"Indistinct" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then have been very near the place in which this island is laid down, for we could rely upon the observations: but as nothing appeared, we hauled in for the land, the looming of which we frequently saw, but the heavy black squalls which were constantly gathering upon it, rendered it too indistinct to be able to determine ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... counsel for the crown, who had been speaking to evidence, ceased; and an indistinct murmur was heard through the court-house, which was soon repressed by the voice of the crier calling "silence." All now seemed still and silent as the grave—yet, on listening attentively, for some time, you could catch the low tones of a voice speaking, as it appeared, with great deliberation ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... Enter Uncertain People. They recite in a timid and indistinct tone the prescribed fustian. They are followed by ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 7, May 14, 1870 • Various
... her till there was nothing to be seen but her flying sails, till the sails were one white wing on a dim violet sea, till the white wing was a gray dot, indistinct on ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... formed an acquiescing 'yes' to this remark, but no sound was heard. There was a buzzing in her ears as if the others were going on with the conversation, but the words they uttered seemed indistinct and blurred; they were merely conjectures, and did not interfere with the one great piece of news. To the rest of the party she appeared to be eating her dinner as usual, and, if she were silent, there was one listener the more to Mrs. Gibson's stream of prattle, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... strength, pinning him arm to arm, breast to breast, shoulder to shoulder. His breath was hot on my face. I gasped "Row, row." From the ship came a sudden alarmed cry: "The boat, the boat!" But already the ship grew dim and indistinct. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... who,' says I, when the bell had left off, and the train had begun to move, 'who, Mr. Wilson, is the wild gent in the prespiration, that's been a tearing up and down all this time with a great box of papers under his arm, a talking to everybody wery indistinct, and exciting of himself dreadful?' 'Why?' says Mr. Wilson, with a smile. 'Because, sir,' I says, 'he's being left behind.' 'Good God!' cries Mr. Wilson, turning pale and putting out his head, 'it's your beeograffer—the Manager—and he has got the money, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... account of the great stress put on this subject by the Surpassing Schools of the Christ, Satan has built this modern institution, and now the church is in confusion because so many of its members have such an indistinct vision that they cannot discern between the wool of the sheep and the hair of the wolf, even when each animal ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... all thou comest," I said to Death, he himself speaking low enough for my lips to make, in dying ears, only an indistinct murmur. "I know thee always by thine own hollow voice, lent to youth and age alike. How well I know thee and thy terrors, which are no longer such to me![253] I feel the dust that thy wings scatter in the air as thou comest; I breathe ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... consumer is that the milk is skimmed. If the milk be heated to a temperature sufficiently high to cause the fat-globule clusters to disintegrate (see Figs. 22 and 23), the globules do not rise to the surface as readily as before and the cream line remains indistinct. Where the exposure is made for a considerable period of time (10 minutes or more), the maximum temperature which can be used without producing this change is about 140 deg. F.; if the exposure is made for a very brief time, a minute or less, the milk may be heated ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... think that is a coarse type, and an obscure one. But again, it is a quite literally accurate one. Take up your Latin and Greek dictionaries, and find out the meaning of "Spirit." It is only a contraction of the Latin word "breath," and an indistinct translation of the Greek word for "wind." The same word is used in writing, "The wind bloweth where it listeth;" and in writing, "So is every one that is born of the Spirit;" born of the BREATH, that is; for it means the breath of God, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... knitting things for her tomboy. He talked to Mr. Fuchs as between equals, as between man and man, as between the manager of a star and the owner of a troupe; and the train rushed on, rushed on, with an indistinct sound of the engine-bell, now and again, when they crossed a street. Mr. Fuchs, heavy-jawed, slow of speech, said that he had had enough of traveling, at his age, if it were not for his dear nieces. He would ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... glorified with a ray of sunshine, that was attracted thitherward as by a certain sympathy. In the brook beneath stood another child,—another and the same,—with likewise its ray of golden light. Hester felt herself, in some indistinct and tantalizing manner, estranged from Pearl; as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that his eyesight was dimming, and he shuddered, for the faces of his fellow-sufferers appeared to him to be strangely distorted and indistinct; but he grasped the reason, and knew now that in a few minutes more they would pass ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... that they really have nothing at all to say. They wish to appear to know what they do not know, to think what they do not think, to say what they do not say. If a man has some real communication to make, which will he choose—an indistinct or a clear way of expressing himself? Even Quintilian remarks that things which are said by a highly educated man are often easier to understand and much clearer; and that the less educated a man is, the more obscurely he will write—plerumque accidit ut faciliora ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... From some indistinct notices, in the commencement of this voyage, the Dragon and Hosiander appear to have belonged to the tenth voyage of the East India Company, and the Solomon to the eleventh voyage; and that these three ships sailed from England at the same ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... it, his words are too fully confirmed. Outside they see painted faces, heads covered with black hanging hair, and plumes bristling above. Only a glimpse they get of these, indistinct through the obscurity. But if transitory, not the less terrible—not less like a tableau in some horrid ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... And as a sweet dinning arises from the multitudinous touching of harps and viols, before the ear distinguishes the notes, there issued in like manner from the whole glittering ferment a harmony indistinct but exquisite, which entranced the poet beyond all he had ever felt. He heard even the words, "Arise and conquer," as one who hears and ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... eyes imploringly to the stern face of her brother, and said, in a voice rendered indistinct by her sobs— ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... to grasp those half dozen lines of writing; and if the letters grew indistinct as he read, he had small cause to be ashamed of ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... is one thing; enunciation is another. A person articulates the sounds of a language; he enunciates the syllables and words. A clear and distinct enunciation is as necessary as the perfect articulation on which it is based. Indistinct enunciation comes from a natural slovenliness of mind, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... of evening rendered all objects indistinct. The sergeant and his men, however, kept the smuggler in sight till they saw him reach the downs on which the mill stood, where his figure was distinctly visible against the sky. It was but for a moment, for at the same instant, a party of the sea-fencibles who had been concealed behind ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Rachel had evasive answers ready; they were soon over, and I was left to experience the fascination of a beautiful woman whom I had never seen nor could hope ever to see. To be sure, in certain lights and under certain angles of reflection an indistinct outline of a not large, slender girl, which told of pure contours, could be made out, but this was like following the glassy bells that pulsate far down in the waves of northern seas, or the endeavor to catch the real surface of a mirror. Moreover, the slim ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... described, Manuel and Stuart left their horses, and then began the steep climb up La Ferriere. From the steaming heat of the plain below, the climbers passed into the region of cold. The remains of a road were there, but the track was so indistinct as to render ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... she related every detail of how she had acquired possession of the ornaments, to all of which Cardillac listened silently, with his eyes cast down upon the floor. Only now and again he uttered an indistinct "Hm!—So!—Ho! ho!" now throwing his hands behind his back, and now softly ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... world-leadership in the march of a single century. To America, where problems are studied and fallacies dethroned, the birthplace and the abiding home of democracy; to America, the Christian, the civilized! What will the answer be? Already we can hear the faint responses, as yet vague and indistinct, the drowned murmurings of the wiser tongues. These must grow into a national anthem whose echo will challenge the powers of the world and startle them into the consciousness of the new brotherhood. ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... of apparatus produced during the early days of the telephone by Professor Hughes, of England, for the purpose of rendering faint, indistinct sounds distinctly audible, depended for its operation on the changes that result in the resistance of loose contacts. This apparatus was called the microphone, and was in reality but one of the many forms that it ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... for art's sake, writing to give beautiful embodiment to moods, experiences, and striking moments. If it is true of Tennyson, however, that he stands aloof from actual life, this is far truer of Rossetti. His world is a vague and languid region of enchantment, full of whispering winds, indistinct forms of personified abstractions, and the murmur of hidden streams; its landscape sometimes bright, sometimes shadowy, but always delicate, exquisitely arranged for luxurious decorative effect. In his ballad-romances, to be sure, such as, 'The King's Tragedy,' there ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... northern sky, followed by thunder like the indistinct noise of a battle. Havill and Dare retired to the trees. When the dance ended Somerset and his partner emerged from the tent, and slowly moved towards the tea-house. Divining their goal Dare seized Havill's arm; and the two worthies entered the building unseen, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... legend of the roving stone usurped my thoughts. The trivial and uncertain notions of the black boy who was the first to tell it, and by theatrical gestures to illustrate its verities, became more and more indistinct. The soothsayers of the long past had been forbidden by Nature to doubt that which was the lore of the camp. Was it that Nature re-asserted her influence—that the essences of the scene, subtle and pervasive, had recurred, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... over the breastworks, on to the plank road leading to Orange Court House. Making our way, keeping together as a battalion, up that road in the direction of the Wilderness, near noon we could hear the deep bay of cannon, now distant and indistinct, then again more rapidly and quite distinguishable, showing plainly that Lee was having a running fight. Later in the day we passed dead horses and a few dead and wounded soldiers. On every hand were indications of the effects of shot and shell. Trees were shattered ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... man stopped apologetically before the group, indistinct in the faint light from the office window. Already the train was sliding away into the dark. "Pardon," he apologized. "I am looking for the ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... consists largely of wood lice, ants, of which it is very fond, and of other insects which it finds upon the ground or upon trees. The female differs from the male in appearance, the black strips upon the sides of the throat being very indistinct or wanting entirely. ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... during the next half-hour I watched till I had seen tin; six wagons drawn up pretty close together, and their black drivers moving about attending to the oxen; now all grew faint and indistinct, then completely faded out of sight; not, however, until I had made up my mind that I could go straight away from the old fort and find the place, though there were minutes when the task in the ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... evident that with the dusk some doubt had arisen in the minds of the mountaineers of the party as to the exact trend of the herder's trail. The doubt intensified, until further progress proved definitively that the indistinct trail was completely lost. Darkness came on apace; the tangled ways of the forest seemed momently more tortuous; wolves were not rare in the vicinity; rumors of a gang of horse-thieves ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... to the right or left he might have been sucked down into a morass. At last he reached firm land on the other side of this watery tract, and came to his house on the rise behind—Elsenford—an ordinary farmstead, from the back of which rose indistinct breathings, belchings, and snortings, the rattle of halters, and other familiar features ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... in fine style; fast, over the good roads; whisked by Melbourne, sped away along south, catching glimpses of the river from time to time, with the hills on the further side hazily blue and indistinct with the September haze of sunbeams. Near hand the green of plantations and woodland was varied with brown grainfields, where grain had been, and with ripening Indian corn and buckwheat; but more especially with here and ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... in the cross according to the intentions of Divine Providence. I saw angels who obliged these men to recommence their work, and who would not let them rest, until all was accomplished in a proper manner; but my remembrance of this vision is indistinct. ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... worse humbug than I fancied," he said. "I cannot tell what he was. My thoughts of him are so vague and indistinct that it would take me a long time to render myself able to ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... regularly-constructed dwelling. A single and small lamp, pendent from a beam that hung over the room, gave a feeble light, which, taken in connection with that borrowed from without, served only to make visible the dark indistinct of the place. With something dramatic in their taste, the old women had dressed themselves in sombre habiliments, according to the general aspect of all things around them; and, as the unfortunate pedler continued to gaze in wonderment, his fear grew with every progressive step ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the lawns, and in at the windows of Dives's dining-room, and of Croesus's library, with its burden of insiduous mould. The pair of trim-built flirtlings, walking so daintily down the gravel path, becomes indistinct, and their forms are seen but as the shadows of things dead—treading on air, between three worlds. The few feet of bank above the sea, dignified by the name of cliff, fall back to a gaping chasm, a sheer horror of depths, misty and ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... once with what was in early days an extremely vexed question; not perhaps entirely set at rest even now, but allowed to remain in suspense amid the universal acceptance of Confucian teachings. Confucius himself taught in no indistinct terms that man is born good, and that he becomes evil only by contact with evil surroundings. He does not enlarge upon this dogma, but states it baldly as a natural law, little anticipating that within a couple of ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... Secondly, our sight is defective in that its view is not only narrow, but also for the most part confused: of those things that we take in at one prospect we can see but a few at once clearly and unconfusedly: and the more we fix our sight on any one object, by so much the darker and more indistinct ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... over one half the globe; And slowly moving on her dewy feet, She blends the varied colors infinite, And with the border of her mighty garments Blots everything; the sister she of Death Leaves but one aspect indistinct, one guise To fields and trees, to flowers, to birds and beasts, And to the great and to the lowly born, Confounding with the painted cheek of beauty The haggard face of want, and gold with tatters. Nor me will the blind air permit to ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... trifle indistinct, owing to the thick pipe-stem between his teeth, and rising deliberately, he passed out of the smoking-room into the wistaria-shadowed verandah, where the turbulent voice of the river seemed to echo his own mood. It was well for himself, and for James Garth also, that he ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... air till it filled his brain with a great rush of sound, and then sobbed away into silence? What was the matter with his right hand that it burned and twitched so ceaselessly? Surely he hadn't burnt himself with the cigarette! He looked down to see, but somehow things were indistinct. It almost seemed as if he hadn't got a hand; the woods were hazy—Molly seemed far away. In her place was a man, a man with a stubby growth on his chin, a man who bent over ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... purpose, I guessed, of trying to knock away some of her pursuer's spars, though from the distance they were apart it seemed to me with very little chance of success. The schooner showed no colours, but presently I saw a flag fly out from the peak of the ship, which, though indistinct, I was nearly sure was that of the Peruvian Republic. That the schooner was the dreaded craft which had so long haunted my imagination I felt perfectly certain, as I was that her piratical character was ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... the first, and as it might be the fugitive, rays of the sun glide into the atmosphere, and, to use a quaint expression, "dilute its darkness." One no longer saw by starlight, or by moonlight, though a little of both were still left; but objects, though indistinct and dusky, had their true outlines, while every moment ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... grew indistinct, and the patter, patter, patter of the teams behind came as from a distance. He closed his eyes, and the events of the past two days drifted through his mind. Already they seemed indistinct, as a dream. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... with unusual sweetness. The soft serenity of the weather; the beauty of the surrounding country; the joyous notes of the birds; the balmy breath of flower and blossom, all combined to fill my bosom with indistinct sensations, and nameless wishes. Amid the soft seductions of the season, I lapsed into a state of utter indolence, both of body ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... then each hearty bacchanal! thrice waving the clear tinkling crystal, ere he emits that joyful burst, fresh from the heart, which from his uncontrolled emotion, meets the ear husky and indistinct. ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... her every Sunday when he was in London; or, if he did not do so, Mrs. Avory wrote him long letters in very indistinct handwriting, and told him that it was all right, and that she really hoped he would marry and be as happy as he deserved to be. And the letters were generally blotted ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... be easily conceived: horror the more aggravated, as it seized them in the midst of their rejoicings occasioned by the first despatch; and this was still more dreadfully augmented, by a subsequent indistinct relation, importing that the army was totally routed, the king missing, and the enemy in full march to Berlin. The battle of Cunersdorf was by far the most bloody action which happened since the commencement of hostilities. The carnage was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... think you have. Scarce anything is common to them both. The poor author of the Pleasures of Memory was sorely hurt, Dyer says, by the accusation of unoriginality. He never saw the Poem. I long to read your Poem on Burns; I retain so indistinct a memory of it. In what shape and how does it come into public? As you leave off writing poetry till you finish your Hymns, I suppose you print now all you have got by you. You have scarce enough unprinted to make a 2d volume with Lloyd. Tell me all about it. What is become ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Gradually this adornment, growing shorter and shorter, was wound up while the shadows of the out-houses became deeper and the meadow lands appeared to recede in the distance. As he scanned the surrounding garden, the land baron's eye fell upon an indistinct figure stealing slowly across the sward in the partial darkness. This object was immediately followed by another and yet another. To the observer's surprise they wore ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... rapid motion of the coach, and the free current of a fresher and more exhausting air than he had been accustomed to for many months, began to operate on his nerves like the intoxication of a narcotic. His eyes grew heavy; indistinct mists, through which there seemed to glare the various squints of the female Plaskwiths, succeeded the gliding road and the dancing trees. His head fell on his bosom; and thence, instinctively seeking the strongest support at hand, inclined towards the stout smoker, and finally nestled itself ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the deep-drawn breath and half-repressed shudder might be heard. And now the little party paused irresolutely, fearing to proceed: they had omitted to notice some landmark in their progress; the moon had not long been up, and her light was as yet indistinct; so they sat them down on a little grassy spot on the bank, and rested till the moon ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... by clearly defined spiral stripes. The mouth is circular and the oesophagus is supported by a considerable armature, which usually extends dorsally and to the left, rarely to the right. In some cases the structure of this armature is indistinct; again it can be clearly seen to consist of definite rods (Staebchen). The anus is probably always terminal. Contractile vacuoles are variable in different species. In some cases there is but one, which is placed at the posterior end or centrally ...
— Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 • Gary N. Galkins
... police were unexpectedly helped in their investigation by the discovery in the despatch-box of a small light-blue book, a calendar in Bengali characters. On the cover were two indistinct smudges. Under a magnifying-glass these proved to be the impressions ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... the courthouse, as Levins had warned. An instant after reaching a point opposite the courthouse he congratulated himself on his discretion, for he caught a glimmer of light at the edge of a window shade in the courthouse, saw several indistinct figures congregated at the side door, outside. He slipped behind a tool shed at the side of the track, and crouching there, watched and listened. A mumbling of voices reached him, but he could distinguish ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... these circumstances Linda Hallet quietly recalled sitting with her husband in the house that had been occupied by the Lowries'. A letter from Pleydon had taken her into a past seven years gone by; while ordinarily her memory was indistinct; ordinarily she was fully occupied by the difficulties, or rather compromises, of the present. But, in the tranquil open glow of a Franklin stove and the withdrawn intentness of Arnaud reading, her mind had returned to the distressed period ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... gloom which had succeeded to the pale light, had the effect of rendering every object still more indistinct to the astonished crew of the Ter Schilling. For a moment or more not a word was uttered by a soul on board. Some remained with their eyes still strained towards the point where the apparition had been seen, others turned away full of gloomy and foreboding thoughts. Hillebrant was ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... portrait of Byron, which forms the frontispiece of the volume. It is an example of what perfect knowledge can achieve on the part of the engraver,—delicate and yet strong in its way, soft without being indistinct, every line being made to fulfil its purpose ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... Reef, was thrown on her beam ends by the violence of the squall, the whaling schooner John Bright was rolling easily along before it under shortened canvas, and the cook of the schooner, as he stood on the foc'scle, smoking his pipe, caught a sight of floating wreckage right ahead, with the indistinct figure of a man clinging to it, and bawled out 'Hard a-port!' just in time, or else the schooner had run right on top of the drifting boat and finished this tale ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... stairs Cheyenne paused and glanced up and down the street. Directly across the way the Hole-in-the-Wall was ablaze with light. A few doors east of the gambling-hall an indistinct group of riders sat their horses as though waiting for some one. Cheyenne drew back into ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... and his crew was in the darkness; and as this darkness came on, my spirits decreased, for I greatly feared that we should have escaped. The sun had sunk some time below the horizon; the cloud of sail coming up astern of us began to be indistinct, and at last disappeared altogether in a black squall: we saw no more of her for nearly ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... worked like fiends, the smoke suffocating, firing as rapidly as we could lay hands to weapons, seeing nothing but the dim outline of gray-clad men, surging madly toward us, or hurled back by the flame of our guns. It was hell, pandemonium, a memory blurred and indistinct; men, stricken to death, whirled and fell, others ran screaming; they stumbled over prostrate bodies, and cursed wildly in an effort to advance. Now it was the sharp spit of revolvers, cracking in deadly chorus. All I knew occurred directly before me. A dozen or fifteen leaped ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... enough yet; the surgeons are at work in the ward where we are going. They are taking off a man's limb—two or three of them, for that matter. I shan't take you there until the operations are finished.' Then first came the horrid thought that he might be mutilated in the same way. Vague, indistinct, dreadful visions uprose before me, of all sorts and kinds of horrid disfigurement, and I grew sick and faint. 'Not his limb!' I gasped, struggling with a deathly faintness. 'No, not his,' said the doctor, sorrowfully. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hurt—I didn't want you to know, but you mustn't leave me—I am not—well; it is my head, I think. I met Black George, and he was too strong for me. I'm deaf, Charmian, and half blinded—oh, don't leave me—I'm afraid, Charmian!" Her figure grew more blurred and indistinct, and I sank down upon my knees; but in the dimness I reached out and found her hands, and clasped them, and bowed my aching head upon them, and remained thus a great while, as ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... voice. I let my load drop at the risk of feeling my master's lash on my back, that I might stop and listen. How eagerly did I drink in these notes! I heard the words, too; yes—I could not be mistaken—they were English. Oh, what sensations did they create! I had an indistinct notion that I had heard them before in the days of my infancy. It was a gentle, plaintive air. Now I should never forget it. I longed to see who was the singer; but she was concealed inside the cottage, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... values, two centuries ago a bold generation of Americans risked their property, their position, and life itself. We are their heirs, and they are sending us a message across the centuries. The words they made so vivid are now growing faintly indistinct, because they are not heard often enough. They are words like "justice," "equality," "unity," "truth," "sacrifice," "liberty," "faith," ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... not recognize the voice speaking—a husky voice, the words indistinct, yet withal forceful—nor do I know what it was he said. But when the other answered, tapping on the desk with some instrument, I knew the second speaker to be La Barre, and leaned back just far enough to gain glimpse through the opening in the ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... the other, slowly, and his speech was yet indistinct; "but most of all the feel of my feet and legs. A week ago my feet turned cold; this week the coldness is up to my knees, and it won't go away. I know what it means. When it gets as high as my heart I'll be done for. That won't take ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... three years previously to attend to the distribution of the grain, and providing that of that number the four who secured the lot should give out grain in turn: and the praefectus urbi, appointed for the Feriae, was always to choose one of them. The Sibylline verses which had become indistinct through lapse of time he ordered the priests to copy out with their own hands in order that no one else should read them. He allowed the offices to be thrown open to all such as had property worth ten myriad denarii and ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio
... the chill is irregular and indistinct, the patient is thirsty during the chill, and the cold stage is long in proportion to the length of the fever, the surface pale and more or less bloated. Arsenicum is the remedy, and should be given from the commencement ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... charge of Sir Thomas Overbury. If he had been murdered by poison, there could be no doubt that Weston was one of the perpetrators. He had been brought up as an apothecary; and it was said that he was selected on account of his being thus enabled to dabble in poisons. The charge against him is very indistinct. He was charged that he, 'in the Tower of London, in the parish of Allhallows Barking, did obtain and get into his hand certain poison of green and yellow colour, called rosalgar—knowing the same to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... fancy, the picture grew indistinct and was blotted out. He no longer saw the figures, but the loving cry continued to sound in his ears, dying away in ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... back to a rock, his knees drawn up and clasped within fingers nervously interlocked. His eyes were fixed upon the great stretch of landscape below, shadowy now, and indistinct, like a rolling plain of patchwork woven by mysterious fingers. Gray mists were floating over the meadows and low-lying lands. Away in the distance they marked the circuitous course of the river, which only ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not in sight; a perte de vue [Fr.]; behind the scenes, behind the curtain; viewless, sightless; inconspicuous, unconspicuous^; unseen &c (see) &c 441; covert &c (latent) 526; eclipsed, under an eclipse. dim &c (faint) 422; mysterious, dark, obscure, confused; indistinct, indistinguishable; shadowy, indefinite, undefined; ill- defined, ill-marked; blurred, fuzzy, out of focus; misty &c (opaque) 426; delitescent^. hidden, obscured, covered, veiled (concealed) 528. Phr. full many a flower is ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Newcome, the Baronet's sister, was the only person in his house to whom Sir Barnes did not utter oaths or proffer rude speeches. He was afraid of offending her or encountering that resolute spirit, and lapsed into a surly silence in her presence. Indistinct maledictions growled about Sir Barnes's chair when he beheld my wife's pony-carriage drive up; and he asked what brought her here? But Ethel sternly told her brother that Mrs. Pendennis came at her particular request, and asked him whether he ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... unseen by him, stirred emotion at once pleasant, sweet and almost painful in his heart, and he felt weighed down by a kind of pleasant oppression. Slowly his thoughts wandered; their outlines were as vague and indistinct as the outlines of the clouds which seemed to be wandering at random overhead. He remembered his childhood, his mother; he remembered her death, how they had carried him in to her, and how, clasping ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... the valley was followed by the appearance of the fugitives from the mill. These took the way towards the Hut, calling on the nearest labourers by name, to seek safety in flight. The words could not be distinguished at the rock, though indistinct sounds might; but the gestures could not be mistaken. In half a minute, the plain was alive with fugitives; some rushing to their cabins for their children, and all taking the direction of the stockade, as ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... The indistinct light in which it is seen helps the illusion, and we almost forget that it is a picture we are beholding, and not the action itself as it took place some three thousand years ago. A small speos, situated at some hundred feet further north, is decorated with standing colossi ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... hand reassuringly, inclined himself affectionately, but Mr. Carteret was not easily soothed. He had practised lucidity all his life, had expected it of others and had never given his assent to an indistinct proposition. He was weak, yet not too weak to recognise that he had formed a calculation now vitiated by a wrong factor—put his name to a contract of which the other side had not been carried out. More than fifty years of conscious success pressed him to try ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... let me pray to you, let me look at you," he murmured. "Listen to my pleadings, and let a ray of your love sink into my heart." Laura moved in her sleep, and uttered a few indistinct words. The prince kneeled motionless before her, and watched all her movements. The dreams that visited her were not bright; Laura moaned and sighed in her sleep; her countenance assumed an expression so sad and painful that the eyes ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the toll of a death-bell. It was then that two or three horsemen were seen to advance from the troops of the Convention, and approaching the others, were speedily lost among their ranks. A low and indistinct murmur ran along the lines, which each moment grew louder, till at last it burst forth into a cry of "Vive la Convention." Quitting their ranks, the men gathered around a general of the National Guard, who addressed them in words of passionate eloquence, but of which I was too ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... ere wed with thee. Dost hear? I am faint. Lo! thy cruel, eager gaze Grows grimly dark and indistinct. Pray Heaven I shall not see it any more. Farewell, ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... explanation is, in every point of view, inadmissible. It is very probable that the town Shiloh did not exist at all, under this name, at the time of Jacob. The name nowhere occurs in the Pentateuch; and the Book of Joshua (as we shall show at a subsequent time) contains traces, far from indistinct, that it arose only after the occupation of the land by the Israelites. But even supposing that the town of Shiloh already existed tit the time of Jacob, yet the abrupt mention of a place so little known ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... if caused by the current against a flexible membrane, as it sways a flag. Gazing down intently into the shadow the colour of the sides of the fish appeared at first not exactly uniform, and presently these indistinct differences resolved themselves into spots. It was a trout, perhaps a pound and a half ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... between the lily-pads. Leaving the swamp they climbed a hill, and at the summit found only the moon and the stars and a long plateau of sighing grass. Behind them were the great mountains; before them, lesser heights, wooded hills, narrow valleys, each like its fellow, each indistinct and shadowy, with no sign ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... blindly through the woods for hours after the night fell, my horse stumbling and weary, until at length I came to a lonely clearing on the mountain side, and a fierce pack of dogs dashed barking at my horse's heels. There was a dark cabin ahead, indistinct in the starlight, and there I knocked until a gruff voice answered me and a tousled man came to the door. Yes, I had missed the trail. He shook his head when I asked for the Widow Brown's, and bade me share his bed for the night. No, I would go on, I was used to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... And then suddenly he found himself looking across the table at his Host, and feeling a sense of absolute conviction that this was the one man of all others whom he would have selected as a confidant. How kindly, though somewhat misty, his face was! How soothing, if a little indistinct, ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... pattern, while curtains of the same warm material, fell on each side the bay window, giving it the appearance of a tent, open, and yet, to a certain degree, secluded, for a fall of lace swept from the cornice, hanging like a veil of woven frost-work before the glass, rendering every thing beyond indistinct, but ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... desperate leap upwards, spouting his blood over his destroyer, and then fell gasping across the body of his master. A low growl, intermingled with faint attempts to bark, which the rapidly oozing life rendered more and more indistinct, succeeded; and at length nothing but ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... magnifying that object; and secondly, by collecting and conveying to the eye a larger beam of light than would enter the naked organ, and thus rendering objects distinct and visible which would otherwise be indistinct and invisible. Its essential parts are the object-glass, which collects the beams of light and forms an image of the object, and the eyeglass, which is a microscope by which the image is magnified." The latest editors have found nothing to change ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... a scream of kuku. Now, surely sleep; but no, he changed to a low monotonous chant, so grating on the sleepy man's nervous system that it would have driven many desperate. At last, in the morning hours, the notes became indistinct, long pauses were observed, ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... said something in French. She looked up at him, but his face seemed all indistinct and unreal. She tried to answer, but her own voice sounded as if it ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... wreaths of the mist bank gradually dissolving. To the eastward there jutted out a promontory with a considerable elevation, behind which the sun began to show his florid countenance. Presently the indistinct outline of a graceful tracery of spars and cordage greeted the eye through the misty gauze, growing steadily more and more distinct and gradually descending towards the sea level, until at last there lay before us in full view, with ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... Carrara alabaster of Niobe and her children on the mantelpiece, a huge mirror, and a tapestry of one of the hunts of Henri Quatre, showed that Time had been there, and that the Prussians had not; but the indistinct light of the single chandelier left me but little opportunity of indulging my speculations on the furniture. The count had left me, to ascertain when the duke should be at leisure to receive me; and my first process was, like a good soldier, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... hears it, is an unmeaning word, but it ceases to be indifferent to him the moment he hears it pronounced in a terrible voice. "Learn your task," and "fetch your book," recur to his recollection with indistinct feelings of pain; and hence, without further consideration, he will be disposed to dislike both books and tasks; but his feelings are the last things to be considered upon this occasion; the immediate business, is to teach him to read. ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... gestes in the chronicle, they would hardly outvalue his adventures, as they are recorded in the nursery tale. Robert haunts this castle, which appears to have been of great extent, though its ruins are very indistinct. The walls on the southern side are rents, and covered with brush-wood; and no architectural feature is discernible. Wide and deep fosses encircle the site, which is undermined by spacious crypts and ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... Brighton hotel] looked out upon the sea, but it was so foggy when we entered Brighton that although I perceived the motion of the waves through the mist that hung over them, their color and every object along the shore was quite indistinct. The next morning was beautiful. Dall and I ran down to the beach before breakfast; there are no sands, unluckily, but we stood ankle-deep in the shingles, watching the ebbing tide and sniffing the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... vision, they "go about" and turn head on to watch, sometimes remaining in the same position, with gently moving fins and tails, for five minutes; sometimes sinking down to the blue depths beyond, their outlines looming grey and indistinct as they descend, to reappear again in a few minutes, almost on the surface, waiting for the dead mullet or gar-fish which you may perhaps throw ...
— The Colonial Mortuary Bard; "'Reo," The Fisherman; and The Black Bream Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... what this was, exactly; whether a hill, or a grove, or a town; but it looked most like a town, and the irregularities and projections seemed like towers and domes. Prominent among these projections was one larger mass, which rose up above all the others, and formed the chief feature in that indistinct mass. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... hour after he spoke, Bright Sun, who was at the head of the column, stopped his pony and pointed to indistinct tiny shadows ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... of the rectangle lay an indistinct, crumpled, oblong figure. Puzzled, Maya studied it. It looked like a ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... she answered, in hasty apology for being found there. And Lord Hartledon, casting his eyes some considerable distance ahead, discerned the indistinct forms of two persons talking together. He understood the situation at once. Dr. Ashton and his daughter had been to the cottages; and the doctor had halted on their return to speak to a day-labourer going home from his work, Anne ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the profoundest master of political wisdom. The poems of Ossian were then new to Europe, and generally received as authentic remains of another age and style of heroism. The dark and lofty genius which they display, their indistinct but solemn pictures of heroic passions, love, battle, victory, and death, were appropriate food for Napoleon's young imagination; and, his taste being little scrupulous as to minor particulars, Ossian continued to be through life his favourite poet. While at Paris, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... forms merged, grotesquely intermingled and became indistinct. From behind the gray curtain came the sound of heavy blows, ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... into the airlock, from which they saw that the great sphere had halted only a few yards from them, and that an indistinct figure stood in an open door, waving to them an unmistakable invitation to enter the ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... signature. He found the patient up and about, with no reminder of his mishap save the cut on his forehead. He was plainly agitated and expectant as he looked through the woods and saw Tom coming. It was clear that he was in some suspense, but Tom, who would have noticed the smallest insect or most indistinct footprint in the path, did not ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... iron rods and feathered arrows; from the top of the chapel steeple a great cross of stone, seeming to stretch out its arms; here and there the whitish zinc, cutting the dark blue of the slates; in spots an indistinct glittering and flashes of pale light enveloped in opaque shadows, and then the tops of three or four large trees which extended beyond the eaves, as if prying into the secrets of the attic. By the glittering light of the stars, ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the road up to where It stood, and implored her for pity's sake to speak to It; to tell It that we were betrothed; that neither Death nor Hell could break the tie between us: and Kitty only knows how much more to ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... rate of about three shots per minute at effective ranges and five or six at close ranges, devoting the minimum of time to loading and the maximum to deliberate aiming. To illustrate the necessity for deliberation, and to habituate men to combat conditions, small and comparatively indistinct targets ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... caused him to step back, and stand holding his breath, as if he feared the very sound would disturb her. She did not open her eyes, however, but turned over, with a low moan of suffering, and an indistinct murmur ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... indistinct imprecations, then approaching the table himself, he told the gold from the bags with the facility of a money-changer, whilst Tamar stood calmly watching him; but the serving man finding the weight too great for her, he exchanged ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... discomfort, doubt, and anxiety, vague, variable, and unsatisfying. The men in whose spirits the fermentation of the change is felt, who have abandoned their old moorings, and have not yet reached the haven for which they are steering, cannot but be indistinct and undecided in their faith. The universe of which they form a part becomes important to them in its infinite immensity. The principles of beauty, goodness, order and law, no longer connected in their minds with ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... memory of an interminable ride in a closed vehicle of some sort, a dizzy panorama of moving buildings, bleak, wind-swept trees, frosty meadows, and land-locked lakes backed by what were either distant mountain ranges or apartment houses. This last, however, was all very blurred and indistinct. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... between Jus Gentium, or Law common to all Nations, and international law is entirely modern. The classical expression for international law is Jus Feciale or the law of negotiation and diplomacy. It is, however, unquestionable that indistinct impressions as to the meaning of Jus Gentium had considerable share in producing the modern theory that the relations of independent states are governed by ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... intonation. The earthy hue of intense terror was upon every countenance. For some moments a death-like stillness, an unnatural calm, reigned around us: it was as though the elements were holding in their breath, and collecting their energies for some mighty outbreak. Then came a low indistinct moaning sound, that seemed to issue from the bowels of the earth. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... first time manifest; in a few minutes he sighed, and became sensible to the impression of the hartshorn or the fresh air of the water. He breathed; his eyes, hardly opened, wandered, without fixing upon any object; to our great joy, he at length spoke. "My vision is indistinct," were his first words. His pulse became more perceptible, his respiration more regular, his sight returned. I then examined the wound to know if there was any dangerous discharge of blood; upon slightly pressing his side ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... assigned to them, they sang first each their mass, and afterward the responsary in front of the royal catafalque. The mingling of so many voices with the dead silence and serene quiet of the night made an indistinct harmony and a confusion of echoes pleasant and agreeable to the listeners, awakening at the same time in their hearts tender affection and loving grief, which they consecrated to the glorious memory of the prince whose obsequies were being celebrated. After having ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... lately read your Endymion again, and even with a new sense of the treasures of poetry it contains—though treasures poured forth with indistinct profusion. This people in general will not endure; and that is the cause of the comparatively few copies which have been sold. I feel persuaded that you are capable of the greatest things, so you but will. I always tell Ollier to send you copies ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope for me, by drilling in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a drop of pure water was sustained by capillary attraction. This very primitive apparatus, magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently wonderful to work up my imagination to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... were still with him. They enclosed him in a kind of golden haze, through which the faces about him looked remote and indistinct: he had a feeling that if he spoke to his fellow-travellers they would not understand what he was saying. In this state of abstraction he found himself, the following morning, waking to the reality of a stifling September ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... they strolled on together the same path by which Fred had come. The sun had dropped down behind the hill, and the glowing tints had faded to purple-black and indistinct grays. They wound around the hills, and came up to the very gate where their last good-by had been uttered. And Fred remembered then that this was the first time Jack had shared the hospitality of Hope Terrace, now when it was ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... which runs N. 50 degrees W. and has not been used for eight years, gradually became more and more indistinct, until on Bibiquasin Lake it disappeared entirely. Thereafter the course was N. 70 degrees W., and finally due west, through a series of lakes which at last brought us to Lake Michikamau. The largest of ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... still maintained its ground, perhaps from not having the means of escaping, I saw a small gun glitter for a moment, then there was a sharp report, and a bullet had nearly sent Quesada to his long account, passing so near to the countenance of the general as to graze his hat. I had an indistinct view for a moment of a well- known foraging cap just about the spot from whence the gun had been discharged, then there was a rush of the crowd, and the shooter, whoever he was, escaped discovery amidst the confusion ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... certain places, which associates the scene either with some dim remembered and dreamlike images of the Past, or with a prophetic and fearful omen of the Future. Every one has known a similar strange and indistinct feeling at certain times and places, and with a similar inability to trace the cause." Poe has written these words on the subject: "We walk about, amid the destinies of our world existence, accompanied by dim but ever present memories of a Destiny more vast—very distant ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... said his father, speaking with his lips tightly compressed, so that his voice sounded muttering and indistinct. Then aloud—"Here, Pringle." ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... not shake hands with me?" I asked, my voice almost indistinct with emotion. Still, she spoke not. I kneeled down, for Gunilda had reseated herself near her mother's grave, and raising her hand, I took it in mine, and pressed it. I felt the pressure returned, and allowing her small passive ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... silent pool to cool his parched tongue, finds only a cup of bitterness, and retires again to his jungle haunts to die a lingering death from some unskilful wound. The best shot must frequently miss by moonlight; there is a silvery glare which renders all objects indistinct, and the shot very doubtful; thus two animals out of three fired ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... did not wish to see him again. In the abyss down yonder before her she now heard a slight sound, the indistinct ripple of the waves over the rocks. She rose to her feet with the idea of throwing herself over the cliff and bidding life farewell. Like one in despair, she uttered the last word of the dying, the last word of the young soldier ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... has something real to impart endeavour to say it in a clear or an indistinct way? Quintilian has already said, plerumque accidit ut faciliora sint ad intelligendum et lucidiora multo, quae a doctissimo quoque dicuntur.... Erit ergo etiam ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... region of the heart, which had not been done before, from fear of alarming the active and irritable mind of the patient. The heart was perceived palpitating, obscurely, about the 7th and 8th ribs; its movements were very irregular, and consisted in one full stroke, followed by two or three indistinct strokes, and sometimes by an intermission, corresponding with the pulse at each wrist. The pulsation was felt more distinctly in the epigastric region. During this paroxysm a recumbent posture was very uneasy, and ...
— Cases of Organic Diseases of the Heart • John Collins Warren
... as you've taken it into your head," said Grandet, pushing her by the shoulders; "but don't set things on fire." So saying, the miser went down-stairs, grumbling indistinct sentences. ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... intently, in an endeavor to hear the conversation of the men at the table behind him, all he could catch was an indistinct murmur. The strangers appeared to have heeded the caution of one of their number and were speaking ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... fought it out hand to hand. Now during this struggle the positions of the men were undistinguished on both sides, and they fought at random, the men being intermixed one with another, and confounded, by reason of the narrowness of the place; while the noise that was made fell on the ear after an indistinct manner, because it was so very loud. Great slaughter was now made on both sides, and the combatants trod upon the bodies and the armor of those that were dead, and dashed them to pieces. Accordingly, to which side ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... a mocking bird throbbed from a hedge. It was dark in the valley, but, high above, the air was already brightening with the sun; a symmetrical cloud caught the solar rays and flushed rosy against silver space. The valley turned from indistinct blue to grey, to sparkling green. The sun gilded the peaks of the western range, and slipped slowly down, spilling into the depth. It was almost cold, the pump handle, the rough sward, the foliage beyond, were drenched with ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of Colonel Frederick Hambright, who departed this life, March (figures indistinct) 1817, in the ninetieth year of ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... men's hearts. Though the one agrees with the other, yet the area which they cover is not the same. The precepts of the one, like some rock-hewn inscriptions by forgotten kings, are weathered and indistinct, often illegible, often misread, often neglected. The other is written in living characters in a perfect life. It includes all that the former attempts to enjoin, and much more besides. It alters ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... wind there is this morning!" says the old fellow, hearing the buzz and indistinct whispering overhead; "guess it's snowin' like sin; I'll jist start up this fire and go out and see." But, he had scarcely reached and opened the door, when—"bang-g-g!" went the log, with the roar of a twelve pounder; hurling the fire, not only all over the lower ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... soon as the Moon is examined with even the least powerful instruments: the spots are better defined, and the illusions of indistinct vision vanish. Compare this direct photograph of the Moon, taken by the author some years ago (Fig. 69): here is neither a human figure, man, dog, hare, nor faggot; simply deep geographical configurations, and in the lower region, a luminous point whence certain ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... Death. No matter from what source this belief in a "ghost" originated, it must be admitted that it is found among all peoples, and is apparently an universal idea. And, running along with it in the primitive peoples, we find that there is, and always has been, an idea, more or less vague and indistinct, that somehow, someway, sometime, this "ghost" of the person returns to earthly existence and takes upon itself a new fleshly garment—a new body. Here, then, is where the idea of Reincarnation begins—everywhere, at a certain stage of human mental development. It runs parallel with the "ghost" ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... stir and rattle, and the dark, indistinct figure standing on the lip of the ditch was covered by the eight muskets. To the eyes of the firing-party he was no more than a blurred shadowy form, showing a little darker than the ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... hedge on one side, and on the other by the gray city wall, at the base of which the tract kept onward. We followed it, hoping that it would lead us to some other gate by which we might reenter the city; but it soon grew so indistinct and broken, that it was evidently on the point of melting into somebody's olive-orchard or wheat-fields or vineyards, all of which lay on the other side of the hedge; and a kindly old woman of whom I inquired told me (if I rightly understood her Italian) that I should find ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... year, after enjoying the excellent acting of Bouffe in two of his best characters, I paused a moment to speak to a friend in the crowded lobby of the St James's Theatre. Whilst thus engaged, I became aware that I was an object of attention to two persons, whom I had an indistinct notion of having seen before, but when or where, or who they might be, I had not the remotest idea. One of them was a comfortable-looking, middle-aged man, with a bald head, a smooth, clean-shaven face, and an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... these hints are, if they do not indicate the moral affections, they at least imply something akin to them, which in a manner compels us to invest the gentle Spirit with a general likeness to our own physical exterior, though, perhaps, as indistinct as the emotion that called ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... basis can be radiographed," added Craig. "Even when the sheet is folded in the usual way, it is possible by taking a radiograph stereoscopically, to distinguish the writing, every detail standing out in relief. Besides, it can be greatly magnified, which aids in deciphering it if it is indistinct or jumbled up. Some of it looks like mirror writing. Ah," ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... accomplishments as Bill, his only quotable utterances being the one already given and another, supposed to be severely sarcastic: "How lang has he been so?" He, however, has, in the recesses of his brain, a dim idea that Bill is weak, viewed from an intellectual standpoint, while Bill has an equally indistinct belief that "the Professor" has very little furniture in his upper story. How far either of them is wrong our space does not permit us to say. Both have a supreme contempt for students, regarding them as effeminate cumberers of the ground. In the ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... can well imagine the state of perturbation and excitement London is in with these Parisian events. The universal cry and question is, "What is the news?" People run from house to house to gather the latest intelligence. The streets are filled with bawling paper-vendors, amidst whose indistinct vociferations the attractively appalling words, "Revolution! Republic! Massacre! Bloodshed!" are alone distinguishable. The loss of Saturday night's packet between Calais and Dover, besides the horror of the event ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble |
