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Vacancy   Listen
noun
Vacancy  n.  (pl. vacancies)  
1.
The quality or state of being vacant; emptiness; hence, freedom from employment; intermission; leisure; idleness; listlessness. "All dispositions to idleness or vacancy, even before they are habits, are dangerous."
2.
That which is vacant. Specifically:
(a)
Empty space; vacuity; vacuum. "How is't with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy?"
(b)
An open or unoccupied space between bodies or things; an interruption of continuity; chasm; gap; as, a vacancy between buildings; a vacancy between sentences or thoughts.
(c)
Unemployed time; interval of leisure; time of intermission; vacation. "Time lost partly in too oft idle vacancies given both to schools and universities." "No interim, not a minute's vacancy." "Those little vacancies from toil are sweet."
(d)
A place or post unfilled; an unoccupied office; as, a vacancy in the senate, in a school, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vacancy" Quotes from Famous Books



... and he afterwards confessed that, had he been offered at that time a salary to translate the Talmud from the original Hebrew, he would unhesitatingly have accepted, despite some natural misgivings, and have tried to throw as much variety into it as he could for the money. It was to fill a vacancy, caused by the absence of Dan De Quille, the regular reporter, on a visit to "the States," that Clemens was offered this position; but he retained it after De Quille returned. "Mark and I had our hands full," relates De Quille, ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson

... other clerk, whose time was to expire the following year, which was to make a vacancy for me) was a very different man from Moses Benson. He was respectably connected, and looked down on "the Jew-boy," but he was hot-tempered, and rather slow-witted, and I think Moses could manage him; and I think ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... me: One of those women was a fraud, the other not a fraud, but only an innocent, well-meaning, driveling vacancy. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... dawning for Mary Rice. A little later, longing for an education, Dr. Neale, their good minister, encouraged and assisted her to go to the Charlestown Female Seminary. Before the term closed one of the teachers died, and the bright, earnest pupil was asked to fill the vacancy. She accepted, reciting out of school to fit herself for her classes, earning enough by her teaching to pay her way, and taking the four years' course in two years. Before she was twenty she taught two years on a Virginia plantation as a governess, ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... said nothing, but contented himself by withering the company with a look. Rising rage and extreme bewilderment had swelled the noble breast of Mr. Pickwick, almost to the bursting of his waistcoat, during the delivery of the above defiance. He stood transfixed to the spot, gazing on vacancy. The closing of the door recalled him to himself. He rushed forward with fury in his looks, and fire in his eye. His hand was upon the lock of the door; in another instant it would have been on the throat of Doctor Payne of the 43rd, had not Mr. Snodgrass seized his revered leader by the coat ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... by appointment, Mr. Osmond introduced his friend Dr. Wycherley: bland and bald with a fine bead, and a face naturally intelligent, but crossed every now and then by gleams of vacancy; a man of large reading, and of tact to make it subserve his interests. A voluminous writer on certain medical subjects, he had so saturated himself with circumlocution, that it distilled from his very tongue: ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... sure you're not well, or else you're not half awake.' Cynthia sate with her arms encircling her knees, and looking at vacancy. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... pitiable characteristic about Sredni-Kolymsk is perhaps the morbid influence of the place and its surroundings on the mental powers. The first thing noticeable amongst those who had passed some years here was the utter vacancy of mind, even of men who in Europe had shone in the various professions. Amongst them was a well-known Polish author,[41] who, upon his arrival here, only three years ago, set to work upon an historical novel to lighten the ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... what already existed,— That which Nature has built, after her she, too, can build. Over Nature can reason build, but in vacancy only: But thou, genius, alone, nature ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... showing a pale countenance bedewed with tears, and totally devoid of any expression which he could connect with a consciousness of his presence. For a moment she stared vacantly at him, while he, with almost equal vacancy, regarded her. Then a thrill of surprise shook him. A sudden light of knowledge leaped up in ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens

... youthful sovereign around whom all classes of the nation rallied with the utmost enthusiasm. Murat's position became a very difficult one; but he supplied what was wanting in his instructions by the craft of a man bent upon creating a vacancy in his own favour. He sent his aide-de-camp, Monthieu, to visit the dethroned sovereign, and obtained a protest from King Charles IV., declaring his abdication to have been extorted from him by force, and consequently to be null and void. This document Murat kept secret; but he carefully abstained ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... as a midshipman, Tucker passed the requisite examination for promotion, but he had to wait for his turn to fill a vacancy, and, consequently, was not promoted to the rank of lieutenant until the 20th of December, 1837. As a lieutenant, he made a good deck officer and a very excellent executive or first-lieutenant. In the latter capacity ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle

... Ch'uean, "comes up at an opportune moment; for there is just at present a good vacancy. Of the three hundred officers who at present constitute the Imperial Body Guard, there are two wanting. Yesterday marquis Hsiang Yang's third brother came to appeal to me with one thousand five hundred taels of ready money, which he brought over to my house. You know the friendship ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... man continued to gaze before him into vacancy, as if he had not heard. In the confused hallucination that was due to his fatigue he developed a kind of delirium, a supersensitive nervous excitation that embraced all he had suffered in mind and body since the beginning of the campaign. The spectacle of his friend's wretched state, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... others over their subject towns. Michel Angelo's forehead repeats itself in the dome of St. Peter's. Sir Christopher had doubtless a less ample frontal development; indeed, the towers he added to Westminster Abbey would almost lead us to doubt if he had not a vacancy somewhere in his brain. But the dome of the London "State-House" is very graceful,—so light that it looks as if Its lineage had been crossed by a spire. Wait until we have gilded the dome of our Boston St. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... Establishment. Several of those who left the Orphan House, we had the joy of sending out as believers. These 23 vacancies, thus occasioned, left on May 26, 1856, only 299 Orphans under our care. This one vacancy, however, was the very next Friday filled up. The total number of Orphans, who have been under our care since April 1836, ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller

... seemed to have and hold In the vacancy 'Twixt the walls and me From the hair-plait's chestnut-gold To the foot in ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... very question. I'm on the School Board, as it happens, and I'm thinkin'—between you an' me—to send in my resignation, which will create a vacancy." ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... him feebly, and departed in a state of partial stupefaction, brought on by a glimpse of the instabilities of life. He had also, not relief, but a sense of vacancy and loss; for Milla, out of his reach, once ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... quitted it are to hold themselves in readiness to assist any ship that may be disabled, or hard pressed, or to take her station, if she is obliged to go out of the line: in which case, the strongest ship that is withdrawn from the line is strictly enjoined to supply her place, and fill up the vacancy. ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett

... time is out. The offices are hereditary in one or (according to others) two royal families, who enjoy high consideration, have revenues assigned to them, and are exempt from the necessity of tilling the ground. But naturally the dignity is not coveted, and when a vacancy occurs, all eligible men (they must be strong and have children) flee and hide themselves. Another account, admitting the reluctance of the hereditary candidates to accept the crown, does not countenance the report of their hermit-like seclusion in the seven towers. For it represents the people ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... when I see it. He'd better not play any tricks, for if he did resign, it would be accepted at once." Phineas, when he heard this, could not help thinking how glorious it would be if Mr. Bonteen were to resign, and if the place so vacated, or some vacancy so occasioned, were to ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... in to save you the next. They are not too careful of their skins, but the animal inside has to be fed and amused. If he stopped making faces and stuffing for one moment, he might die of boredom and disgust at his own vacancy; but he is too clever for that, he will not stop to think until he dies—splendidly, on his feet, ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain

... certify from the register of the State or Territory in which the vacancy exists the names of the three eligibles thereon having the highest averages, resident in the counties of said State or Territory through or on the borders of which the section of the road passes on which the person to be appointed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... by being the villain of the piece and ended by being my good fairy," she said. "I should never have known there was a vacancy here but for you. I should not have been admitted by the proper Miss Millit but for the terror ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... afterward in the cutting-out of the Indiaman, that our first luff had at once received his promotion and been appointed to the command of the prize—renamed the Sparta. This of course created a vacancy on board the Europa, which was filled by Mr Howard, who became our new first luff, while Mr Galway also stepped up a ratline and became second. The vacancy created by the promotion of Mr Galway was not filled, but we had no doubt that it would ultimately fall to O'Brien, our senior ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... the pyramidal trees, with a few exceptions, to remain always disfigured, after the loss of an important branch, having no power to fill the vacant space by a new growth. Other trees readily fill up a vacancy occasioned by the loss of a branch, and may suffer considerable mutilation without losing their beauty, because an invariable proportion is not necessary to render them pleasing objects of sight. On account of the symmetry of their forms, the pyramidal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... downright oppressive: it must be like this to be dead, thought Laura to herself; and inconsequently remembered a quarter of an hour she had once spent in a dentist's ante-room: there as here the same soundless vacancy, the same anguished expectancy. Now, as then, her heart began to thump so furiously that she was afraid the others would hear it. But they, too, were subdued; though Cousin Grace tittered continually you heard only ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... closed upon him, Lady Maulevrier stood, with clenched hands and frowning brow, staring into vacancy. Her right arm was outstretched, as if she would have waved the intruder away. Suddenly, a strange numbness crept over that uplifted arm, and it fell to her side. From her shoulder down to her foot, that proud form grew cold and feelingless ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... he concluded his explanations by saying, "but I ought to know these little niceties, having served a short part of a term as a county clerk, to fill a vacancy occasioned by ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... captain had not been three weeks in Chapelizod, when more than the general suspected that he was in nowise improved. So General Chattesworth did not often see or talk with him; and when he did, was rather reserved and lofty with him. His appointment on the staff was in abeyance—in fact, the vacancy on which it was expectant had not definitely occurred—and all things were at sixes and sevens with poor ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... the beauty of the morning,— The cuckoo crying over the untouched dew; The blackbird that has found it, and the dove That tempts me on to something sweeter than love; White clouds ranged even and fair as new-mown hay; The heat, the stir, the sublime vacancy Of sky and meadow and forest and my own heart:— The glory invites me, yet it leaves me scorning All I can ever do, all I can be, Beside the lovely of motion, shape, and hue, The happiness I fancy fit to dwell In beauty's presence. Shall I ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas

... and bade her father good-night. She kissed him and looked at him anxiously and with a little bewilderment. He had seated himself, and was smoking with an abstracted air, his eyes fixed on vacancy. ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... There was immediately a vacancy on the Bench; Collier was appointed to the judgeship, and in three days had acquired all the experience that the Act of Parliament anticipated as necessary for the higher ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... Everard Romfrey may have laughed at Nevil Beauchamp with his 'banana-wreath,' he liked the fellow for having volunteered for that African coast-service, and the news of his promotion by his admiral to the post of commander through a death vacancy, had given him an exalted satisfaction, for as he could always point to the cause of failures, he strongly appreciated success. The circumstance had offered an occasion for the new commander to hit him hard upon a matter of fact. Beauchamp had sent ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... he presented himself to the office manager of a life-insurance company that had advertised such a vacancy. A very kindly ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... perspiration stood on Barthelemy's brow, his eyes stared fixedly into vacancy, his fingers clenched the paper convulsively; then, starting up, he flung the Creole aside and dealt the table such a blow with his clenched fist that the pirates, to a man, instantly became silent and stared at ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... And in that case (M'Bongwele being without sons, and having, in order to avoid possible future complications, carefully slaughtered all his brothers and other relations on his accession to the throne) there would be a vacancy in that particular country for a king, which vacancy Seketulo believed himself powerful ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... younger groveled at his knees, and kissed his feet, hailing him as the child of the Sun: but the most part kept a stolid indifference, and when freed from their fetters, sat quietly down where they stood, staring into vacancy. The iron had entered too deeply into their soul. They seemed ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... de Malesherbes, and Monsieur de Lamoignon, the Garde des Sceaux, are his near relations. Probably something will be done for him, and without delay. The promise of the former administration to the Count de Moutier, to succeed to this vacancy, should it take place, will perhaps be performed by the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... declared a heart very far removed from hope or joyful expectation. Is that tearful eye—is that pallid cheek—that lip, now so tremulously convulsed—are these proper to one going to a bridal, and that her own? Where is her anticipated joy? It is not in that despairing vacancy of face—not in that feeble, faltering, almost fainting footstep—not, certainly, in any thing that we behold about the maiden, unless we seek it in the rich and flaming jewels with which she is decorated and almost laden ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various

... the vertical pilasters caused by the attachment of the iron-work that carried the bar. Further, just below the broad band, a piece of wood of a different quality has been inserted into the pilasters, evidently to fill up a vacancy caused by the removal of some part of the original structure, probably ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... parliament. He had offered the seat to Ernest, when the latter had commenced his public career; but the result of a communication proved that their political views were dissimilar, and the negotiation dropped without ill-feeling on either side. Subsequently a vacancy occurred; and Lady Julia's brother (just made a Lord of the Treasury) wished to come into parliament, so the county town was offered to him. Now, the proud commoner had married into the family ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... those lands belonging to a monastic bishop or an abbot, which should be considered particularly to form the barony, and those which should be assigned to the support of the monastic body. Such a division was made in time, but where it had not been made before the occurrence of a vacancy, it was more than likely that the monks were placed on very short commons, and the right of the king to the revenues interpreted in the most ample sense. The charter of Henry I shows that in the case of lay fiefs the rights of the king, logically involved in the feudal system, had ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... on for many Moons, keeping his Eye on that Roll-Top Desk, for the Manager was getting into the Has-Been Division and he knew there would be a Vacancy. ...
— People You Know • George Ade

... years old) was sound asleep in his mother's arms. Her eyes were fixed on vacancy and her mind interiorly calculating something. I wondered not that James snored audibly on the sofa. Susie never took her eyes off her father, but sat as one that watches to see how a task is done. My wife ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott

... movement of the covering over his chest. Madame Leon and Mademoiselle Marguerite were his only attendants. The housekeeper, who sat back a little in the shade, was half reclining in an arm-chair with her hands clasped in her lap, her lips firmly compressed, and her eyes fixed upon vacancy. Pale but calm, and more imposing and more beautiful than ever, Mademoiselle Marguerite was kneeling beside the bed, eagerly watching for some sign of renewed life and ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... a terror in the joy. The wide vacancy of the air dazed them,—a glance downward made their brains reel. But when a great wind filled their wings, and Icarus felt himself sustained, like a halcyon-bird in the hollow of a wave, like a child uplifted by his mother, ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... There was a vacancy at that time, A. D. 250. in the episcopate of Rome and the clergy administered the affairs of ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... story gazing into vacancy, so that David thought it was really happening somewhere up the Broad Walk, and when she came to its great moments her little bosom heaved. Never shall I forget the concentrated scorn with which the prince said to the sisters, "Neither of you ain't ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... say, 'Yes, oh yes!' and 'Ha, ha, oh, certainly! very true!' to everything I say, when half the time those are entirely irrelevant answers?" I blushed, and explained that I had been a little absent-minded. At the end of another half-hour she said, "Please, why do you grin so steadfastly at vacancy, and yet look so sad?" I explained that I always did that when I was reflecting. An hour passed, and then she turned and contemplated me with her earnest eyes and said, "Why do you cry all the time?" I explained that very funny comedies always ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Darwin,"—a pamphlet replete with deep philosophical sentiment, and which so attracted the notice of his friends that they used every effort, though unsuccessfully, to secure him the chair of rhetoric in the University during the vacancy which soon afterwards occurred. His professional views were originally directed to the bar, but disgusted with the law after a twelve-month's trial, he entered on a medical course, to qualify himself as physician, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... loved to waste time—but in his own way. He gloated on the irresponsible vacancy of those evening hours, when there was nothing to be done. He lay very still, hardly even thinking, just feeling life go by. Through the open window came the lights and noises of the street. Already his domestic life seemed dim and far away. The shrill appeals of the puppies, ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... the province of San Nicolas de Tolentino in return for those in Mindanao which they were to surrender to the Jesuit missionaries. In that order it was decided that in every certified instance of a vacancy in Mindanao, and its surrender to and occupation by the Jesuit fathers, indemnification therefor was to be made to the Recollect fathers, in Cavite and the diocese of Manila, with the curacy which might be vacant at that time, even if it were in charge ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... idle morning, with letters, however. Had the great pleasure of a letter from Lord Dudley[83] acquainting me that he had received his Majesty's commands to put down the name of my son Charles for the first vacancy that should occur in the Foreign Office, and at the same time to acquaint me with his gracious intentions, which were signified in language the most gratifying to me. This makes me really feel light and happy, and most grateful to the kind and gracious sovereign who has always shown, I may say, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... next day, until time for his call upon Agnes, Paul spends in nervous, troubled conjecture, but can find no solution of this elusive problem. The strain is terrible and his look is alert. He avoids all acquaintances and gives startled looks into vacancy, as if fearing invisible attack. With quick, furtive glances, his right hand grasping concealed dagger, Paul scans strange faces, but there is suggestion of helplessness in facial shades, as if consciously battling against unseen, ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... understood that there will be no immediate vacancy for Sheffield, and that both Mr Ward and Mr Parker will retain ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... What added to the effect of this remarkable speech was its dramatic termination. Just as he had entered upon his peroration he grew deathly pale, his eyes closed, his outstretched hands clutched at vacancy, he reeled forward, and fell insensible. His friends rushed to his support, and his wife, who was in the gallery, screamed with terror. His physician positively prohibited his speaking again, and in subsequent years, when the Democratic ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil which is stirring in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and young people who were buried there, one might, if one were to die, desire the sleep they seem to sleep. Such is the human mind, and so it peoples with its wishes vacancy and oblivion.'—See also ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... was invited to breakfast, and was astonished and delighted with the luxuries lavished on the colonial seaman. He had fresh beef, fresh bread, good biscuit, tea, coffee, and vegetables, and three pounds a month wages. There was a vacancy on the schooner for an able seaman, and Jack filled it. He then registered a solemn oath that he would "never go back to England ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... of this group—a woman between fifty and sixty years of age—lay back on a large wooden chair, her eyes fixed on vacancy. Her dress was of simple dark stuff, very full upon the sleeves and below the waist, and relieved by a small white standing collar; a dark coif, of the fashion of the period, covered the grizzled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... of the future, and his friends were numerous and powerful, both in the electing body and among the non-official mass of prominent persons who make up the aggregate of public opinion. It had long been known that John Harrington would be brought forward at the next vacancy, which, in the ordinary course of things, would have occurred in about a year's time, at the expiration of the senior senator's term of office, but which had now been suddenly caused by the death of his colleague. John was therefore aware that his success must depend almost immediately ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford

... length, no more his deafened ear The minstrel melody can hear; His face grows sharp—his hands are clenched, As if some pang his heart-strings wrenched; Set are his teeth, his fading eye 600 Is sternly fixed on vacancy; Thus, motionless, and moanless, drew His parting breath, stout Roderick Dhu! Old Allan-bane looked on aghast, While grim and still his spirit passed; 605 But when he saw that life was fled, He poured ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... central engine. After drifting through the fourth standard he was sent every other day to a workshop to fit him for after life. Looney joined a squad of little gardeners which shuffled about the walks, two deep, with spades shouldered like rifles. Alfred was sent to the shoemaker's, as there was a vacancy there. He did such work as he was afraid not to do, and all went well as ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... my lord; and for three months before, No interim, not a minute's vacancy, Both day and night ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]

... "There is no vacancy at present," he replied at length. "Besides, when there is one, which is not often, we usually have the names of several applicants who are only waiting to be engaged by us. We have always plenty to choose from, and of course select the one that offers the greatest advantages—experience, for ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... wait and then have dinner. We live these few hours. And we see ourselves alone in the house, facing each other, as never we saw ourselves, and we do not know what to do! It is a real drama of vacancy which is breaking loose. We are living together; our movements are in harmony, they touch and mingle. But all of it is empty. We do not long for each other, we can no longer expect each other, we have no dreams, we are not happy. It is ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... punishments. The souls of most of the dead, however, were supposed to descend to the realms of Ha'des, where they remained, joyless phantoms, the mere shadows of their former selves, destitute of mental vigor, and, like the spectres of the North American Indians, pursuing, with dreamlike vacancy, the empty images of their past occupations and enjoyments. So cheerless is the twilight of the nether world that the ghost of Achilles informs Ulysses that it would rather live the meanest hireling on earth than be doomed ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... who had been company clerk, was promoted to the position of sergeant-major of the regiment, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John P. Shaw, who had been promoted to lieutenant in the 2d Rhode Island Regiment, and Augustus French was ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke

... in presuming to trespass (amidst your multifarious vocations) on your valuable time, yet placing implicit reliance on your noble nature and magnanimity of heart, I venture to do so, and ardently trust you will pardon me. Learning that a vacancy of a sepoy has occurred under your kind auspices, I beg most respectfully to tender my services for the same, and crave your permission to invite your benign attention to the episodes of my chequered life, though of a doleful and sombre nature, and CONCATENATION of melancholy events that ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... to the water's edge, he hesitated for a moment. The roaring surf was so full of heads, legs, arms, back-hair, hats and feet, that he feared there was no room for him. However, he espied a vacancy, and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various

... or ten minutes before Thyrsis noted what was going on. He was lost in his sombre brooding, his eyes fixed upon vacancy; when suddenly he heard Corydon exclaim: "Isn't he a little love!" He ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... 1791. The early part of this letter relates to certain blank commissions signed and left with Mr. Lear to be filled up under the direction and advice of the Secretary of the Treasury. He next adverts to a vacancy in one of the United States judgeships—that of the district of Pennsylvania—by the death of the late incumbent. Some have applied, he says, for the appointment, and others will. In reference to this and other ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush

... soon; and I hope I am the only confidant of your discontent. Your friends have not yet had leisure to gratify personal kindness; they have hitherto been busy in strengthening their ministerial interest[777]. If a vacancy happens in Scotland, give them early intelligence; and as you can serve Government as powerfully as any of your probable competitors, you may make in some sort a ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... one. This is a sufficient testimony that I have abilities to serve any court. My greatest wish is to be appointed by your Royal Highness, who is himself such a great &c., &c." "But, my good young friend, I regret that there is not a single vacancy. If there were only a vacancy!" "I can assure your Royal Highness that I would do credit to Munich." "Yes, but what does that avail when there is no vacancy?" This he said as he was moving on; so I bowed and took ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... the error of all errors to suppose that, because a child has a sickly frame or imperfect animal organization, it is just or profitable to give it over to its own devices, and consign it to indolence and ignorance. Alas! the vacancy that begets fretfulness, and crude, capricious desires, the confusion of images that arises from partial understanding, are far more wearing to the nerves of an intelligent infant than the small labor the brain undertakes, if any, indeed, be needed, in mastering ideas properly presented, and suitable ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... interested in the psychological idiosyncrasies of the Gusty family. "The Opp Eagle" was crying for food, and Nick would have sacrificed himself and his chief to fill the vacancy. ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice

... about the Power Trust vacancy at Pulaski. True, my first impulse was that I couldn't and wouldn't accept; also, I told myself it was absurd to imagine they would consider me. Still, I wished to hear, and his failure to return ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... might have drawn the stars out of the sky. And a strange tumult was in Mary's bosom. She stood looking blankly round her, like one who is blind with open eyes, and saw nothing; and strained her ears like a deaf man, but heard nothing. All was silence, vacancy, an empty world about her. She sat down at her little table, with a heavy sigh. "The child can see her, but she will not come to ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... useless," said Leader with a hearty crow as he related the story to me. "The friend who had promised to create a vacancy for me in his office ordered his chief clerk to lock the safe and send for the police when he heard of my antecedents. He invited me to dinner, but candidly told me that a rifle was more in my ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea

... Nothin' much. Your father-in-law, or step-father, or whatever you call him, concluded to cut and run las' week. I s'pose he calkilated that your gittin' out might leave a vacancy fer him. Thought he might hev to turn in and do the rest of the ten years' job that's owin' to Uncle Sam on that land-warrant, eh? I guess you won't find no money left. 'Twixt him and the creditors and the lawyers and the jedges, they ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... Arisakas, a long German infantry rifle of the first World War, a Greek Mannlicher, a Mexican Mauser, a British short model Lee-Enfield. All had fixed bayonets; between the Lee-Enfield and one of the Arisakas there was a vacancy. ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... Virgin. You know how my intention was frustrated that night, Mademoiselle. I still cherished the hope of being more successful another time. Soon after this Cardillac seemed suddenly to lose all his good-humour. He went about with a cloudy brow, fixed his eyes on vacancy in front of him, murmured unintelligible words, and gesticulated with his hands, as if warding off something hostile from him; his mind appeared to be tormented by evil thoughts. Thus he behaved during the course of one whole morning. Finally he sat down to his work-table; ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... said the admiral, cordially greeting Pearce when he appeared at the Penn to report himself. "You've done so well in the sloop that we must get you into a smart frigate; you'll not have to wait long for a vacancy, I dare say." This commendation was sufficient to restore Pearce's spirits. He hoped to do something before the corvette had to return home. There are two classes of people who hope to do something—one ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... reliable—"being what it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be." Mr. Boyesen tells of meeting a venerable clergyman, whose longevity, according to his introducer, was due to the fact that "he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity." One of the daily bulletins of the captain of the large excursion steamer on which I visited Alaska read as follows: "The Lord only knows when it will clear; and he won't tell." And none of the two hundred passengers seemed to find anything ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... herself into fresh briskness with the sense of her need, that to-day was the end. She sighed, jerked her chin up, set her small face into the shape of resolute cheerfulness and started forth again in the direction of the second vacancy ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... perceived Lady Dunstable's prospective daughter-in-law standing in the middle of the studio, head thrown back and hands outstretched, invoking the Cyprian. The shriek of the first lines had died away in a stage whisper; the reciter was glaring fiercely into vacancy. ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward

... impediments around me increase; till, presently, I came to one that was ruder than the rest. I crawled upon it, sustained by my knees and right hand, and stretching forward with my left. I groped, but felt nothing. I cautiously laid my belly to the ground and stretched out my other arm. Still it was vacancy. I stretched a little more violently; feeling forward, and on each side; and I seemed to be projected upon a point, my head and shoulders inclining over a dark abyss, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... once more; he spoke the language of Lieutenant Cottin; he spared nothing—nobody. Hulot d'Ervy found the old lion, his hair shaggy like a mane, standing by the fireplace, his brows knit, his back against the mantel-shelf, and his eyes apparently fixed on vacancy. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... have only one book even of this sort, at which they are kept until they learn it through by heart, and they have been heard to "read" it with the book bottom side up or shut! All these books cultivate inattention and intellectual vacancy. They are—the best of them—only reading exercises; and reading is not perceived to have any sort of value. The child is not taught to think, and not a step is taken in informing him of his relation to the world about him. ...
— Widger's Quotations of Charles D. Warner • David Widger

... At vacancy with Nature, Acceptive and at ease, Distilling the present hour, Whatever, wherever it is, And over the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... "Venus de Medici," now supposed to have been the work of one of the sons of Praxiteles, and its wonderful symmetry gives it a radiance like that of the sun behind a summer cloud; but Powers cooled down his enthusiasm by objecting to the position of the ears, the vacancy of the face, the misrepresentation of the inner surface of the lips, and by condemning particularly the structure of the eyes, which he declared were such as no human being could see with. [Footnote: Italian Note-book, June 13, 1858.] Hawthorne was somewhat puzzled ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... Motley's official residence in England have been amply fulfilled, and that the announcement of his unexpected and unexplained recall was received with extreme astonishment and unfeigned regret. The vacancy he leaves cannot possibly be filled by a minister more sensitive to the honor of his government, more attentive to the interests of his country, and more capable of uniting the most vigorous performance of ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... consulted the two bishops of Coutances and Lisieux; he did not consult the senior bishop of Normandy, the Bishop of Avranches, Messire Jean de Saint-Avit, whom the chapter of the cathedral had charged with the duty of ordination throughout the diocese during the vacancy of the see of Rouen. But Messire Jean de Saint-Avit was considered and rightly considered to favour King Charles.[2169] On the other hand those English doctors and masters, residing at Rouen, who had been consulted in Segueut's trial, were not consulted in that ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... touch-hole drilled in it; as certainly as it was found, so certainly was I hoisted. In that fever of patriotism, I, of all the school, though denied powder and shot, was the only one that bled for my country. However, I at length had the supreme felicity of blowing powder in the face of vacancy, in high defiance of Buonaparte and his assembled legions on the coast of Boulogne. Thus I had military ardour added to my other ardencies. Moreover, I had learned to swim in the New River, and, altogether, began ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... by husband or wife or in common entitles each to a vote. At the first election 68 per cent. of all the enfranchised women in the country, and 70 per cent. in Copenhagen, voted. Seven were elected to the city council of 42 members and one was afterward appointed to fill a vacancy, and 127 were elected in other places. Women serve on all committees and are chairmen of important ones; two are city treasurers. There are two Suffrage Associations whose combined membership makes the organization of that country in proportion to population the largest of the kind in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... who became President on the 15th of April, and Mr. Foster, one of the Connecticut Senators, who is President of the Senate. There was no Speaker of the House of Representatives; so that one of the officers designated temporarily to act as President, on the occurrence of a vacancy, had no existence at the time of Mr. Lincoln's death, has none at this time, and can have none until Congress shall have met, and the House of Representatives have chosen its presiding officer. It does not appear that any attempt was made on the life ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... unforeseen vacancy at Willard's School had given him his place as instructor in Greek ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour

... the speaker's face for some moments. Gradually the agonized appeal in his wild eyes died away into vacancy; an expression, half cunning, half amused, stole over his face; and, leaning gently back, he began pulling threads out of ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... on vacancy, began to play the air over softly, when from further down the trench came a murmur of applause, that rose to a storm of hand-clappings and shouts of 'Bravo!' ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... the counter of the advertisement office as I entered, settling some calculation of greenbacks with the cashier, and "guessed," ere I had opened my mouth to explain my presence, that I had come about that "vacancy up-stairs." ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... the grey night In chaos of vacancy shone; Nought but vast sorrow was there— The sweet ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... across her brow, and stared long at vacancy. "He must be saved!" she said. Then, after a pause, in a tone of firm determination, "Yes, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... worse than it is now. It is quite the same to me what happens. I do not belong here; my only son has been killed and my house is burnt. Nothing is left me but my hatred of the Germans, and I bequeath that to France.' And she gazed past me into vacancy. She spoke quite without ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... determine as to each, causing whatever should be decreed to be immediately executed; with this proviso, that they should, at the same time, depute some honest man in the place of him who was condemned, to the end there might be no vacancy in the Senate. They had no sooner heard the name of one senator but a great cry of universal dislike was raised up against him. "I see," says Pacuvius, "that we must put him out; he is a wicked fellow; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... young Ben Franklin, on arriving in New York City from Boston, looked for a job in a printing office, the youthful modern inventor applied for work in a telegraph office there. As there was no vacancy and he needed the rest of his borrowed dollar for meals, Edison found lodging in the battery room of ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

... Secret de la Reine." The melodramatic character of this latter work seems to have been imitated from the highly accented and artificial style of Verdi, instead of possessing the bright and airy charm natural to Thomas. The vacancy left by Spontini's death in the French Institute was filled by the election of M. Thomas, who was deemed most worthy, among all the musical names offered, of taking the place of the author of "La Vestale." He justified the taste of his co-members by his production ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... so characteristic of his whole life. He joined, as a private, Captain Gadberry's Company, from Union, and left for Charleston on January 12, 1861, the company forming a part of Colonel Maxey Gregg's First Six Months' Volunteers, and remained with the command until their term of service expired. A vacancy occurring, Colonel Gregg appointed ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... to you, Mademoiselle Larochejaquelin. I appreciate your generosity, but really I have no vacancy for ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... me that I come too late upon the field, every one being pledged, which, seeing it is yet too early for any one to come upon the field, I must regard as a polite evasion. Yet all advise me to stand, as it might serve me against the next vacancy. So stand I shall, unless things are changed. As it is, with my health this summer class is a great attraction; it is perhaps the only hope I may have of a permanent income. I had supposed the needs of the chair might be met by choosing every year some period ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... into a single troop, did good service. One of their two officers was killed; and as the party last up from Allahabad were all full of Bathurst's rescue of Miss Hannay from Cawnpore, and Wilson and the Doctor influenced the others, he was chosen to fill the vacancy. ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... night. This morning one of them was found in a dying condition from an arrow in his stomach. A humane shot had relieved the poor beast, and his mate trailed up to the herd, tied behind the wagon with a rope. There were several odd oxen among the cattle and the vacancy was easily filled. If I am lacking in compassion for my red brother, the lack has been heightened by his fiendish atrocities to dumb animals. I have been witness to the ruin of several wagon trains captured by Indians, have seen their ashes and irons, and even charred human remains, ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams

... it"), and Ray told him to wait a few days and the horse to suit him would be there, and he could take his own time in paying for him, too. (He did, by the way.) And when May came, and with it orders for a summer camp, Ray's old troop took the field without him. Another vacancy had occurred, and Rallston sent three baskets of champagne from Omaha that all might drink the health of the new captain, whose troop was down the road at Sidney. Verily, Fortune was smiling on the gallant fellow on whom she had seemed to frown. Even the course ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... of the military profession; knew that life is very serious, that speech without cause is much to be avoided. They travelled swiftly, dined in airy places: they are a FACT, they and their summer dust-cloud there, whirling through the vacancy of that dim Time; and have an interest for us, though an ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... well as hygienic grounds. One Illinois miner answered: "The life of a prostitute is short, and her place must be filled when she dies, and, being the father of two girls, I would not want mine to fill a vacancy, and I think all parents think the same." A Colorado carpenter replied: "The woman engaged in such business may not be my wife, mother, sister, or daughter, but she is somebody's wife, mother, sister, or daughter. It is a violation ...
— Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) • Committee Of The Board Of Health

... a slumber so deep that it annihilates time. It is like a fragment of eternity. Beneath its enchantment of vacancy, a day seems like a thousand years, and a thousand years might well pass as ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke

... bridge is as much thronged, and has as brisk a trade as any street in the city; and the perpetual passage of coaches and carriages makes it troublesome walking on it, there being no posts to keep off carriages as in other streets. The middle vacancy was left for a drawbridge, which used formerly to be drawn up when shipping passed that way; but no vessels come above the bridge at this day but such as can strike their masts, and pass under the arches. Four of the arches on the north side of the bridge are now taken ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales

... you did because you had found her feeling so, and then suddenly, in regard to some other matter—which was yet quite the same—she'd be utterly wanting. Mrs. Nettlepoint proceeded to observe—to such idle speculations does the vacancy of sea-hours give encouragement—that she wondered whether it were better to be an ordinary girl very well brought up or an extraordinary girl not brought up ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James

... wit, in the fields, and as explorers, colonisers, backwoodsmen? They are happy in rough exercise, and also in complete repose. The intermediate condition, when they are called upon to talk to one another, upon other than affairs of business or their hobbies, reveals them wearing a curious look of vacancy, as it were the socket of an eye wanting. The Comic is perpetually springing up in social life, and, it oppresses ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... department of government. A Judiciary Act was therefore passed, creating new courts, new judges, and new salaried officials. All the resulting appointments were made by Adams, and duly confirmed by the Senate, thus anticipating by many years any real needs of the country. A vacancy occurring in the chief-justiceship, Adams appointed John Marshall, one of the few Virginia Federalists; he had made his reputation as a politician and statesman: even Adams himself scarcely foresaw that he was to be the greatest ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart

... embrasure of the narrow window; the heat and brightness of the summer sun came full upon his head, the hair upon which was full and rich as ever, parted in the centre, and falling in waving curls quite to his shoulders; his eyes were fixed on vacancy, but their expression was as if communing with some secret spirit, enlivening thus his darkness; he seemed not old nor young, for the lines upon his face could not be considered wrinkles—tokens were they of ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... was announced, greatly to the satisfaction of all concerned, that the vacancy caused by Gray's promotion was to be filled by an officer of experience. Major Russell A. Alger of the Second Michigan cavalry, who had seen much service in the southwest, was made lieutenant colonel. Major ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd

... twelve other prominent members of the Irish administration lost places and pensions to the value of 20,000 pounds a year, for their over-zeal for the Prince of Wales. At the same time, Mr. Fitzgibbon was appointed Lord Chancellor, a vacancy having opportunely occurred, by the death of Lord Lifford, in the very midst of the prescriptive crisis. This elevation transferred him to the Upper House, where, for the remaining years of the Parliament, he continued to dogmatize and ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... Again came the moment of confusion, of the awful vacancy that was like death, and then he found himself and Eve in the laboratory, following Adam and Athalia down a long corridor. Athalia was crying and pleading frantically with Adam. Once she stopped and threw herself at his feet in a gesture of dramatic supplication, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various

... the child, but said nothing. Sorrow was now the element of her soul. Cornelius had destroyed the family heart; the family must soon be broken up, and vanish in devouring vacancy! Do you ask where was her faith? I answer, Just where yours and mine is when we give thanks trusting in the things for which we give thanks; when we rest in what we have, in what we can do, in what people think of us, in the thought of the friends we have at our back, or in anything ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... without idleness; it would save from two excesses in a time of reaction, from the exceeding weariness of having nothing to do, the real misery of an idle life, and on the other hand from craving for excitement and constant change through fear of this unoccupied vacancy. ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... man of seventeen, and in three years from now I'll be lost anyway, hopelessly lost. I foresee that positively. And oh! what does it matter? It's only I, after all!" Scornfully shrugging my shoulders, I ran about the room. My father lifted both hands to his forehead and stared into vacancy with a look full of gloom, long-nurtured wrath and desperation. I still remember that look and wonder that I was not more painfully struck by it at the time. After a while he got up, sighed, and with the words, "We shall see!" he walked out ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... purity and enlightenment, depth and completeness; in being wrapped in thought while surrounded by vacancy and stillness. Merit such as this cannot be ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... announced also the death of the Duke of Chandos, who held the office of Lord Steward, with an intimation that it was probable the new Lord Steward would be the Duke of Dorset. Upon receipt of this information, Lord Buckingham wrote to Mr. Grenville, expressing his desire to be appointed to the vacancy, and urging also his claims upon promotion in the peerage. He felt strongly upon this point. The personal obloquy and factious resistance he had encountered and triumphed over in his Government, appeared to him to demand some distinct and special mark of His Majesty's favour and approbation; ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... Cinderella's face. She stood gazing into vacancy a moment, her eyes shining. An instant later she dashed from the room, to be present at the wedding ceremony. Already, in the distance, the strains of the Lohengrin march could ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge

... [June, 1786.-A vacancy at this time occurred in the royal household, from the resignation of Madame Haggerdorn, one of the queen's German attendants who, together with Madame Schwellenberg, held the office of keeper of the robes. The place was much ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... of him I walked with. Not of my own father, but of an even older man in a strath beyond the water hearing a rap at his chamber door to-night and a voice of horror tell him he had no more a son. A fool, a braggart, a liar the less, but still he must leave a vacancy at the hearth! My glance could not keep off the shoulder of him as he walked cockily beside me, a healthy brown upon his neck, and I shivered to think of this hour as the end of him, and of his clay in a little stretched upon ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... sounded as they used to do. He would sing snatches of songs or old melodies, pictures of the past would rise before him, and then disappear in the mist, as it were, but as a general rule he sat staring into vacancy, without a thought. We may conjecture that he did not suffer, but his dark eyes lost their brightness, and looked ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... the senior captain, was in the chair; as for the lieutenant—colonel's vacancy, that was too high an aspiration for any man in the regiment. A stranger of rank, and interest, and money, would of course get that step, for the two deaths in the regimental staff made but one captain a major, as ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... reduced by diet. Such are the orders of the okugata. Han can do nothing; and would do nothing if she could. What a fool! Cannot one please his lordship, all night and every night, without promise of an heir to the House? Condescend the vacancy and leave such matter to this Han...." Perhaps she felt that she had said too much. Abruptly she turned and left ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... was about to say the virtues, but rather the existence of a former Rutherford of Hermiston; and Archie, under that trophy of his long descent and local greatness, leaned back in the pew and contemplated vacancy with the shadow of a smile between playful and sad, that became him strangely. Dandie's sister, sitting by the side of Clem in her new Glasgow finery, chose that moment to observe the young laird. Aware of the stir of his entrance, the little ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of Pompey, and exhorted him to support the cause of good order in the Commonwealth, he could not for shame but yield to it, and so for the present Domitius and Messala were elected consuls. But shortly afterwards, when there was another anarchy, or vacancy in the government, and the talk of a dictator was much louder and more general than before, those of Cato's party, fearing lest they should be forced to appoint Pompey, thought it policy to keep him from that arbitrary and tyrannical power, by ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... While at Shelbyville, a vacancy occurring in Captain Ledbetter's company, the Rutherford Rifles, for fourth corporal, Dave Sublett became a candidate for the position. Now, Dave was a genius. He was a noble and brave fellow, and at one time had been a railroad director. He had a distinguished air always about him, ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... prepared as yet to back Labour unreservedly. I can express myself brightly and briefly on any topical subject. Herewith I send specimen articles (length three hundred words) on "Poker Bridge," "Are we having Wetter Washdays?" and "The Woggle-Wiggle Dance." Should there be no vacancy on your staff I should be prepared to accept one on any other of your publications—The Weekly Dispatch, The Times ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various

... who had, by pleasure stuffing, Raked mind and body down to nothing, In wretched vacancy reclined, Enfeebled ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... Lydgate's ultimate decisions; and the general management was to be lodged exclusively in the hands of five directors associated with Mr. Bulstrode, who were to have votes in the ratio of their contributions, the Board itself filling up any vacancy in its numbers, and no mob of small contributors being admitted to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... little room on the ground-floor. Even Hannah was not with her, for Hannah was now occupied upstairs. When the doctor entered the room, which he did unannounced, he found her seated on a chair, with her back against one of the presses, her hands clasped together over her knees, gazing into vacancy. She did not ever hear him or see him as he approached, and his hand had slightly touched her shoulder before she knew that she was not alone. Then, she looked up at him with a face so full of sorrow, so worn with suffering, that his own heart ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... assented. Peter let go, and in the same instant slipped to the side. The man wheeled round and flung out an arm but gripped vacancy. ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... thinking I might have committed errors, I again looked them over for the purpose of seeing whether or not I could find those which ought to fill up the void. This experiment did not succeed. I perceived the vacancy to be real, and that the letters had certainly been taken away. By whom and for what purpose? This was what I could not comprehend. These letters, written prior to my great quarrels, and at the time of my first enthusiasm in the ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... of the council-chamber, the warriors smiling grimly in their wigwams at this evidence of the universal feminine failing. A dim and fitful glare from the fire served to reveal the form of the luckless Indian youth seated upon a log, his eye fixed upon vacancy. For a moment curiosity kept the whole party silent, and then, education and habit exerting their influence, the group began to put in practice those arts which might be expected to awaken in the prisoner an exhibition of ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... a supposition that the soul is not satisfied with what it has—to cause the soul to range and hunt through the world for something that may fill up that vacancy that yet the soul finds in itself, and would have supplied. Hence desires are said to be wandering, and the soul said to walk by them; 'Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire,' or than the walking of the soul (Eccl ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... their rigour were observed, nor durst I free myself from my irons, till I had for some weeks remarked those parts on which he invariably fixed his attention. I then cut through the link, and closed up the vacancy with bread. My hands I could always draw out, especially after illness had consumed the flesh off my bones. Half a year had elapsed before I had recovered sufficient strength to undertake, anew, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... letters which used to come so regularly every Tuesday, and he had a half-hour every Sunday which was at first rather painfully vacant since he no longer wrote to her. But in this vacancy he had at least no longer the pang of self-reproach which her letters always brought him, and he was not obliged to put himself to the shame of concealment in writing to her. He had never minded that tacit lying on his own account, but he hated it in relation ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... obeyed, and the ship berthed; and the three adventurers gathered aft beside the house and waited, with galloping pulses and a perfect vacancy of mind, the coming of the stranger who might mean so much to them. They had no plan, no story prepared; there was no time to make one; they were caught red-handed and must stand their chance. Yet this anxiety was chequered with hope. The island being ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson



Words linked to "Vacancy" :   space, vacuum, emptiness, void, vacant



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