"Uncertain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the legend as we have it was not well acquainted with Egyptian history, and that in his account of the conquest of Egypt he has confounded one god with another, and mixed up historical facts with mythological legends to such a degree that his meaning is frequently uncertain. The great fact which he wished to describe is the conquest of Egypt by an early king, who, having subdued the peoples in the South, advanced northwards, and made all the people whom he conquered submit to his yoke. Now the King of Egypt was ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... doubt, proud after his fashion. It must have taken a great effort—premature, therefore mistaken, according to my judgment—for him to screw himself up to the pitch of proposing for a girl of whose answering regard he was uncertain. Having made the blunder and paid the penalty, he is not at all likely to put his fate to the touch again, so far as Dora is concerned. He is not the style of pertinacious, overbearing fellow who would persecute ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... and kit, with whom I am doubling up, arrived. His servants brought me the delightful intelligence that my camel man had bolted with his camels at our last encampment, and that my things were all left there on the ground, with my servant, and that it was quite uncertain when they would be up; in fact, it seemed exceedingly doubtful whether they would arrive at all. However, they did come in at last, but very late, on three ponies, two bullocks, and one donkey, which were the only things my boy could ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... every five years,—the results were surprising. The Nationalists returned a majority of four over the South African Party in Parliament. It left Smuts to carry on his Government with a minority. To add to his troubles, the Labour Party,—always an uncertain proposition,—increased its representation from a mere handful to twenty-one, while the Unionists, who comprise the straight-out English-speaking Party, whose stronghold is Natal, suffered severe losses. Smuts could not very well ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... proceed to the Arctic Seas in quest of the British commander Sir John Franklin and his companions, in compliance with the act of Congress approved in May last, had when last heard from penetrated into a high northern latitude; but the success of this noble and humane enterprise is yet uncertain. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... taking a sudden liking for their horses, jogged on at a more brisk rate. The instincts of the mulish heart form an interesting study to the traveller in the mountains. I would (were the comparison not too ungallant) liken it to a woman's; for it is quite as uncertain in its sympathies, bestowing its affections when least expected, and, when bestowed, quite as constant, so long as the object is not taken away. Sometimes a horse, sometimes an ass, captivates the fancy of a whole drove of ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... miles on the hard ice, which split with a dull sound under us. Long after dark, we reached the next station, Stratjara, and found our horses in readiness. We started again, by the gleam of a flashing aurora, going through forests and fields in the uncertain light, blindly following our leader, Braisted and I driving by turns, and already much fatigued. After a long time, we descended a steep hill, to the Ljusne River. The water foamed and thundered under the bridge, and I could barely ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... had now fairly entered. The road had gone somewhere up the hills, and I was walking beside the river upon sand glittering with particles of mica. This sand the Tarn leaves all along its banks. It is one of the most uncertain and treacherous of streams. In a few hours its water will rise with amazing rapidity and spread consternation in a district where not a drop of rain has fallen. Warm winds from the south and south-west, striking against the cold mountains ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... of the whole. Compare 1 Kings viii. 65; 2 Chron. vii. 8, where Solomon assembles the whole people from Hamath unto the river of Egypt; Josh. xv. 4, 47; 2 Kings xxiv. 7; Is. xxvii. 12. They who think of the boundary of the kingdom of the ten tribes only, are at a loss, and have recourse to uncertain conjectures. ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... Harold swore, whether in this specially solemn fashion or in any other, is left equally uncertain. In any case he engages to marry a daughter of William—as to which daughter the statements are endless—and in most versions he engages to do something more. He becomes the man of William, much as William had become the man of Edward. He promises to give his sister in marriage to ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... shapen much neerer y^e primitive patterne then England, for they cashered y^e Bishops w^ith al their courts, cannons, and ceremoneis, at the first; and left them amongst y^e popish tr.... to [c]h w^ch they pertained. (The last word in the note is uncertain in ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... after many windings, we reached the Downs. The white booths, following the direction of the course in their sinuous lines, looked like stately white marble streets and crescents in the dim, uncertain light of that hour which, between May 31 and June 1, is neither day nor night. Under the stands and around the booths, tabernacling beneath costermongers' barrows, and even lying out openly sub dio, were still the hundreds of human beings. In one small drinking ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... giraffe house are the zebras, with their beautiful black and white stripes, looking like wonderfully marked donkeys. They are very wild and untameable and of uncertain temper; it is best not to go too near them. Well, with the zebras we have finished seeing all the well-known animals of the larger kinds, and so we must say good-bye to the Zoo, perhaps to come ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... us for a moment, as though uncertain whether he was included in the invitation or not, but when he found that the latter was the case, he broke forth into lamentations that fairly rivalled the shrill yells of triumph which we had heard his ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... was very poor, and the prospect of regaining the lost pocket-book was quite uncertain; it was so dark that I thought it would be impossible for me to find it. Consequently I determined to remain awake during the night, and at 3 o'clock in the morning search for it, and if possible, find it before any one ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... I should write to you, and give you an opportunity of correcting a mistake so important; but he absolutely refused compliance. He said that your book was now finished; that the whole narrative of Mary's trial must be wrote over again; that it was uncertain whether the new narrative could be brought within the same compass with the old: that this change would require the cancelling a great many sheets; that there were scattered passages through the volumes founded on ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... away," returned Crystal, "and one never knows what may happen. I am young, but life is uncertain. If I never come back, if anything befalls me, will you with your own hands give this to Raby," and as she spoke, she drew from her bosom a thick white envelope sealed and directed, and placed it in Fern's lap. As it lay there Fern could read ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... women do not naturally hate. We don't always know what is, and what is not, in our power to do. When some principal point we have long had in view becomes so critical, that we must of necessity choose or refuse, then perhaps we look about us; are affrighted at the wild and uncertain prospect before us; and, after a few struggles and heart-aches, reject the untried new; draw in your horns, and resolve to snail-on, as we did before, in a track we are ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... her face directly to his, "because Beatrice is herself uncertain. You know well enough that no man should ever tell a woman he loves her until he is sure that she loves him. And that is ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... arrived at the truth. Parson Fair had indeed offered to pay the interest, and Burr had declined. He had also refused to live with his bride in his father-in-law's house, and when Parson Fair had, with his gracefully austere manner, intimated that he should be unwilling to place his daughter in such uncertain shelter, had replied harshly that Dorothy should have a roof over her head of his own providing while he lived; when he was dead it would be time to ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... away from the hall slowly and silently, between Joanna Falls and Annie Brown, for Joanna's cavalier was a very uncertain quantity and poor plain Annie had never had a beau in her life. But Joanna suddenly remembered that she had left her handkerchief on the seat in the hall, and must run back for it before Trooper ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... thrown aside in haste, Her heart a bit uncertain, And neither time nor love to waste, She ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... I've asked him to come and have dinner with us to-morrow. He hadn't any special reason for going to town, and was uncertain whether to do so or not, so I thought I might as well have ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... but the simplest questions. The temperature rose to 102 degrees; the pupils became contracted, the right in a greater degree than the left; both reacted to light. The left leg began to lose power. There was complete anesthesia of the right eyebrow and of both eyelids and of the right cheek for an uncertain distance below the lower eyelid. The conjunctiva of the right eye became congested, and a small ulcer formed on the right cornea, which healed without much trouble. In the course of a few days power began to return, first ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... opinion that, from the time they had been tramping through the forest, they ought to have very nearly reached its southern skirts; but as far as the eye could penetrate, in the uncertain moonlight, through the sylvan vistas, there was no sign of break or opening of any kind; nothing but an apparently endless succession of trees and dense undergrowth. Seeing this, Leicester began to feel uneasy. He knew that they had been travelling ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... a terrible night. Every step of the way some new horror was presented to her imagination. Once she had to cross a wild little stream, rocky and uncertain in its bed, with slippery, precipitous banks; and twice in climbing a steep incline she came sharp upon sheer precipices down into a rocky gorge, where the moonlight seemed repelled by dark, bristling evergreen trees growing half-way up the sides. She could hear ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... so much his insolent and triumphant look which took my attention as the manner in which he stood upon the heaving deck of the saloon; his knees had that limp sea-bend of the sailor and his out-turned toes seemed to grasp the uncertain rise and fall of the carpet beneath his feet; he was a mariner now, not a preacher, for no landsman could hold himself so easily in a vessel which pitched and rolled in the long swells ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... continued to fire from the rear, and whether our infantry, who, by this time, have had some experience of the treachery of the enemy, would have paid any attention to these signals is uncertain, but the matter was taken out of their hands, for as soon as the Prussian infantry on the north of this point realized what their Saxon comrades were trying to do, they opened rapid fire from the flank, enfilading the mass. It appears also that the news of what was happening must ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... instability of all human things, and the uncertain length of our exile upon earth, I have considered that it is evil for brothers to remain so separate. Therefore I implore you—who are my only relative in this world, and heir to all my goods and estates—to visit me quickly, for I have a presentiment that ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... Proclamation came, including the announcement that Colored men of suitable condition would be received into the War service. The policy of Emancipation, and of employing Black soldiers, gave to the future a new aspect, about which hope, and fear, and doubt, contended in uncertain conflict. ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... know, but I should rather think not, and for one reason, which is, that although a person in the wilderness might subsist upon these animals, if always to be procured, yet the flights of locusts are very uncertain. Now there is a tree in the country where St. John retired, which is called the locust-tree, and produces a large sweet bean, shaped like the common French bean, but nearly a foot long, which is very palatable and nutritious. It is even now given to ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... followed her with his speculative eyes. She went to the door and looked out, seeing neither the dusty road, the deserted house across the way, nor the mountains beyond. She was groping blindly in a mental fog; she was tired, very tired. And uncertain. Something was happening—had happened, or was about to happen, and she did not know which way to turn. Her father, poor old papa, was fighting hard against some kind of money troubles. Mark King, Gratton, ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... brought into action was a critical one. General Sheridan, in his report summing up the operations of the campaign, said: "At Winchester for a moment the contest was uncertain, but the gallant attack of General Upton's brigade of the Sixth Corps restored the line of battle," and of this brigade the Second Connecticut formed fully half. Upton's report gave high praise to Colonel Mackenzie, and said: "His regiment on the right initiated ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... was by this time pretty well advanced, and Jackson felt a little uncertain as to what he should now do. It was still rather dark; but in a very short time, he knew, dawn would spread over the east, when it would, of course, be quite impossible to defend the walls of the little fort without revealing the small number of its defenders. On the other hand, if they ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... Troy, was expelled his own country, and scarce escaped with his life from his adulterous wife AEgiale; but at last was received by Daunus in Apulia, and shared his kingdom; it is uncertain how ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... this message, as fraught with large significance as it was laconic, turned on the electric light. Frederick jumped to a sitting posture, and was annoyed by the water from the leaky pipe, which ran now from one side of the room to the other, as the vessel lurched. At first he was uncertain whether the word he had heard had really been pronounced, or whether it was an illusion of his unstrung nerves. Every night he had been torn with a jerk of his nerves from his restless dozing, only to find that the cause had been a delusive fall ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... flowed in her, like a river, Flooding the banks of wisdom; and her soul, Losing its self-control, Waved with a vague, uncertain, tremulous quiver, And like a lily in the storm, at last She ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... that Ford was sober and as nearly in his right mind as a man violently in love can be (Rock made it plain, by implication at least, that he did not consider that very near), ventured into the kitchen just then. She still looked scared and uncertain, until, through the half-open door of the pantry, she heard soft, whispery sounds like kissing—when the kissing is a rapture rather than a ceremony. Mrs. Kate had only been married eight years or so, and she had a good memory. She ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... laugh at me, Louis, but the uncertain fate of Leo has given me great unhappiness. But to continue—I engaged myself as nursemaid with an English family, who had been traveling on the continent, and were about returning home. I remained with them until I had accumulated sufficient funds to defray my expenses ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... the storms which seemed to be gathering. While his thoughts were thus employed, he learned that the Auditorship of the Exchequer had suddenly become vacant. The Auditorship was held for life. The duties were formal and easy. The gains were uncertain; for they rose and fell with the public expenditure; but they could hardly, in time of peace, and under the most economical administration, be less than four thousand pounds a year, and were likely, in time of war, to be more ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... too, began to roar out; and to add to the terror of the situation, a company of soldiers was drawn up on the beach, and Tom's men began to fall, uncertain ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... low-tide beach with a long roar and retreating with a faint hiss. Afterwards floated on the air the music of the shingle, hundreds of pebbles pattering with liquid footsteps down the sand. Peals of laughter, the continuous bass roar of the men, an occasional uncertain soprano lilting of the women, came from the group. The girls were reciting ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... me. It had grown steadily, a gloom and oppression not to be thwarted; it is silent and subtle and past defining—like shadow. The grey, heavy heave of the water; the great hull of the steamer backing into the bay; the gloom of the fog bank. A few uncertain lines, the shrill of the siren, the mist settling; I ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... mattered to her, poor dear," said Miss Panton. "I suppose that's why it is so dreadful to feel that nothing matters—it always has a taste of death." She spoke from the deeps of her own experience, wise with what she had lived through; but the next second she turned uncertain again and thrust forth one of her copy-book maxims. "Yes, yes. ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... sitting on kits on the floor. Even the steps up which I groped my way to the deck above were filled, while on the deck there was standing-room only and not much of that. Mal de mer added to the discomforts of many. At length I found an uncertain refuge in a gangway amidships, hedged in between unseen companions; but even here the rain stung our faces and the spray of an occasional comber drenched our feet, while through the gloom of the night only a few yards of white water were to be discerned. For three hours I stood ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bent to the oars with a will that sent them rapidly across the sheet of water. A cold and uncertain light began to stream from the ashen east, and the air was dank and heavy with the thick mist that wrapped earth and water like a shroud. It swallowed up the land behind them, and through it the nearer marshes gloomed indistinctly, dark patches upon the gray surface ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... called back to New York again," said Marcia annoyed over the spiteful little sentences. "He says he may be at home soon, but he cannot be sure. His business is rather uncertain." ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... regarded as the starting-point of the movement. 'So far from our philosophy dictating our critical method, it is the critical method that has of its own accord forced us to a very tentative and uncertain formulation of various philosophical conclusions.... This independence of our criticism is evident in many ways.'[58] The writers of this manifesto, and M. Loisy himself, appear not to perceive that their critical position rests on certain very important ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... little by little, until they reach their highest perfection. It is true, however, that many laws both of art and of nature are unknown to us, nor do they hold to one unvarying order at all times and in every case, a thing which very often renders uncertain the judgments of men. How this may happen is seen in Raffaellino, since it appeared that in him nature and art did their utmost to set out from extraordinary beginnings, the middle stage of which was below mediocrity, and ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... confident that nothing external can affect you?' he said again, in a voice rendered uncertain ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... a special appeal to many people. Where time is available and the community accustomed to purchasing in this manner, this method offers great possibilities. The profits are of course higher but the results more uncertain, for it is somewhat difficult to gauge the demands of the public, and the canner must assume the risk ordinarily ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... formerly, but at home; and at nine o'clock they retired to rest. It was about this time that Sir Richard finished the last volume of his "Supplemental" Arabian Nights. The weather was so bad at Trieste, and his health so uncertain, that the Foreign Office again gave ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... dreary bulk of his later work. If we lost all but the Lyrical Ballads, the poems of 1804, and the Prelude, and the Excursion, Wordsworth's position as a poet would be no lower than it is now, and he would be more readily accepted by those who still find themselves uncertain about him. ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... order also two to four ounces of fluid malt extract before each meal. The fluid malt extracts which now reach us from Germany have become less trustworthy than they formerly were. Some of them keep badly, and are uncertain in composition, one bottle being good, another bad. The more constant, and at the same time most agreeable, extracts are those now made in this country. Although their diastasic powers are usually less than is claimed for them, and ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... is no possibility of mistaking it. This thing has been born, not manufactured: nor has any portrait that is lifelike been drawn without some model. Thus, through all the mist and haze of the past, we see men and women walking in the twilight—dim and uncertain forms indeed, yet stately ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... request explanations from the Government concerning them. Ministers are entitled to appear and to speak in either chamber as often as they may desire, provided they do not otherwise infringe upon the order of business. By reason of the uncertain status of ministerial responsibility the right of interpellation means as yet but little in practice. The minister may or may not reply to inquiries, and in any case he is not obliged by unfavorable opinion or an adverse ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... predicament cast around for another to wait on him. There was no lack of these, at a safe distance, but they all seemed to be affected by the same mania. Jethro's eye alighted upon the back of another customer. She was, apparently, a respectable-looking lady of uncertain age, and her own attention was so firmly fixed in the contemplation of a model that she had not remarked the merriment about her, nor its cause. She did not see Jethro, either, as he strode across to her. Indeed, her first intimation of his presence was a dig in her arm. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... considered is: Shall we plant cuttings or rooted plants? My preference is decidedly for the latter, for the following reasons: Cuttings are uncertain, even of those varieties which grow the most readily; and we cannot expect to have anything like an even growth, such as we can have if the plants are carefully assorted. Some of the cuttings will always fail, and there will be gaps and vacancies which are hard to fill, even if ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... a lady of uncertain temper, and she was on this occasion so ill-tempered, and put herself to so much anxiety and agitation, aided and abetted by her shrewish hand-maiden, Miggs, that next morning she was, she said, too much indisposed ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... among the causes which conduced to the greatness of the people. The principal mountains of Attica are, the Cape of Sunium, Hymettus, renowned for its honey, and Pentelicus for its marble; the principal streams which water the valleys are the capricious and uncertain rivulets of Cephisus and Ilissus [3],—streams breaking into lesser brooks, deliciously pure and clear. The air is serene—the climate healthful —the seasons temperate. Along the hills yet breathe the wild ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cannot take upon myself to determine, although I think it probable, from the situation in which both are said to grow, that Uya and Takmaro are two names for the same grain. In this case the grain may probably be rye, although this also is uncertain. ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... unquestionably the predominant idea in these legislators was a political benefit, not very precisely measured, to black men. 2. An inquiry as to actual intent in such a case is never admissible. A rule that allowed it would make every law uncertain. An enactment can be construed only by the language in fact used, and where that language is doubtful, by other parts of the same enactment, and by a consideration of the public evil which the law was intended to remedy. The evil to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's features; then turned towards the Great Stone Face; then back, with an uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his countenance fell; he shook ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... Henry now lived and slept in his little office, the rent of which he had paid some months in advance before the storms of poverty began to beat upon him. Here, when not making spasmodic excursions in search of work, he dreamed and brooded. He wondered why men came into the feverish, uncertain life of great cities, anyhow. He thought of the peace of the country, where he was born; of the hollyhocks and humming-birds, of the brightness and freedom from care which was the lot of human beings there. They had few luxuries or keen enjoyments, but as a reward for labor—the labor always ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... it is not necessary for you to visit the King," he said in an uncertain voice. "I will go and make report to him that you know nothing ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... don't think so; but there are some very uncertain elements to contend with, and the corruption there has been frightful. I should not be surprised at a big movement there in time. Still, we are doing very well; our forces are becoming well organized, and in another year or so I think the ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... He was of the New England theological-seminary type—narrow-chested, gaunt as to visage, by temperament drawn to theology, or, in default of religious belief, an ardent enthusiast in sociology. The contracted temples, uncertain gaze, and absence of fulness beneath the eyes betrayed the unimaginative man. Art was a sealed book to him, though taxation fairly fired his suspicious soul. He was nervous because he was dyspeptic, and at one time of his career he mistook stomach trouble for ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... there two years. Then for a year after his exchange he followed the Union Army like a dumb creature, and not until two years after the close of the war did the poor fellow drift home again, as one from the dead—all uncertain of the past ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... of treason, he is styled Peter Carmichael of Balmadie. How long this "stout gentleman" survived, is uncertain; but he appears to have been succeeded by his brother. A charter of confirmation under the Great Seal was passed, "quondam Petro Carmichaell de Balmadie, Euphemiae Wymes ejus conjugi, et quondam Jacobo ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... extinct; and that the chief part of my maternal estate, in case I die without issue, will go to another line, and great part of my personal will fall into such hands, as I shall not care my Pamela should be at the mercy of. I have, therefore, as human life is uncertain, made such a disposition of my affairs, as will make you absolutely independent and happy; as will secure to you the power of doing a great deal of good, and living as a person ought to do, who is my relict; and shall put it out of any ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... nurse's infinite relief, Ruth turned away, humbly and meekly, with bent head, and slow, uncertain steps. But as she turned, she saw the mild sad face of the deformed gentleman, who was sitting at the open window above the shop; he looked sadder and graver than ever; and his eyes met her glance with an expression of deep sorrow. And so, condemned alike by youth ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... probability. In the first instance, the parentage of children was no more observed and remembered than that of animals. When first observed, it was necessarily through the mother, the identity of the father being wholly uncertain. The mother would also be the first parent to remember her children, her affection for them being based on one of the strongest natural instincts, whereas the father neither knew nor cared for his children until ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... fairly well held when it was reported that the 5th Durham Light Infantry on the left had been forced to retire. Both flanks being now uncertain, the Battalion was withdrawn towards Merville, under very heavy machine-gun fire. A stand was made on the outskirts of the town, but before night the fighting was taking place in ...
— The Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry - France, April 1915-November 1918 • Unknown
... with the government to help it develop a coherent economic plan, and President KABILA has begun implementing reforms. Much economic activity lies outside the GDP data. Economic stability, aided by international donors, improved in 2003-04, although an uncertain legal framework, corruption, and a lack of openness in government policy continues to hamper growth. In 2005, renewed activity in the mining sector, the source of most exports, could boost Kinshasa's fiscal position ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... ones sat hand in hand, talking of the happy days of childhood, or the perplexing present and the uncertain future. At last, wearied out with watching and anxiety, Catharine leaned her head upon the neck of old Wolfe and fell asleep, while Louis restlessly paced to and fro in front of the sleeper; now straining ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... tenant-at-will, abrogated leases, and made the tiller of the soil a vassal. The farmer who precariously holds his farm from year to year cannot, of course, be expected to sink so much capital in the soil, in the hope of a distant and uncertain return, as the lessee certain of a possession for a specified number of years; but some capital he must sink in it. It is impossible, according to the modern system, or indeed any system of husbandry, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... uncertain," resumed the Captain, as they sauntered back to camp, "is the fact that this northern archipelago is peopled by different tribes of Eskimos, some of whom are of a warlike spirit and frequently give the others trouble. However, Chingatok says we shall have no difficulty in reaching ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... judging of the truth concerning this, for the lines of the poet have been so smoked by the candles of successive pilgrims in their efforts to get light on them, that they are now utterly illegible. But if it is uncertain what were Byron's emotions on visiting the prison of Tasso, there is no doubt about Lady Morgan's: she "experienced a suffocating emotion; her heart failed her on entering that cell; and she satisfied a melancholy curiosity at the cost ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... his horse with the spurs; it pranced excitedly from foot to foot uncertain with which to start, then settled down, galloped past the company, and overtook the carriage, still ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... had been was shrouded in darkness. They sailed over it and across it several times, but not a sign of a boat or raft could be discovered. Once more, therefore, the Indiaman stood on her course; and Mr Henley still remained uncertain whether or not the Orion was the ship which was burned. The Indiaman touched at Point de Galle, in Ceylon, to land passengers, and here Mr Henley and his three companions went on shore, and, reporting ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... is by the sword; but this method is uncertain, for any man may take up a sword, and some may succeed with it. It will be found that empires based upon military force alone, however cruel they may be, are not permanent, and therefore not so dangerous to progress; it is only when resistance is paralyzed by the agency ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... slightly disconcerted by her own audacity, she snatched the pipe from his left hand and tossed it upon the table. When she had reseated herself on the lounge beside her pasteboard box of luncheon, she became even more uncertain concerning the result of what she had done, and began to view with rising alarm the steady gray eyes that were so silently ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... is very neat in her dress and general deportment, is industrious, and keeps busy working here and there at odd jobs, but her memory is very uncertain as to many ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... in the season in Scotland is an uncertain speculation. We were detained a week by rain at Bunaw, on Loch Etive, in a vain hope that the weather would clear up, and allow me to show my daughter the beauties of Glencoe. Two days we were at the Isle of Mull, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... first inspection. There is not the same violent perturbation that there was on the previous occasions, but the tone of the palace is lowered. A dinner-party has to be put off; the cooking is more homogeneous and uncertain, it is less highly differentiated than when the scullery-maid was well; and there is a grumble when the doctor has to be paid, and also when the smashed crockery has to ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... there was then no Minister, for I consider Morris as none; and they were liberated on the applications of the Americans in Paris. As to myself I had rather be publicly and honorably reclaimed, tho' the reclamation was refused, than remain in the uncertain situation that I am. Though my health has suffered my spirits are not broken. I have nothing to fear unless innocence and fortitude be crimes. America, whatever may be my fate, will have no cause to blush for me as a ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... and Ward were pushed out along the road, and "found the enemy in some force on three sides." This apparently shows that Birney,—who had the immediate command of the troops in front,—was quite uncertain of what was before him, or just what he was ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... things—strange, uncertain things—that lay like the dim, uncertain pattern of some tapestry in the back of his mind. He gave them, as the months passed, less and less heed. Only sometimes ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... should have to work every day of my life as hard as I am working now, I should be tempted to give up the struggle. And the workman early begins on his career of toil. He has never had his fill of holidays in the past, and his prospect of holidays in the future is both distant and uncertain. In the circumstance it would require a high degree of virtue not to snatch ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Aristotle approaches this theme. Without surprise or indignation, but in the tone of an impartial, scientific inquirer, he asks himself the question whether slavery is natural, and answers it in the affirmative. For, he argues, though in any particular case, owing to the uncertain chances of fortune and war, the wrong person may happen to be enslaved, yet, broadly speaking, the general truth remains, that there are some men so inferior to others that they ought to be despotically ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... a board suspended in the retro-choir, those printed in italics are added from a list given in the "Records of Romsey Abbey," by the Rev. H. G. D. Liveing, 1906, which embodies the result of the most recent research. Whenever the date is uncertain c. for "circa" is prefixed; the date of death when known is added, marked with o. for "obiit." The spelling of many of the names is uncertain; in the list below the spelling follows that given by the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... to him with a growing interest—with an uncertain laugh.] It sounds good to hear you tell it. I'd sure like a trip on the water, all right. It's the barge idea has me stopped. Well, I'll go down with you and have a look—and maybe I'll take a chance. Gee, I'd ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... Sleepinbuff—put in prison. Djalma?—quieted by a narcotic. One only ingenious method, and a thousand times safer, because it acted morally, not materially, was employed to remove M. Hardy. As for your other proceedings—they were all bad, uncertain, dangerous. Why? Because they were violent, and violence provokes violence. Then it is no longer a struggle of keen, skillful, persevering men, seeing through the darkness in which they walk, but a match of fisticuffs in broad day. Though we should ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... a baker. And verily I should curse Nature and Fortune alike, did I not know that Nature is most discreet, and that Fortune, albeit the foolish imagine her blind, has a thousand eyes. For 'tis, I suppose, that, being wise above a little, they do as mortals ofttimes do, who, being uncertain as to their future, provide against contingencies by burying their most precious treasures in the basest places in their houses, as being the least likely to be suspected; whence, in the hour of their greatest need, they bring them forth, the base place having kept them more safe than ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of being uncertain as to the right route. He would turn first to the right and then to the left, peering eagerly ahead, as if hoping to come upon the big dead tree at any ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... feature in the scheme of life. There is no need of pointing out how prone the men of today are to revert to the spiritual attitude of mastery and of personal subservience which characterizes that stage. It may rather be said to be held in an uncertain abeyance by the economic exigencies of today, than to have been definitely supplanted by a habit of mind that is in full accord with these later-developed exigencies. The predatory and quasi-peaceable ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... duty to decline the proposed conference with the committee, and it being uncertain when it may be convenient to explain to the committee, and through them to the Senate, the grounds of my so doing, I think it proper to address the explanation directly to the Senate. Without entering into a general ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... thought it possible that they had got away in the boat with the doctor and second mate, during the night when there happened to be a lull, but of this he was uncertain. He confessed that the vessel had been boarded by two man-of-war's boats, but the officer in command, finding nothing to detain her, had allowed the schooner to proceed; while they, he concluded, had returned from whence they came. Mr Large, who was present at the examination ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... struggled bravely to conceal her feelings, she had excited the sculptor's keenest pity; and it not unnaturally followed that in attempting to express his sympathy he found himself telling his love before he was aware. He had determined to be silent upon this subject. Uncertain what were Helen's feelings towards him and restrained by a sense of loyalty to the bond which united him to Ninitta, he had resolved to bury his love in his own breast, at least until time gave him opportunity of honorably declaring it. Now circumstances betrayed him ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... "la la la la!" was still uttered in what was thought to be the best Parisian accent, and the judgments of magazine editors, and the achievements of the painters who sold their portraits, and the writers whose novels crept into the lists of the "six bestsellers" continued to be damned in no uncertain tones. But the old spirit seems ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... uncertain whether the law forbids that a thief be killed by day, unless he defend himself, with a weapon, or the law permits that a thief be killed, if he ...
— The Twelve Tables • Anonymous
... varied colours, and the chaster simplicity of uniform shadows; and it is probably for this reason, that on the first view of a picture which you have long admired in the simplicity of engraved effect, you involuntarily recede from the view, and seek in the obscure light and uncertain tint which distance produces, to recover that uniform tone and general character, which the splendour of colouring is so apt to destroy. It is a feeling similar to that which Lord Byron has so finely described, as arising from the ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... opinion, but, to some degree, even by law. Men are punished for treating certain animals in certain ways. But why? Have the animals rights? There is no topic within the sphere of morals upon which moralists speak with more wavering and uncertain accents. [Footnote: See chapter XXX, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... points, and as many as could be spared from the floating-light and the tenders landed to witness the long desired ceremony of laying the first stone of the lighthouse. The importance of the building was such, that but for the perilous and uncertain nature of any arrangement which could have been made for this ceremony, instead of its having been performed only in the presence of those immediately connected with the work, and a few casual spectators from the neighbouring shore, reckoning in all about eighty persons, many thousands ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... resumed my seat in the corner of the office, I was conscious of a new element of the uncertain, the underhand, perhaps even the dangerous, in our adventure; and there was now a new picture in my mental gallery, to hang beside that of the wreck under its canopy of sea-birds and of Captain Trent mopping ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... coArdination involves two activities, syncopation and substitution. The workings of both are highly complex and somewhat uncertain; they differ greatly in different individuals, and when analyzed scientifically seem to produce more difficulties than they explain. But fortunately the outstanding ideas are beyond dispute, and detailed examination can properly be left ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... for the occasion. Miss Turnbull and Miss Jemima Turnbull contributed in turn their share toward the evening's entertainment by singing "Hearts of Oak," "The Bay of Biscay," "Then farewell my trim-built wherry," and other songs of a similar character, to a somewhat uncertain accompaniment upon a discordant jangling old piano—the chief merit of which was that a large proportion of its notes were dumb. Their gallant father meanwhile sipped his grog and puffed away at his "church-warden" in a high-backed uncomfortable-looking chair in a corner near the fire, ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... at some future time. It is surely misleading to use a phrase that may have so many meanings. If some definite idea cannot be advanced, I think the effect will be that the whole matter will be regarded as uncertain, and that there is nothing to fear. And such I believe is largely the position of the Christian world to-day. Could not a consensus of doctrine be arrived at by the various Christian churches—a consensus founded on the best ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... later Lincoln spoke with no uncertain voice. 75,000 militia were called out to suppress the "rebellion." The North gave the President loyal support. The insult to the flag set the blood of the nation, of Democrat and Republican, aflame. The ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... an uncertain little witch, but—to an old friend! I dare say lovers have turned her head. Perhaps I ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... higher evolution of man is, in a word, because the religious sanctions are so much more powerful than all others, either legal or social. For the legal sanctions are chiefly negative; they are also partial and uncertain, and easily evaded by the selfish individual. The social sanctions, too, are often far from just or impartial or wise. Furthermore, the rise of individualism in the social order secures privacy for the individual, ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... held a hurried consultation and decided to go into town and search for him. So away they trooped, asking eager questions in their uncertain Italian but receiving no satisfactory reply until they reached the little office of the tax ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... of the sequence of sounds is uncertain, because we can not observe the child uninterruptedly, and hence the first appearance of a new sound easily escapes notice. The above synopsis has a chronological value only so far as this, that it announces, concerning every single sound, that such sound was ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... development of the situation remained uncertain. The gleaming barrel of Streuss's revolver changed its destination. Bellamy glanced at it with the pleased ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Echinopsis cristata (Echinopsis obrepanda) Echinopsis cristata purpurea (Echinopsis obrepanda v. purprea) Echinopsis Decaisneanus (identification now uncertain) * Echinopsis Eyriesii (Echinopsis eyriesii) Echinopsis Eyriesii flore-pleno (Echinopsis eyriesii) * Echinopsis Eyriesii glauca (Echinopsis eyriesii) Echinopsis oxygonus (Echinopsis oxygona) Echinopsis Pentlandi (Echinopsis (Lobivia) pentlandii) * Echinopsis Pentlandi longispinus ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... pointing over the eastern desert. Two figures were moving across its expanse, swiftly and stealthily, furtive dark shadows against the lighter ground. They saw them dimly, dipping and rising over the rolling desert, now lost, now reappearing in the uncertain light. They were flying away from the Arabs. And then, suddenly they halted upon the summit of a sand-hill, and the prisoners could see them outlined plainly against the sky. They were camel-men, but they sat their camels astride as a horseman ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a large, shadowy room, through which the single candle shed such a faint, uncertain light that at first Capitola could see nothing but black masses looming ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... turn and retrace his steps came to him, but some unknown force restrained him. He remembered suddenly the current that had more than once drawn him out of his course when bathing in those waters, and the owner of the red cap was alone. He stood, uncertain, on the top of ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... along the edge of the water, or are even seen swimming or wading into it, the patient hunter is pretty sure of getting a shot. Should he fail to bring down Bruin at the first fire, the game becomes uncertain; and sometimes dangerous: since the animal often charges upon the hunter. Even though the latter may be concealed among the long reeds and bushes, the sagacious bear, guided by the smoke and blaze of the ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... circumstances in the behavior of the pope and the legate, kept the court of England in suspense, and determined the king to wait with patience the issue of such uncertain councils. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... venerable old man, seated on a throne of clouds, his breast the theatre of various passions, analogous to those of humanity, his will changeable and uncertain as that of an ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... (tome iii., lib. 97): 'This treaty met censure on both sides, the ministers in Lisbon themselves alleging that it was a false policy to sacrifice the Colonia del Sacramento, the clandestine commerce of which amounted to two millions of dollars a year . . . for possessions whose advantages were uncertain and position remote. The outcries were even stronger in Madrid. There they imagined that the Portuguese would soon rule all along the Uruguay . . . and from thence penetrate up the rivers into Tucuman, Chile, and Potosi.' *4* ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... being in good odour with the Neapolitan authorities, on account of some supposed republican tendencies of his, is at Naples under an assumed name; and, as it is uncertain how long he may be able to preserve his incognito, he is desirous of seeing all that is to be seen in as short a time as possible. He finds that Naples, independently of its suburbs, consists of three streets where every body goes, and five hundred streets where nobody goes. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... out for the country; however, I was at last favoured with a letter, importing that he had made some remarks on my tragedy, which he would freely impart at meeting, and advised me to put it, without loss of time, into the hands of that manager, who had the best company; as he himself was quite uncertain whether or not he should be engaged that winter. I was a good deal alarmed at this last part of his letter, and advised about it with a friend, who told me, it was a plain indication of Mr. Marmozet's ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... to a condition in which the patient experiences severe pain in the region of the coccyx on sitting or walking, and during defecation. The pathology is uncertain. In some cases there is a definite history of injury, such as a kick or blow, causing fracture of the coccyx, or dislocation of the sacro-coccygeal joint. These lesions have also been produced during labour. In other cases the pain appears to be neuralgic in character, ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... for a mid-day visit to Red Roof. Already the huge camp of Slavs and Italians was beginning to jerk up the borrowed rails and ties; the work trains were rumbling and snorting in the meadows above Blitherwood, tottering about on the uncertain road-bed. He gave a few concise and imperative orders to obsequious superintendents and foremen, who subsequently repeated them with even greater freedom to the perspiring foreigners, and left the scene of confusion without so much as a glance behind. Wagons, carts, motortrucks and all manner of ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... white panes in place of that stained glass of gorgeous hue, which led the wondering gaze of our fathers to roam uncertain 'twixt the rose-window of the great door and the ogives of the chancel? And what would a precentor of the sixteenth century say if he could see the fine coat of yellow wash with which our Vandal archbishops have smeared their cathedral? He ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... do not talk quite so glibly of pushes as we did. Neither, for that matter, does Brother Boche. He has just completed six weeks' pushing at Verdun, and is beginning to be a little uncertain as to which direction the pushing is ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... shivering from head to foot, and even by the uncertain light I could see her eyes were swimming with tears. For a moment all her courage, all her high spirit, seemed to have ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... Though in some respects he came nearest to Shakespeare of any of his contemporaries, almost nothing has come down to us of the life of W. Even the dates of his birth and death are uncertain. He appears to have been the s. of a London tailor, to have been a freeman of the Merchant Taylor's Company, and clerk of the parish of St. Andrews, Holborn. Four plays are known to be his, The White Devil, or the Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona (1612), Appius and Virginia ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... speculate no more, to give her no hopes that might prove groundless. The future was uncertain: the patient might have convulsions, paralysis, locomotor ataxia, mere imbecility with normal physical functions, or intermittent insanity. It was highly unprofessional to speculate in this loose fashion about the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... subsequent events in Rosecrans's career strengthened the impression I formed at the time, that the excitability of his temperament was such that an unexpected occurrence might upset his judgment so that it would be uncertain how he would act,—whether it would rouse him to a heroism of which he was quite capable, or make him for the time unfit for real leadership by suspending his self-command. [Footnote: See Crittenden's ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the consistent fidelity and patriotism of the English race, as compared with the uncertain and erratic methods of the German people, their mistrust, and suspicion.... In spite of numerous wars, bloodshed, and disaster, England always emerges smoothly and easily from her military crises and settles down ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... came down to breakfast, Ellenor wore a pretty gown of dark red stuff. She explained, carelessly, that indeed she would not make herself a fright before all the countryside; and if the gown was spoilt, well, it couldn't be helped. Her parents said nothing, for Ellenor's temper was more uncertain than ever, and they dreaded an outbreak; but Mrs. Cartier had ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... these outward things, God's blessing, and peace with them, and heaven too if ye choose this kingdom before all things, and above all things. But if ye give these other things the pre-eminence, it is uncertain if ye will get what ye seek, and ye shall certainly be eternal losers beside. If there were no more but this kingdom alone, it might weigh all down. If heaven and earth were laid in a balance, would not heaven, if it were ponderous according to its magnitude, weigh down the earth exceedingly out ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... in his veins, and with all that promise of a successful career before him he was restless and unhappy. He could not forget the camp fire in the mountains and the whispering of the pine trees and the life of the woods. I don't know if you understand—" and the Artist hesitated, turning upon me an uncertain, questioning glance. ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... general attainability and an absence of hopefulness. He mixes up in an arbitrary way such ingredients as "not expecting more from life than it is capable of bestowing," "mental cultivation," "improved laws," etc., and in fact leaves the whole conception vague, blurred, and uncertain. Aristotle draws the outline with a firmer hand and presents a more definite ideal. He allows for the influence on happiness of conditions only partly, if at all, within the control of man, but he clearly ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... up into the leafy branches of the sycamore beside him and watched a star slip slowly across an open space between the branches. Farther up the grove a hilarious group of young hikers sang snatches of songs to the uncertain accompaniment of a ukelele. A hundred feet away on his right, occasional cars went coasting past on the down grade, coming in off the desert, or climbed more slowly with motors working, on their way up from the valley below. The shifting brilliance from their headlights flicked the grove ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... you're careful—where's my gold-lined shower bath then? Don't you see that you must put the market back—frighten the backers off and then step in? That's what I was trying to teach you all the time. Give out on the loud trumpet that the horse has gone dickey and leave 'em uncertain for a week whether he's running or sticking. Your money's on through a third party in the 'tween times and your cheeks are as red as roses ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... appeared with a child at her breast and another by her side: she was hut-keeper. She had been there two years, and only complained that they had never been able to get any potatoes to plant. She and her husband were about to leave the place next day, and they seemed uncertain as to where they should go. Two miles further on, a shoemaker came to the door of a hut, and accompanied me to set me on the right road. I inquired how he found work in these wild parts. He said, he could get plenty of work, but very little ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell |
