ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... soldier. Too absent-minded—hopelessly vague and careless. I live on tenter-hooks always. What detail have I forgotten? What order did I give that could be ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... affirming that the people do not pray at such stations more than at any other spot whatever. There are many such venerated trees in different parts of the country. I believe that the reason as well as the amount of such veneration is vague and unsettled in the minds of the peasantry, yet the object remains a local monument from generation to generation, honoured now, as were in the Bible times—the oak of Deborah (Gen. xxxv. 8), the oak of Ophrah (Judges vi. II), for ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... so if it had appeared that it might lead to his exculpation, but you were so fully convinced that his whole course confirmed the suspicions, that a mere vague idea was not worth dwelling on. Your general opinion, of him ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heard; but it was enough to set me thinking. "If he had been shot".... If who had been shot? My fears answered that question but too readily. Who, then, was this new-comer? Was he from Berlin? And if from Berlin, what orders did he bring? A vague terror of coming evil fell upon me. I trembled—I held my breath. I tried to hear what was being said, but in vain. The voices in the next room went on in a low incessant murmur; but of that murmur I could not distinguish ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... slope was scarcely clogged at all. The firs, waving now and interlocking their branches in that vague joy or trouble of the winter wind, were keeping off the powdery drift. When he got to his house he saw Jerry on the way to the barn, but he did not hail him. Possibly Jerry had paid Tenney for his week, and although Raven's own diplomacy would stick at nothing, he preferred to act in good ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... This latest instalment of the Tarzan chronicles finds the Greystokes somewhat anxious about the restlessness and unconventional tastes of their schoolboy son, who inherits not only his father's vague jungle longings but all his explicit acquired characteristics, so that when, with the decent old ape, Akut, disguised as his invalid grandmother, he sails away from England and plunges into the wild he promptly becomes the terror of the jungle and bites the jugular veins ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... in broad light, the next day—the next—and the next, with half excuses and vague talk of business. Lady Carnegie did not interdict his visits, or blame his weakness and inconsistency, for they were seemly in the eyes of the world—which she honoured, after herself, although she washed her hands of the further ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... immediately after an accented syllable, and precedes a vowel that is part of another unaccented syllable standing immediately before an accented one, Milton accepts the consequence, and does not attempt to give it the force of a distinct syllable. But Addison's vague notion that it was Milton's custom to cut off the final y when it precedes a vowel, and that for the sake of being uncommon, came of inaccurate observation. For the reasons just given, the y of the word glory runs into the succeeding syllable, and most assuredly is not cut ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... is thus dilatory, but it is more to his taste to indulge his imagination in reflecting upon the enormity of the crime and refining on his schemes of vengeance, than to put them into immediate practice. His ruling passion is to think, not to act: and any vague pretence that flatters this propensity instantly diverts him from ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... the most part be arbitrary; and insanity, without any formal or express provision, may be safely pronounced to be a virtual disqualification. The constitution of New York, to avoid investigations that must forever be vague and dangerous, has taken a particular age as the criterion of inability. No man can be a judge beyond sixty. I believe there are few at present who do not disapprove of this provision. There is no station, in relation to which it is less proper than ...
— The Federalist Papers
... divide it with the poorest family there, on the express condition that they should tidy up things, especially those children, and generally change their way of living. The man took the money—I have a vague recollection of seeing a stunned look on his face—and, I believe, brought it back to our house to see if it was all right, thereby giving me great offence. But he did the best for himself that way, for so Rag Hall came under the notice of my mother too. And there really was some whitewashing ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... the phlegmatic Scot, who, having rested his horses and affixed a drag to the wheel, was about to proceed, when Lady Juliana, who now began to have some vague suspicion of the truth, called to him to stop, and, almost breathless with alarm, inquired of her husband the meaning ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... repair and make it seaworthy but, finding this beyond my skill, had abandoned the attempt; for indeed (as I say) it was wofully bilged and broken. Moreover, at the back of my mind had always lurked a vague hope that some day, soon or late, she that was ever in my dreams, she that had been my love, my Damaris, might yet in her sweet mercy come a-seeking me. Wherefore, as I have before told, it had become my daily custom, morn and eve, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol |
