"Indefinite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... street-cars and a smart fusillade of invective. During this enforced stoppage the young man becomes conscious of a vast unfinished structure that towers gauntly overhead through the darkening and thickening air, and for which a litter of iron beams in the roadway itself seems to promise an indefinite continuation skyward. ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... not look at her for several minutes after sitting down. He was apparently busy ordering lunch, consulting with a waiter, and speaking to his old companion, whose coal-black wig made a rather strange contrast with her lined white cheeks and curiously indefinite eyes. But presently, with a sort of strong deliberation, his gaze was turned on Lady Sellingworth, and she knew at once that he had seen her when he came in. She met his gaze for an instant, and this time seemed to be definitely aware of some mysterious thread of sympathy between ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... fate and fame shall be An echo and a light unto eternity. By 'eternity' we may here understand, not absolute eternity as contradistinguished from time, but an indefinite space of time, the years and the centuries. His fate and fame shall be echoed on from age to age, and shall be a ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... is also used to denote an action that happened sometime in the past; as, I finished my work. As no definite time is specified, this is called the /perfect indefinite. It corresponds to the ordinary use of ...
— Latin for Beginners • Benjamin Leonard D'Ooge
... morning Bea and Lila, silent and shy, had crowded with their two hundred classmates into chapel. The two friends sat side by side. Lila was in terror of making some horrible blunder that might overwhelm her with a vast indefinite disgrace. She leaned forward in the pew, the pencil trembling between her fingers, the blood pounding in her ears, while from the platform in front a cool voice read on evenly through page after page of names. And then at last the tragic despair of finding that she ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... vision which Mrs. Berrington was ready solemnly to declare that she had not misapplied were, as her sister looked into them, an abyss of indefinite prettiness. The girl had sounded them before without discovering a conscience at the bottom of them, and they had never helped any one to find out anything about their possessor except that she was one of the beauties of London. Even while Selina spoke Laura had a cold, horrible sense of ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... in a very indefinite manner. The passengers were mostly in their state-rooms, on the sofa, or sitting ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... there ever a lovelier piece of colour than Cannon Street Station at night? Entering by train, you see it as a huge vault of lilac shadow, pierced by innumerable pallid arclights. The roof flings itself against the sky, a mountain of glass and interlacing girders, and about it play a hundred indefinite and ever-changing tones. Each platform seems a lane through a dim forest, where the trees are of iron and steel and the leaves are sullen windows. Or where shall you find a sweeter pastoral than that field of lights that thrills the midnight sojourner in lower Piccadilly? Or ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... the Landers till he could extort a large sum for their ransom. He demanded the sum of twenty bars (each equal to one slave or a cask of palm oil). The travellers had the prospect of being detained for an indefinite period, had not King Boy of Brass-town, Obie's son-in-law, undertaken to pay the amount, and convey them to the coast, on condition of receiving a guarantee for thirty-five bars, being determined to retain the ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... out of the office the possessor of the first position he had ever held. On the morrow he was to return for further instructions, though General Rochere had made it quite plain that Tarzan might prepare to leave Paris for an almost indefinite period, ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... just now," he began, resuming his former attitude, with his arm on the mantelpiece, "that you didn't expect me to be so definite. Suppose I had been indefinite; then what would you ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... looking carelessly at the passing cavaliers, he felt a very thin cold hand laid on his. He started round, and saw the Dominican friar whose upturned face had so struck him in the morning. Seen closer, the face looked more evidently worn by sickness and not by age; and again it brought some strong but indefinite reminiscences to Tito. ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... face reddened above his thick beard at this easy and fluent denial of all that he had constructed from a hasty and indefinite bit of information. ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... not called upon to endure from the caprices, old-fashioned notions, eccentricities, avarice, and obstinacy, of the old tyrant to whom he thus consents to sell himself, and it may be his family, body and soul, for an indefinite number ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... beg Your Highness to order some relief that is final and not indefinite, for the men who were thus left neither slaves nor free: because I do not know what relief it can be considered, to leave them neither free nor slaves until they die; for meanwhile, they are daily treated worse and worse by those who call them slaves and dogs, because they consider that ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... method of counting. The abacus of the Roman and Chinese extended the scope of simple mathematical operations as it employed more symbolic elements. With the development of Arabic notation capable of indefinite expansion, the science progressed rapidly, and in the course of long time it has become the higher calculus of to-day. The conceptions of geometry have likewise evolved until to-day mathematicians speak of configurated bodies in fourth and higher dimensions ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... authorities of this kind on this point, to an almost indefinite extent, from the debate between Bishop Hughes and Mr. Breckenridge, and the controversy between Hughes and Erastus Brooks, but it is ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... was often in Bonaparte's mouth; and in using it he endeavoured to throw ridicule on those men whom he fancied to have a tendency towards the doctrine of indefinite perfectibility. He esteemed them for their morality, yet he looked on them as dreamers seeking for the type of a universal constitution, and considering the character of man in the abstract only. The ideologues, according to him, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... families as some guarantee of order. So entirely had the revolution of the past twenty-four hours changed their attitude toward Perez, that they now looked on him as their saviour from the mob, and only possible protector against indefinite lengths of lawlessness. It was among them, rather than among the people, that the knowledge of his intended speedy departure for New York, now produced the liveliest apprehensions. And the most timid ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... or want to do, you are to do this, as when the social system, working through the base necessities of base parents and bad laws, sends a child of thirteen into a factory. Prohibition takes one definite thing from the indefinite liberty of a man, but it still leaves him an unbounded choice of actions. He remains free, and you have merely taken a bucketful from the sea of his freedom. But compulsion destroys freedom altogether. In this Utopia of ours there may be many prohibitions, but no indirect compulsions—if one may ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... enable our West India colonies to inundate Great Britain with food, and at a rate which would make flour to be considered a luxury. Dr. Shier is convinced that, in thorough drained land, where the roots could penetrate the soil, and where its permeability would permit of their indefinite expansion, a return of 25 tons an acre might uniformly be calculated upon. What a blessing, not only for those colonies, but for the world, would the introduction be of this cheap and nutritious ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... where it was,' he said, and the friendly interest he displayed in this young lady was very wonderful. Already they seemed to have known each other for a quite indefinite time. 'Mind you, people laugh nowadays at the old belief that one English sailor was as good as seven French ones. But it was quite true; and the explanation is simple enough. The fact was that the English ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... most careful consideration I am no longer in doubt, and though it grieves me to do so, I write to beg that you will withdraw from any action which might bring me a direct call to the professorship in Zurich. I have decided to remain here for an indefinite time, under the conviction that I shall exert a more advantageous and more extensive influence on the progress of science in ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... will of God. It is a blessed thing to have our life laid out and our Christian work adjusted to God's plan. Much strength is lost by working at a venture. Much spiritual force is expended in wasted effort, and scattered, indefinite and inconstant attempts at doing good. There is spiritual force and financial strength enough in the hands and hearts of the consecrated Christians of to-day to bring the coming of Christ, to bring about the evangelization of the world in a generation, if it were ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... needed but the substitution of a woman's dress, fitted to her person, for the short skirts and loose waists cut in a boyish fashion, which had made the little girl seem hardly to belong to any sex, an indefinite being, condemned, as it were, to childishness? How tall, and slender, and graceful she looked in that long gown, the folds of which fell from her waist in flowing lines, a waist as round and flexible as the branch of a willow; what elegance there was in her modest corsage, which displayed ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... immediately fell out of the boat, in her surprise. Cunning Will jumped after her. The sugary party had come to a mountainous spot down below the sea, and they found a minute garden there, full of curly fruits. The aggravating Hilda, the indefinite Eunice, and the smooth Edna, seeing the proper Cricket" [another howl] "struggling in the water with the contrary Will, immediately jumped out after them, leaving the rough Archie and forlorn auntie in command of the boat. Suddenly a bold gnome popped ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... relieved. I believe he had an idea it was something very different. My explanation could not have added much to his reverence for my business ability. I was very indefinite, and could not tell him whether it was hundreds or thousands that ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... that we have our hands full of important work on Top Notch Trail, for an indefinite time," ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... "Where sin aboundeth, grace aboundeth much more," Rom. v. 20. And what the Lord said unto Paul in his extremity, 2 Cor. xi. 9. "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my power is made perfect through weakness:" concerns every man in like case. His promises are made indefinite to all believers, generally spoken to all touching remission of sins that are truly penitent, grieved for their offences, and desire to be reconciled, Matt. ix. 12, 13, "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance," that is, such as are truly touched in conscience for their ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... or which even to the writer's feeling was exaggerated, but because it was expressed coarsely, and as a physical power: now, every thing physical is measurable by weight, motion, and resistance; and is therefore definite. But the very essence of whatsoever is supernatural lies in the indefinite. That power, therefore, with which the minds of men invested the emperor, was vulgarized by this coarse translation into the region of physics. Else it is evident, that any power which, by standing above all human control, occupies the next relation to superhuman ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... reasons beside the growing peacefulness of the Spaniards why Granada was left to develop in comparative security for two centuries. It was impossible that adjacent ambitious kingdoms, such as Navarre, Castile, Aragon, Leon, and Portugal, with indefinite and disputed boundaries, and, on account of intermarriages between the kingdoms, with indefinite and disputed successions, should ever be at peace. In the perpetual strife and warfare which prevailed on account of royal European alliances, the fate of foreign princes and princesses were ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... be more censured for doing wrong, than for doing little; for raising in the publick expectations, which at last I have not answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to satisfy those who know not what to demand, or those who demand by design what they think impossible to be done. I have indeed disappointed no opinion more than my own; yet I have ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... asks, "for they cannot be of any advantage to you in preaching such things? What is the use of all these Gothic churches, altars, and such matters? No, indeed! Religion, true religion, must return to the exercise of its original functions, or a preacher will become the most indefinite, idle, and indifferent thing on earth. Teachers of religion, true servants of God's word, what have you to do in our century? The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest that he will send out laborers who will be ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... answered. "It's altogether too indefinite. I shouldn't tell you anything which would sound like common sense except this,—that I am exceedingly curious, for several reasons, to know what those two men who came up in that car ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... boom without reverberations. His four auditors understood him perfectly, however. Fosdick was always "starting" something. He had even attempted to organize a new cemetery association, which, as Greenlawn was commodious, and as any amount of land adjacent made possible its indefinite expansion, Amzi regarded as an absurd and unholy project. With Fosdick, Amzi had no business relations of any kind. He belonged to the Commercial Club, to be sure, but this was a concession on his part; he never attended any ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... Catastrophe, tragical exceedingly; which went loud-sounding through the world, and still goes,—the more is the pity. Catastrophe due throughout to three causes: FIRST, That Fredersdorf, not Eichel, wrote the Order; and introduced the indefinite phrase SKRIPTUREN, instead of sticking by the OEUVRE DE POESIES, the one essential point. SECOND, That Freytag was of heavy pipe-clay nature. THIRD, That Voltaire was of impatient explosive nature; and, in ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... Goldsmith continued to consider literature a mere makeshift, and his Vagrant imagination teemed with schemes and plans of a grand but indefinite nature. One was for visiting the East and exploring the interior of Asia. He had, as has been before observed, a vague notion that valuable discoveries were to be made there, and many useful inventions in the arts brought back to the stock of European knowledge. "Thus, in Siberian Tartary," observes ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... fifteen places where clergymen were immediately needed. And it is no uncommon occurrence, as in the church at Mudgee, (quite in the wilderness,) for a consecration to take place, the church to be filled, the inhabitants around delighted, their children baptized, and then the building is closed for an indefinite period, until some clergyman be found to officiate! Some persons may hold that to save money is better than to save souls, but let not these men aspire to the ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... relations above described are very constant; on the other hand, in the minor subdivisions, and especially where the absolute number of parts is large, considerable variation may occur, so that descriptive botanists frequently make use of the term indefinite, and apply it to cases where the number of parts is large and variable, or, at any rate, not ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... sailboats that the liner was always leaving behind. They were like reflective wayfarers who saturate themselves with the country atmosphere and commune deeply with its soul. The people of the steamer lived like terrestrial travelers who sleepily survey from the car-windows a succession of indefinite and dizzying views ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... irregular enclosure, reminding one of the very similar area, bordered by Walter, Lexell, Hell, &c., in the third quadrant. It extends about 150 miles from E. to W., and more than 100 from N. to S., its limits on the N. being rather indefinite. Its very rugged humpy surface includes one great central mountain, and innumerable minor hills and ridges, craters, and crater-pits; but the principal feature is the magnificent curved rill-valley running ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... the wants of the individual never expanded at all, it is quite obvious that an indefinite increase in the number of individuals in any locality would, sooner or later, result in scarcity and bring them into conflict with nature, and, therefore, into conflict with one another. That human populations are ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... doubtful struggle this very neutrality would raise the price of her ultimate alliance. It was in this way that she came at last to exercise a decisive voice in the resettlement of Germany, not to say of Europe. True to this policy, the Austrian court concluded a truce of indefinite duration with Russia at the beginning of the year, and withdrew its forces within its own borders. This was followed by an offer of mediation made to France, which was, however, declined. A renewed offer was declined early in April by both France and Great Britain. The British still ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... be judged even worse than the former, as doing to our neighbor more heavy and more irreparable wrong. For it imposeth on him really more blame, and that such which he can hardly shake off; because the charge signifies habits of evil, and includeth many acts; then, being general and indefinite, can scarce be disproved. He, for instance, that calleth a sober man drunkard doth impute to him many acts of such intemperance (some really past, others probably future), and no particular time or place being specified, how can a man ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... was shown to be an absurdity, the complaint followed that what he had done, had been done in precisely such a mode, although it was the mode constantly used by every one else. From these vague and indefinite accusations, those most implicated in the wrong, began to deny all their own original assertions, by insisting that they had known all along, that Mr. Effingham owned the property, but that they did not choose ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Mississippi River was first discovered by Ferdinand de Soto, as early as 1541. The accounts of his expedition in Florida are so highly exaggerated, so indefinite, and in many parts so obviously false, that little more can be inferred from them, than that he passed far into the country, had many combats with the natives, and finally died in the interior. The probability is so strong, however, that he and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... general character of their thought we shall cease to wonder. Their recorded history did not go back far, and so far as it did go there had been no impressive series of new discoveries suggesting either an indefinite increase of knowledge or a growing mastery of the forces of nature. In the period in which their most brilliant minds were busied with the problems of the universe men might improve the building of ships, or invent new geometrical demonstrations, but their science ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... a spell, the German mercenary pondered her with those slowly kindling eyes, that slowly spreading, indefinite smile. Then he stirred, and to his secretary he ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the particulars of this remarkable dream. He said it was in my department—it related to the water; that he seemed to be in a singular and indescribable vessel, but always the same, and that he was moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore; that he had had this singular dream preceding the firing on Sumter, the battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, Stone River, Vicksburg, Wilmington, etc. General Grant remarked, with some emphasis and asperity, that Stone River was no victory—that a few such victories would ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... imputation. They must not be liable to be detained in custody without so much as a prima facie case being made out, such as in the opinion of a responsible judicial officer leaves a presumption of guilt. They must not be liable to be detained for an indefinite time without having the question of their guilt or innocence investigated by the best attainable methods. When the fact comes to be inquired into, the best attainable methods of eliciting the truth must be used. In default of any one of these securities, public liberty must ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... prevent the extirpation of one species by the encroachments of another. In short, without man, lower animal and spontaneous vegetable life would have been practically constant in type, distribution, and proportion, and the physical geography of the earth would have remained undisturbed for indefinite periods, and been subject to revolution only from slow development, from possible, unknown cosmical causes, or ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... don't know—quite. You see, I am rather indefinite as yet. I thought of going for the winter somewhere in the Southern States. I am decided merely this much, you know—I am going somewhere. But I don't ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... man, I take it. And after all, bravery is nothing but a sort of over-confidence. But I don't believe that you would kill me; I believe that it would be the other way, and it is not out of fear that I propose a setting aside of our indefinite agreement to meet each other. But be that as it may, we will call it off unless you insist, and if you do, why, as a gentleman I shall be compelled to meet you. I am brave enough to confess that I can't help but admire you morally and physically. In a small way, I was once a demonstrator ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... pupil of Chaitanya. The probability is that Adwaita, like the majority of his countrymen, was more addicted to meditation than to action. The idea which in his mind gave rise to nothing more than indefinite longings when transfused into the earnest fiery nature of Chaitanya, expanded into a faith which moved and led ...
— Chaitanya and the Vaishnava Poets of Bengal • John Beames
... much she and Jane had accomplished, how neat and clean they had kept the rows of growing vegetables, and how good the promise was for an indefinite number of dinners, but she only added to the farmer's depression. He was in no mood for onions, parsnips, and their vegetable kin, yet thought, "She thinks I'm only capable of being interested in such things, and I've been at much pains to give that impression. She picked that rose for HERSELF, ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... imagination was full of Ginevra, and his was not an economy whose imagination could enjoy itself without calling the heart to share. At the same time, his being in love, if already I may use concerning him that most general and most indefinite of phrases, so far from obstructing his study, was in reality an aid to his thinking and a spur to excellence—not excellence over others, but over himself. There were moments, doubtless, long moments too, in which he forgot Homer and Cicero and ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Poor, simple old body! She was very much laughed at on account of her boasted ancestor, the "Duke of England." Yet her mistake was not so great as it seemed, for it was only the slight mistake of using the definite article "the" for the indefinite article "a," nor were her claims quite so ridiculous as they appeared to be, as will ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... of the Greatest Importance suffering from Influenza Headache and talking through sheets and sheets of felt without getting any relief from it whatever. Reading between the lines, you know, it's pretty clear that the Times considers that it is useless to mince matters, and that something (indefinite of course) has to be done at once. Otherwise still more undesirable consequences—Times English, you know, for more wasps and stings. ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... exactly the time when the bold idea of resistance entered his brains, or to say when he began to plan for its realization, and after that to prepare the blacks for its reception. Before embarking on his perilous enterprise he must have carefully reckoned on time, long and indefinite, as an essential factor in its successful achievement. For, certain it is, he took it, years in fact, made haste slowly and with supreme discretion and self-control. He appeared to have thoroughly acquainted himself with the immense ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... here given of use, as opposed to neglect, misuse, or abuse, are simply illustrative of the point in question. They might be extended in an indefinite degree, especially if it were proposed to enter into details. They will, however, suffice for the purpose in view, which is to show that the use of all the powers and faculties granted to us by the Creator is intended for our benefit, and is conducive ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... definite localities. The authority possessed by such local bodies extends over definite and limited areas, (which themselves are often created by legislation); exists for definite purposes; is directly conferred or tolerated by Parliament; has no capacity of indefinite extension; and neither comes into competition with nor restrains, either legally or morally, the legislative authority of Parliament. Logically, indeed, there may be difficulty in drawing the precise line of demarcation between a plan for conferring ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... interpretation! It is conjectured that he only employed his term of sufficient reason for the plain simple word of cause. Even Locke, who has himself so admirably noticed the "abuse of words," has been charged with using vague and indefinite ones; he has sometimes employed the words reflection, mind, and spirit in so indefinite a way, that they have confused his philosophy: thus by some ambiguous expressions, our great metaphysician ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of my life in these solitary rambles; there were particular places to which I gave names, and visited them at regular intervals. Moonlight was particularly agreeable to me, but most of all I enjoyed a thick, foggy night. At times, during these walks, I would be excessively oppressed by an indefinite and deep feeling of melancholy. Without knowing why, I would be so unhappy as to wish myself annihilated, and suddenly it would occur to me that my friends at home were suffering some dreadful calamity, and so vivid would be the impression, that I ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... blood, and the two periods of segmentation give a paroxysm for each, so that the paroxysms may appear at intervals of twenty-four hours instead of forty-eight (Fig. 20). This cycle of development may continue for an indefinite time, and there may be such a rapid increase in the parasites as to bring about the death of the individual; but with him the parasite would also perish, for there would be no way of extending the infection and providing a new crop. The disease has been transmitted ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... etiam, 13, where see note.—Possis. You, i.e., any one can. Z. 524. Cf. note II. 1, 10: laudares. So persuaseris in the preceding sentence. The subj. gives a contingent or potential turncan procure, sc. if you will would persuade, sc. if you should try. An indefinite person is always addressed in the subj. in Latin, even when the ind. would be used if a definite ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... absence of anything like precision in the language employed in such verses frequently causes confusion. The word atma as used in the first line is very indefinite. The commentator thinks it implies achetanabuddhi, i.e., the perishable understanding. I prefer, however, to take it as employed in the sense of Chit as modified by birth. It comes, I think, to the same thing in the end. The 'inner Soul' is, perhaps, the Soul or Chit ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... oldest and falsest of our beliefs regarding women is that they are protected—that some way in the battle of life they get the best of it. People talk of men's chivalry, that vague, indefinite quality which is supposed to transmute the common clay of life ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... suffered itself to be duped by a counterfeit tale of superstitious terror! Or if, in better moments, you awake to a consciousness of the Bible averments being stern realities, your next subterfuge is to trust to that rope of sand to which thousands have clung, to the wreck of their eternities—an indefinite dreamy hope in the final mercy of God! that on the Great Day the threatenings of Jesus will undergo some modification; that He will not carry out to the very letter the full weight of His denunciations; that the arm which love nailed to the cross of Calvary will sheathe the sword of avenging ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... a born politician. He had the sense of opportunity and that strange haze of hopeful but indefinite purpose which is the foundation of the successful poet and statesman, but which, when unsuccessfully developed, ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... Military expenses were daily increasing. Trade with the colonies, the greatest single outlet for British goods and capital, was paralyzed. The heavy debts due British merchants in America were not only unpaid but postponed into an indefinite future. Ireland was on the verge of revolution. The French had a dangerous fleet on the high seas. In vain did the king assert in December, 1781, that no difficulties would ever make him consent to a peace that meant American independence. Parliament knew better, and on ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... and finding that there is no origin for the idea of an after-life, save the conclusion which the savage draws, from the notion suggested by dreams, of a wandering double which comes back on awaking, and which goes away for an indefinite time at death;—and after contemplating the inscrutable relation between brain and consciousness, and finding that we can get no evidence of the existence of the last without the activity of the first,—we seem obliged to relinquish the thought ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... has an individual life, and the law of self-preservation ought, to teach her, that she is throwing herself away, if she, is not determined to stand by her banners and to defend her position." p. 11. Whatever definition we may adopt of the indefinite and cloudy term "life" in this passage, our reply is, the life of every Christian church ought to be the life of the Gospel, and the life of the church as established and conducted by the inspired apostles. Every thing in the life of any church inconsistent with this, must be wrong. ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... train Skinner had the "blues" and "had them good." Gloom was closing in on all sides; he could n't tell why, unless the growing fear of exposure to Honey was taking hold on his subconsciousness and manifesting itself in chronic, indefinite apprehension. ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... put on board the ship in which certain friends—Samuel Fothergill, Mary Peisly, Katherine Payton and others—sailed from Philadelphia for England in June 1756, is still extant. In those days Atlantic passages were long, and might last for an indefinite period, and passengers provisioned themselves accordingly. On this occasion the passage though stormy was very quick, for it lasted only thirty-four days. The list of provisions taken is truly formidable. It includes all sorts ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... "Why, Elsie Hazzard, I have never liked you and George half so much as I like you now. You two and the Smiths stand out like Gibraltars in my esteem. I adore all of you. I sha'n't be happy again until I know that you four—and no more—are coming back to Schloss Rothhoefen for an indefinite stay. Good Lord, how happy ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... education and genius. The more indeterminate the object, the greater share must subjective forces have in determining our perception; for, of course, every perception is in itself perfectly specific, and can be called indefinite only in reference to an abstract ideal which it is expected to approach. Every cloud has just the outline it has, although we may call it vague, because we cannot classify its form under any geometrical or animal species; it would be first definitely a whale, and then would become indefinite until ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... made him a bow, which was returned, and on leaving the office I returned to the Chevalier Osorio, who said, with a smile, that I had caught the superintendent, as I had taken an indefinite period, which left me quite ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... three days before we were due to leave, we had received orders to pack our surplus kit, and have it at the Quartermaster's Stores at a certain time. We drew a long breath. This meant that the actual date, which up to the present had been somewhat indefinite, was close at hand. We were given orders to draw our tanks and the whole Company was marched over to work sheds about two miles away at E——, where ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... upon the house of Don Gregorio Montijo. They can see, as once before, two heads over the parapet, and, as before, recognise them; but not as before, or with the same feelings, do they regard them. All is changed now, everything doubtful and indefinite, where it might be supposed everything had been satisfactorily arranged. But it has not—especially in the thoughts of Crozier; whose dissatisfaction is shown in a soliloquy to which he gives utterance, as Telegraph Hill, interfering with ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... predilections interfere with impartial judgment, the hope of such accordance of opinion among sociological inquirers as would obtain, in mere deference to their authority, the universal assent which M. Comte's scheme of society requires, must be adjourned to an indefinite distance. ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... formal evidence of the discovery of the body of Sir Horace Fewbanks on the 19th of August. Dr. Slingsby repeated the evidence that he had given at the trial of Birchill as to the cause of death, and was again professionally indefinite as to the length of time the victim had been dead when he saw the body. Thomas Taylor, taxi-cab driver, gave evidence as to driving the prisoner from Hyde Park Corner on the night of the 18th of August and the finding of ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... father had broken into a bank and stolen ten thousand dollars, and safely bequeathed that as a legacy; could you conscientiously keep the money? For myself, I had rather rob any bank to an indefinite amount than kidnap a fellow-being, or hold him in bondage; the sin would be less injurious to society, and less sinful in ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... indefinite noise in his throat, which, if he could have spoken, would have been an eloquent statement-at-large of the state of his affections. He cursed himself for his imbecility. Louis Raincy, he felt sure, would have found the right thing to say—even the Poor Scholar—not ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... heard, the wailing of children, the voices of women. The hands and heads of this throng, black against the luminous background, outlined against it a thousand eccentric gestures. At times, upon the ground, where trembled the light of the fires, mingled with large, indefinite shadows, one could behold a dog passing, which resembled a man, a man who resembled a dog. The limits of races and species seemed effaced in this city, as in a pandemonium. Men, women, beasts, age, sex, health, maladies, all seemed to be in common among these people; ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... but that we may be nearer, and the secret of our daily Christian life is all wrapped up in that one word which is scarcely to be called a figure, 'coming' unto Him. That nearness is what we are to make daily efforts after, and that nearness is capable of indefinite increase. We know not how close to His heart we can lay our aching heads. We know not how near to His fulness we may bring our emptiness. We have never yet reached the point beyond which no closer union is possible. There has always been a film—and, alas! ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... was a clear proof of it. The Count thought of all this for some minutes, and then put it from his mind, for his thoughts were changed by the sight of a dark thick cloud which presaged another storm. But something indefinite and sweet remained in his mind, which put him in a good humour. He turned the horse and arrived at Lancia very late in the evening, very tired, and covered with mud; but his heart was light and cheerful without ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... "Musikfreunde," with the request that they will in future regard me as quite inadmissible as a conductor. Your question whether I attach "any special importance" as to how the different parts should be filled, I answer simply thus: arrange things wholly and entirely as you think best. The few indefinite suggestions in my last letter are of importance only in so far as they agree with your competent arrangement, otherwise in no way. One point only I should like adhered to in the Vienna performance, namely that no foreign singers be engaged for ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... Fear, anguish, amazement—none of these could exist. All he knew was that the lifeless form of a woman—for Iris had happily fainted—must be held until death itself wrenched her from him. Then there came the headlong plunge into the swirling sea, followed by an indefinite period of gasping oblivion. Something that felt like a moving rock rose up beneath his feet. He was driven clear out of the water and seemed to recognize a familiar object rising rigid and bright close at hand. It was the binnacle pillar, screwed to a portion of the deck which ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... the then prevalent style of vessels of her size and class, is altogether probable. The name pinnace was applied to vessels having a wide range in tonnage, etc., from a craft of hardly more than ten or fifteen tons to one of sixty or eighty. It was a term of pretty loose and indefinite adaptation and covered most of the smaller craft above a shallop or ketch, from such as could be propelled by oars, and were so fitted, to a small ship of the SPEEDWELL'S class, ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... early the next day, filled with an indefinite hope, a still keener desire to be gone, and a horror of another day to be got through in this ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... abstract concepts rather than augmentation in numbers and kinds of subjective impressions, i.e., the advance is in quality rather than in quantity; indeed, it would almost appear that the vague and indefinite abstraction of hecastotheism is more pervasive and prevalent than the clearer abstraction of higher stages. Appreciation of the fundamental characteristics of belief is essential to even the most general understanding of the Indian mythology and philosophy, ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... employed at this date for mortuary purposes, he has less opportunity of being indefinite, since there were but three notabilities, Scheemakers, Rysbrack, and Roubillac,—all foreigners. Of these Scheemakers, whom Chesterfield regarded as a mere stone-cutter, and who did the Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey, is certainly the least considerable. ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... conceived each other and themselves to be under the direct 'rule and governance' of the Wicked One, is most skillfully administered. The supernatural here never becomes grossly palpable:—the thrill is all the deeper for its action being indefinite, and its source ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Of Literature, Art, and Science - Vol. I., July 22, 1850. No. 4. • Various
... well back in the water. The head will sink below the surface once or twice until the proper balance is reached. When this is attained try breathing through the mouth. The swimmer can stand still for an indefinite period. ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... audience, to whom they were known, by novelties—the correction of errors in secondary and unimportant particulars. The more wonderful the story, the more it ranged in a purely poetical region, which he transfers at will to an indefinite distance. These plays, whatever names they bear, take place in the true land of romance, and in the very century of wonderful love stories. He knew well that in the forest of Ardennes there were neither the lions and serpents of the Torrid Zone, nor the shepherdesses of Arcadia: but ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the industrial improvements referred to in the succeeding pages are necessarily sketched in an indefinite manner. The outlines, as it were, have been only roughed in; and no attempt has been made to supply particulars, which in fact would be out of place in an essay towards a comprehensive survey in so small a space. It is upon the wise and skilful ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... same time produce contrast and unity is difficult. It is this difference of interpretation that adds charm to the piano recitals of different virtuosos. There is no one right way and no one best way, but rather an indefinite margin for personal opinion and the exhibition of artistic taste. If there was one best way, there are now machines which could record that way and there the whole matter would end. But we want to hear ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... recognized as a first-class power. All sorts of inducements are offered, including cancelation of the Boxer indemnity now being paid to Germany. (The Allies have very obligingly decided that payment of their own Boxer indemnities shall be postponed, not canceled.) Also, there are vague, indefinite hints afloat to the effect that if China is very, very good, the Allies will consider, kindly consider, the right of China to raise her customs-duties. She may, perhaps, be allowed some sort of protective ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... of Burnett. Burnett was clearly tricked into voting for the Wright bill. When the Stetson bill received the favorable recommendation of the Senate Judiciary Committee, machine claquers filled the air with the indefinite promise that in the event of the Wright bill becoming a law, a constitutional amendment would be adopted, by which all ambiguity in the State Constitution on the question of maximum and absolute rates would be removed. The amendment was then pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... artistic taste of the ancient potters of this region, indicating that in the ceramic art they were far in advance of their descendants. But these collections have failed to teach, the lesson they might have taught, from the fact that data concerning the objects composing them are so indefinite. Very little care had been taken to label these collections accurately or to collect any specimens but those which were strikingly beautiful or commercially valuable. It was therefore with the hope of giving a more precise and comprehensive ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... social reforms. He considered, for instance, that the surest sign of our progressive civilization is in our growing distaste to capital punishments. He believed, not in the ultimate perfection of mankind, but in their progressive perfectibility. He thought that improvement was indefinite; but he did not place its advance more under Republican than under Monarchical forms. "Provided," he was wont to say, "all our checks to power are of the right kind, it matters little to what hands the power ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... imaginary. The acquiescence in indefinite ideas for the sake of comforted emotions, and the abnegation of strong convictions in order to make room for free and plenteous effusion, have for us all the marks of a too familiar reality. Such a doctrine is an everyday plea for self-deception, ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... even added: 'If he had been, he would have been an impostor.' But the arguments, in great part negative, set forth in 'La Saisiaz' for the immortality of the soul, leave no place for the idea, however indefinite, of a Christian revelation on the subject. Christ remained for Mr. Browning a mystery and a message of Divine Love, but no messenger of Divine ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... grown innumerable some Eight Hundred Thousand Years hence, and it was no great wonder to see four at once. But the jest was unsatisfying, and I was thinking of these figures all the morning, until Weena's rescue drove them out of my head. I associated them in some indefinite way with the white animal I had startled in my first passionate search for the Time Machine. But Weena was a pleasant substitute. Yet all the same, they were soon destined to take far ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... like that. And see how fat he is in the bargain; why, he'd make two of old Mr. Hosmer. Yet they are ready to take him in, feed him three meals a day, give him the best bed in the house, most likely, and for an indefinite time. Uh! thunder! it makes me furious just to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... a most peculiar sound. A whirring, like the noise one would suppose would be occasioned by a gigantic locust. Then something—a huge, indefinite shadow—darkened the windows of the farm-house kitchen. Peggy gave a shrill squeal of alarm, while Lieut. Bradbury gallantly ran to the door and flung ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... not a luxurious apartment; and for an instant I could hardly realize the fact that it was to be my home for an indefinite period. Some efforts had evidently been made to give it a look of welcome, homely as it was. A pretty china tea cup and saucer, with a plate or two to match, were set out on the deal table, and the cushioned arm-chair had been drawn forward ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... Newark, New Jersey, Jackson Wylie, Sr., was growing impatient. In spite of his son's weekly reports he had begun to fret at the indefinite nature of results up to date. This dissatisfaction it was that had induced him to cable his invitation to the Royal Commission to visit the Atlantic plant. Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., had a mysterious way ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... light thing like this will not affect her." In spite of his encomiums upon my supposed courage, I felt alarmed and agitated by his words. There was a vagueness in them which frightened me, and bred that indefinite apprehension which is often infinitely more terrifying than the actual object which inspires it. To my inquiries he would give no further response than to say that he had whilst at Posilipo made some investigations in Naples leading to a strange discovery, which he was anxious ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... pleasing air of anticipation. Since we are to be out of the season at all, we are glad we are in advance of it. This is the youth of the summer, not its old age. People are looking forward; events are approaching, instead of receding; the coming months seem big with indefinite promise of ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... capitalizes, and in capitalizing increases its revenue; and, without stopping to look at the particular cases which occur in commerce, manufacturing operations, and banking, I will cite a graver fact,—one which directly affects all citizens. I mean the indefinite increase of the budget. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... uncertainty, which hung over the nature and length of our voyage. Here we were, in a little vessel, with a small crew, on a half-civilized coast, at the ends of the earth, and with a prospect of remaining an indefinite period, two or three years at the least. When we left Boston we supposed that it was to be a voyage of eighteen months, or two years, at most; but upon arriving on the coast, we learned something more of the trade, and found that in the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... complication from which nothing could deliver it. The principles now incorporated with the very existence of the most influential men in it seemed to me to be radically erroneous, and the disposition of the Western mind is of a kind which augments with indefinite rapidity the strength of any ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to inaccuracy, even as regards development, and much more in regard to functional power. The activity, power and predominance of an organ may be essentially changed, without making any perceptible impression upon the interior of the skull, for an indefinite period. Changes in excitement and circulation, that revolutionize the character, may leave but a slight impression upon the interior, and none upon the exterior of the cranium. The external configuration of the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... VII. Land. We could therefore assume that we should be far enough from the English sphere of interest and need not fear crossing the route of the English expedition. The reports concerning the Japanese station on King Edward VII. Land were indefinite: we took it for granted, however, that a distance ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... of artesian wells in the desert at present is that of creating stations for the establishment of military posts and halting-places for the desert traveller; but if the supply of water shall prove adequate for the indefinite extension of the system, it is probably destined to produce a greater geographical transformation than has ever been effected by any scheme of ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... room, lined with books, and the furniture was solid and shabby with long service. There was an indefinite atmosphere of peace and repose about it, of leisured days haunted by no grey thoughts, very typical of the owner. The window stood open, though a fire burned clearly on the plain brick hearth, ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... indefinite, she added, "What's your book?" holding out her hand. "Burma, I declare! One does not hear much of that part of the world; it's always connected in my mind with rice and rain. Douglas," suddenly raising her eyes, "I believe you have something ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... thus established the indefinite continuance of the war, the good Hartley, profoundly disappointed, wrote a brief note invoking blessings on his "dear friend," and closing with the ominous words, "If tempestuous times should come, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... human beings. For example, we teach the men to take advantage of cover when attacking, and we dig trenches when on the defense, in both cases for fear of being shot by the enemy. It is the unreasoning type of fear that plays havoc in war, and the most deadly and common form of it is a vague, indefinite, nameless dread of the enemy. If the average man was to analyze his feelings in war and was to ask himself if he were actually afraid of being killed, he would probably find that he was not. The ordinary soldier ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... cases of reversion to characters gained from a cross, with those given under the first class, in which characters originally common to both parents, but lost at some former period, reappear; for such characters may recur after an almost indefinite number of generations. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... for receiving her lover in secret. Many a time were the pair able to meet thus without awakening the least suspicion in the minds of Prince Tancred or of the maids of honour, and all would doubtless have gone well for an indefinite period of time, but for a most unforeseen accident. It appears that one morning the old Prince of Salerno, wishing to confer with his daughter on some matter of state, came to her private apartment, and on learning that she ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... of hands, but their proportion to the totals employed cannot be similarly stated, first, because we have here no specific industrial census, and, second, because many of the English returns were made for an indefinite ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... west, and our small but only house, the ship. How strange, how sublime the scene was! so lonely, so magnificent, so solemn! At last the sun set, gilding the clouds, and looking, to my tearful eyes, as if that too said farewell! Then the moon appeared; and the long, indefinite line of light from where her rays first touched the waters to our ship, and the dancing of the waves as they crossed it, catching the light as they passed, were so beautiful that I was unwilling to leave the deck when the ...
— Travellers' Tales • Eliza Lee Follen
... now in use, or which has been paid out in explorations and improvements, and lost, is estimated by good judges at $6,000,000. The nominal amount of capital stock invested in all the companies which have charters would reach an indefinite number of millions. As an offset to this, it may be stated that the Cliff and Minnesota mines have returned over $2,000,000 in dividends from the beginning of their operations, and the value of these two mines will more than cover the whole amount ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... or less vague appreciation of the Spiritual, which results in a diffused, indefinite spiritual life. The personality has appreciated to some extent the opposition between the natural and the spiritual, and has chosen the spiritual. He adopts a new attitude or mood, towards the world in consequence, and that is an attitude of fight against the world ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... because the first is a vulgar term; for when you once come to be able to draw a lip, or, in noble duty, to kiss one, you will know that no other flower in earth is like that: and the second is an indefinite term; for a foxglove is as much a 'composed' flower as a daisy; but it is composed in the shape of a spire, instead of the shape of the sun. And again a thistle, which common botany calls a composed flower, as well as a daisy, is composed in quite another shape, being ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... shaft of gloom behind them on Trustee Day. The contagious ward always escaped by virtue of its own power of self-defense; but the shaft started at the door of the surgical ward and went widening along through the medical and the convalescent until it reached the incurables at an angle of indefinite radiation. There was a reason for this—as Margaret MacLean ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... to Bracy and the Doctor that their defence could not last, much longer. A party of able-bodied men, dividing and taking their duty in turn, might have kept the whole body of the hill-men at bay for an indefinite time; but the efforts of Gedge and Mrs Gee were growing weaker, and at last it was all that the invalids could do to keep their bayonets from ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... jogged, the other three men presently came to the conclusion that the Russian was right; and starting afresh, upon this assumption, they instituted a further and still closer search for their own spoor, eventually finding certain faint and indefinite indentations in the carpet of withered leaves which they agreed must be their own footprints. Following these faint indications as well as they could, they now pushed forward eagerly; for Sir Reginald had by this time become seriously apprehensive ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... over the eye. His movements are peculiar. You may see him hopping among the limbs, exploring then under side of the leaves, peering to the right and left, now flitting a few feet, now hopping as many, and warbling incessantly, occasionally in a subdued tone, which sounds from a very indefinite distance. When he has found a worm to his liking, he turns lengthwise of the limb and and bruises its head with ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... sculptor!" Slowly and from the most unwilling sitter he extorted the secret of a soul. We speak of John Sargent as the master psychologist among portraitists, a superiority he himself has never assumed; but that magnificent virtuoso, an aristocratic Frans Hals, never gives us the indefinite sense of things mystic beneath the epidermis of poor, struggling humanity as does Eugene Carriere. Sargent is too magisterial a painter to dwell upon the infinite little soul-stigmata of men and women. Who can tell the renunciations made by the Frenchman in his endeavour to ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... loosely used in the sense of very, as "This is a most interesting book." Aim to use most only as the superlative of much, or many. Do not use the indefinite article before it, as "This is a most beautiful picture." We may say "This is the most beautiful picture," for ...
— Slips of Speech • John H. Bechtel
... gnome-like figure, perched comfortless on the edge of a rush-bottomed chair, with its shadowy knees drawn up till they nearly touched its shadowy chin. There was something about the outline of this figure so indefinite and unsubstantial, that you might have taken it for an optical illusion, a spectral apparition on the point of vanishing. This thing was, however, possessed of voice, and was speaking in a low but distinct hissing whisper. As the whisper ended, Arabella Crane, without turning her ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... make my question plainer, Miss Faith. I suppose I am of an impatient disposition, but the idea of waiting an indefinite time for rest ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... and Long could not be far off, and a vigorous hunt was likely to discover one or both of them, but the king gave orders that no attempt of the kind should be made. It was his intention to leave the village for an indefinite time, and he wished every one of his warriors to remain while he was absent. It cannot be said that he was afraid of such an insignificant force, but there was a strong vein of superstition in his nature, which caused a vague fear of the men that had escaped him ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... tufa stone. A low stone seat against the wall on each hand and a small hanging lamp were all the furniture of this apartment, awful in its emptiness and mystery. On every side there were dark openings into cells whence came gleams of white, indefinite forms: a great Gorgon's head gazed at us from the ceiling, and from the walls in every direction started the crested heads and necks of sculptured serpents. We entered one by one the nine small grotto-like compartments which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... minds of two persons who use it with equal familiarity. The word railways, for example, will probably call up, in the mind of a man who is not highly locomotive, the image either of a "Bradshaw," or of the station with which he is most familiar, or of an indefinite length of tram-road; he will alternate between these three images, which represent his stock of concrete acquaintance with railways. But suppose a man to have had successively the experience of a "navvy," an engineer, a traveller, a railway director and shareholder, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... rose and called upon the House to observe that Lord George Gordon was then sitting under the gallery with the blue cockade, the signal of rebellion, in his hat. He was not only obliged, by those who sat near, to take it out; but offering to go into the street to pacify the mob with the somewhat indefinite assurance that the House was prepared to give them 'the satisfaction they sought,' was actually held down in his seat by the combined force of several members. In short, the disorder and violence which reigned triumphant out of doors, penetrated into the senate, and there, as elsewhere, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... territories, it has been permitted in others. Slave territory and free territory have alike been acquired by treaty, and Slave States and Free States alike admitted to the Union. The action of Congress is therefore no precedent for absolute slavery prohibition or indefinite slavery extension. Having never been exercised but by way of compromise it commits the government to neither extreme and is not a conclusive precedent for the constitutional power of Congress over ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... this process cannot be kept up indefinitely. After a while they succumb; they die. The creature is not equal to the task of indefinite self-renewal. But continuity of the life process is not dependent upon the prolongation of the existence of any one individual. Reproduction of other forms of life goes on in continuous sequence. And though, as the geological record shows, not merely individuals but also species ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... abandon the economic struggle in the form of strikes, and to enter upon the more efficacious political struggle with the employers of labour in the House of Commons. "To go on following the old beaten paths of trade unionism is simply to go on exhausting the possibilities of error for an indefinite period. If the new unions are simply to play the part of regulators of wages, as trade and prices rise and fall, they will be of very slight advantage to the workers compared with what they might accomplish if they took a broader view of their opportunities and their duties. What they ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... would have made a choice worthy alike of my family and of myself. They were eager to impose the Marquis de Montespan upon me as a husband; and albeit he was far from possessing those mental perfections and that cultured charm which alone make an indefinite period of companionship endurable, I was not slow to reconcile myself to a temperament which, fortunately, was very variable, and which thus served to console me on the morrow for what had troubled ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... his lips, a flight of arrows flew into the bosom of the tree. A piercing shriek from Marion was her only answer. "Hah! my lady's falcon!" cried Halbert alarmed, doubly, for the fate of his master. A sudden agitation of the branches having excited an indefinite suspicion in a body of archers who stood near, with one impulse they had discharged their arrows to the spot. Halbert's ready excuse, both for the disturbance in the tree and his lady's shriek, was prompted and warranted ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... her in secret delight. Something about the air of the tent and the surroundings, and an indefinite something about every one of the ladies, told her as plainly as words could have done that she was among the workers; that she had unwittingly and gracefully slipped behind the scenes, and had been cordially admitted to one of the work-shops of Chautauqua; ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... the rules and traditions of grammar, whether ancient grammar or the corrections of it which modern philology has introduced. Grammar, like law, delights in definition: human speech, like human action, though very far from being a mere chaos, is indefinite, admits of degrees, and is always in a state of change or transition. Grammar gives an erroneous conception of language: for it reduces to a system that which is not a system. Its figures of speech, pleonasms, ellipses, anacolutha, pros to semainomenon, and the like ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... those we love were easy martyrdom, but to live in sacrificial throes fierce as Dirce's tortures, to endure for tedious indefinite lingering years, jilted by death, demands a fortitude higher than that of Cato, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... having their luncheon-baskets well filled from the cold remains of breakfast. Your eldest girl, Angelina, aged ten, one of those premature little grown women who have learned from the cradle that man is born to eat pastry and woman to make it, postponed her small repast till an indefinite future, and sat meekly ready to attend upon our wants. Nathaniel, a thin boy of eight, also partook but slightly, having impaired his appetite, his mother suspected, by a copious luncheon of cold baked beans and vinegar, on his return from school. The two youngest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... allow them to be poor. He will seek to establish by law the happy mean; and to this end, if he despair of the possibility of a thorough-going communism, will legislate at least as indicated above. The uncompromising idealism of Plato's scheme, with its assumption of the indefinite plasticity of human nature, is of course peculiar to himself, not typical of Greek ideas. But it is noticeable that Aristotle, who is a far better representative of the average Greek mind, exhibits the same mistrust of the accumulation of private property. In the beginning of ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... much this same talk often before. Then it had been vague, and had dealt with an indefinite future. Now she was too dazzled by this picture of near events which the eager Barney was drawing to be able to make ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... of Germany. It appears to me most probable that the Areopagus retained the right of adjudging cases of homicide [183], and little besides of its ancient constitutional authority, that it lost altogether its most dangerous power in the indefinite police it had formerly exercised over the habits and morals of the people, that any control of the finances was wisely transferred to the popular senate [184], that its irresponsible character was abolished, and it was ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... always remain the same colours for an indefinite time; one star may change slowly from yellow to white, and another from red to yellow; and there are instances of notable changes, such as that of the brilliant white Sirius, who was stated in old times by many different observers to be a red star. All ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... with the extract of that from Mr. Mackenzie. I do not think any honours will be bestowed yet. The Peerages are all postponed to an indefinite time. If you are in a violent hurry, you may petition the ghosts of your neighbours—Masaniello and the Gracchi. The spirit of one of them walks here; nay, I saw it go by my window yesterday, at noon, in ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... he thought. She was beginning to inspire him with an indefinite uneasiness. He said surlily, for he was busy ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad |
