"Vaguely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the adjective denoting the "Sioux" Indians and cognate tribes. The word "Sioux" has been variously and vaguely used. Originally it was a corruption of a term expressing enmity or contempt, applied to a part of the plains tribes by the forest-dwelling Algonquian Indians. According to Trumbull, it was the popular appellation of those tribes which call themselves Dakota, Lakota, ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... the sofa and smiled encouragement at the young man, while she vaguely wondered whether he had discovered that her cousin's waist measure was three inches smaller ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... when I was a young man I once heard an old gentleman in a third-class railway carriage remark vaguely and yet impressively to the company at large, as follows: "I once saw six men hanged in a very rustic manner." That, I think everyone will agree with me, was an excellent conversational opening. The ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... good lines, which vaguely remind the reader of something better read elsewhere; a common case enough with the more tolerable ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... fortunately able to respond intelligently, giving him many details, sufficiently interesting, although of no great value. To his desire for information relative to Chambers' advance from the south, and the number of his troops, I was obliged to guess rather vaguely, but finally got away with a vivid description of Miss Hardy's night ride, which caused even the girl herself to laugh, and chime in with a word or two. With the officers the meal was nearly completed when I joined them, and it was therefore not long until the general, noting the others ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... personae introduced in the Tatler do not occupy a very prominent place in the development of the work. Isaac Bickerstaff himself, an old man of sixty-four, "a philosopher, an humourist, an astrologer, and a censor," is rather vaguely sketched, and his familiar, Pacolet, is made use of chiefly in the earlier numbers. The occasional references to Bickerstaff's half-sister, Jenny Distaff,[13] and her husband, Tanquillus, and to his three nephews and their conduct in the presence of a "beautiful woman of honour,"[14] gave ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... and clasped her hands tightly together. She was like a child about to be punished for a crime it has not committed, and it came vaguely to the doctor that he might have broached his ill tidings ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... by Mr. Blackadder and Mr. Welsh, were held near Dumfries on the Saturday, but at these the place of meeting on the Sabbath was only vaguely announced as "a hillside in Irongray," so anxious were they to escape being disturbed by their enemies, and the secret was kept so well that when the Sabbath arrived a congregation of above three thousand had assembled round the Communion stones in ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... fashion, each according to the measure of his sensitiveness and powers of resistance. I translated it vaguely into a personification of the mightily disturbed elements, investing them with the horror of a deliberate and malefic purpose, resentful of our audacious intrusion into their breeding-place; whereas my friend threw it into the unoriginal form at first of a trespass on some ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... then, all vaguely for the flickering of the lightning, in blinding highlights and ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... two months later that he began to feel vaguely uneasy. "Yes; it's interesting," he admitted; "but nobody in these days would want to be a Shaker." To which she replied, boldly, ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... considerations of individual right—in comparison with which races and nations are but sands upon the shore of Time. She little realized how grand a necessity lay at the back of that movement which seemed to her so heartless and inexcusable. She knew, of course, vaguely and weakly, that the Fathers made a Constitution on which our government was based. She did not quite understand its nature, which was very strange, since she had often heard it expounded, and as a matter of duty had read with ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... so loath to let me go? I wondered vaguely and flicked up the horse so that it plunged sharply forward. The vast blue-black sky was like an inverted gold-pan and the stars were flake colours adhering to it. The cold snapped at me till my cheeks tingled, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... village I came into touch with some Bauel singers. I had known them by their names, occasionally seen them singing and begging in the street, and so passed them by, vaguely classifying them in my mind under the general ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... more securely, he felt that all was not yet lost for him. In his little room while the night was still young, he opened an old volume at the play of Hamlet and read the story through. Surely he had never read this play before? He recalled vaguely that it had been studied in college, that some great actor had played it for him, that he had believed it a wonderful thing; memories now less real than dreams. For in reading it this night he entered into the very soul ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... books of verse—Shelley, Byron, Shakespeare, Verlaine, Rossetti, Swinburne, and many others—unchallenged and unguided. The understanding of things, reserved for "the wise and prudent," had been at first vaguely and then definitely conveyed to her by slow but subtle means—an apprehension from instinct, not from knowledge. There had never been ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... pensive questioning. It was hardly a beautiful face, but in its glowing intellectuality, it was the face of a woman of power. So different was the look of noble reticence it wore from that of the conventional type of American actress, that while she gazed at it Virginia found herself asking vaguely, "I wonder why she went on the stage?" The woman was not a pretty doll—she was not a voluptuous enchantress—the coquetry of the one and the flesh of the other were missing. If the stories Virginia had heard of her were to be trusted, she had come out of poverty not by ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... little detached groups, were listening to it and drinking Turkish coffee. It was very early in the season. The rush up the Nile had not begun, and travellers had not yet cemented their travelling acquaintanceships. People looked at each other rather vaguely, or definitely ignored each other, with profiles and backs which said quite plainly: "We won't have anything to do with you until we know more about you." The entrance of the party from the Villa Androud created a strong diversion. As soon ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... several of the lava- flows' (Holland, in I.G. (1907), i. 88). A great tract of the volcanic region appears to have remained almost undisturbed to the present day, affected by sub-aerial erosion alone. The geological horizon of the Deccan trap cannot be precisely defined, but is now vaguely stated as 'the close of the cretaceous period'. The 'steps', or conspicuous terraces, traceable on the hill-sides for great distances, are explained as being 'due to the outcrop of the harder basaltic strata, or of those beds which resist best the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Jehovah entered the judgment or sentence against man he vaguely hinted at a time coming when man should be released from that judgment. Satan, one of whose names is the old serpent, was the first inducing cause of sin. And God at that time said to him: "I will put enmity between ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... supposed to be written. "The salary of three hundred pounds," adds Dr. Farr, "which had been left for the purpose, was the temptation." This was probably one of many dreamy projects with which his fervid brain was apt to teem. On such subjects he was prone to talk vaguely and magnificently, but inconsiderately, from a kindled imagination rather than a well-instructed judgment. He had always a great notion of expeditions to the East, and wonders to be seen and effected ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... objurgation, and Lidgerwood continued his round of inspection, trying vainly to recall the identity of the chance-met man whose face, half hidden under the drooping brim of a worn campaign-hat, was vaguely familiar. The recollection came at length, with the impact of a blow. The "chuckle-headed fool" of Gridley's malediction was Richard ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... shoulder of the hill. He had expected to go round to the side door of the house, where he had parted with Hilbrook on his former visit; but he stopped on seeing the old man at his front door, where he was looking vaguely at a mass of Spanish willow fallen dishevelled beside it, as if he had some thought of lifting its tangled spray. The sun shone on his bare head, and struck silvery gleams from his close-cropped white hair; there was something uncommon in his air, though his dress was plain and ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... of the cloak over his face and seated himself in silence, fixing his eye vaguely upon space, like a man wearied by long waiting. He was deeply agitated, and from time to time his whole frame shook. Every time that he glanced towards the table he met the penetrating look of the frightful Megaera, who, while continuing to clean the blade of the large knife, ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... with a careless and chaffing unconstraint he looked on while Philip attempted awkwardly to spread the net; and with his hands in his pockets, smiling, his thoughts elsewhere, whistling a little air, he answered vaguely, without listening carefully to what he was being asked—then, all of a sudden, turned off to his own regions. Good night! And he was no longer there. One caught only at his reflection in the water, ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... knowledge, but the main characteristics were definitely fixed. Comte did not conceive that the distant future, could he survive to experience it, could contain any surprises for him. His theory of Progress thus differed from the eighteenth century views which vaguely contemplate an indefinite development and only profess to indicate some general tendencies. He expressly repudiated this notion of INDEFINITE progress; the data, he said, justify only the inference of CONTINUOUS progress, which ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... all her senses were afloat in a sea of agonies. Still she looked down into his eyes as he continued his pleadings, but the outlines of his body were wavering and uncertain, and inexpressible suffering numbed her faculties. Still she listened vaguely to his outpouring of speech; and it was not until her husband, with two of his vaqueros, dashed up on horseback that either of these two strangely situated sufferers was aware of his approach. Seeing him, Violante threw her ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... hand, Mr Heinzen obliterates all distinctions, in addressing himself vaguely to the 'humanity' of Germans, so that he is obliged to include even the princes in his admonitions, on the other hand, he finds himself obliged to set up at least one distinction among Germans, for without a distinction there can be no antagonism, and ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... journals and other publications, vaguely gestured at to answer a question that the speaker believes is {trivial}. Thus, one might answer an annoying question by saying "It's in the literature." Oppose {Knuth}, which has ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... from my worthy old stockbroker had revived former anxieties in my mind, I made Darvel my confidant, and asked counsel of him to repair my broken fortunes. He heard me without betraying surprise, said he would think the matter over, and that something would assuredly turn up, talked vaguely of advantageous appointments which he had interest in England to procure, assured me of his sympathy and friendship, and bade me not despond, but keep my heart up, for that I had plenty of time to turn in, and meanwhile I ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... was vaguely grateful for this diversion. The lust to kill was still upon him and he was fighting it. He must remember that Gregor wished to ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... Robert was vaguely sorry. It was true that he had no clear idea of God, and yet in some way He had been mixed up with the bands and music and marching crowds that were always just round the corner. In his expansive, genial moments, so rare towards the end. Dr. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... could pierce. Wells marveled at this separately developed civilization, this deep-buried realm of octopi whose unexpected intellectual powers had permitted such development. Perhaps, he pondered, this city was only one of many; perhaps only a village. He could but vaguely glimpse the queer mound buildings, but saw that they were of varying height and were filled with dark round entrance holes, through which the creatures ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... amongst the pebbles has lulled me to sleep—no fear of any rude satyr's approaching to interrupt my repose. Balmy were the slumbers, and soft the gales, that refreshed me, when I awoke to follow, with an eye vaguely curious, the white sails, as they turned the cliffs, or seemed to take shelter under the pines which covered the little islands that so gracefully rose to render the terrific ocean beautiful. The fishermen were calmly casting their nets, whilst the sea-gulls hovered over the unruffled deep. Everything ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... that has led groups of men to move and thus to interfere with one another, regarded as the cause of war, or as an important factor in the causes. Sometimes a purely physiological or growth impulse is invoked, or vaguely the inability of primitive groups to adapt themselves to conditions, or to gain access to the necessities of life. Le Bon (42) speaks of the hunger and the desire that led Germanic forces as ancient hordes to turn ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... worn that my sleep that night was dreamless, but when early at morning they called me to breakfast I knew that during the hours of that deep oblivion I had been vaguely conscious of a dim and shadowy happiness; and a vivid truth came upon me with ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... Vaguely he noticed the sameness of the faces about him. A short wiry man sprang at him, and with a broken sword, stabbed him in the left shoulder. Alexis caught him by the throat with his right hand, and the man gave a choking ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... of Mondunbarra and Avondale crosses the plain, is seen a fair example of the mirage—that phenomenon so vaguely apprehended in regions outside its domain, and so little noticed where repetition has made it familiar. But there it is; no smoky-looking film on the plain, no shimmering distortion of objects in middle-distance, but, to all appearance, a fine sheet of silvery water, two hundred yards ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... little girl from some small interior town whose name (whether child's or town's) I have long since forgotten. Raymond was invited, of course;—"though he isn't very nice to us," as my sister ruefully observed; and some prompting toward fair play (as I vaguely termed it to myself) made me suggest ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... burial, there came three letters to Spring Bank, one to Mrs. Worthington from Murdock, as he now chose to be called, saying that though he had looked, and was still looking everywhere for the missing Adah, he could only trace her, and that but vaguely, to the Greenbush depot, where he lost sight of her entirely, no one after that having seen a person bearing the least resemblance to her. After a consultation with the doctor, he had advertised for her, and he inclosed a copy of the advertisement, as it appeared in the different ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... the pilfering of objects found in authorised excavations; and sometimes it is the stealing of fragments smashed from the walls of the ancient monuments. All these forms of robbery, except the last, may call for the sympathy of every reader of these lines who happens not to have cultivated that vaguely defined "archaeological sense" which is, practically, the product of this present generation alone; and in the instances which are here to be given the point of view of the "Theban thief" will ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... a word of this,' he said,—'upon my honour, not a word; and I know it is her handwriting. That Will!—only, for the love of heaven, madam,'—he bowed vaguely to Janet 'not a syllable of this to the princess, or we are destroyed. I have a great bell in my head, or I would say more. Hearing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Folkestone came back to her. Once she had overheard some half-whispered conversation between her stepmother and a Catholic friend, from which she had vaguely understood that the "Blessed Sacrament" was kept in the Catholic churches, was always there, and that the faithful "visited" it—that these "visits" were indeed specially recommended as a means to holiness. And she recalled how, as they came home from their ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... time had seemed hours to Grace, her interview with Eleanor had lasted barely five minutes. She hurried back to where Miss Tebbs and the three chums awaited her, followed by the curious eyes of a number of the cast, who wondered vaguely why Grace Harlowe was rushing ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... importance is the "Unknown Subject," in the National Gallery (No. 1173), a picture which, like so many others, has recently been taken from Giorgione, its author, and vaguely put down to his "School." But it is time to protest against such ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... in large flat feet, are awkwardly short and muscular. He walks with a clumsy, rolling gait. His voice, when not raised in a hollow boom, is toned down to a sly, confidential half-whisper with something vaguely plaintive in its quality. He is dressed in a wrinkled, ill-fitting dark suit of shore clothes, and wears a faded cap of gray cloth over his mop of grizzled, blond hair. Just now his face beams with a too-blissful happiness, ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... astonishing discoveries in the realm of natural science, and the philosophic speculations that were built upon them, though quite close at hand, were still to come. Darwin's Origin of Species, for example, was not given to the world until 1859. Mr. Gladstone watched these things vaguely and with misgiving; instinct must have told him that the advance of natural explanation, whether legitimately or not, would be in some degree at the expense of the supernatural. But from any full or serious examination of the details of the scientific movement he stood ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... his beastly military regulations. You can't stop him. It's a perfect mania with him. Now, I believe—that's to say, I have a sort of dim idea—that there's a place round about here called a canteen. I seem to remember such a thing vaguely. We might go and look ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... solitary afternoon; but though her book was interesting her attention often wandered. She was sure something was seriously wrong, and she felt vaguely unhappy on Edna's account. She could not forget Mr. Sinclair's face when she had brought him that message. It was as though he had received a blow that he scarcely ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... and furious explosion, drew back a step. Alfred, much exasperated, with a fiery look and purple face, had stretched his body half out of the lodge, and leaned his contracted hands on the lower half of the door, while the figures of Mrs. Seraphin and Anastasia could be vaguely seen in the background, in the semi-obscure light ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... and using solemn British oaths; but Leger, who disliked Denison, who had once kicked him overboard violently for being drunk, not only stuck to the story, but said that Hayes and Tom had set the goat on fire on purpose to break up the dance and cause annoyance to the Germans present; also he vaguely hinted that they, Denison and Hayes, would have driven the seven cows into the ballroom but couldn't find them. Then Mrs. MacLaggan promised the fat man to sack Denison on the following morning, and at midnight, as I ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... None of these wild things feared the child: he was too small and too quick in his movements to be fearful. They accepted him as one of themselves,—a featherless bird, or a squirrel of larger growth; while he, on his part, smiled vaguely at them and hurried past, intent on his projects for a house and careless ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... just now, I accidentally heard that George had been ill. My sister-in-law had heard it from Forster, but vaguely. Until I received your letter of Wednesday's date, I had no idea that he had been very ill; and should have been greatly shocked by knowing it, were it not for the hopeful and bright assurance you give me that ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... equal promptitude that the whole of attraction was summed up in it: that to nothing else did we move by nature, and to nothing else were we drawn but to Peace. I said that a completion and a fulfilment were vaguely demanded by a man even in very early youth, that in manhood the desire for them became a passion and in early middle age so overmastering and natural a necessity that all who turned aside from it and attempted to forget it were justly ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... will have had time, and opportunity, of reaching the far-off but splendid goal. Believing, as we do, that death is never a finality, but that it is only an incident in progress; that instead of being an end it is only freedom from limitation, we find ourselves often vaguely, but ever eagerly, asking, To what are all these souls tending? Toward a state glorious beyond language to utter we deeply feel. But has no clearer voice spoken? At last we have reached the end of ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... indifferent to the Druids, and to that hypothetical race who lived ages before the Druids, and have broken out all over the earth in stony excrescences, as yet vaguely classified. That three-legged granite table, whose origin was lost in the remoteness of past time, seemed to the young Wendovers a thing that had been created expressly for their amusement, to be climbed upon ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... their frames, The ocean, roaring up the beach, The gusty blast, the bickering flames, All mingled vaguely in ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... to pay almost any price for it. Sometimes they talked of the long list of "accidents" that were happening daily in American factories and genially cursed the hyphenated Germans. As for the other sort of Germans they felt vaguely that some day America must reckon with them, too. Evidently they put small faith in the "three thousand miles of cool sea-water" as a nonconductor of warfare! So here was another aspect of the war—the ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... the feet lapped conventionally sculptured waves, which melted into the mosaic, to be continued to the walls by the pattern of the tiles. At the far side of the rotunda, the double stairs, which led to bronze doors, were almost inconspicuous, seeming to be a vaguely appearing mirage on the horizon of a ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... went our way till we reached the two ladies. He mentioned my name to his wife, and I noticed that he addressed her as "My dear," very genially, without a trace of resentment at her detention of the child. The quickness of the transition made me vaguely ask myself if he were perchance henpecked—a shocking surmise which I instantly dismissed. Mrs. Ambient was quite such a wife as I should have expected him to have; slim and fair, with a long neck and pretty eyes and an air of good breeding. She shone with a certain coldness ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... cunning, brute force that commanded a respect not all bred of being weaker. In a way he was magnificent. And Rainey vaguely heralded trouble when Captain Simms was at last given to the deep. He felt certain that the hunters under Deming were hatching something but, in the main, his mental prophecy of trouble coming was connected ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... any love save love of his own imaginings, he cannot receive those human impressions which kindle the artist into work, nor answer the cry which comes from mankind, with such eagerness, to genius—"Express for us in clear form that which we vaguely feel. Make us see and admire and love." Then he ceases even to love song, because, though he can imagine everything, he can do nothing; and deaf to the voices of men, he despises man. Finally he asks himself, like so many young poets who have followed his way, What is the judgment of the world ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... about the same instant the two priests in the corner rose; the taller, a white-haired Italian, taking his leave. The shorter priest turned and walked towards the banker's son, and the latter was astonished to realize that though a Roman priest the man was an Englishman. He vaguely remembered meeting him at the social crushes of some of his Catholic friends. But the man spoke before his memories could ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... one. She has the material." And Valentin began to walk away slowly, looking vaguely at the pictures on the walls, with a thoughtful illumination in his eye. Nothing could have appealed to his imagination more than the possible adventures of a young lady endowed with the "material" of Mademoiselle Nioche. "She is very interesting," he went on. "She ...
— The American • Henry James
... vaguely into the fire in the grate, but Nan's figure was within the line of his vision as she stood silently by the window gazing out on the river. Bivens hadn't said that she must go on that trip, but in a flash of warning intuition he knew ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... Vaguely wrapped in his fog of concentration, Matt thrust the snarling dog under the bell, which he lowered quickly till it rested on the pedestal-floor and ringed the dog with a wall of glass behind which it barked and ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... to his government. He wrote to von Stadion: "In many of my previous reports I have had the honor of speaking to Your Excellency about the long current rumors regarding the approaching divorce of the Emperor. After circulating vaguely in the last two months, they have become the subject of general and public discussion. It is true of these rumors, as of all not stamped out at their birth, that they rest on some foundation of truth, or they would be promptly silenced, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... plea to be advanced on either side of this eternal question, nor is it one upon which I ever felt strongly, but just then I felt tempted to speak as though I did. I will not now dissect my motive, but it was vaguely connected with my mission, and not unrighteous from that standpoint. I said it was not a question of harm at all, but of what one admired in a woman, and what one did not: a man loved to look upon a woman as something above and beyond him, and there could ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... She vaguely resented the way in which Varick spoke of Bubbles. After all, the girl had come to Wyndfell Hall out of the purest good nature—in order to help them ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... my dinner, and we fell into conversation. He had apparently crossed from Kent by a small boat got at a private bargain because of some odd fancy he had for passing promptly in an easterly direction, and not waiting for any of the official boats. He was, he somewhat vaguely explained, looking for a house. When I naturally asked him where the house was, he answered that he did not know; it was on an island; it was somewhere to the east; or, as he expressed it with a hazy and yet ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... caress on his dead wife's forehead with no kind of emotion, and so left the room, muttering vaguely certain indistinct and incoherent syllables, in which the words "Nina" and "Bargrave" were ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... she shows, Elsa, whom happiness has made even more tender than usual, eagerly hastens down with two of her attendants, and, opening the door, bids her come in, promising to intercede in her behalf on the morrow. During the subsequent brief conversation Ortrud artfully manages to make Elsa vaguely uneasy, and to sow in her innocent mind ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... had penetrated to St. Peter's, where his fellow-masters treated him with an unaccustomed deference, only partially veiled by mild badinage on the part of the younger men; while even the boys were vaguely aware that he had distinguished himself in the outer world, and Mark found his authority much easier ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... He looked vaguely round the floor, it was crumpled in his hand. A side door shut, and I stood alone. Pinching my cheeks and wiping my lips to force the color back, I returned to the parlor. Mr. Somers came to me with a glass of wine. It was full, and some spilled ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... freedom, her stars, her sunrises, her seas, her winds, her cataracts, her mountains blue with cloudy pines, blows jubilant encouragement, and cries,—SPEAK! From the soul's trembling abysses the still, small voice not vaguely murmurs,—SPEAK! But, alas! the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M.C., ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... mornings, noisy operatic music in the afternoons (there was no piano, only an old American organ, in the house) and coquettish scufflings, dancing, and conscious giggling tete-a-tetes in the hall every long, lamp-lit evening soon became wearisome, and Ringfield, made vaguely uneasy, took on himself ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... senors," came the mocking retort, and Del Pinzo, for he it was, smiled, showing his white teeth through his black, curling beard. It was the beard which had prevented his recognition up to now. Though there was something vaguely familiar about the actions of the leader of the sheep men. And he who bore the flag of truce—Del Pinzo no less—had been the leader in the attempts ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... pale, obnoxious odor, like opium fresh from the poppy, yet with the savor of almonds, flooded Peter's throat. He was vaguely aware of a fumbling in his coat-pocket. Explosions sounded as from afar and a vast redness settled down ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... "Yes," said Cecile vaguely, "that's the news." She was still quiet—so quiet that one would suppose she scarcely felt. This was true; the blow was so sudden and sharp that it produced no pain as yet, but her usually sweet and tranquil blue eyes had a dazed and ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... looked softly down his list of questions for something vaguely impersonal, widely abstract, and now lit ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... ground sloped downward through a narrowing perspective of house-fronts and roof cornices to faint white mist, in which one could see some cattle moving vaguely, and beyond which, if one knew that it was there, one might just discern a wide space of common land stretching away boldly until the dark barrier of woods stopped it short. To his right the ground lay level, with ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... uncertain. But from moment to moment his tones would call me back from visions, and I would vaguely hear that one was gone who had warned his fellows against the pitfalls of political jealousy, and bade all who loved their country band against those who would seek to pluck a laurel from the wreath ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... had the idea of making some kind of a light steam car that would take the place of horses—more especially, however, as a tractor to attend to the excessively hard labour of ploughing. It occurred to me, as I remember somewhat vaguely, that precisely the same idea might be applied to a carriage or a wagon on the road. A horseless carriage was a common idea. People had been talking about carriages without horses for many years back—in fact, ever since the steam engine ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... at her poor mother in pity; but she was far above the influences which agitated her father and drove him into precipitate action. Gabrielle, with the assistance of the maid, soon persuaded Mrs. Tescheron and prepared her for departure into that foreign land vaguely situated on the map of the earth, as she remembered it. With heavy sighs and gasps she told where things could be found and how Bridget, the cook, was to feed the parrot. She would take the parrot, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... event, he wrote his Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia; concerning the publication of which Sir John Hawkins guesses vaguely and idly, instead of having taken the trouble to inform himself with authentick precision. Not to trouble my readers with a repetition of the Knight's reveries, I have to mention, that the late Mr. Strahan the printer ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... that was lying ready. Then he asked himself what Uarda's fate would be without her grandparents, and a strange plan which had floated vaguely before him for some hours, began now to take a distinct outline and intelligible form. He determined if the old man did not return to ask the kolchytes or embalmers to admit him into their guild—and for the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... deceptive. Under the stress of the moment the only vision to which she could attain was that of the Misses Rodman begging for the pitiful job of teaching Italian in a young ladies' school. She remembered them vaguely—tall, scraggy, permanently girlish in dress and manner, and looking their true fifty only about the neck and eyes. With their mother they lived in a pretty villa on the Poggio Imperiale, and had called on her occasionally when she passed through Florence. The knowledge ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... Excited and vaguely troubled, but walking straight with head erect, Anne went to the bridge. Against the railing leaned a familiar figure in blue overalls and slouch hat. No one else was near. The ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... North Ferry, about two miles from his own town, Inverkeithing. It was, I think, on the Tuesdays. It was winter, and a wild, drifting, and dangerous day; his daughters—his wife was dead—besought him not to go; he smiled vaguely, but continued getting into his big-coat. Nothing would stay him, and away he and the pony stumbled through the dumb and blinding snow. He was half-way on his journey, and had got into the sermon he was going to preach, and was utterly insensible to the outward storm: his ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... Charlie said, vaguely understanding that you could somehow make things happen on ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger
... could not imagine, but there it was and there it stayed, for the process did not go any farther. Later on, when our furniture and pictures were in place, visitors used to say, "Wherever did you get that wonderful paper?" If they were true friends and worthy, we told them. Otherwise we would vaguely hint of a special pattern, and that there was no more to be had of ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a death-blow to all future inquiries in that quarter, and the whole of the information concerning the affair of the boat, her crew, and cargo, was indefinite and unsatisfactory. Every one, in fact, appeared uneasy when any information was required; and they always stifled any further inquiry by vaguely answering, that it happened before their remembrance, or they had forgotten it, or they had not seen it. They, however, pointed out the place where the boat struck and the unfortunate crew perished. Even this, however, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... in all individuals is not only true of the classifications of material science; it is true and still more evidently true of the species of common thought; it is true of common terms. Take the word "Chair." When one says chair, one thinks vaguely of an average chair. But collect individual instances; think of armchairs and reading-chairs and dining-room chairs, and kitchen chairs, chairs that pass into benches, chairs that cross the boundary and become settees, dentist's chairs, thrones, opera stalls, seats of all ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... supposed to be working, but try as I would I could not help thinking of William. I felt sorry for him—he looked so distrait. When, as he vaguely hinted, he had conceived an attachment for me I did not think it was likely to cause him any unhappiness. Indeed, I never imagined him capable of feeling any emotions but those of a purely physical character—such as the effects of cold, heat, hunger or bodily pain. And here he ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... while, in grateful acknowledgment of her caution, Master Dick put his two little fingers in the angles of his mouth, and his forefingers on his lower eyelids, drawing upon these features until his expression reminded her of something she vaguely recollected in her infancy,—the face of a favorite deity executed in wood by an African artist for her grandfather, brought over by her mother, and burned when she became ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... must be a little over-tired,' said Miss Mildmay vaguely. She had not specially noticed Frances's expression. 'I wonder,' she went on, 'I wonder if those Harpers are any relation to the Elvedons? I can't quite remember what Miss Scarlett said about them. It was their mother she was interested in, though—not their father. If they were Elvedon Harpers, ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... so taken aback by her appearance and extraordinary beauty, as well as by the absence of any sign of those I sought, that I could not gather my thoughts to reply, but stood looking vaguely at her. I had expected, when I entered the room, ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... at the weedy age of nine. It was natural that they should have changed, but their change had gone beyond nature. Upon them, as upon their elders, had settled the silences and the vaguely wondering expression of those who live in lands of drought and hardship, who look upon ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... breakfast with minimum conversation, only vaguely conscious that the others were watching him with interest, aware that he was chewing over the problem in his ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... an experience," commented Louise, wondering rather vaguely why the minister of the First Church had reminded her uncle of ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... church. He was a recognized leader. In his presentation of truth he was large-minded. He had the faculty of holding men's respect. There was no mistaking the situation, however. Mr. Winter, with others, was working against him. Philip was vaguely conscious of much that did not work out into open, apparent fact. Nevertheless, when he came up on the first Sunday of the next month and began to announce his subject, he found an audience that crowded the ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... as she had often wondered, at the impossibility of guessing, even vaguely, what was really going on behind that large brow. And he looked back observantly, but not expressively, at her. She was a slim, fair, pretty woman, with more vividness and character than usually goes with her type. Like the boy, she had long-lashed ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... early childhood is the one in which the home may act with least interference as the child's teacher. Later, whether she will or no, the mother must share the work of training with the school, the church, and that indefinite influence we class vaguely as society. During these few early years, then, the mother must use her opportunity well. It will soon ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... the hands of Glafira Petrovna. He was not eight years old when his mother died; he did not see her every day, and loved her passionately; the memory of her, of her pale and gentle face, of her dejected looks and timid caresses, was imprinted on his heart for ever; but he vaguely understood her position in the house; he felt that between him and her there existed a barrier which she dared not and could not break down. He was shy of his father, and, indeed, Ivan Petrovitch on ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... he knew vaguely what was coming. Before she answered his curious question—prompting it indeed—rose in his mind that strange idea of the Group-Soul: the theory that big souls cannot express themselves in a single individual, but need an entire group for their ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... that it is not a month hence). Help your mistress first, girl. (Three women are bereft of speech, but he does not notice it. He addresses CATHERINE vaguely.) Are you a good ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... the morning and the wounded. We knew by this time that at 3:30 that morning the Highland Brigade had made a frontal attack on the Magersfontein lines and had been repulsed with terrible loss. The accounts which were vaguely given of the disaster were frightful, but accurate details were still lacking. Yes, here we were within four miles of the nearest point of Cronje's lines and we did not know half as much about the fight as people in Pall ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... terms Above Persons, Ground Persons, and Under Water Persons. Of the former class, Thunder is one of the most important, and is worshipped as is elsewhere shown. He brings the rain. He is represented sometimes as a bird, or, more vaguely, as in one of the stories, merely as a fearful person. Wind Maker is an example of an Under Water Person, and it is related that he has been seen, and his form is described. It is believed by some that he lives under the water at the head of the Upper St. Mary's Lake. Those who believe this say ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell |
