"Indefinite" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Resistance Army forces continue to seek refuge in Congo's Garamba National Park as peace talks with the Uganda government evolve; the location of the boundary in the broad Congo River with the Republic of the Congo is indefinite except in the Pool Malebo/Stanley Pool area; Uganda and DROC dispute Rukwanzi island in Lake Albert and other areas on the Semliki River with hydrocarbon potential; boundary commission continues discussions over Congolese-administered triangle ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... among the limbs, exploring then under side of the leaves, peering to the right and left, now flitting a few feet, now hopping as many, and warbling incessantly, occasionally in a subdued tone, which sounds from a very indefinite distance. When he has found a worm to his liking, he turns lengthwise of the limb and and bruises its head with his beak before ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... colored the entire mass. Only a very select few were "in the know" of what that eighth round had been planned to develop, yet they somehow had leavened the whole audience with anticipation, by an indefinite word ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... that "before" or "until" has a twofold sense in Scripture. For sometimes it indicates a fixed time, as Gal. 3:19: The law "was set because of transgressions, until the seed should come, to whom He made the promise." On the other hand, it sometimes indicates an indefinite time, as in Ps. 122:2: "Our eyes are unto the Lord our God, until He have mercy on us"; from which it is not to be gathered that our eyes are turned from God as soon as His mercy has been obtained. In this sense those things ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... fact is, that none of the causes which we know to be now operating on our globe, seem at all adequate to account for all the changes it has already undergone. We may, therefore, very fairly infer, that an indefinite allowance must be granted to exterior interference of some sort or other, the agency of which may altogether subvert whatever is now known to exist.—See Cuvier's Essay, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... With purpose indefinite, Godwin set forth in the direction suggested. At little more than a saunter, he passed out of High Street into its continuation, where he soon descried the Church of St. Sidwell, and thence, having made inquiry, walked towards the Old Tiverton Road. He was now quite beyond the town limits, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... from the middle of October till near December, with scarcely a break. There were six weeks of Indian summer, all gold by day, and, when the moon came, all silver by night. The river was so smooth at times as to be almost invisible, and in its place was the indefinite continuation of the opposite shore down toward the nether world. One seemed to be in an enchanted land, and to breathe all day the atmosphere of fable and romance. Not a smoke, but a kind of shining nimbus filled all the spaces. The vessels would drift ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... briskness, thriftiness, energy, and alacrity, it is hard to find his match. He has made a book of travels, and will make a hundred, unless somebody finds him a place at home where he will have an indefinite number of labors-of-Hercules to keep him busy,—or unless some African prince cuts his head off, or he happens to call upon the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... plop! drifted to the watchers—a sound no louder than a feeble clack of the tongue—this indefinite luminosity began to sink, to fade, falling slowly, gradually dissipating itself in the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Jackson Wylie, Sr., was growing impatient. In spite of his son's weekly reports he had begun to fret at the indefinite nature of results up to date. This dissatisfaction it was that had induced him to cable his invitation to the Royal Commission to visit the Atlantic plant. Mr. Jackson Wylie, Sr., had a mysterious way of closing contracts once he came in personal contact with the proper people. In the words ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... profound, strong, precise, impressive, original, significant, explicit, luminous, positive, suggestive, comprehensive, and practical. Resolutely avoid all thoughts which are uncertain, recondite, obscure, immature, unimportant, shallow, weak, visionary, absurd, vague, extravagant, indefinite, or impractical. ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... as accusative of the indeclinable indefinite personal pronoun {man}, one, them; trans. idiomatically by changing to passive construction, when they (i.e. university-students) are overburdened neither by learning nor by the contents of ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel
... awkward pause which followed, Ferris remarked boldly: "I intended to ask for an indefinite leave on account of breaking health. I shall now remain here, as an ordinary witness, subject to your orders, and with no other interest than ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... alguna; alguno often replaces ninguno as a negative indefinite adjective, especially when following a singular noun. Here the negative is contained in the privative prefix in- ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... Weight of indefinite volume, from Thebae, one of the several ancient cities by that name. List. thinks it is an Egyptian ounce, and that the author of the ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... when going up a hill. But this load of burdened carriages followed imperturbably at the gait of turtles. They were not to be stirred from their way of dignified exit by the impatient engine. The crowd of porters and transient people stood respectful. They looked with the indefinite wonder of the railway-station sight-seer upon the faces at the windows of the passing coaches. This train was off for Scotland. It had started from the home of one accent to the home of another accent. It was going from manner to manner, from habit to habit, and in the minds of these London ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... about this affair. I received rather indefinite accounts of it in the exceedingly brief letters that I have been favored with of late," said Tom Gray, fixing a reproachful ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... Vingt-quatre Preludes, Op. 28, published in September, 1839, I have tried to elucidate in the twenty-first chapter. I need, therefore, not discuss the question here. The indefinite character and form of the prelude, no doubt, determined the choice of the title which, however, does not describe the contents of this OPUS. Indeed, no ONE name could do so. This heterogeneous collection of pieces reminds me of nothing so much as of an artist's portfolio filled ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... "Musikfreunde," with the request that they will in future regard me as quite inadmissible as a conductor. Your question whether I attach "any special importance" as to how the different parts should be filled, I answer simply thus: arrange things wholly and entirely as you think best. The few indefinite suggestions in my last letter are of importance only in so far as they agree with your competent arrangement, otherwise in no way. One point only I should like adhered to in the Vienna performance, namely that no foreign singers be engaged for it. To have one's own house in good order is ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... little band already referred to, I learned of the Gospel Trumpet Home and Publishing Company, situated at Anderson, Indiana. I wrote to them, and shortly afterwards received a cordial invitation to visit them for an indefinite period. About the middle of August I was lovingly greeted by a family of about two hundred and fifty children of God, mostly young people of both sexes, all consecrated faith workers; all cheerfully and gladly giving the Lord their time ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... stopping, eat anything whatever, and dress herself unaided? And that hair of hers! Often she was still a young wife, or a young widow. She was not preparing for death; she had prepared for death in the seventies. She expected to live on in calm satisfaction through indefinite decades. She savoured life pleasantly, for its daily security was impregnable. She ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... least inaccurate. The prayer of Plato's ideal city—[Greek], might be written as a text over the door of the last Temple to Humanity raised by the disciples of Fourier and Saint Simon, but it is certainly true that their ideal principle was order and permanence, not indefinite progress. For, setting aside the artistic prejudices which would have led the Greeks to reject this idea of unlimited improvement, we may note that the modern conception of progress rests partly on the new enthusiasm ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... it lived to die some other death, to propagate its kind, and thus indirectly condition an incalculable number of future changes that would have been brought about by the ever increasing number of its descendants—these and an indefinite number of other physical changes must all be held to have followed as a direct consequence of the man's volition thus suddenly breaking in as an independent cause upon the otherwise uniform course of Nature. Now, I say that, apart from some system of pre-established harmony, ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... to say that some day I should respect the Professor's efforts. One of these days! The interval of time was far shorter than anything so indefinite. The first event, with its succeeding series of horrors, came ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... very indefinite and convenient word. It may mean anything or nothing. In a very short time, it meant that Margaret took a book out with her and walked down to the boundary stream about three times a week, if not oftener, ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... capacities, and as contra-distinguished from the individuals of whom they consist. Tho this principle does not run through all the powers delegated to the Union; yet it pervades and governs those on which the efficacy of the rest depends: except as to the rule of apportionment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America. The consequence of this is that, tho in theory their resolutions concerning those objects ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... the document, on men whose minds were filled with the most indefinite expectations, was just such as had been anticipated by the president. It was received with a general murmur of disapprobation. Even those who had got more than they expected were discontented, on comparing their condition with that of their comrades, whom they thought still better remunerated ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... wondered if there were not tears in those violet eyes, and he had a sudden longing to behold her without a mask. It would have been easy for her to make him again forget his mission, and why he was in the chateau of Beauvais. Youth recognized youth, and that indefinite longing which is a part of youth seemed to enfold them for an instant. Perhaps the woman felt it as much as he did, for she broke ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... left Morrow without definite resource. As a forlorn hope he telephoned to the Anita Lawton Club, only to learn that Miss Brunell had sent in her resignation as secretary early that morning, but told nothing of her future plans, except that she was leaving town for an indefinite period. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... teach or preach in a very different manner; they probably do: but the theoretic contents of their opinion cannot be distinguished. Thus they say that there is a certain divine person in the man Jesus Christ; but that, when they use the term 'person,' they mean, not a person, but a certain indefinite and indefinable distinction. The later Unitarians, meantime, are found asserting that God is present in Christ in a mysterious and peculiar communication of his being; so that he is the living embodiment and express image of God. If, now, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... sent word to Mrs. Lawrence that she could occupy her quarters until she was able to make some plan for the future. It seemed, however, utterly indefinite when Mrs. Lawrence would be able to plan anything. She lay in her bed or sat in her chair, silent, pale, and as weak as a child. The blow of her husband's desertion seemed to have stopped all the springs of action. Neither ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... its style and its descriptions, the purity of the psychological analysis, the depth of the thoughts and the reflections of which the novel is full, and among its faults a certain disproportion between the different parts of the book and an ending which is too vague, indefinite and unexpected. But its literary qualities seem to me to be of secondary importance to the profound and incontrovertible idea that forms the kernel of the book. Here in Europe we are accustomed to say that modern civilization develops itself in America more freely than in ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... approach toward laxness in the marriage laws of the colonies, it may have been in Pennsylvania. Ben Franklin confesses very frankly that his wife's former husband had deserted her, and that no divorce had been obtained. There was a decidedly indefinite rumor that the former spouse had died, and Ben considered this sufficient. The case was even more complicated, but perhaps Franklin thought that one ill cured another. As he ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... of the joint, are set square across it, and two others, at the top and near the middle of the joint, are placed diagonally across it. The staples at the bottom are similarly placed. The joint is quite firm and strong, and is likely to hold for an indefinite period with fair usage. The cloth, stretched upon the frame, is fastened to it by means of similar staples. A dark colored cloth not transparent to light is to be preferred. A strip of pine, 1-13/16 inches wide, and three eighths of an inch thick, forms the vertical ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... considered, for instance, that the surest sign of our progressive civilization is in our growing distaste to capital punishments. He believed, not in the ultimate perfection of mankind, but in their progressive perfectibility. He thought that improvement was indefinite; but he did not place its advance more under Republican than under Monarchical forms. "Provided," he was wont to say, "all our checks to power are of the right kind, it matters little to what hands the power ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... definite diagnosis having been made by either the medical or the surgical service. At autopsy there was found a wide-spread peritonitis arising from a perforated appendix. A child, several years old, was taken ill with some indefinite disease. A number of the ablest medical and surgical consultants of a leading medical center thoroughly and repeatedly investigated the case. Although they could make no definite diagnosis they all agreed that ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... or Conservative Reform, be the given indefinite line—it is required to describe on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... his faculties are capable of an indefinite expansion; the objects to which these faculties may be directed are boundless and infinitely diversified; he is moving onward to an eternal world, and, in the present state, can never expect to grasp the universal system of created objects, or to rise to ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... science. Then you cannot catch an animal's eye; he looks at you, but not into your eye. The dog directs his gaze toward your face, but, for aught you can tell, it centres upon your mouth or nose. The same with your horse or cow. Their eye is vague and indefinite. ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... that government chose to abolish the infamous monasteries, which had been so long supported at the expense of an oppressed people! Was this not interfering in temporal matters? I could multiply authorities, Governor, to an indefinite extent, sustaining Mr. Wesley's views, and falsifying all you say, but this would swell my reply beyond what I intended in the outset. Let me call your attention to Brownson's Review, for July, 1853, where you will find all this power, and even more, claimed ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... Nolla, that we have our hands full of important work on Top Notch Trail, for an indefinite time," was ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... more of it, as the time must shortly come for swift action. From the moment when Ferrier groaned with despair, a lightning thought shot into Marion's brain and settled there. She had a grand idea, and she was almost eager to get ashore: one indefinite attraction alone held her. Ferrier was almost as eager to return, for his electric nature was chafed by the limitations that bound him; he knew he could do nothing without further means and appliances, ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... a proficiency such as only youthful muscles may attain to speedily. All the while his training went on under the guidance of Akut. No longer was there a single jungle spoor but was an open book to the keen eyes of the lad, and those other indefinite spoor that elude the senses of civilized man and are only partially appreciable to his savage cousin came to be familiar friends of the eager boy. He could differentiate the innumerable species of the herbivora by scent, and he could tell, too, ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... letters received by the Widow Dennis were as mystical as they were assuring: one, in a female hand, told her that her son Levin was being tenderly watched, and another, in man's writing, enclosed some money, and said her son would soon be home. Mrs. Dennis was far from happy in this indefinite state of mind, and her heart told her, also, that the absence of James Phoebus was a different strain. She loved that absentee already too ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... coincidences—three capital prizes drawn consecutively by the same town; a ticket bought by a millionaire and given to his boot-black, who won a thousand dollars upon it; the same number winning the same amount an indefinite number of times; and so on to infinity. Invariably it was the needy who won, the destitute and starving woke to wealth and plenty, the virtuous toiler suddenly found his reward in a ticket bought at a hazard; the lottery was a great charity, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... like queer mis-shaped ministering angels, over the tiny quivering bundles. Some of them were like herself, or herself as she might have been, bearing their children out of wedlock. Yet they faced their indefinite futures impassively, content in relief from pain, in the child in their arms, in present peace and security. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... journey were not yet over. The first day's voyage was delightful, the lake calm, the scenery lovely. At times the mountains on the west coast were not discernible, and the lake appeared of indefinite width. Sometimes they passed directly under precipitous cliffs of fifteen hundred feet in height, rising abruptly out of the water, while from the deep clefts in the rocks evergreens of every tint appeared, and wherever a rivulet burst forth it was shaded ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... Constitution—five million five hundred thousand acres of public land should be given to Kansas; besides other munificent donations. But the English bill also contained a menace as well as a bribe. It threatened that if the people rejected this offer they should be remanded back for an indefinite period, to all the miseries of a ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... disposition to talk; the only pastime left was to think. He wondered if Frankie still cared for him; if his parents would be impressed with his knowledge of banking, and if the bankboys of Hometon would acknowledge him a pal. Selfish as it may seem, his thoughts of Frankie were indefinite, and confused with memories ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... hotel was so indefinite that I didn't know at all what I should do. After the excitement quieted down a little, I went out to visit my cousin ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... it. Unless you enter the torrid world equipped with scientific knowledge extraordinary, your anticipations are likely to be at fault. Perhaps you had pictured to yourself the effect of perpetual summer as a physical delight,—something like an indefinite prolongation of the fairest summer weather ever enjoyed at home. Probably you had heard of fevers, risks of acclimatization, intense heat, and a swarming of venomous creatures; but you may nevertheless believe you know what precautions to take; and published statistics of climatic ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... were adversely criticized by Dr O. Liebreich, who carefully studied on the spot all the conditions of the experiment and the documents relating to the investigation. He pointed out that the results were so indefinite and the number of persons under control so small that "one case of self-deception or of forgetfulness only would throw into absolute uncertainty the solution of the whole question''; that no lasting injury to health ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... a great number of definite and indefinite articles, and prefixes, which they apply in a peculiar manner. The article te often stands before proper names; also before God, Te Atua; sometimes o, which then appears to be an article; as, O Pomare, O Huaheine, O Tahaiti. Sometimes this o is placed before the personal pronouns ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... stand with glasses in hand levelled upon the house of Don Gregorio Montijo. They can see, as once before, two heads over the parapet, and, as before, recognise them; but not as before, or with the same feelings, do they regard them. All is changed now, everything doubtful and indefinite, where it might be supposed everything had been satisfactorily arranged. But it has not—especially in the thoughts of Crozier; whose dissatisfaction is shown in a soliloquy to which he gives utterance, as Telegraph Hill, interfering ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... who were not Stratfordians of Shakespeare's day, but later comers; and what they had learned had come to them from persons who had not seen Shakespeare; and what they had learned was not claimed as FACT, but only as legend—dim and fading and indefinite legend; legend of the calf-slaughtering rank, and not worth remembering either as history ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... consternation on finding this state of things; and, in particular, how wretched I was from the apprehension that my wedding must be put off to an indefinite time, when perhaps ruin would have overwhelmed us, and left us naked and destitute fugitives. Oh! the idea was too overwhelming, and I hastened to give vent to my feelings to my friends at Geuklu, who perhaps might afford me some consolation. Their village being considerably out of the track ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... been brought up in this region, had promised the boys rare sport, if only they would trust to his judgment in the matter. The trip was of indefinite length, the only stipulation being that they should not go outside the United States, when approaching the New Brunswick border along ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... proposed putting a garrison into the strongest Post(785) he has, with twenty other concessions. We have rumours of the Prince of Bevern having beaten the Austrians considerably. I believe, upon review, that this is a mighty indefinite letter; I would have waited for certainties, but not knowing how long that might be, I thought you would ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... apparatus is started by clamping the rubber tube tightly and then exhausting the air in the siphon tube, then placing the end in the upper reservoir and releasing the clamp until the water begins to drop. If the reservoir is kept filled from the tank, the device will work for an indefinite time. —Contributed by John T. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Indefinite and undefined,—there was no thought beyond the moment; no wish to take this young girl into his arms and to call her "wife" had shaped itself in his brain. It was enough for both that they were in one another's presence, that they breathed the same air, ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... set to work and built a rough hut of stone, in order to ensure safety during the night, as their stay at Weld Springs seemed likely to be indefinite, and a fresh attack might be made at any moment. When the hut was finished, Forrest, taking a boy with him, started on a flying trip due east. This time they were fortunate enough to find a small ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... instinct to protect? If all she heard was true, he sorely needed protection from himself. For tales of him had filtered to her young ears—indefinite rumours of unworthy things—of youth wasted and manhood threatened—of excesses incomprehensible to her, and to those who ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... any large number of men on any point of political faith is amazing. You can hardly get two men in any Congress or Convention to agree;—nay, you can rarely get one to agree with himself. The political church which chances to be supreme anywhere has an indefinite number of tongues. How then can we expect men to agree as to matters beyond the cognizance of the senses? How can we compass the Infinite and the Invisible with any chain of evidence? Ask the small sea-waves what ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the refuse ore of a mine from one pit to another, instead of coining the ingots which lay heaped before my eyes. Still, however, my time was squandered. There was a constant want of fitness and concentration of my energies. My dreams of education were boundless, brilliant, indefinite; but alas! they were only dreams. There was nothing accurate and defined in my future course of life. I was ambitious and conceited, but my aspirations were vague and shapeless. I had crowded together the most gorgeous and even some of the most ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... it grew stronger day by day, but it was a sympathy akin to that of the solitudes, none the less eloquent because it was wordless. Sothern informed Drennen once, out of the customary silence about the evening camp fire, that he was taking an indefinite vacation; that there was a man in his place with the Northwestern who was amply qualified to remain there permanently if Sothern did not come ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... months from that date. In the meantime Kate was to remain there till her arm should become strong, and she could make her plans for the future. Aunt Greenow promised to remain at the Hall for the present, and offered, indeed, indefinite services for the future, as though she were quite forgetful of Captain Bellfield. Of Mr Cheesacre she was not forgetful, for she still continued to speak of that gentleman to Kate, as though he were Kate's suitor. But she did not now press upon her niece the acceptance of Mr Cheesacre's hand ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... forward to by the conspirators, and so much dreaded by the good citizens of the republic, had arrived. And now was seen, as it will oftentimes happen, that when great events, however carefully concealed, are on the point of coming to light, a sort of vague rumour, or indefinite anticipation, is found running through the whole mass of society—a rumour, traceable to no one source, possessing no authority, and deserving no credibility from its origin, or even its distinctness; yet in the main true and correct—an ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... unfortunate lack of foresight in providing an equipage for his return. Jones drove him to the station, where, to the Judge's distress, he learned that, owing to the storm, there would be no train through for an indefinite time. Having other highly important engagements, he found it necessary to drive to Mountain City, where he could be more certain of ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... boundary lines are substantially correct, each of the two terms Kovio and Kamaweka, as now used, would appear to cover more than one linguistic area; and in any case these terms seem to have widened and to have become somewhat indefinite. It will be seen on reference to the map and to Father Egedi's information as to the Oru Lopiku and Boboi boundaries that both Mt. Yule and Inavaurene are within the area which the Fathers call Oru Lopiku, but that Inavaurene ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... Shakspeare or Milton; and what right would they have to reap great rewards from the riches with which the illustrious dead desired to endow all mankind? The inventors and authors themselves, it is true, deserve reward; and they obtain it in the shape of the limited monopoly. But the indefinite or very long continuance of this would only levy a tax to enrich those who have performed no service, and would fill the country with endless litigation. To return, however, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... awakened from a heavy sleep by a hurried shake of her shoulder and an indefinite feeling of alarm. Opening her eyes, she was momentarily dazed by the broad light of day, and the spectacle of Mrs. Brimmer, pale and agitated, in a half-Spanish dishabille, standing at ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... their place. Some devout persons had at the beginning wished to count them, to see whether their number corresponded with the days of the solar year; but others were brought, and it was impossible to distinguish them in the giddy motion of the horrible arms. This lasted for a long, indefinite time until the evening. Then the partitions inside assumed a darker glow, and burning flesh could be seen. Some even believed that they could descry hair, limbs, and ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... of vision which Mrs. Berrington was ready solemnly to declare that she had not misapplied were, as her sister looked into them, an abyss of indefinite prettiness. The girl had sounded them before without discovering a conscience at the bottom of them, and they had never helped any one to find out anything about their possessor except that she was one of the beauties of London. Even while Selina spoke Laura had a cold, ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... for business for indefinite period by motor accident. If advisable appoint new director in my place before shareholders' meeting, which cannot attend. Compelled ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... chance drew her attention to a small, dark shape, with one staring red eye, that was stealing quietly across the Sound in the middle distance—of indefinite contour against the darkening waters, but undoubtedly a motor-boat, since there was no wind to drive any sailing vessel at its pace, or indeed at ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... is to say, he recalled clearly all that had led up to that vicious blow from out of the darkness which had found his jaw with such surprising accuracy; and he was visited by one or two rather indefinite memories of ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... modern, perfection of content and of form. Thus classic and romantic have also received, among their many other meanings, that of progressive or regressive periods, in respect to the realization of some indefinite artistic ideal of humanity. ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... although conclusive, is too indefinite for effective action, and we believe your Holiness can supply the means by which we may preserve public order, and"—with an apologetic gesture—"save the ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... anticipations necessarily gave birth to the more ruinous practice of perpetual funding. But though this practice necessarily puts off the liberation of the public revenue from a fixed period, to one so indefinite that it is not very likely ever to arrive; yet, as a greater sum can, in all cases, be raised by this new practice than by the old one of anticipation, the former, when men have once become familiar with it, has, in the great exigencies of the state, been universally preferred to the latter. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... relieved the sombre blackness of the vaulted edifice, an indefinite ghostliness prevailed, from out of which the numerous gilded forms of the Virgin and the saints appeared half intangible, as if hovering about with ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... are the natives belonging to the somewhat indefinite family known as Tartars. They came originally from Central Asia, and preserve many Mongol habits added to some created by present circumstances. Some of them dwell in houses, while others adhere to yourts of the same form and material as those of ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Lokman. [13] Hellebore.—The ancient remedy for insanity. [14] Kalends of the Greeks.—The Greeks, unlike the Romans, had no kalends in their computation of time, hence the frequent use of this expression to convey the idea of an indefinite ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... combustible part of peat varies considerably in its proximate composition. It is in fact an indefinite mixture of several or perhaps of many compound bodies, whose precise nature is little known. These bodies have received the collective names Humus and Geine. We shall employ the term humus to designate this mixture, whether occurring in peat, swamp-muck, salt-mud, in composts, or in the arable ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... (Proceedings 1839, 49.) Evidently this deliverance, though marking an advance over the Constitution of 1820, intentionally omits a direct reference to the Augustana. Till 1864, then, the exact constitutional basis of the General Synod as such was not the Augsburg Confession, but the indefinite phrase: "the fundamental doctrines of the Bible as taught by our Church." All other confessional deliverances of the General Synod till 1864 may be summarized as follows: The fundamental doctrines of the Bible, i.e., the doctrines ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... "Sa'ah," I may here remark, is the German Stunde, our old "Stound," somewhat indefinite but meaning to the good Moslem the spaces between prayer times. The classical terms, Al-Zuha (undurn-hour, or before noon) and Maghribset of sun, become in Badawi speech Al-Ghaylahsiesta-time and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... another! The moment the front door is opened to me, I am assailed by the odor peculiar to the establishment. It may be tuberoses or garlic, mould or varnish, whitewash, gas, lamp-smoke, or new carpets, a definite and describable or an indefinite and indescribable fragrance, but it is sure to be ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... has had a hiding-place under the Gables for an indefinite period!" he replied. "I always suspected that a man of his genius would have a second retreat prepared for him, anticipating the event of the first being discovered. Oh! I don't doubt it! The place probably is extensive, and I am almost certain—though the ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... direction of a publisher. It was through the efforts of these workers that the classical works in Greek and Latin were multiplied and disseminated. Unfortunately the climate of Europe does not conduce to the indefinite preservation of a book; hence very few remnants of classical works have come down to us in the original from a remote period. The rare exceptions are certain papyrus fragments, found in Egypt, some of which are Greek manuscripts dating from the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the floor restlessly, nervously. She had come here with no fixed purpose, nothing beyond the indefinite determination to defy and thwart the man who had entrapped her. She had never for a moment feared for her safety, or doubted her ability ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... (judges are appointed by the president on the recommendation of the National Council of the Judiciary for an indefinite period); Constitutional Tribunal (judges are chosen by ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of her! She was like a daughter to my aunt at Beauchamp, and her brother was my schoolfellow. For one summer, when I was quartered at Hertford, I was with her constantly, but my family would not even hear of the indefinite engagement that was all we could have looked to, and made ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Prussian man that could find out a definite Law, coming athwart Friedrich Wilhelm's wrath, would check Friedrich Wilhelm in mid-volley,—or hope with good ground to do it. Hope, we say; for the King is in his own and his people's eyes, to some indefinite extent, always himself the supreme ultimate Interpreter, and grand living codex, of the Laws,—always to some indefinite extent;—and there remains for a subject man nothing but the appeal to PHILIP ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... organs by which the words were first traced. They partake of a middle nature, between the deathless mind and the decaying body of which they are the common offspring, and are, therefore, destined to a duration, if not eternal, yet indefinite. The examples he has given in his glorious fictions, of heroism, honor, and truth, of large sympathies between man and man, of all that is good, great, and excellent, embodied in personages marked with so strong an individuality ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... Street and Rincon Point; was bounded on the east by the Harbor of San Francisco, and on the west by the mission peaks. I never knew just why it was called happy; I never saw any wildly-happy inhabitants singing or dancing for joy on its sometimes rather indefinite street corners. If there is happiness in sand, then, happily, it was sandy. You might have climbed knee-deep up some parts of it and slid down on the other side; you could have played at "hide-and-seek" ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... line of green, indicating a ditch, or slough, edged with saw-palmettoes and bay bushes, that began at some indefinite northwestward point and diagonally crossed the prairie until it passed around our Oasis scarcely more than a hundred feet away. Heretofore, completely hidden by the tall grass, I had had no idea ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... the nature of this address. They observed, that the late pacification was the worst and most inglorious of all the bad treaties to which the English nation had ever subscribed; that it was equally disgraceful, indefinite, and absurd; they said, the British navy had gained such an ascendancy over the French at sea, that the sources of their wealth were already choked up; that the siege of Maestricht would have employed then-arms in the Low Countries till the arrival of the Russians; and that the accession ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... was a speaking likeness, and in spite of that those who only saw the portrait pronounced her to be a handsome woman. Nevertheless, the most minute examination would not have revealed any faithlessness to the original, but some imperceptible touches gave a real but indefinite air of beauty to the whole. Whence does that magic art take its source? One day, when he had been painting the plain-looking "Mesdames de France," who on the canvas looked like two Aspasias, I asked him the above ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... much merit, as not to contain a single word but what is either weighty or elegant; there are two very interesting parts which are susceptible of the greatest variety of ornament. The one is the discussion of an indefinite question, or general truth, which by the Greeks (as I have before observed) is called a thesis: and the other is employed in amplifying and exaggerating, which they call an auxesis. Though the latter, indeed, ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Olive looked at her for the concession, how eagerly she rose to the offer in saying, "Well, if you do feel that it isn't our own life—our very own!" It was with these words, and others besides, and with an unusually weak, indefinite kiss, as if she wished to protest that, after all, a single day didn't matter, and yet accepted the sacrifice and was a little ashamed of it—it was in this manner that the agreement as to an immediate retreat was sealed. Verena could not shut her eyes to the fact that for ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... appear to a tired soldier. Hank Bradley was the orphaned son of old Welborne's sister, and he lived in his uncle's home in lieu of any other that was available. He had made trips to the West and had remained away for indefinite periods, the last being the time he had come home with the carelessly announced death of his companion, Dick Wrinkle. The uncle and nephew were an incongruous pair: old Welborne, with his miserly grasp on the vitals of half the county, and the devil-may-care ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... speak so frequently, we do not designate by a name of their own; but when the necessity arises for naming them, we do so by putting together several words, each of which, by itself, might be and is used for an indefinite number of other objects; as when I say, this stone: "this" and "stone" being, each of them, names that may be used of many other objects besides the particular one meant, though the only object of which ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... negative. It may be noticed at once that the roll of the wheel gives at every moment the area A'ATQ. It will therefore allow of registering a set of values of [Integral,a:x] ydx for any values of x, and thus of tabulating the values of any indefinite integral. In this it differs from Amsler's planimeter. Planimeters of this type were first invented in 1814 by the Bavarian engineer Hermann, who, however, published nothing. They were reinvented by Prof. Tito Gonnella of Florence in 1824, and by the Swiss engineer Oppikofer, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... idle to talk of the superior attractions of intellectual beauty, when compared with mere external loveliness. The mind, invisible and complicated and indefinite, does not address itself directly to the senses. It is comprehended only by its similitude in others. It reveals itself, even then, but slowly and imperfectly. But the beauty of form and color, the grace of motion, the harmony of tone, are ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... are exceedingly primitive and indefinite. They seem to propitiate nature, however, when they wish rain, for they offer up to the rain-spirit votive offerings of bananas, grain, and beer, which they place beneath the trees. This seems to be their only religious rite according to Gregory, who, in all ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... the engine were running at even a slow speed, the motion imparted to lever L would be indefinite; and this, especially if the governor is fitted to the air valve lever, as in fig. 25, is very undesirable. Therefore, to obtain a definite opening we must set out the cam, as shown in fig. 31. In this diagram the roller ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... was his death, a year ago, that had sent her to the Nottinghams, for Aunt Jeannie in a crisis of nerves had been ordered abroad for a year, and was now on the point of return, and, having returned, was to stay with Lady Nottingham for the indefinite period which may be taken up by the finding ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... value. Death was the destroyer of this treasure, devised by the Supreme Power as a sure means of limiting man's activity and intelligence. To conquer Death on his own ground was to win the great victory over that Power, and to drive back to an indefinite distance the ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... censer, two circumstances of a startling nature attracted my attention. I had felt that some palpable although invisible object had passed lightly by my person; and I saw that there lay upon the golden carpet, in the very middle of the rich lustre thrown from the censer, a shadow—a faint, indefinite shadow of angelic aspect—such as might be fancied for the shadow of a shade. But I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate dose of opium, and heeded these things but little, nor spoke of them ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... constantly on the lookout for it. They were more likely, therefore, to discover the horsemen than the latter were to observe them. Even if their flight was interrupted, there were innumerable places in this immense solitude where they could conceal themselves for an indefinite period. ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... wrack of a man's universe; yet it holds until the appearance of a new phase in which he is to find escape from the prison-house. He has begun to realise that fear—a nameless fear of he knows not what—has taken hold upon him. "I lived in a continual, indefinite, pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous." Fear affects men in widely different ways. We have seen how this same vague "sense of enemies" obsessed the youthful spirit of Marius the Epicurean, until it cleared itself ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... more lightly casual than Howard had intended. His own thoughts were quick to respond though his reply came after a noticeable hesitation. Alan did not appear to care whether he went away or remained; he had not asked if this were to be a brief absence or an indefinite sojourn. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... a country is often measured by its population; but quite likely it should be taken in inverse ratio. I certainly do not see why the mere multiplication of the species is so indicative of prosperity. Mobs are not so altogether lovely that one should desire their indefinite increase. A village is honorable, not according to the number, but the character of its residents. The drunkards and the paupers and the thieves and the idiots rather diminish than increase its respectability. It seems to me that the world would be greatly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... change that gradually worked in me, when I tried to get a better understanding of myself and be a better man, I did glance, through some indefinite probation, to a period when I might possibly hope to cancel the mistaken past, and to be so blessed as to marry her. But, as time wore on, this shadowy prospect faded, and departed from me. If she had ever loved me, then, I should hold her the more sacred; remembering the confidences I had ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... done some work on budding chestnuts but it hasn't been successful. We have had indefinite results. As Mr. Stoke says, grafting is so much more simple. We realize more work should be done on budding. We simply do our propagating the way it is easiest. Until the time comes that we have got more information on budding we will go along as we do now. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... Sedgett roared, but whether to Algernon, or to one of the gentlemen, or one of the crowd, was indefinite. None responding, he shook with ox-like wrath, pushed among shoulders, and plunged back to his seat, making the cabman above bound and sway, and the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... indefinitely long period, and therefore the second perception appears to be the copy of another, ever so old. But even allowing the centre of perception to be double, I can see no good reason for supposing this indefinite lengthening of the time, nor any analogy that bears it out. It seems to me most likely that the coincidence of circumstances is very partial, but that we take this partial resemblance for identity, as we occasionally ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... know anything about that; but as there had been nothing said by me which required any explanation by letter, I did not send one. Everything was so indefinite, and feeling your position to be so much wealthier than mine, I fancied I might have mistaken your meaning. And when I heard of the other lady—a woman of whose family even you might be proud—I thought how foolish I had ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... forehead, except when he thrust it back, and stared vaguely about the room. After a very brief inspection of his face, it was easy to conceive that his footstep must necessarily be such an one as that which, slowly and with as indefinite an aim as a child's first journey across a floor, had just brought him hitherward. Yet there were no tokens that his physical strength might not have sufficed for a free and determined gait. It was the spirit ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... realising the great unity of all Spirit, the infinite is not the indefinite, for I see it to be the infinite of Myself. It is the very same I AM that I am; and this not by any act of uncertain favour, but by the law of polarity which is the basis of all Nature. The law of polarity is that law according to which everything attains completion ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... facilities for the construction of machines and the manufacturing of commodities which we possess, are enjoyed by no other country; nor is it likely that any country can enjoy them to an equal extent for an indefinite period. It is admitted by everyone, that our skill is unrivalled; the industry and power of our people unequalled; their ingenuity, as displayed in the continuol improvement in machinery, and production of commodities, without parallel; and apparently, without limit. The freedom ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... of the great change: we felt it to be imminent before any outward signs indicated its approach. And for four more days there was no hint except the sudden growth of the hind legs. From tiny dangling appendages with minute toes and indefinite knees, they enlarged and bent, and became miniature but perfect ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... reputation might lead us to expect. He seems to have been dismayed at the dangers that threatened him, and hopeless of a fair trial, bowed before the storm. An attempted alibi was feebly supported, although Oates was so indefinite in regard to time that to attempt to convict him of falsehood was of little avail. The chief points of his defence were the improbability of the whole story, and the fact that Oates on his examination before the council had said that he did not know him. Oates thus excused ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... succeed in a given district" and double-starred "if highly successful." North America is thrown into nineteen districts for the purposes of this catalogue (which comprises other fruits besides apples). For our purposes we may combine them into six more or less indefinite great regions: n. e., the northeastern part of the country, Delaware and Pennsylvania to eastern Canada; s. e., the parts south of this area and mostly east of the Mississippi; n. c., north central, from ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... regarded as inanimate, why not for six years or six hundred years, for the matter of that? Given once the possibility, which we may assume as proved, of a restoration to life after total suspension of animation, then it only becomes a question of preservation of tissue for more or less indefinite periods. Granted that tissue can be so preserved, then, given the other possibility already proved, and—well, we will talk about the other possibility afterwards. Now, tell me, don't you, as an ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... the length of house behind the dipping, horizontal branches, the beginning, pale gold, of a widespread beech. It was a long structure of but two stories, built solidly out of a dark, flinty stone with an indefinite pinkish glow against the lush sod and sombre, flat greenery of a young English ivy ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... eyed them covertly, with significant glances, that they were thrown together by design. Wherever they met, he always fell to her lot as dinner-partner, and he had begun to affect an attitude of proprietorship towards her which was yet too indefinite for ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... The touch of dignity added to the command by the use of the indefinite pronoun, can hardly be translated. For the following prayer, see Introd. ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... conjecture that she was already subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken with her food. She fancied likewise, but it might be altogether fancy, that there was a stirring up of her system—a strange, indefinite sensation creeping through her veins, and tingling, half painfully, half pleasurably, at her heart. Still, whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld herself pale as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon her ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... Married according to the new Ceremonies devised by the Ringling Brothers. As they rode away to their Future Home, the old Stager leaned back in the Limousine and said: "At last the Bird has Lit. I am going to put on the Simple Life for an Indefinite Run. I have played the Hoop-La Game to a Standstill, so it is me for a ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... in its cloister of dark trees, was rather a fashionable hobby among the wealthy landowners of Dalmatian Hills. It had been closed all summer, and they had missed it. The Bishop, in his airy and indefinite way, had not made it quite plain that Gissing was only a lay reader; and in spite of his embarrassed disclaimers, he found himself introduced by Mr. Airedale to the country-house clique as the ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley |
