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Inkling   /ˈɪŋklɪŋ/   Listen
Inkling

noun
1.
A slight suggestion or vague understanding.  Synonyms: glimmer, glimmering, intimation.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Inkling" Quotes from Famous Books



... life in the front line will have been supplied by those who knew them as familiar background to my story. But I grudge leaving them to the imagination of civilian and non-combatant readers. I seriously doubt whether the average man or woman has the least inkling of what really happened 'out there.' Talk over-heard or stories listened to may in special instances have revealed a fragment of the truth. For most people the lack of real perception was filled in by a set of catchwords. As the war dragged on, the ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose

... being sent down into the stifling hold, but Soup seemed to have some inkling of what was intended, and he spoke eagerly to his companion before talking very earnestly, and with a good deal of gesticulation, to the men whom he had selected for his followers. These appeared to understand what was on the way, looking earnestly at the ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... then I'll bring the tunnel up on a long slant. The tunnel should be four feet high and about three wide; the earth I'd throw into the sewer, the water would wash it away. There's no risk in digging the tunnel, as no one would get an inkling of what's afoot until the last shove, when we made direct for the money. On that point let me ask: How long can we count on being undisturbed after we've got to the gold? Now if it was a bank, we'd time the play for Saturday afternoon after ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... could be classified with our farmers—I mean, the peasant ones, not the younger-son or poor-gentleman kind. When she found she couldn't, she would be inclined to resent it. Then, at last, when a dim, puzzled inkling of the truth came into her head, and she found out that they knew as much as she about books and politics and all sorts of things—oh, I can hardly fancy exactly what she would feel; but I'd trust Mr. and Mrs. Trowbridge or anyone like them not to appear at ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... for a moment, the boys looked around at each other with something like consternation. Their curiosity was intense. He spoke with a tensity of feeling they had hardly ever noticed in him before, and not one of them had an inkling of what he ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... preparation in science. Nor should the courses at these schools be ultra-technical. They are to prepare men and women for life on the farm—men and women who are to lead in rural development, and who must get some inkling at least of the real farm question and its solution. The agricultural school, therefore, presents a problem ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield

... which the reader has not as yet got an inkling, The Williamses were rich. They were rich, passing knowledge, passing belief. Sums of which you and I dream in moments of supreme excitement would not have paid one of Mrs. Williams's cable bills; would not have supported Granny Williams's hot-houses and Angora ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... the top in a place which no other man ever reached before or since. On reaching the top he saw the two brothers standing with their backs turned to him. He hoped in a short time to win money and glory from both. They had no inkling of his being there, and thought that nobody could get up except where the ladders were. Grettir was occupied with Thorbjorn's men, and there was no lack of derisive words on both sides. Then Illugi looked round and saw a man coming towards them, already quite close. He said: ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown

... that dogs make upon being restored to their master's confidence. Dr. Silence heard the thumping of the collie's tail against the floor. And the grunt and the thumping touched the depth of affection in the man's heart, and gave him some inkling of what agonies the ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... partner is altogether of a more practical character. She no sooner gets an inkling of what is going forward, than she steps into the concern as confidently as if any number of parchments had been signed and scaled. She is not assumed as a partner (in the Scottish phrase), but assumes to be one, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various

... chance inside that safe, his regular consultations with Goslin (who travelled from Paris specially to see him), his constant telegrams in cipher, and his refusal to allow even his wife to obtain the slightest inkling into his private affairs, it is shown that he fears exposure. Do ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux

... to call him "Merceron." He was nearly twenty years older than Victor, and a man of considerable position; nor was he, as some middle-aged men are, flattered by the implication of contemporaneousness carried by the mode of address. But it is hard to give a hint to a man who has no inkling that there is room for one; and when Mr. Vansittart addressed Victor as 'Mr. Sutton' the latter graciously told him to "hang the Mister." Reciprocity was inevitable, and the elder man asked himself, with a sardonic grin, how soon ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... to you, he must have given you an inkling of the truth. He only hinted at it when he spoke to me, but I gather that he ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... policing in and around the cities there has never been any true governing at all save what the people did for themselves or what they demanded of the officials as a protection against one another. Any one who doubts these statements has no inkling of those facts which are the crown as well as the foundation of the Chinese group-system, and which must be patiently studied in the village-life of the country to be fitly appreciated. To be quite frank, ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... English fiction, used to say that the secret of holding the attention of one's readers lay in the ability to do three things: "Make 'em laugh; make 'em weep; make 'em wait." There is no use in making an audience wait, however, unless you first give them an inkling of what they are waiting for. The dramatist must play with his spectators as we play with a kitten when we trail a ball of yarn before its eyes, only to snatch it away just as the ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... actually one of those called upon by my agent in search of evidence. Here he kept his wife imprisoned in her room while he, disguised in a beard, followed Dr. Mortimer to Baker Street and afterwards to the station and to the Northumberland Hotel. His wife had some inkling of his plans; but she had such a fear of her husband—a fear founded upon brutal ill-treatment—that she dare not write to warn the man whom she knew to be in danger. If the letter should fall into Stapleton's hands her own life would not be safe. ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... many peculiar local customs of which the hurrying tourist gets no inkling. At a station in the mountains of North Carolina a youngish, well-clad countryman, smoking his pipe, stood within a few feet of my friend and me and gazed at us with the simple, blank curiosity of a child. There was not the slightest gleam of intelligent interest, or self-consciousness ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... surrounded the mystery of the pastor's murder had gotten on his nerves. He was not accustomed to work so long over a problem without getting some light on it. But now, since the chance watching of the spinning top in the street had given him his first inkling of the trail, he was following it up to a clear issue. The eagerness, the blissful vibrating of every nerve that he always felt at this stage of the game, was on him again. He knew that from now on what was still to be done would be easy. Hitherto ...
— The Case of The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner

... be? But you say you will love me as much as I deserve. How much do I deserve—do you know? I sometimes cry out against you and long to get hold of you. If you have genius, why doesn't it give you some inkling whether you are a man with a heart, not only a stupid boy? And then I see it all plainly, or think I do, and know that you are trying so hard to be right towards us, because you think you love me the way other people love; and you know if I am weak, it would degrade your genius; ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... not to breathe a word of it to anybody else," suggested Colonel Doller in a low, mysterious tone, "and whatever else you do, don't let my partner, Leet, have even so much as an inkling of the fact that we 've had a ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... first number of Astounding Stories, my enthusiasm has reached such a pitch that I find it difficult to express myself adequately. A mere letter such as this can give scarcely an inkling of the unbounded enjoyment I derive from the pages of this unique magazine. To use a trite but appropriate phrase, "It fills a long-felt need." True, there are other magazines which specialize in Science Fiction; but, to my mind they are not in a class with Astounding Stories. In most of them the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... disappointed me. I had heard so much of your charming cousin, but I suppose the poor fellow had some inkling of it then." ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... benefit that morning from the professor's gallant efforts to impress the importance of the study of his language on the minds of his class. Her thoughts were with Mary and what she had best say to conciliate her. She had as yet no inkling of the truth. She did not dream that jealousy of Constance had prompted Mary's outburst. She believed that the whole trouble lay in whatever Mignon ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... had now an inkling of what I had to expect, I found myself received with a kindness which bade fair to overwhelm me. Only M. de Rosny was in the room, and he took me by both hands in a manner which told me without a word that the Rosny of old days was back, and that; for the embarrassment I had caused him of late I ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... thereof a tolerably good combination, the whole would not then have been so beautiful. For the parts of the faulty combination, grouped better to make a tolerably good combination, could not have been used properly to form the whole and perfect combination. Thomas Aquinas had an inkling of these things when he said: ad prudentem gubernatorem pertinet, negligere aliquem defectum bonitatis in parte, ut faciat augmentum bonitatis in toto (Thom., Contra Gentiles, lib. 2, c. 71). Thomas Gatacre, in his Notes on the ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... he himself holds the pen. Those readers who wish to be better acquainted with the depths to which an angry man can lower himself, and who have not access to Mr. Macaulay's pamphlet, can obtain some inkling of the truth by reference to Mr. Lindsey's "Life and Times of William Lyon Mackenzie."[68] As Mr. Lindsey very justly remarks:—"The cause of the quarrel was utterly contemptible, and Mr. Macaulay showed to great disadvantage in it." It seems probable enough that one ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... evidences of the desperate character of the attack and defence. I believed I could pretty accurately picture what had happened. My father had evidently not been taken entirely by surprise, or there would not have been so many dead savages lying around the house: he had probably obtained an inkling of what was toward in time to put the building into some sort of state of defence; possibly he had found time to barricade the doors and windows, and from the general aspect of things outside I surmised ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... universe, and that the world is not subordinated to man's use. It is even more certain that nature is the expression of a definite order, with which nothing interferes." "And yet," he cries, "the purely classical education advocated by the representatives of the humanists in our day gives no inkling of ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... I had no inkling of his meaning,—and, apparently, judging from his next words, I looked something of the bewilderment ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... Wood-wise, and fell to talk with them; and his mind it was that these foemen were but a band of strayers, and had had no inkling of Shadowy Vale till they had heard them talking together as they came up the path from the Vale, and that then they had made that ambush behind the Elders' Rocks, so that they might slay the men, and then bear off the woman. He said withal that ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... service of your writ, Mr. Manison." And to James after the man had departed: "Never give the opposition an inkling of what you have in mind—and always treat anybody who is not in your ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... in certain circumstances about lying—and replied): "Vivien Warren was my cousin. She was a Vavasour on her mother's side—from South Wales—and my mother was a Vavasour too—" And as the disguised Vivie said this, some inkling came into her mind that there was a real relationship between Catharine Warren nee Vavasour and the Mary Vavasour who was David's mother. A spasm of joy flashed through her at the possibility of her story being in some slight ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... the ship heeled over there was an unmistakable sssh as the water lapped the heated side. This, and the smell of hot iron, was all that there was to tell of our smouldering coal below, but 'Frisco men from the Water Front are sharp as ferrets, and very little would give them an inkling of the state of affairs. Presently we raised the land broad on the port bow, and two of us were perched on the fore-to'gal'nt yard to look out for the pilot schooner; or, if luck was in our way, a tow-boat. The land became more distinct as the day wore on, and the bearing of several conspicuous ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone

... spread out his hands as though parting the air before him, and proceeded hurriedly, breathlessly to detail the manner in which his wife and little one had met their deaths. And all the time that he was doing so one had an inkling that often before had he recounted his narrative of horror, and that often again would he repeat it. His shaggy black eyebrows, as he delivered his speech, met in a single strip, while the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... anxious to meet Acton, for Phil, in the holidays, had given Jack a pretty correct inkling of Acton's character, and he began to see—in fact, he did see—that Raffles and the shooting and the billiards, and the hocus pocus of "hedging on Grape Shot," and the trip to London, etc., was only one involved, elaborate plot to strike at Phil. Jack now fully realized that he had played a very ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... this of the men—that by combining they might be able to make a stand and conquer the packers! Jurgis wondered who had first thought of it; and when he was told that it was a common thing for men to do in America, he got the first inkling of a meaning in the phrase "a free country." The delegate explained to him how it depended upon their being able to get every man to join and stand by the organization, and so Jurgis signified that he was willing to do his share. Before another month was by, all the working members of ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo. The Pope was thus completely in the Emperor's power: the Emperor was Katharine's nephew and would most certainly veto the divorce. Moreover, Katharine had now an inkling that steps to obtain a divorce were being projected; and, unknown to Henry, Mendoza the Spanish ambassador had already ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... conventional description of a scientist of any sort—as much unlike a scientist as his sport roadster looked unlike a scientist's customary means of transit—and ordinarily he acted quite unlike one. As a matter of fact, most of the people Tommy associated with had no faintest inkling of his taste for science as an avocation. There was Peter Dalzell, for instance, who would have held up his hands in holy horror at the idea of Tommy Reames being the author of that article. "On the Mass and Inertia of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various

... kind, sure she takes me for some other, or has some inkling of my Design— [To himself. Where are ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... married!" insists the disturber, who, in fact, was half-seas over in infatuation with Miss Betsy, and had had a slight inkling of a fact that by the law of the State anybody could marry a couple, and the marriage would be as obligatory upon the parties as though performed by the identical legal authorities to whom young folks "in a bad way" are in the ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... inkling of these things which now dawned on the public mind and slowly awakened enthusiasm. For the first time since Treaty relations with the Powers had been established Chinese diplomatic action had swept beyond the walls of Peking and embraced world-politics within its scope. The Confucianist conception ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... onlooker in man, especially in the earliest stage of our period, gave itself up to the conviction that a self-contained picture of the universe could be formed out of the kind of materials available to it, it nevertheless had a dim inkling that this picture, because it lacked all dynamic content, had no bearing on the real nature of the universe. Unable to find this reality within himself, the world-onlooker set about searching in ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs

... what she reveals is rather the slow consuming flame of the blood than the inwardness of the subjective heart and soul." Nor was Byron deceived: "I don't think Sappho's ode a good example." The historian Bender had an inkling of the truth when he ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... business is not unknown to the senate; they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll show 'em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths; they shall know we ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... intentions of the British Government regarding the above districts. General Joubert did not communicate to his army the terms of peace, but simply stated that a Royal Commission was to settle everything. A month later, when some inkling of the terms reached the Boers, a solemn protest and warning was issued, and when the Royal Commission actually sat, the British representatives were informed that any such curtailment of the territories would be followed by a resumption of hostilities. ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick

... suggest that writing the same paragraph over and over again would enable the reader to experience its weariness, if he were truly desirous of so doing. But I hesitate to take such a course, and trust that some of these lines even once repeated may convey some inkling of the dulness of the days. Monotony of view—for we live at the centre of a complete circle of sea and sky; monotony of food—for all things taste the same on board ship; monotony of existence—for ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... the tall, stately woman and her French maid, and took shelter in the library. And Mrs. Whitney, coming over the stairs, saying, "Well, Cousin Eunice, did you have a pleasant journey?" in the gentle voice Tom so loved, gave him the first inkling of the relationship. But he wrinkled his brows at Joel's exclamation, and his queer way of ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... were sworn enemies, and Stoddard certainly needed the money. He needed it badly, much worse than Rimrock, and would need it from time to time; yet until Rimrock actually got his hands on the money it was essential to conceal his plans. For a shrewd man like Stoddard, if he got an inkling of his purpose, was perfectly capable of tying up their profits and of stopping his credit at the bank. It was dangerous ground and Rimrock trod it warily, buying Navajoa in the most roundabout ways; yet month after month ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... development goes to show, that, whatever its capacities, tendencies, faculties, "potentialities," (call them what you will,) a certain external influence is necessary to awaken its dormant life; to turn a "potentiality" into an "energy "; to transform a dim inkling of a truth into an intelligent, vital, conscious recognition of it. Nor is this law confined to mind alone; all nature attests its presence. All effects are the result of properties or susceptibilities in one thing, solicited by external contact with those ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... counting tea-time. Then there was the hamper from Hertfordshire. To be sure, in common decency, it could only be regarded as a lucky windfall, but providentially the windfall was beginning to occur at frequent intervals. The Ushers must have had an inkling. Everybody who came to the house could perceive the awful ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... approach it from various sides, perhaps in every fourth or fifth word, and may then find out which particular experiences are disquieting the patient. Words like women or money or career or family or disease are often sufficient to get the first inkling ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... She's a spider. It does't much matter what you call it. It means the same kind of thing. I tell you, Withers, she hates me; and you can scarcely dream what that hatred means. I used to think I had an inkling of the reason. It's oceans deeper than that. It just lies behind: herself against myself. Why, after all, how much do we really understand of anything? We don't even know our own histories, and not a tenth, not a tenth of the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... a thick-set, healthy peasant, of middle height, with a rather fat face. His expression was severe and uncompromising, especially with the peasants of Mokroe, but he had the power of assuming the most obsequious countenance, when he had an inkling that it was to his interest. He dressed in Russian style, with a shirt buttoning down on one side, and a full-skirted coat. He had saved a good sum of money, but was for ever dreaming of improving his position. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... apparent burst of confidence said something about 'the other plans being the real thing after all,' and that the whole affair would bring him in fifty thousand francs, with which he could afford to be liberal. Charley could get no inkling about what ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... of the palm rod[FN179] on her back and welts of the whip; and marvelled with exceeding wonder. Then the portress arose and sprinkled water on her and brought her a fresh and very fine dress and put it on her. But when the company beheld these doings their minds were troubled, for they had no inkling of the case nor knew the story thereof; so the Caliph said to Ja'afar, "Didst thou not see the scars upon the damsel's body? I cannot keep silence or be at rest till I learn the truth of her condition and the story of this ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... entreaties that he let her know something about the plans of the expedition; he would not even tell her where he was taking her, where the other filibusters had assembled, or from what port their ship would sail. He did go so far, however, as to explain that an inkling of the Junta's plans had leaked out, and that determined efforts to upset them were being made, efforts which necessitated the greatest care on his part. This, of course, whetted the girl's curiosity; but to her most artful queries he opposed a baffling ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach

... he has written, and I know more or less what has been in those letters. I know what people he has seen, and more or less what he has said to them; and I don't see that it's possible he could have carried on such a game as this abduction of Missy without my having an inkling of it." ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... fine arts, especially for the belles-lettres, he entertained a profound contempt. Thus my own inkling for the Muses had excited his entire displeasure. He assured me one day, when I asked him for a new copy of Horace, that the translation of "Poeta nascitur, non fit"[456-1] was "a nasty poet for nothing fit"—a remark ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... given no inkling of the date of his visit, and as it was some years since Tom was graduated the Georgian did not dream of associating the visit with a few weeks before, when he had heard that a high buck was at old man Hardy's and with Tom was painting the neighborhood red and scandalizing some ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... cannot find it in me to do aught but agree with you," the latter made reply. "And I advise that we return, for had Tristram made his journey hitherward we should long ago have had inkling of it." ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe

... rather interesting, too, to notice his desire to know what is going on at his home; it seems as if he must have had, some faint inkling that something important was about to happen, and this is interesting in view of what ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson

... there was a proviso that Wild Bill and Texas Jack must first be won over to act as "pards" in the enterprise. He telegraphed his two friends that he needed their aid in an important business matter, and went to Chicago to meet them. He was well assured that if he had given them an inkling of the nature of the "business matter," neither would put in an appearance; but he relied on Ned Buntline's persuasive ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... throughout the Union to second him in this effort, and promised that under no circumstances would he be a candidate for relection. My anti-slavery feelings remained as deep as ever, but, hearing this speech, there came into my mind an inkling of the truth: "Hinter dem Berge sind ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... came over to see James in the summer, he would plead for Raleigh. There is reason to believe that if he had done so with success, he would have invited Raleigh to return with him, and to become Admiral of the Danish fleet. But matters never got so far as this. James I. had an inkling of what was coming, and he took an early opportunity of saying to Christian IV., 'Promise me that you will be no man's solicitor.' In spite of this, before he left England, Christian did ask for ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... Merna informed us that the display was about to commence, adding that he had purposely refrained from giving us any inkling of its nature, as he thought the unexpected would afford us ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks

... from the Orange River station direction. The greatest secrecy and caution would be required, and the seizure of the bridge could only be effected by a very carefully-thought-out and well-planned coup de main, for, if the Boers had the slightest inkling of our intention, they would assuredly blow it up. There would, moreover, be no object in our getting possession of the bridge, and thus risking a number of valuable lives, unless it could be made perfectly secure on its immediate northern bank, and ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... little Maya had had an inkling of the many dangers and hardships that lay ahead of her, she would certainly have thought twice. But never dreaming of such things, she stuck ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels

... sense that others suffer and toil unhelped; and still more grievous to him is the thought that, were these duller natures set free from the galling yoke, their mirth would be evil and hideous, they would have no inkling of the sweeter and the purer joy. And then, if he be wise, he tries his hardest, in slow and wearied hours, to comfort, to interpret, to explain; in much heaviness and dejection he labours, while all the time, though he knows it not, the sweet ripple of his thoughts spreads across ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... land office. Florence Grace Hallman had been busy arranging the details of the coming of the colony, and she had neglected to visit the land office lately. Since she cannily represented the excursion as being merely a sight-seeing trip—or some such innocuous project—she failed also to receive any inkling of recent settlements. ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... am not happy? I dare not say a word to my own people. I am supposed to be at the apex of human triumph, and I have to play that role to keep from hurting them. I know that if my dear old father got an inkling of the truth, it would kill him. My one real solid consolation is that I have helped him, that I have lifted a money-burden from his life; I have done that, I tell myself, over and over; but then ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... began to notice that the britchka was swaying violently, and dealing him occasional bumps. Consequently he suspected that it had left the road and was being dragged over a ploughed field. Upon Selifan's mind there appeared to have dawned a similar inkling, for he had ceased to ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... as among the quarrymen's families, whose children she taught in an afternoon singing class, in the hope of hearing some enlightening word; of learning something definite in regard to the probabilities of escape; of getting some inkling of the whole truth. She gathered a little here, a little there; she put two and two together, and from what she heard as a matter of speculation, and from what she knew to be true through Mrs. Caukins via Romanzo in New York, she found that Champney ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... especially news brought into town by the spies, of the Boer victories) when anything of importance became known, and in time her friends found out that her news could always be depended upon as reliable indeed, although they had no inkling of the source whence it had been derived. There was danger of her becoming altogether too "cocksure," when she was one day pulled up ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt

... matter?" called out Dave, as loudly as he could. But in his mind there had already flashed an inkling of what was going on. For some time past the wild man of that locality had not shown himself. Now, perhaps, he was ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer

... all, what had brought about the sudden change? Why had no inkling of it crept to his ears? Why was she, the passionate pleader for the decencies of life whom he had last watched so patiently and heroically imparting the mastery of the pianoforte to seven little English ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... from him gave the first inkling to her. He had been placed under arrest by order of Major-General Arnold on the charge of striking his superior officer, in violation of the Fifth Article, Second Section of the American Articles of War. The charge had been preferred on the evening ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... than was done on the stripling's father,' muttered the shepherd. 'Get thee in, wife! Who knows what folly those two may be after while thou art away? Mind thee, if the maid gets an inkling of who the boy is, it will be ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... formally approved of by the Parliamentary Party, and that Mr. Redmond has named "transit" as one of the special matters that should be left to be dealt with by an Irish Legislature. But there the matter ends. We are not given the slightest inkling what is proposed to be done on this matter, or how it will be done, or the slightest proof that under any system of Home Rule, the financial difficulties of the problem can be solved ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... have carried to the grave with him the secret of some strange perplexity, some passion or craving or irresistible impulse, of which perhaps his intimates, and certainly the coroner's jury, can have had no inkling. ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... toward Mary grew more and more hostile. Not that he altogether disbelieved her when she professed ignorance of the young couple's intention; he could not go so far as to think that she had lied to him, but he was inwardly convinced that she had at least an inkling of their plans, and that, so far from attempting to dissuade them, she was really in sympathy with their wild escapade. Harris was very fond of his wife, who had shared with him all the hardships of pioneer life, and who, he admitted, had been a faithful and devoted ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead

... Why, how do you do?" She gave him her beautiful hand, but she evidently lacked the faintest inkling of his identity. Time had erased from recollection the boy who used to take her sliding on his sled, the boy who used to put on her skates for her, the boy who used to take her home on his grocery-wagon sometimes, pretending ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... too—for Joan's sake. I will be giving Nancy her best and surest happiness—with me, but not Joan. And so, David, Joan must not have the slightest inkling—she must go, when her time comes, unhampered. You, Nancy, and I must ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... guns McLean brought a comb with him, leaving the other alongside his bed. We had to pass the Major on our way, whose dugout was close to the hives, and by that time he had an inkling of what was going on and he yelled, "Grant, throw that honey down; you too, McLean." As he yelled his orders I was passing the telephonist's hut and I threw it in to him,—"Here, Graham, here's some honey for you, ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... to the lair, he was aware that the beast was there before him, and roaring savagely. Biorn lay down in the track, and had over him his shield, and was going to wait till the beast should stir abroad as his manner was. Now the bear had an inkling of the man, and got somewhat slow to move off. Biorn waxed very sleepy where he lay, and cannot wake up, and just at this time the beast betakes himself from his lair; now he sees where the man lies, and, hooking at him with his claw, he tears from him the shield and throws ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... Save for this figure and for a dais in the centre, the wide floor of the place was a shining vacancy. The dais was remote in the greatness of the area; it would have looked a mere slab of metal had it not been for the group of seven men who stood about a table on it, and gave an inkling of its proportions. They were all dressed in white robes, they seemed to have arisen that moment from their seats, and they were regarding Graham steadfastly. At the end of the table he perceived the glitter of ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... have an inkling that he had laid to his boat at a mooring-ring belonging to the underground folk, and had lit right upon their landing-place where they deposited ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie

... plain. But hitherto I haven't quite made out The nature, style, and plot of this romance. It's something quite delightful I've no doubt— But just a little inkling in advance— ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... a small light shining on the sea, pretty close in. 'Twas a lantern hung out from the sloop, as I concluded on the instant: and now I began to have an inkling of what ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch

... has become the future of the race. So much of an inkling of the truth is beginning to be appreciated. That is ordinarily taken to mean that the process by which the Wessex man became the New York and London man, the accumulation of accidental discoveries and inspired inventions of scattered ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... some inkling of his state of mind was wafted telepathically to Frank and Percy, for it can not be denied that their behavior at this juncture was more than a little reminiscent of the police force. Perhaps it was simply their natural ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill

... 'what advantage of life could alter the shape of the corpuscles into which the blood can be evaporated?' Nor does the reviewer fail to flavour this outpouring of incapacity with a little stimulation of the odium theologicum. Some inkling of the history of the conflicts between astronomy, geology, and theology leads him to keep a retreat open by the proviso that he cannot 'consent to test the truth of Natural Science by the Word ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... Dick's frown, the old man devoted himself humbly to his 'piece,' and the boy gave his whole attention to the conversation. He was eager to get an inkling of Harry's line of action. For his own part he had thought of a desperate band, with Harry at its head and himself in a conspicuous position, raiding the gaol at Yarraman under a hail of bullets, and bearing off the prisoner in triumph; but experience ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... listened attentively to this account of the Balkan situation. They had heard some inkling of the seriousness of the Serbian plight, but had not realized until now that Germany had at last set out to crush the little Balkan kingdom as she had crushed Belgium in the early days ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes

... who, having no inkling as to the rate at which affairs had been progressing since his visit to the Dingle, still imagined that the secret of the hollow tree belonged exclusively to Reade, himself, and one other, was much exercised in his mind about it. Reade candidly confessed ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse

... dangerous Negro. And the South was not wholly wrong; for education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent. Nevertheless, men strive to know. It was some inkling of this paradox, even in the unquiet days of the Bureau, that allayed an opposition to human training, which still to-day lies smouldering, but not flaming. Fisk, Atlanta, Howard, and Hampton were founded in these days, and nearly $6,000,000 was expended in five years for educational ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... no information on the point, but I should be surprised to learn that General Booth, when Providence moved him to begin his labours among the poor, had even an inkling of their future growth within the short period of his own life. He sowed a seed in faith and hope, and, in spite of opposition and poverty, in spite of ridicule and of slander, he has lived to see that seed ripen into a marvellous harvest. Directly, or indirectly, hundreds ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard

... saw well enough all he had lost by the death of the child; how he was faced now with the prospect of being left without help again on the place—and that, moreover, with three times the stock to care for he had had at first. Let her come—he did not care! But Barbro—it might be she had some inkling of what he was at; anyway, she did not come, and Axel had to wrap up the body himself as best he could and move it to the new grave. He laid down the turf again on top, just as before, hiding it all. When he had done, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... morning they started off for the middle pasture, where they were engaged in repairing a fence which had all but fallen flat. Quite by accident, and without any inkling of what was to come of his carelessness, Buck left his hammer and pliers beside the corral gate instead of sticking them into his saddle-pockets. Before they had gone a quarter of a mile he discovered the omission and pulled up, ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames

... the great plain entered they, And on down through that region as hard as they might fare. Twixt Fariza and Cetina would the Cid seek shelter there. And a great spoil he captured in the country as he went, For the Moors had no inkling whatso'er of his intent. On the next day marched onward the great Cid of Bivar, And he went by Alhama, and down the vale afar. And he passed Bubierca and Ateca likewise passed, And it was nigh to Alcocer that he would camp at last Upon a rounded hillock that was both strong and high. ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon

... or thirty minutes which elapsed before these gentlemen could give Mr. Houston their undivided attention, he obtained sufficient insight into their characters, and enough of an inkling of their business methods, to make him more determined than ever to unearth their schemes, and doubly anxious to succeed in the ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... of the dreariest theological disquisition impress upon the weary searcher the fact that academic libraries were usually even more dryasdust than monastic collections, and he begins to understand how prosperous law may be as a calling, and to have an inkling of what is known, in classic phrase, as a good ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage

... phrase, like a garish bunch of coloured bladders; his joy in platitude and pomposity, his proneness to say a little thing in great words, are only too easy to translate. We shall be well content if our version also gives some inkling of his qualities; not only of what Erasmus called his "wonderful vocabulary, his many pithy sayings, and the excellent variety of his images"; but also of his feeling for grouping, his barbaric sense of colour, and his stateliness. For he moves with resource and strength both in prose and ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... some inkling of this," observed Mascarin, "for you have never taken a servant from our establishment; but for all that, I am as well posted up in your affairs as yourself. You have even now about you a valet ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... moonlight veranda, and ever since he had been the royal lover of the honeymoon days, which had preceded our first quarrel. I wondered vaguely sometimes if he had guessed the wild grief and jealousy which had consumed me on that night, but if he had any inkling of it he ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... conviction that undoubtedly her husband's is a nature that cannot be other than it is, and then learns there are emotional potentialities not yet plumbed, not to mention a capacity for pleasant comradeship of which he has never vouchsafed her an inkling, she finds herself being ground between the millstones of an aching admission of her own deficiencies and a tattered, ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius

... never have been attainable without insect helpers. It is equally certain, that the beautiful perfume, and the nectar also, are, in their present development, the outcome of repeated insect selection, and here, it seems to me, we get an inkling of a deep mystery: Why is life, in all its forms, so dependent upon the fusion of two individual elements? Is it not, that thus the door of progress has been opened? If each alone had reproduced, itself all-in-all, advance would have been impossible, the insect and human florists and ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... an inkling of her meaning in talking about a Sabbath-day's journey, he only took notice of a part of it: he smiled and bowed, and said no one knew better than her ladyship what were the duties that abrogated all inferior laws regarding the Sabbath; and that he must go in and read ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell

... times through many chapters, is a very valuable asset of the writer of fiction; but this ability is applied to best advantage when it is exercised within certain limitations. In the first place, there is no use in making the reader wait unless he is first given an inkling of what he is to wait for. The reader should be tantalized; he should be made to long for the fruit that is just beyond his grasp; and he should not be left in ignorance as to the nature of the fruit, ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... militia-men were in the fort; others were with their families in the cabins, for after the first alarm the cabins had been used again. Wheeling slept well this night of August 31, with no inkling that three hundred and eighty or more red enemies were ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... to shift my thoughts also, to forget my love, and to bend all my energies to the task before me. It was to get the King out of the Castle alive. Force was useless: in some trick lay the chance; and I had already an inkling of what we must do. But I was terribly hampered by the publicity which attended my movements. Michael must know by now of my expedition; and I knew Michael too well to suppose that his eyes would be blinded by ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... this remark of Tournefort's which gave Chauvelin the first inkling of something strange and, to him, positively awesome. Tournefort, who walked close beside him, heard him ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... years data were furnished by friends and relatives. The little book has many excellencies, but the portrait of Schiller, as it came from the hands of the talented but aging Baroness, is a shade too idealistic and sentimental. Of his virile youth one gets hardly an inkling. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... not deceive Bissell. For the first time he saw that the greatest treasure of his whole life had grown beyond him; that there were needs and ideals in her existence of which he had but the faintest inkling, and that in her way she was as much of a "dude" as ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan

... obliged to actually enter the waters of the bay, which in some places rose breast-high; but they pushed through, losing rather heavily, and hurled themselves upon the Russian flank and rear, while the others, getting an inkling of what was happening from the sounds of heavy firing on the other side of the hill, pressed home the frontal attack, thus keeping the Russian main ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... brick, Mollie," said her brother. "I do believe Evelyn Forbes will be glad to see you. The most amazing thing about this affair is that none of the many friends Mr. and Mrs. Forbes and their daughter must possess in London has the slightest inkling of the truth. I suppose the servants are instructed to tell ordinary callers that the various members of the family are out, or some of them indisposed, or something of the sort.... But come along! I hear Bates banging my belongings ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... is he is better,' I interrupted. I did not want the old baronet to have the least inkling of my suspicion. After all, I could prove nothing, and indeed, as McClure had said, it might be a crime to accuse any man of having anything ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... pleasant voice, "but I refuse to be a mere stranger. We are immensely glad to have you with us. . . . Mother, can't you see we have most thoroughly mystified her; swooping down on her like this without giving her an inkling of how and ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... Bruges when he stood back and let me have my innings, and gave her her chance to free herself. And yet I was puzzled. Even he could hardly stand back to give Thesiger an innings. He may have had an inkling. There may have been something of his queer, scrupulous tenderness in this avoidance of her; there may have been his reckless propensity to take the risk; but I am convinced that even then his main object was—like Viola—to burn his boats. He was afraid that if he were to see ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... personal matter," he said, "and I do not wish anyone to know about it ... understand ... no one. If anyone dares question you about it, you must say nothing, nor give them any inkling of what it is about. You see what confidence I place in you. I hope that you will prove yourself worthy of my trust. If you serve me faithfully, you may be sure that you will be ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot

... "I'm afraid you haven't visualized the complications, dear," he said gently. "No one but ourselves knows that the Martian is on Earth, or has even the slightest inkling that interplanetary travel has been achieved. Whatever we do, it will have to be on our own. But to break in on a creature engaged in—well, we don't know what primal private activity—is ...
— What's He Doing in There? • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... successively. She had heard all the noises in the streets die away one by one, and sink gradually into that vague and heavy sound which seems the breathing of a sleeping town; and all this without bringing her the slightest inkling as to whether he who had called himself her brother had sunk under the danger which hung over his head, or ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... was thus reticent I am unable to say with certainty. Perhaps it was because she attached no importance to the circumstance, after the lady's declaration that the daguerreotype did not represent the man whom she wished to find. Perhaps she had some inkling of the truth, and dreaded to have her suspicions confirmed. She knew that she had but a short time to live, and may very well have desired to sleep her last sleep without making any discovery detrimental to her ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... daughter of Dickens. {4} He was an artist, a great friend of Dickens, and author of that charming book, "A Cruise on Wheels." His design of the paper cover of the story (it appeared in monthly numbers) contained, as usual, sketches which give an inkling of the events in the tale. Mr. Collins was to have illustrated the book; but, finally, Mr. (now Sir) Luke Fildes undertook the task. Mr. Collins died in 1873. It appears that Forster never asked him the meaning ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang

... went out, locking the unconscious Admiral in the cabin. "You may go and keep the Princess company," said Grauble, "while I talk with my men and give them an inkling of what we are planning. If there is any trouble at the lock it is better that they comprehend that hope of freedom is ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings

... leaders are prepared—for markets, for trade, for investments. They are indifferent to political conquest, but economically they are prepared to go on—into Latin America; into Asia; into Europe. The war taught them the lesson and gave them an inkling of their power. So they move along the imperial highroad—followed by a people who have not yet learned to chant the songs of victory—but who are destined, at no very distant date, to learn victory's lessons and to pay victory's price. Along the ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... assented Jadwin. "I'll call it a day. I'll get home for luncheon to-morrow. It can't be helped. By the way, I met Cressler this afternoon, Sam, and he seemed sort of suspicious of things, to me—as though he had an inkling." ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... dinner was served it had dawned on Gorst that he was looking in Mrs. Majendie for something that was not there. He might even have had some inkling of her resolution; he sat at his friend's table so consciously on sufferance, with an oppressed, extinguished air, eating his dinner as if it choked him, like the last sad meal in ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... and though he said nothing, the husband thought he recognized the piercing shrillness of the hunchback's voice and the resonant tones of the sheriff. He wondered if Hump Doane had belatedly received an inkling of that night's work and gathered a ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... elders, watching with amused approbation, had no inkling that the words were spoken not by Roy Sinclair but ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... in the conversation. If big Bob were left to carry on alone, he might blunderingly give this man an inkling of what the boys knew or suspected about their mysterious neighbors. Frank felt that his chill of suspicion, experienced when he encountered Higginbotham in New York, was being justified. Decidedly, this man must be in with the mysterious ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge

... "I had an inkling of it. And now please answer my question quite as straightforwardly. Do you believe that the British ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... clearly evident—the boy's faith in his sister. If he was to be rightly influenced, and led back to her, he must have no suspicion aroused that her life was any different from what it had been before he left home. Besides if Keith hoped to gain any inkling of what Hawley's purpose could be, he must win the confidence of Willoughby. This could not be done by telling him of Hope's present life. These considerations flashed through his mind, and as ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... seen with their own eyes the human wrecks wrought by grape shot, shrapnel and bursting shells. Dr. William O'Neill Sherman's visit to this city Tuesday night, when he opened the eyes of the medical profession here to new and greater things, is the first inkling of one great good that is to come out of this war. To treat the millions of wounded and maimed, medical genius has been taxed to the limit. As in all great times, great minds have come to the rescue and found a way. The old saying that where there is ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... to understand, now, when I have scarcely begun the real narrative, what is going to be the character of the drama. Were I a romance writer, I should call your attention to the fact that I have introduced my characters, described their appearance, and given you an inkling of the series of events which are about to be unrolled before you. A young man of twenty is commended to your attention; a youth living in a great mansion; lord of himself, but tired of exercising ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

... a sort of inkling about my brittleness when you were here. It was the beginning of a bad attack of cough and pain in the side, the consequence of which was that I turned suddenly into the likeness of a ghost and frightened Robert from his design ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... parenthetically at least, that James Watt had not only had to solve the problem as best he could, but that he had no inkling, so far as experience was concerned, that ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson

... while the fourth and last merchant, who stood next to me, was being dealt with, just as in our despair we were about to throw ourselves into the gulf before them all, fortune gave us our opportunity. This unhappy man, having probably some inkling of the doom which awaited him, broke suddenly from the hands of his captors, and ran at full speed down the road. After him they went pell-mell, every thief of them except one who remained—fortunately for us upon its farther side—on guard ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard

... get hold of the heights of Sari Bair, whereby he will enfilade the whole network of Turkish trenches, now hedging him round. The only thing he bargains for is that G.H.Q. so work the whole affair from orders down to movements, that the enemy get no inkling of our intentions. The Turks so far suspect nothing, and Koja Chemen Tepe and Chunuk Bair, with all the intervening ridge, are still unentrenched and open to capture by a coup-de-main. Even if the naval objections to Bulair could be overcome, Sari Bair remains the better move of the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... given up any attempt to understand the functioning of the mad pseudo-civilization that surrounded him. He was quite certain that the beings he had seen could not possibly be the real rulers of this society, but he had no inkling, as yet, as to ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... be better. If it became necessary, he could be moved. But he shouldn't be allowed to have an inkling that his mind is ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... that. But say! don't you take what I'm saying too seriously. I give you credit for being no more afraid of death than I am, therefore I think it only right you should have an inkling of what may possibly be in store for us. But don't believe that I am going to take lying down what may be coming to us. I shall do everything I know to persuade these savages that they could not do a more unwise thing than hurt either of us. If we should by any chance ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... for our meeting," thought he; "I suppose he will not fail me. Now let me con over my task. I must not tell him all yet. Such babes must be led into error before they can walk: just a little inkling will suffice, a glimpse into the arcana of my scheme. Well, it is indeed fortunate that I met him, for verily I am surrounded with danger, and a very little delay in the assistance I am forced to seek might exalt me to a higher elevation than ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... envious—the men whom, in her undertone to him, she was really addressing. But he did take comfort in the irony. Though she used him as a stalking-horse, he, after all, was playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse. While she chattered on, without an inkling that he was no ordinary lover, and coaxing him to present two quite ordinary young men to her, he held over her the revelation that he for love of her was ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm

... of thick shoulders and tremendous limbs; filling the room with his vitality as a heavy passionate animal lying in a corner of a cage fills the space of the cage, so that you wait for it to roll over or get up on its feet and walk about that you may study its markings and get an inkling of its conquering nature. ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen

... going by with her head bound up in a white cloth, accompanied by Gran'ma Mullins with both hands similarly treated, was the first inkling the stay-at-home had that strange doings had ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner

... that a pearl may in a toad's head dwell, And may be found too in an oyster-shell; If things that promise nothing do contain What better is than gold; who will disdain, That have an inkling of it, there to look, That they may find it? Now, my little book, (Though void of all these paintings that may make It with this or the other man to take) Is not without those things that do excel What do in brave but ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan

... inner constitution which they do have. They certainly follow or accompany our brain states, and of course their special forms are determined by our past experiences and education. But, if we ask just how the brain conditions them, we have not the remotest inkling of an answer to give; and, if we ask just how the education moulds the brain, we can speak but in the most abstract, general, and conjectural terms. On the other hand, if we should say that they are due to a spiritual being called our ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... freedom. These rough, wild, lonely places seemed to him his home. With all his love for the wilderness, the instinct which had led him to it was altogether faulty and incomplete. It supplied him with none of the needful forest lore. He had no idea of caution. He had no inkling of fear. He had no conception of the enemies that might lurk in thicket or hollow. He went crashing ahead as if the green world belonged to him, and cared not who might hear the brave sound of his going. Now and then he stepped on the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... statesmen in times of crisis to grasp the essential truth so simply. It is creditable to the leading men of New York that they recognised a speech which just at that time urged this plain thing in sufficiently plain language as a very great speech, and had an inkling of great and simple qualities in the man who made it. It is not specially discreditable that very soon and for a long while part of them, or of those who were influenced by their report, reverted to their former prejudices in ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... saw to the caps of our revolvers and the security of our corral before turning in for the night. In the morning they departed before we were stirring, without so much as a word of thanks. These mysterious visitors had given us no faintest inkling of their business or destination. Don Gaspar stated flatly that they had come to spy us out, having heard of our presence in ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... confidential historical material of the Civil War, apart from the military operations, in comparison with the journalistic accounts, gives one a higher idea of the accuracy and shrewdness of the newspaper correspondents. Few important things were brewing at Washington of which they did not get an inkling. But I always like to think of two signal exceptions. Nothing ever leaked out in regard to the famous "Thoughts for the President's consideration," which Seward submitted to Lincoln in March, 1861, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... system and even finds in it its opportunity? For that matter, it is possible, if difficult, to find a solicitor, or even a judge, who has some notion of what law means, a doctor with a glimmering of science, an officer who understands duty and discipline, and a clergyman with an inkling of religion, though there are nothing like enough of them to go round. But even the few who, like Ibsen's Mrs Solness, have "a genius for nursing the souls of little children" are like angels forced to work ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw

... carried him to the well. He was quite dead, and, although amidst his other injuries they soon found the bullet wound, they evidently did not know whence the shot came, for those to whom he shouted had no inkling of his motive, and the slight haze from the rifle was instantly swept away by ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... from the forecastle that he hoped to get some inkling of how the crew was getting on. Immediately after the anchor was down Trask observed that the crew had gone below, and, except for an occasional gruff call, or a joking sally, nothing had been seen or heard ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... was, how would the masses behave upon the breaking-out of this sudden danger, and what attitude would be assumed by the foreign elements of the population. It was most important to have some inkling as to how the Germans, the Irish, the Scandinavians, the Italians and the various people of Slavonic nationality would act when called upon to defend their new country. It was of course absolutely certain that the two great political parties—the Republicans and ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... inkling of the desire for a forest trip which stirred in the boys' breasts, making them yearn all day and toss all night, Cyrus gave them both a cordial invitation to accompany him into Maine. Mr. Farrar did not purpose returning to Europe till midwinter. His consent ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook



Words linked to "Inkling" :   suggestion, glimmering, intimation, glimmer



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