"Vacantly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at his officer vacantly, trying hard to reply, but, as he afterwards said to Roberts, if it had been to save his life he could ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... of these photographers, you may see stately pictures of papa and mamma, Johnny and Bub and Sis or a couple of country cousins, all smiling vacantly, and all disposed in studied and uncomfortable attitudes in their carriage, and all looming up in their awe-inspiring imbecility before the snubbed and diminished presentment of that majestic presence whose ministering spirits ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 'the old hypocrite could never refuse her a shelter; but while I live she has no claim on him.' I went down to a rickety old wooden pier, meaning to wait there till it was dark, and then drop quietly over the end of it into the water; but while I sat there smoking my pipe, and staring vacantly at the sea-gulls, two men came down, and one of them began to talk of the Australian gold-diggings, and the great things that were to be done there. It appeared that he was going to sail in a day or two, and he was trying to persuade his companion to ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... notice, or to care, how things went on around her; and Willie—poor Willie!—there he stood lounging against the door-sill, enormously grown and developed, to be sure, but with restless eyes and ever-open mouth, and every now and then setting up a strange kind of howling cry, and then smiling vacantly to himself at the sound he had made. As the two old labourers passed him, they looked at each other ominously, ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... what to make of Boyd, for the discovery of our mistake seemed to produce no impression on him. He stood at the edge of the woods, gazing vacantly across the little clearing where the Indian houses straggled on ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... a little more pertaining in an indifferent way to the above household, but Virgie had read enough, and the letter fell from her nerveless fingers, while she sat staring vacantly before her, her brain almost turned by the heartless words she had just read, her heart broken with its weight of woe, while a feeling of utter wretchedness and desolation made her long for death to steep her ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... herself appeared to present to Madame Palm the bill she had called for. She found Anna sitting quietly at the window, her hands folded on her lap, her head leaning on the high back of the chair, and her dilated eyes staring vacantly at the sky. Her small travelling-trunk stood ready and locked in the middle ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... partnership of responsibility, that Courtland forgot the abrupt refusal and thought only of the tact that prompted it. Nevertheless, here a spell seemed to fall upon his usually ready speech. Now that they were together for the first time in a distinctly social fashion, he found himself vacantly, meaninglessly silent, content to walk beside this charming, summery presence, brushed by its delicate draperies, and inhaling its freshness. Presently ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Martin stared vacantly at Mrs. Burke, dropped his glass, and muttered incoherently. Then he bolted hastily from the place ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... strong, I'd lounge in the gateway all the day long, With her Majesty's footmen in crimson and gold. I'd care not a pin for the waiting-lord; But I'd lie on my back on the smooth greensward With a straw in my mouth, and an open vest, And the cool wind blowing upon my breast, And I'd vacantly stare at the clear blue sky, And watch the clouds that are listless as I, Lazily, lazily! And I'd pick the moss and the daisies white, And chew their stalks with a nibbling bite; And I'd let my fancies roam abroad In search of a hint for a ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... stood vacantly gaping, the little chairs seemed lonely about the hearthrug, even the sofa where the invalid ladies sat was unoccupied, and the perforated blinds gave the crowds that passed up and down the street a shadow-like appearance. The prospect ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... particularly close to us, although the buildings on all sides were in flames. Near a pile of discarded uniforms of the garde civique, I saw what was left of the figure of a man with his insides oozing out, his eyes still open, staring vacantly upwards, and all around him the horrible odor of decaying horses. By this time I was calm and was getting quite accustomed to the bursting of shells. I suppose I had been through my "baptism ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... and stared vacantly at her for a while and then said, "Though I don't see why I didn't leave years and years ago; I knew all this then, as well as I do now." The wife looked away from him as she replied: "Yes, I should have known you would know. I ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... drunken, Led by his inebriate Satyrs; On his breast his head is sunken, Vacantly he leers ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... wondered what there was in those common crowds to attract our Lord Jesus? Perhaps if you have ever walked in those narrow crowded alleys called streets, in China or Japan, you may have wondered, sometimes. Tired, dirty, pinched faces, eyes vacantly staring, or else fired with low passion, high-keyed voices bickering and jangling,—all this crowds in and out on every hand. Dirt, disease, low passion, selfishness, apparent absence of anything noble or refined, are all ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... the transport with a picket to collect deserters—he had to go. She sobbed and wailed, imploring the sergeant in vain; and she clung to her poor senseless husband as though she would never leave him. He hardly knew her; he laughed vacantly in her face when with streaming eyes she begged him to speak her name; then they took him away from her. As the tug steamed out ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... palm he searched in vain and on the floor; then suddenly he emitted a gurgling sound and I saw that he was in the grip of deep emotion. There was a look on his face I had never seen before, and I anxiously asked him what had happened. For some time he could not speak, but stood gazing vacantly into space. At last, with parched ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... face in turn and stared vacantly at her sister. It was so blurred and swollen with incessant crying that if Maud had not known it was her sister who lay crouched there before her, she could scarcely ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... provided I had not in them founded for myself a home, and begotten strong children to take care of me in the days when I could not take care of myself; and thinking of these things, I became sadder and sadder, and stared vacantly upon the fire till my eyes ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Brandt, entitled Stultifera Naxis (which went through many editions after its first appearance in 1494), is an engraving of a fool, wearing cap and bells, seated astride on the back of a lobster, with a broken reed in his hand, and a pigeon flying past him as he stares vacantly at it with open mouth. The following lines ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.15 • Various
... called "Alessandro" so earnestly, that Father Salvierderra advised bringing Alessandro into the room, to see if by any chance there might have been something in his mind that he wished to say to him. But when Alessandro stood by the bedside, Felipe gazed at him vacantly, as he did at all the others, still ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... position. He looked at her gravely as though she had said, "What will you take for your hotel?" He looked past her into the vast stretches of the lobby and found there much for philosophic speculation. Thus absorbed, he asked vacantly, "Any luggage?" ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... of the Narcissus, who was staring vacantly after the flying torpedo, he rang for Full Speed Ahead, and called down the speaking tube to the chief to hook her on for all he had; then, with his helm still hard-a-starboard, he swung the ship in as small a circle as possible ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... thought, suggested perhaps by the last remark, made her glance in passing at Martin. It was so quick that only Martin saw it. At all events, Paul Deulin appeared to be looking rather vacantly in another direction. ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... up at her vacantly. It was some time before he answered. Then his answer showed vagueness; for what with the howl of the wind and the eternal presence in the closet of his soul of the skeleton of despair, his mind had become ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... old man calculated that even with the utmost economy Bruce must have been two days without food. He looked pinched and shrivelled as he stared vacantly at the mouth of the canyon into ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... large percentage of the daily food of the humbler classes. These boats seemed to be almost entirely rowed and managed by women, always with the inevitable baby at their backs, sometimes sleeping, sometimes gazing vacantly about, but ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... not answer. He walked slowly down the street, his cold hands reposing listlessly in his empty pockets, his heart in his boots, his eyes looking vacantly toward his heart. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... in smaller letters, Admitted March 26th. The remaining space on the card was left blank to receive the statement of regimen, etc. A nurse was giving the patient an iced drink. After swallowing feebly, the man relapsed into a semi-stupor, his eyes opening and closing vacantly. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... when he was quite gone, her eyes staring vacantly down the scintillating rails to where they seemed to meet in one glittering point far away in the desert. "Item—" But whatever the item was, she jotted it down silently in that mental memorandum book which was one of her whims. "Once I put a thing in that little blue book of mine," she ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... of the balcony, Agnes looked vacantly into the black void beneath. Her thoughts reverted to the miserable man who had broken his pledged faith to her, and who had died in that house. Some change seemed to have come over her since her arrival in Venice; ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... next makes a rapid but close examination of his prize, who, bewildered by the fall, stares vacantly around, and speaks no word. He was a young man, apparently about twenty years old, with nothing peculiar in appearance except an unseasonable deficiency in clothing. Coat, waistcoat, trousers, boots, hat, had he none; shirt, drawers, and stockings made up his scant raiment. Mr. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... puddings of Indian, cakes composed of one third butter, one third flour, one third saleratus, and the crisping bean, surmounted by crimped pork, showed that a Providence Yankee might well find an appropriate entertainment. But again the eyes of Roseton looked vacantly on, and again, amid strains of music, the walls ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... recovered her consciousness; she then slowly opened her eyes and fixed them wonderingly on me, but with no look of recognition in them. A long shiver passed over her, and she sighed heavily once or twice as she looked vacantly at the letter on the floor. I was terrified, and seized the letter, to gain, if possible, some explanation of the miserable state of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... came; the French ballet did not prove a good preparation; Ralph failed. It quite shook him for the time, and he felt humiliated. He had not the courage to tell his father; so he lingered on from day to day, sat vacantly gazing out of his window, and tried vainly to interest himself in the busy bustle down on the street. It provoked him that everybody else should be so light-hearted, when he was, or at least fancied himself, in trouble. The parlor grew intolerable; he sought refuge ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... disordered dress corresponds with his disordered room. His coat is soiled and torn, his cravat is put on awry, and his linen is none of the cleanest. He salutes Brother Hedge and his fair intended, in an unsteady voice, while his eyes wander vacantly around the apartment, and he leans against a chair ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... Frewen catch at one of the shrouds and stand gazing at him vacantly, and then I felt quite pleased, for Bob Hampton was there ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... and supported his shrunken frame wearily on his crutches, and leaned against a neighboring wall. He made no sound—simply gazed vacantly, with the timidity of some animal, at the door of the small kitchen aglow with the light from the grill. He made no effort to approach the door; only leaned against the gray wall and peered ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... went into the hall and stared vacantly at the pond and the village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese ... God sent the crow a piece ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... as the day was, still there was something oppressive in the air that hung about the house of death. I looked at the lifeless windows. Staring vacantly, utterly expressionless of the swift-moving tragic drama that had been enacted behind them, failing to foreshadow what was yet to transpire here, they all at once brought forcibly to my mind Alexander Burke. Thus ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... his feet with an oath and then fell back into his chair, staring round him vacantly, at a loss as to where he might be. His eye fell upon the bottle of Hollands, which was now nearly empty, and he held out his hand to it with an ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had been seized with a dangerous illness, and I hastily obeyed the summons which I had received from her mother. What a commotion was that bustling family thrown into. The physicians pronounced her sickness a brain fever. When I reached her bedside, she was raving, and her beautiful eyes gazed vacantly on the nearest and dearest of her friends; even the mother that bore her hung over her unrecognized. She had retired as usual the night before, her mother said, apparently well; but at midnight the family had ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... invalid, rallying from her swoon, opened her eyes and gazed vacantly at the stranger, not understanding her words but ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... happy to be angry for a single moment. With a smile, Alice finished the childlike letter, so much like Anna. Then feeling that Hugh would be glad to hear from Willie, she went in quest of him, finding him at the end of the long piazza, where he sat gazing vacantly at the open letter in his hand—Irving Stanley's letter, which he passed at once to Alice in exchange for ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... Hamilton Gregory paused irresolutely. He did not know what course to pursue, so he repeated vacantly, "I am willing ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... Jean had scrubbed till it was so white, a man lay dead, stretched upon his back. His eyes stared vacantly straight up at the ceiling, where a single cobweb which Jean had not noticed swayed in the air-current Lite set in motion with the opening of the door. On the floor, where it had dropped from his hand perhaps when he fell, a small square piece of gingerbread lay, crumbled around ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... the young woman in his arms and deposit her upon the bed. Then he struck another match and leaned close to examine her. The flare of the sulphur illuminated the room and shot two rectangles of light against the outer blackness where the unglazed windows stared vacantly upon the road beyond, bringing to a sudden halt a little company of muddy and bedraggled men who slipped, cursing, along the ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of the hospital grounds, Thaddeus Funston stood at the barred window of his locked ward and stared vacantly over the hills towards the craft shop. He stood there unmoving until a ward attendant came and took his arm an hour later to lead him off ...
— A Filbert Is a Nut • Rick Raphael
... matrimony, and the chief causes of love, show plainly that he had a "wandering eye." He had a deal to say also of his lady customers (who were much the same in olden times as nowadays)—one simple soul who turned over his books rather vacantly till he asked her "in Joque" whether she wanted "Tom Thumb" (a penny chapbook). To his surprise she answered, "Yes;" and he said, still guying, "in Folio and with marginal notes?" and the dull creature replied, "Oh the best." Another hectored him ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... to each other. Polish refugees have told me that she has always administered the vast estate with liberal kindness to all. And now you will tell me of her?" The tremulous hand of Wieniawski raised a brimming glass of brandy to his lips. He stared about vacantly ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... Whither have fled The hues of heaven that canopied his bower Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep, The mystery and the majesty of Earth, The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes 200 Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven. The spirit of sweet human love has sent A vision to the sleep of him who spurned Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues 205 Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade; He overleaps the bounds. Alas! Alas! Were limbs, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... had taken place. At first the natives were stunned. They were roused at dead of night, to find the Chinese in possession of the town, their Rajah's house in flames, the Rajah missing, while the rumor was that he had been killed. For a time they wandered about listlessly, vacantly staring each other in the face, and it seemed as though they were about to submit without a struggle. In the midst of this gloom and uncertainty, up spoke a Malay trader, whose veins, despite his peaceful occupation, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... Micky vacantly; the words opened the door of memory, and he sat up with a start. It was New Year's Day, and last night ... ye gods! what had not happened last night? Micky tingled to the tips of his fingers as he remembered the letter he had ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... however. In the wearily dreamy manner which, when first he had seen her, had aroused Soames' respectful interest, she raised her thin hand to her hair, slowly pressing it back from her brow, and directed her big eyes vacantly upon him. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... meanwhile Grant, who watched them until the last glimpse of their light dresses was lost in the crowd, stood beside the second emigrant train vacantly glancing at the aliens who thronged about it. His bronzed face was a trifle weary, and his lips were set, but at last he straightened his shoulders with a little resolute movement and ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... that kingdom. And Shibli Bagarag saw as in a dream the shattered door, shattered by the bar, remembering dimly as a thing distant in years the netting of the Queen, and Noorna chained upon the pillar; he remembered Shagpat even vacantly in his mind, as one sheaf of barley amid other sheaves of the bearded field, so was he overcome by the awfulness of that sight behind the veil of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it?" I asked with irritation, for it was annoying to see him seated there on the ground fanning himself with the remains of a hat and staring vacantly at the sky. ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... fumbled as he folded the letter and locked it in the drawer. Vainly smoothing at the lock of hair which always stuck out from the crown of his head, he stared vacantly at the lamp shade, oblivious to the entrance of the silent, morose Matak, who carried the bottle of boiled drinking water into the bedroom and then went out ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... certainly very pretty," he repeated in a meditative manner; and stared so long and vacantly at a fricandeau which a footman was just offering him, that any less well-trained attendant must ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... do now? Wander over the town, and gaze vacantly at one little object and another about the house fronts. One thing he will not look at; and that is the bright summer sea, all golden in the sun rays, flecked with gay white sails. From all which is bright ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... by the circumstances that surrounded him, and gazed vacantly at the judge and jury. He was a dull, stupid fellow, and did not ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... chosen as the limit for the first of the three main stages into which the vast palaeolithic epoch has to be broken up. The man of the late St. Acheul period, as it is termed, was truly a great artist in his way. If you stare vacantly at his handiwork in a museum, you are likely to remain cold to its charm. But probe about in a gravel-bed till you have the good fortune to light on a masterpiece; tenderly smooth away with your fingers the ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... vice-president followed his example, and the other members of the council bowed and retired. The Margrave of Baden and Count von Starhemberg remained standing by the green table, while the emperor, who had crossed the room, now stood vacantly staring out of a window, drumming with his fingers on one of ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... staggered back to his chair and sat staring vacantly at the floor. Lewis looked at his head, streaked with white, at his brow, terribly lined, and at his vacant, staring eyes. He felt a sudden great pity for his foster-father, but ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... window—for even the dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life and companionship in it—while he was standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a distant church-clock strike ten. Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the house ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... trousers and socks, scalded, and my face and shoulders blackened by the smoke. His face was a fair weakness, his chin retreated, and his hair lay in crisp, almost flaxen curls on his low forehead; his eyes were rather large, pale blue, and blankly staring. He spoke abruptly, looking vacantly away ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... fixed vacantly on the printed page, but he saw nothing now. Something in the still air of the room had arrested his attention—something faintly fresh—an evanescent hint ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... vacantly staring at the tan. All the energy of the truth was nullified by the futility ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... the main street, where a great number of people had collected, when they were suddenly joined by Bousquier, who exhibited a strange demeanor, now laughing, now shaking his head, now gazing vacantly before him. Colard cast a shy, sidelong glance at him, and the shopkeeper, who thought of nothing but the murder and saw in all this the manifestations of a bad conscience, observed the man keenly. Those around them, too, became watchful, and it at once struck ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... sat on the side of the bed, her chin resting on her clasped hands, her gaze fixed vacantly on the floor,—"Poor baby! Dead,—thank God!" was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... he answered, lifting his chin from his breast, upon which it was resting, "arranged, quite satisfactorily arranged." Then he looked about rather vacantly, for his mind, it was clear, was far away, and added, "Do you want: I mean, were you talking about the new drainage mill for the salt marshes?" Mary ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... was snuffed out of him like the switching off of an electric current. The dull heavy cloud descended on him again. He stared vacantly at the others, shrugged his shoulders slightly, and ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... the hall, and stared vacantly at the pond and the village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese. . . . God sent the ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... in his haggard, bloodshot eyes; I saw him stare at me half vacantly, then with a crafty yet wondering look; and then I saw the devil of murder begin to peep forth from those hideous eyes, and the lips to part as in a sneer, and the wolfish teeth to bare themselves. But I was not what ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... laughter interrupted. Mulcahy looked vacantly down the room. Bid a boy defy his father when the pantomime-cab is at the door; or a girl develop a will of her own when her mother is putting the last touches to the first ball-dress; but do not ask an Irish regiment to embark upon ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... residence. In the handsomely appointed library on the second floor were seated Dr. Bernstein, Mr. Jeffries and the judge. Each was absorbed in his own thoughts. Dr. Bernstein was puffing at a big black cigar; the banker stared vacantly into space. The judge, at his desk, examined some legal papers. Not a word was spoken. They seemed to be waiting for a fourth man who had not yet arrived. Presently Judge ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... Wilbur, with a gesture towards the doorway where the lad was approaching. He came in and stood looking vacantly at the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... are you?" inquired the sick man, falling back exhausted, while he gazed vacantly at ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... to be gone, it was plain that he thought little of where he was going. For when he came to the foot of the valley, where the paths divided, he stood between them staring vacantly, without a desire to turn him this way or that. The imperative of choice halted him like a barrier. The balance of his mind hung even because both scales were empty. He could act, he could go, for his strength was untouched; but he could not choose, for ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... hear with utter indifference; and say "Thank you" with a sense of being a profound hypocrite. Wholly at ease though you could be, for your own part, you find that your sympathies will not let you. You see young gentlemen feeling whether their ties are properly adjusted, looking vacantly round, and considering what they shall do next. You see ladies sitting disconsolately, waiting for some one to speak to them, and wishing they had the wherewith to occupy their fingers. You see the hostess standing about the doorway, keeping a ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... numbers idle in Sydney, supported at the expense of the government. Things wore a serious aspect; mischief-making parties, for some paltry gain, fed the spirit of discontent. The Irish lay in the streets, looking vacantly, and basking in the sun. Apart from them, Englishmen, sullen in feature, sat on gates and palings, letting their legs swing in the air. Another group was composed of Scotchmen, their hands thrust into their empty pockets, suspiciously glancing at everything ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... his two half-sisters and some others with whom he was not acquainted. He was certain that the one he wished to ascertain about was among them, but from the darkness of the advancing evening he was unable to distinguish her. He adopted a device for doing so. He hummed, as he looked vacantly around, the "Ishi-kawa,"[79] but instead of the original line, "My belt being taken," artfully, and in an arch tone, substituted the word ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... her long insensibility, she found herself supported in the arms of some one, who seemed watching over her with the utmost solicitude. She at first gazed vacantly on his face; but, as her recollections became more vivid, she started and uttered a faint cry, recognizing the features of father Gilbert. The expression of his countenance was gentle, even to softness, and his eyes were evidently moistened with tears. He, however, released her, on finding her ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... I cannot remember, nor how I got out of it; I only know that I suddenly found myself free, and walking away with my hand in Rosa's. I remember vacantly feeling the rough edge of the stitches on her flat kid fingers, and ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... with the collar turned up, with a muffler round his neck and large, bulging boots on his feet, comes and sits beside him. I perceive an earnest young lady, probably a typist in search of extra culture, look at him long and vacantly from over her copy of Emerson, and can almost see her mind gradually collecting conclusions about him. The attendant, too, as he asks for his paper, eyes him shrewdly and suspiciously, and waits till the three halfpence are actually handed across under the brass wire partition ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... should jeer away the screening shadows, it would unbare a desolate, shabby home. She knew; struck with the white leprosy of poverty; the blank walls, the faded hangings, the old stone house itself, looking vacantly out on the fields with a pitiful significance of loss. Upon the mantel-shelf there was a small marble figure, one of the Dancing Graces: the other two were gone, gone in pledge. This one was left, twirling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... partner's harangue in silence. His eyes gazed vacantly at the store door, which had just ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... vacantly. "I added up figures in the old warehouse," he said, in a high, thin voice. "I added up figures in the old warehouse, and when I went home at night I used to read plays. I added up figures in the old warehouse—Don't ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... truth," answered the baroness, staring vacantly about her. Her fright had taken from her even the faculty of lying. Her voice was low, but she articulated the words distinctly. Then, suddenly, she threw up her hands, with a short quick scream, and fell forward, senseless, on the ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... quickly to the servants' part of the bungalow, she found the other servant fast asleep, ready to stare at her vacantly and wonderingly as she was shaken into wakefulness. The woman had to be spoken to by her fellow-servant before anything could be got from her; and then it was only to learn that the expected ones had ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... deserted farmhouse in Western Michigan. The building was not old, measured by years, but it had never been painted or repaired, and its wooden face, prematurely lined with weather stains, looked as if it had borne the wear and tear of centuries. The windows, like lidless eyes, stared vacantly at the flat stubble fields and the few spindling trees, a dreary apology for an orchard. There were plenty of shingles off the roof to allow the inquisitive rain-drops to follow one another through the rafters, and thence to the floor of the room below, where the darkness was creeping ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... Vacantly I walked beside her. On the earth mine eyes were cast; Swift and keen there came unto me Bitter memories of the past— On me, like the rain in Autumn On the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... in the middle of the square, and he walked round and round it. He gazed vacantly at a statue in the middle of the garden, and then walked round the rails again. The darkness was gathering fast, the gas was beginning to blaze, and he was like a creature in the coil of a horrible fascination. That ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... came face to face with her mother she almost had fancied that her neighbor was indulging in a crude and terrible joke, but one look sufficed. Mrs. Robson lay staring vacantly at the ceiling; she could not move, she could not speak, and her spirit showed through the veiled light in her eyes like a mysterious spot of sunshine in a shaded well. Above a swooning sense of calamity Claire felt the strength of a tender pretense struggling ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... pangs of hunger. Then he glanced at Grenfell, who lay fast asleep close by, with his blanket falling away from him. The man's face was half buried among the withered needles which were thick in his unkempt hair, and he lay huddled together, grotesque and unsightly in ragged disarray. Weston vacantly noticed the puffiness of his cheeks, and the bagginess beneath his eyes. The stamp of indulgence was very plain upon him, and the younger man, who had led a simple, strenuous life, was sensible of a certain repulsion ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... vacantly. He remembered then that Lawton roomed in Number 20 Billings, directly above Number 6. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... he wandered about in the hot streets, bought a cheap suit-case and some underclothes, and then went down to the port in search of a little hotel he remembered there. An hour later he was sitting in the coffee-room, smoking and glancing vacantly over the papers while he waited for dinner, when he became aware of being timidly but intently examined by a small round-faced gentleman with eyeglasses who sat ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... poor girl's wretchedness at this time was beyond all fancy or narration. She had sunk down on the lowest stair; and there she sat, her mouth blue and dry, and her dark eyes fixed vacantly upon him, as if she wondered whether it were ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... did not reply, did not move. She stared vacantly at her mistress and gasped as though she were in terrible pain. Then, suddenly, she slid down on her back at full length, clenching her teeth to ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... man, looking vacantly out across the city walls to where the sea birds dipped on the rippling waves, was apparently oblivious. Nor did he manifest the slightest interest in the animated scene before him until a tall, heavy-set young priest emerged ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... mortal, stared vacantly for a moment and then said: "I can't see what use he would have for the toe, if you did have ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... although they were entered on the way-bill which accompanied the pouch, and were duly checked off. The poor messenger was thunder-struck, and for a time acted like an idiot, plunging his hand into the vacant pouch over and over again, and staring vacantly at the way-bill. The Assistant Superintendent of the Southern Division was in the Atlanta office when the loss was discovered, and at once telegraphed to Maroney for an explanation. Receiving no reply before the train started for Montgomery, he got aboard and went directly ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... through the chattering crowd to the little cloakroom in one corner. Elder Whitmarsh arrived in a moment and the fiddler, a short, stout, stupid-looking man, his fiddle in a black box under his arm, followed him to the platform that had been cleared of its pulpit The stranger stood staring vacantly at the crowd until the elder motioned him to a chair, when he obeyed with the hesitating, blind obedience of a dog. Then the elder made a brief prayer, and after a few remarks flavoured with puns, sacred and immemorial as the pulpit itself, started ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... hat. But never a ripple Nor bubble told Where he was supping Off plates of gold. Never an echo Rilled through the sea Of the feasting and dancing And minstrelsy. They called-called-called: Came no reply: Nought but the ripples' Sandy sigh. Then glum and silent They sat instead, Vacantly brooding On home and bed, Till both together Stood up and said.- 'Us knows not, dreams not, Where you be, Turvey, unless In the deep blue sea; But axcusing silver- And it comes most willing - Here's us two paying Our forty shilling; For it's sartin ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... anything—'pon my word, quite s'prise." The events of to-day, the House of Commons, the City, had little interest for him. All the children went up and shook him by the hand, with awe in their looks, and he patted their yellow heads vacantly and kindly. He asked Clive (several times) where he had been? and said he himself had had a slight 'tack—vay slight—was getting well ev'y day—strong as a horse—go back to Parliament d'rectly. And then he became a little peevish with Parker, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... breeze we are enjoying here will presently be torturing unhappy mortals in London in the shape of a boisterous and biting east wind. On the other hand, the monotony after a time becomes almost unbearable. All day long the eye rests vacantly upon a dreary white plain, alternating with green belts of woodland, while occasionally the train plunges into dense dark pine forest only to emerge again upon the same eternal "plateau" of silence and ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... named Paul, an alchemist, who knew the courses of the stars and the virtues of plants, and many other secret things; and the Duke delighted much in his conversation, which was ingenious and learned. But Robert heard him vacantly, thinking that such studies were fit only for children. And Paul being old and gentle, loved not Robert, but held that the Duke trusted him overmuch. And one night, when Robert and other lords were sitting with ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and down the river bank in a terrible excitement, or sitting in some solitary place with his eyes staring vacantly, or with head buried in his trembling hands, through which the tears would trickle, a man might have been seen haunting the neighborhood of Blackrock. It was Mr. Morton, so altered that those who knew him best almost failed to recognize in him the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... of bed and began to dress, her nervous hands fumbling at the buttons on her clothes. Her eyes, deeper and shadowed in dark rings, stared vacantly at the white canvas before her. Lawrence was talking again, and she listened. Presently he started across the room and bumped into a chair. The incident was one which had become long familiar to her, and ordinarily she would have thought nothing of it, but this morning she flushed with sudden anger ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... hesitated, one hand holding the staff, the other groping out vacantly in front of him, as though to touch the prisoners. Behind him, the dull blue light cast its vague glow. Stern, seeing his bald and shaking head, lean, corded hand, and trembling body wrapped in its mantle of coarse brown stuff, could ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... to this bit of paradox, Johann inhaled as much smoke as his leathery lungs could contain and relapsed into silence. Vjera, the Polish girl, glanced at the tobacco-cutter and went on with her work. The insignificant girl beside her giggled vacantly. Dumnoff did not seem to ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... Archie stood in solemn silence, hands crossed on his breast and thumbs revolving rapidly. His lips made odd movements, although from them came no sound, and vacantly he stared ahead of him, in his eyes no expression, in his manner no hint of what was coming. Short and fat, with face round and red, hair red and curly, and ears of a prodigious size, he made a queer picture; and, ignorant of his power of mimicry and impersonation, I kept my seat on the piano-stool. ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... father looked vacantly from me to him and from him to me, and at last, his old hospitable instincts coming uppermost, he said, "Thou hast not asked thy cousin to ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... which had been vacantly gray for over three thousand hours, was now a vertiginous swirl of color, the indescribable color of a collapsing hyperspatial field. No two observers ever saw it alike, and no imagination could vision the actuality. Trask found that he was holding his breath. So, he noticed, was ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... she found herself in a small cabin, with many others in like pitiable plight. Her aunt was bending over her on one side and Gregory on the other, chafing her hands. At first she could not remember or understand, and stared vacantly at them. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... him vacantly. "What was he saying?" she wondered. From a sea of grief she seemed to be passing onto an ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... table and chair, and goes out. She sits a while, vacantly gazing on the letter—then ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... of its base stood a maze of scaffolding, the facade of the building having during the last few months been under repair. There seemed, however, for the moment, to be no workmen upon it. Presently, as he gazed vacantly and without intent, something that moved upon the upper masonry engaged his attention. Slowly along its profile, out of all those hidden millions below, one of his subjects, a single and minute representative of the popular ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... utmost limit of caricature in the face of Charles the Bewitched! Carreno has given us an admirable portrait of this unfortunate,—the forehead caved in like the hat of a drunkard, the red-lidded eyes staring vacantly, a long, thin nose absurd as a Carnival disguise, an enormous mouth which he could not shut, the under-jaw projected so prodigiously,—a face incapable of any emotion but fear. And yet in gazing at this idiotic mask you are ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... sitting under the trees before the hotel, resting rather vacantly after a hard romp. Celia perched high on a root, her curls against the brown bark, her hat dangling by its elastic from a forefinger, her lips parted, her eyes vacant. Gerald leaned gracefully against the trunk. ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... and his brothers and Stanley stared somewhat vacantly at the president and the professors. The students wanted to speak several times, but Doctor Wallington waved them ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... some trace of her." But, when the morning broke, the pitiless lake shone clear and still, and all the hopelessness of his search flashed on the bereaved man's mind: he dropped his oars, and gazed vacantly over the rippleless surface. Then he buried his face in his hands, and sat motionless for a long time: he was trying to recall Hetty's last looks, last words. He recollected her last kisses. "It was as if they were to bid me good-bye," he thought. ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... that time he was scarcely able to keep upright, and his bodily strength was utterly exhausted. Still he was not conscious of fatigue. But fatigue had its own way. He continued sitting there and gazing vacantly, but he comprehended nothing. He could not make out what had happened to him, why he found himself there, alone, in an empty, unknown room, with numbed limbs, with a sense of bitterness in his mouth, with a weight ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... the fisherman leaning against the open kitchen-door, a basket of fish at his feet, and his clear grey eyes fixed vacantly upon the silver waves, which flashing and murmuring in the sunlight, came racing to the beach below. The old sailors' wrinkled face, once so ruddy and bronzed, was as white as his hair; his cheeks had fallen in, and deep hollows had gathered about his temples; it was painful to ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... any final issue. I said nothing; but what I might have said, was written in my face. Julia regarded me with a gaze of painful anxiety. What she read in my looks must have been troublously impressive. Her cheeks grew paler as she looked. Her eyes wandered from me vacantly, and I could see her thin soft lips quivering faintly like rose-leaves which an envious breeze has half separated from the parent-flower. Mrs. Delaney watched our mutual faces, and I left the room to avoid her scrutiny. I only re-entered it with the physician. ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... is he?' Miss Luttrell chimed on vacantly, wagging her wrinkled old head in solemn deprecation of tke evil omen. She knew it as well as Mrs. Oswald herself did, having heard the fact at least a thousand times before; but she made it a matter of principle never to encourage these upstart pretensions on the part of the lower orders, and just ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... forward in her chair and looked at Sanderson with eager, questioning eyes. Sanderson stared vacantly back at her. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of black hats. By and by, when this crowd had become somewhat less disorderly and a lane had been formed as far as the exit and Nana was again applauded as she went off with Price hanging lifelessly and vacantly over her neck, she smacked her thigh energetically, lost all self-possession, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... the same opinion. Van Sneck was lying on the bed looking vacantly about him. He seemed older and more worn, perhaps, because his beard and moustache were growing ragged and dirty on his face. He pressed his hand to his head in a confused ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... back a step, and covered his face with his hands. For a full minute there was absolute silence. Rathbawne had returned to the table, and, with his fore-arms across the back of a chair, and one foot on the lower cross-bar, was staring vacantly at his autographs, his hands moulding and remoulding each other into an infinity of forms. Natalie was at the window, her face in the crevice between the curtains. The same impulse had prompted both father and daughter. There are some things ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... Yet on the present occasion I found them fix me with more difficulty than I ever before, or I believe since, experienced. My mind wandered constantly from the page back to home, forward to Heidelberg, and, after a while, I laid down the volume to gaze vacantly through the window. It overlooked the street. Yet here the day was so piteously wet there was nothing to arrest my half-drowsy eye or half-dreamy attention. No young ladies in the opposite windows. They were all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... About them was the luxury of a modern hotel. Cyrus Thurston stared vacantly at the breakfast he was forgetting to eat. He wiped his hands mechanically on a snowy napkin. He looked from the window. There were palm trees in the park, and autos in a ceaseless stream. And people! Sane, sober people, living in a sane world. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... Duncan Lisle, still gazing vacantly into the varying flames, performed anew the journey, not from Kennons to Troy on the Hudson, but from the latter city, via New York, back to his Virginian plantation. His sister and Ellice Linwood were his companions, for it had been arranged that, though Ellice's session of school ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... used his explanatory wand freely on the Spirit of Discovery, the Spirit of Royal Patronage, and the Genius of America—not forgetting an indicative knock a-piece for the embryo physiognomies of Washington and Franklin. Everybody's eyes followed the progress of the wand vacantly; but nobody spoke, except Mr. Hemlock, who frowned and whispered—"Bosh!" to Mr. Bullivant; who smiled, and whispered—"Quite so," to ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... had recognised it: it was the wild drummer who had turned the tide of battle in the bicker on the Castle Brae. A small stone which I dislodged now rolled down the rock, and tumbled into the abyss close beside him. He turned his head, and after looking at me for a moment somewhat vacantly, he resumed his former attitude. I drew yet nearer to the horrible edge; not close, however, for ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... who with a baby bow and arrow in his hands, was gazing up at her. He turned it over; on the back was written in a pointed, scriggly hand, "To my little friend.—E. H." Fiorsen drew smoke deep down into his lungs, expelled it slowly, and went to the piano. He opened it and began to play, staring vacantly before him, the cigarette burned nearly to his lips. He went on, scarcely knowing what he played. At last he stopped, and sat dejected. A great artist? Often, nowadays, he did not care if he never touched a violin again. Tired of standing up ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... young navvy left him, anxious about being late at his employment, and John Smith slowly felt his way to his own door. His wife, already up, opened it. "Thee varmint! thee never gi'ed I that shilling last night for the baker." Smith felt hopelessly in his pocket, and then looked at her vacantly. "Thee drunken, nasty old——," said the infuriated woman, almost unconsciously lifting her hand. Perhaps it was that action of hers which suggested the same to his mind, which was in a mechanical state. Perhaps the stinging words of last night had at last sunk deep enough to scarify his self-esteem. ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... fellows in California. I know the haughty and self-helpful stage. You're all right, Roberts. But don't lose time. What's the matter now?" Roberts has come back from his dressing-room and is staring vacantly at Campbell. ...
— Evening Dress - Farce • W. D. Howells
... we crossed o a shaky bridge some of its arms or inlets. After a while we began to pass dilapidated houses by the roadside. One little frame house I remembered particularly; the door was off the hinges and leaned against the jams, the windows had but a few panes left, which glared vacantly. The yard and little garden spot were overrun with a heavy growth of timothy, and the fences had all long since gone to decay. At the head of the lake a large stone building projected from the steep ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... listened judicially, but she seemed to take in only what Mr. Peck had thought of the dance and supper; at the end she said, rather vacantly, "What nonsense!" ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... lips parted, and the blue eyes, brighter than ever, stared vacantly around. The sound of her father's voice seemed to have roused her, for she began to speak a little prayer: "God bless papa and mamma, and God bless all on board this ship. God bless me, and make me a good girl, for Jesus Christ's ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the paper on his companion's lap, his face was almost as pale as hers. For a moment he gazed fixedly and vacantly before him, and a half-suppressed curse escaped his lips. Then his eyes reverted to his neighbor. After some hesitation, during which he allowed the reins to hang so loose that the horse lapsed into a walk, he touched her ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... ever understood, how little I've ever known myself," she thought, staring vacantly at a severe spinster, with crimped hair and a soured expression, who sat before the opposite window. "I've gone on in the dark, making mistakes and discoveries from the very beginning, undoing and doing ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... line of the least resistance, I took the scone and chewed it vacantly. Figuratively speaking, it tasted of dust and ashes; literally, it tasted of nothing at all, and the tea was just a hot fluid which had to be swallowed at intervals, as medicine is ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey |
