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Vaguely   Listen
adverb
Vaguely  adv.  In a vague manner. "What he vaguely hinted at, but dared not speak."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vaguely" Quotes from Famous Books



... the commingling corresponds to the Tohu wa Bohu of the Book of Genesis, but for the Babylonian theologians, this embrace of Apsu and Tiamat becomes a symbol of 'sexual' union.[697] As the outcome of this union, the gods are produced. This dependence of the gods upon Apsu and Tiamat is but vaguely indicated. Another theory appears to have existed according to which the gods were contemporaneous with primaeval chaos. The vagueness may therefore be the result of a compromise between conflicting schools of thought. However this may be, the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... Jocquelet, who more and more proves his cleverness at "making-up." However, at first the actor was not satisfied with his part. He fondles the not well defined dream of all actors, he wishes, like all the others, the "leading part." They do not exactly know what they mean by it, but in their dreams is vaguely visible a wonderful Almanzor, who makes his first entrance in an open barouche drawn by four horses harnessed a la Daumont, and descends from it dressed in tight-fitting gray clothes, tasselled boots, and decorations. This ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... mother was dead and that his father was the Baptist minister of Muirtown—a denomination whose adherents were few and whose practices were vaguely associated with the mill lade—and for two years before he appeared at school Nestie and his father were quite familiar to the boys. Nestie began his education at a ladies' school, not far from the Seminary, where he was much petted by the big girls, and ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... picture, however vaguely and uncertainly, the growth of a ballad. It is well known that the folklores of the various races of the world exhibit common features, and that the beliefs, superstitions, tales, even conventionalities of expression, of one race, are found to present constant and remarkable ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... more or less vaguely that the brain acts in some way during study, exact knowledge of the nature of this action is not general. As you will be greatly assisted in understanding mental processes by such knowledge, we shall briefly examine the brain and its connections. ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... significance in that, but neither could she summon energy to say so. She wondered vaguely why ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... Parks was nodding vaguely. Clayton looked up at the clock above the bar and realized that they had been talking for better than an hour. Parks was buying ...
— The Man Who Hated Mars • Gordon Randall Garrett

... water, they were attacked by the natives and several of their number were slain. From this point they sailed out into the broad Atlantic again, and reached a place supposed to be Greenland, but which is so vaguely described that the identification is very difficult.[279] Our narrative here ends somewhat confusedly. We are told that Sinclair remained in this place, "and explored the whole of the country with great diligence, as well as the coasts ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... say that I do, Tom. But, as you say, there was something vaguely familiar about him. It seemed as if I must have seen him before, ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton

... seized him a little while after his son had ridden off the rancho early that morning. Yet he relied once more on his iron constitution, and absolutely refused to die until he had laid upon his next of kin what he thoroughly believed to be a stern duty. Deep down in heart, it is true, he was vaguely conscious of a feeling of dread lest his cherished revenge should meet with opposition; but he refused to harbour the thought, believing, not unnaturally, that, after having imposed his will upon others for ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... there," continued Sheard, as the company gazed vaguely from the window, "has its burden of hopelessness and misery. Ranks of homeless wretches form up in the arch yonder, awaiting the arrival of the Salvation Army officials. Where, in the whole world, can misery in bulk be found thus side by side ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... hint vaguely at some sad story: "Susan, the beloved sister;" no precise data of the death—no surname! And then those two deprecating sentences, which seemed to plead for ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... came on. Then Jamie thought of getting his ticket. He remembered vaguely that the railroad behind him ran southward; and he rose, and walked along the track to the depot. There he asked if they ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... that the Old Testament praised immorality, as well as enunciated error; and found nevertheless in the writers of the New Testament no indication that they were aware of either; but that, on the contrary, "the Scripture" (as the book was vaguely called) is habitually identified with the infallible "word of God;"—was it wrong in me to suspect that the writers of the New Testament were themselves ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... are every day assured, is essential to the permanence of the Union, Mr. Bell has no opinion at all, Mr. Douglas says it is of no consequence which opinion prevails, and Mr. Breckinridge tells us vaguely that "all sections have an equal right in the common Territories." The parties which support these candidates, however, all agree in affirming that the election of its special favorite is the one thing that can give back peace to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... had been sent to town to learn there how to move in society. This word had given his heart a pang; he scarcely knew what it meant, but he vaguely felt that she was farther and farther removed ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann

... human form, held down thought to earth. The "Moses" of Michelangelo beheld God, heard that voice of thunder, and bears the terrible impress of what he saw and heard on Mount Sinai: his profound eye is scrutinizing the mysteries he vaguely sees in his prophetic dreams. Is it the Moses of the Bible? I cannot say. Is it in this way Praxiteles and Phidias would have represented Lycurgus and Solon? We may deny it boldly. The legislators in their hands would have been the embodiment of law; they would have represented an ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... moment did the tractor lurch drunkenly across our bows; and three times did Pong fall back discomfited. The dust, the reek, the vibration, the pandemonium, were combining to create an atmosphere worthy of a place in the Litany. One's senses were cuffed and buffeted almost to a standstill. I remember vaguely that Daphne was clinging to my arm, wailing that "it was no good." I know I was shouting. Berry was howling ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... his hand, flitting up before him towards that grim slit in the wall through which the dim half-light of the summer night vaguely entered. Her light figure became visible to him as she reached it. There came to him a swift memory of the butterfly-beauty that had so astounded him ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... Vaguely she knew that this night was different from the others. The two previous nights she had been ill and half-unconscious: her very helplessness appealed to Bill's chivalry. To-night she stood on her own feet. Matters were down to a normal basis again, ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... their heads in the whirl and roar and general distraction. Drays and baggage-vans were clattering hither and thither in a wild hurry, every now and then getting blocked and jammed together, and then, during ten seconds, one could not see them for the profanity, except vaguely and dimly. Every windlass connected with every forehatch from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other, was keeping up a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freight into the hold, and the half-naked crews of perspiring negroes that worked them were roaring such songs as 'De las' ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... said vaguely, "if I can't work at the City I suppose I may as well go out before it's dark and take a look at the pond. It's going to freeze hard to-night, and maybe there'll be black ice that'll ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford

... English in the West of Ireland were but a handful in the midst of a sullen, half-conquered population. The ashes of the Desmond rebellion were still smoking, and Dr. Sanders and his Legatine Commission were fresh in immediate memory. The defeat of the Armada in the Channel could only have been vaguely heard of. All that English officers could have accurately known must have been that an enormous expedition had been sent to England by Philip to restore the Pope; and Spaniards, they found, were landing in thousands in the midst of them with arms and money; distressed ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... thought, to maintain this pleasant custom, because the members' travelling expenses were paid by the State just the same; hence the economical could "draw their mileage" at the Treasurer's office, and add it to their salaries. He heard—only vaguely understanding—many joking references to other ways of ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... happens, the two islands will be necessarily forced to co-operate for the common good. Well, let us take it that things will so fall out, and let us suppose an Anglicised Ireland called upon to face such a situation. It would be a revolutionary Ireland, a restless Ireland, an Ireland seeking vaguely for revenge on someone, deprived of really national character, and, in a general way, suspecting England of responsibility for the disappearance from our country of everything that constitutes the idea of nationality. And let us remark that we are ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... of it. There were hints and innuendoes, too well veiled, but no names mentioned. The specific act of graft was not brought to the surface. It was as if the writer had a "spread" of some vaguely uncertain rumor, and yet there was not doubt that Colonel Guthrie and Mayor Stitz and the fire-extinguishers were meant. The attorney could see that, and he had an idea that the writer had meant to tell more than he really did tell. The veiled allusions were so thoroughly ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler

... abruptly deserted Johnny Thompson's service, leaving only a vaguely worded note to tell of his going, he had, indeed, a plan and a purpose. So daring was this purpose that had he taken time to think it through to its end, he might never have attempted it. But Pant thought only of beginnings of enterprises, ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell

... the same or different and, if different, without regard to the quality of the difference, from which an opposing set of inferences can be drawn by the trier of fact 'not unreasonably.' * * * But * * * [the Court] does not define 'not unreasonably.' It vaguely suggests a supervisory function, to be exercised when the denial [of credit] strikes its sensibilities as wrong, by some not stated standard. * * * There will be no 'weighing' [of evidence], * * * only examination for sufficiency."—(325 U.S. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... at my mail yet," said Harcourt, drawing an unopened letter from his pocket. He slit the envelope and sat down in the vacated arm-chair. It was from his sister at school in Eastbourne, and enclosed another written in a vaguely familiar hand. Boy like he ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... repressed. For months, her maid Fanchette had dressed her, and she had worn obediently all the long crape gowns and veils dictated by the etiquette of French mourning. But to-day she had chosen for herself; and in this more ordinary garb, she was vaguely—sometimes remorsefully—conscious of relief ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Jimmie did not know it in his dungeon. All he knew was that Sergeant Perkins returned, and stood looking at him, picking his teeth with a quill. This little Bolshevik had stood the water-cure longer than any man whom Perkins had ever known, and he wondered vaguely what sort of damned fool he was, what he thought he was ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... to have one mother who was wandering round vaguely with her small son and to whom he shyly proffered assistance, show such appreciation of his courtesy and end by appealing to him to keep always a friendly eye on her little forlorn Walter. As it turned out, Irving never afterwards ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier

... with the royal forces as auxiliaries in case of resistance. She wished for 30,000 men. That is the significant fact that justifies the postmaster of St. Menehould and the patriots of Varennes. The expedition to Montmedy was a first step towards civil war and foreign invasion. That is what these men vaguely understood when they stopped ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... before they could get into their door, and Little Mok surprised his mother and Old Mok by an outburst of laughter at the tale. He had a glimmering of humor, and saw the droll side of the adventure, a view which had not occurred to Lightfoot, nor to Ab. The little lad, of the world, yet not in it, saw vaguely the surprises, lights and shades and contrasts of existence, and sometimes they made him laugh. The laugh of the cave man was not a common event, and when it came was likely to be sober and sardonic, at least it was so when not simply an evidence of rude health and high animal spirits. Humor ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... Mr. Blackadder and Mr. Welsh, were held near Dumfries on the Saturday, but at these the place of meeting on the Sabbath was only vaguely announced as "a hillside in Irongray," so anxious were they to escape being disturbed by their enemies, and the secret was kept so well that when the Sabbath arrived a congregation of above three ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... and nothing. Jim's presence, his concerned voice and sympathetic eyes, only vaguely added to her distress. She was frightened now, terrified at the recurring paroxysms of pain; she recoiled from the breezy matter-of-factness of the doctor and the nurse; the elaborate preparations for the crisis offended every delicate instinct of her nature. She felt that the ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... most ardent enjoyment. What was it which I was then so anxious to find in them? The date of a pious foundation—the name of some monkish imagier or copyist— the price of a loaf, of an ox, or of a field—some judicial or administrative enactment—all that, and yet something more, a Something vaguely mysterious and sublime which excited my enthusiasm. But for sixty years I have been searching in vain for that Something. Better men than I—the masters, the truly great, the Fauriels, the Thierrys, who found so many things—died ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... where the snow was more imperfectly dissolved than elsewhere little crackling spots, where a thin surface of ice, over the real mass, crumples beneath one's foot; the track of a line of footsteps, most of them vaguely formed, but some quite perfectly, where a person passed across the lake while its surface was in a state of slush, but which are now as hard as adamant, and remind one of the traces discovered by geologists in rocks that hardened thousands of ages ago. It seems as if ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... slave-holder had refused to protect his cousin from a cruel beating by her overseer. The spectacle he had witnessed, when this beautiful young slave was whipped, had made a lasting and painful impression upon him. Vaguely he began to recognize the outlines of the institution which at once permitted, and to a certain degree made necessary, these cruelties. It was at this point that he began to speculate on the origin and nature of slavery. Meanwhile he became, in the course of his life on ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... At first I was not much alarmed. Colden, it is true, was not a faultless or steadfast character. No gross or enormous vices were ascribed to him. His habits, as far as appearances enabled one to judge, were temperate and chaste. He was contemplative and bookish, and was vaguely described as being ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... Burre, of the sign of the Crane in St. Paul's Churchyard. Burre published several works for Ben Jonson; and out of that circumstance has been constructed the statement that Jonson superintended the publication of the History for Ralegh. The form was that of a massive folio, at a price vaguely put by Alexander Ross at 'twenty or thirty shillings.' The edition was struck off in two issues, the errata of the first being corrected in the second. None of the extant copies of either issue possess a title-page, or contain any mention of the writer's name. The explanation may be the ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... gave me my bearing. But there was no shock; I took the whole revelation in a kind of stoical way. One of the greatest benefits I derived from reading the book was that I could afterwards talk frankly with my mother on all the questions which had been vaguely troubling my mind. As a result, she was entirely freed from reserve, and often herself brought up the subject, talking of things directly touching her life and mine and of things which had come down to her through the "old folks." What ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... look like a college president, and Baker, unknowingly, held this vaguely against him, too. He looked more like a prosperous small business man and gave the impression of having just finished a brisk workout on the handball court, and a cold shower. He was ruddy and robust ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones

... mentions himself the great menhir near Poitiers, which he christened by the name of Passelourdin. That there is something in the theory is possible. Perrault found the subjects of his stories in the tales told by mothers and nurses. He fixed them finally by writing them down. Floating about vaguely as they were, he seized them, worked them up, gave them shape, and yet of scarcely any of them is there to be found before his time a single trace. So we must resign ourselves to know just as little of what Gargantua and Pantagruel ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... disobeyed their elders and went swimming, or berrying, or told even the teeniest kind of fibs. He overheard his grandfather and the neighbours discussing a battle on Lake Erie, and rejoiced with them over the report of a great victory for "our side." Vaguely he had grasped the news of a horrible battle on the Tippecanoe River, far away in the wilderness to the north and west, in which millions of Indians were slain, and he wondered how many of them his father had killed with ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... as John Watson worked, there was a wish in his honest heart, so earnest a wish that it formed a prayer, that he might be able to give his children many of the things that had been denied him; and it came to him, vaguely at first, but growing ever clearer that in Pearlie, Teddy and the rest of them, and his desire to do better for them, than he had done for himself, he ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... the one hand, Mr Heinzen obliterates all distinctions, in addressing himself vaguely to the 'humanity' of Germans, so that he is obliged to include even the princes in his admonitions, on the other hand, he finds himself obliged to set up at least one distinction among Germans, for without a distinction there can be no antagonism, ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... give way to the clamour of the populace against these people. As to those of whom you speak, and others, I have no opinions; but were I Caesar, strong in the support of the Praetorian guards, and in the affection of the people at large, I would simply despise plotters. The people may vaguely admire the doctrines of the Stoics, but they themselves love pleasure and amusements and spectacles, and live upon your bounty and generosity. There can then be nothing to fear from open force. Should there be conspirators who would attempt to compass their ends by assassination, you ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... carelessly towards the fort. The very boldness of the act made it successful. The convict on guard no doubt thought the figure one of his companions, needlessly exposing himself to a bullet from the hut, and only wondered vaguely at his taking needless risks and perhaps speculated dully as to what was the nature of the large object ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... we feel when we long for mercy to our own: "Putney is a very able man; one of the ablest lawyers in the State, and very honest. He could be almost anything if he would let liquor alone. I don't wish to judge him. He may have"—Northwick sighed again, and ended vaguely—"his reasons." ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... the circle of that later Victorian influence which was very vaguely called AEsthetic. Like all human things, but especially Victorian things, it was not only complex but confused. Things in it that were at one on the emotional side were flatly at war on the intellectual. In the section of the ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... his own early recollections was that of sitting on his father's knees in the library, and listening with enthralled attention to the Tale of Troy, with marvellous illustrations among the glowing coals in the fireplace; with, below all, the vaguely heard accompaniment—from the neighbouring room where Mrs. Browning sat "in her chief happiness, her hour of darkness and solitude and music"—of a wild Gaelic lament, with its insistent falling cadences. A story concerning his poetic precocity has been circulated, but is not worth repeating. ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp

... roads which they were to follow being at their furthest point no more than seven miles apart. And yet at dawn on the 29th he was absolutely ignorant of the whereabouts of McDowell's army corps; he was but vaguely informed of what had happened during the day; and while part of his army was at Bald Hill, another part was at Centreville, seven miles north-east, and a third at Manassas and at Bristoe, from seven to twelve miles ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... from the Canal Street station to Marcus Flachs's place of business, he wondered vaguely if there were such a thing as double plate, and when at last he opened the door of the pawnbroker's sales store in question he approached the counter with his mind ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass

... Louis he got off the train, thinking vaguely that he would see an attorney and make arrangements about the will, and for several days stayed about the Planters Hotel with a set of drinking companions he had picked up. One afternoon he began ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... his deception, could not only speak vaguely of their meeting again soon. The thought of parting from Sybil ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... pen. We have for some time known that he was assiduously engaged in collecting materials, and preparing from them a history of the famous Conquest of Mexico; an event which, although of a very splendid and romantic character, was still but vaguely known, even in accomplished and well-informed literary circles. The facts relating to it were nowhere recorded in an authentic and connected form; for it has not been until within the last fifty years that the attention of historians and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... to his father, his thin legs wide apart, holding in both his hands the satchel he had been permitted to carry. He looked about him continually, rolling his big eyes vaguely, watching now the repair-gang, now a huge white cat dozing on an ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris

... vaguely SUSPECT that between the glacial and the present temperature there was a period of SLIGHTLY greater warmth. According to my modification-doctrines, I look at many of the species of North America which CLOSELY represent ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... there stood erect, where but a moment before they had seethed, a little figure, grotesque; a weirdly humorous, a vaguely terrifying foot-high shape, squared and angled and pointed and ANIMATE—as though a child should build from nursery blocks a fantastic shape which abruptly is filled ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... slowly. Yet he was vaguely reminded of someone he knew. Glancing up, he found instantly the clew to what had puzzled him. The young man in the picture was like Kate Cullison, like her father too ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... halted again. This time she saw a horse and rider down in the green. Her heart leaped. It must be Jim returning. After all, then, he had only threatened. She felt relieved and glad, yet vaguely sorry. She had ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... vaguely that there was no depending upon these two men and the woman. They did not know how to do anything, and as the days went by it became apparent that they could not learn. They were slack in all things, without order or discipline. ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London

... took a grim pleasure in the responsibility he had created. "I don't take any hand in this yer game," had been his invariable but good-humored reply to all questions. The Judge—who was also his captor—for a moment vaguely regretted that he had not shot him "on sight," that morning, but presently dismissed this human weakness as unworthy of the judicial mind. Nevertheless, when there was a tap at the door, and it was said that Tennessee's ...
— Tennessee's Partner • Bret Harte

... wonderful contrivances for certain purposes in nature, and fail to recognize that they were the effect and the expression of mind. Darwin looked at the Duke very hard, and said, "Well, that often comes over me with overwhelming force; but at other times"—here he shook his head vaguely—"it ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... the belief that the existence of the world is a mystery which ever presses for interpretation, though it can never be entirely explained. And in the progress of religion from crude fetichism to the developed theology of our time, the truth, at first but vaguely perceived, that there is an omnipresent Inscrutable which manifests itself in all phenomena, ever comes ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... less beautiful,—if Envy's self could have found aught else to sneer at,—he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her heart; but, seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... puppets or the opponents of their bishops, Irish Protestants, who were irritated at the desertion of the Irish Church, a number of well-meaning people who were attracted by the opportunity of talking eloquently and vaguely about nothing in particular. This Academic scheme of Home Rule found an admirable exponent in Mr. Butt, an ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... since he had eaten. He was comfortable and drowsy. The minister and his family, who had been bustling around attending to the wants of their guests, began to grow dim in his weary eyes. Watson, who was sitting opposite to him, looked blurred, indistinct. He was vaguely conscious that the old gentleman was saying: "These are times that try our souls." Then the boy sank back in his chair, sound asleep. He began to dream. He was on the cowcatcher of an engine. Andrews was tearing along in front on a horse, beckoning to him to come on. The engine sped on faster ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... pancakes and fritters now. The thought that was uppermost in my mind was, that this man who seemed so cruel was my father! My father! Absently I said the word over and over again to myself. I had never thought much what a father would be. Vaguely, I had imagined him to be a sort of mother with a big voice, but in looking at this one who had fallen from heaven, I felt greatly worried and frightened. I had wanted to kiss him and he had pushed me away with his stick. Why? My mother had never pushed me away when ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot

... thunder and lightning, but it is a dirty night of fog—as wet as a crocodile's nest—and you hear the water dripping from the trees. The Duke, evidently, has had an answer to his "Now I lay me." The lighthouse, as before, shows vaguely through the mist. ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks

... day one of her most sacred possessions. She felt that she could not bear this probing. The very thought of it was horrible to her, and in connection with it the steady scrutiny of her husband's eyes became almost a thing abhorrent. Vaguely she knew, without realizing, that she cherished deep in that inmost shrine something which he must never see, something that it would be agony to show him, something that even now gnawed secretly at her quivering heart. She always shrank from his direct look, though she would not have him know ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... fence of Mondunbarra and Avondale crosses the plain, is seen a fair example of the mirage—that phenomenon so vaguely apprehended in regions outside its domain, and so little noticed where repetition has made it familiar. But there it is; no smoky-looking film on the plain, no shimmering distortion of objects in middle-distance, but, to all appearance, a fine sheet of silvery water, two hundred yards ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... (SPERM WHALE).—This whale, among the English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, and the Physeter whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe; the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... happened—I imagine from the Willises. I told him, with the highest satisfaction, the general effect produced upon my mind by the accident, that the king seemed so nearly, himself, that patience itself could have but little longer trial. He wanted to hear more particulars: I fancy the Willises had vaguely related some: "Did he not," he cried, "promise to do something for you?" I only laughed, and answered, "O yes! if you want any thing, apply to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... but he was soon hard at work on another which was based on the same idea, "The Symphony". Writing to his newly acquired friend, Mr. Peacock, March 24, 1875, he says: "About four days ago, a certain poem which I had vaguely ruminated for a week before took hold of me like a real James River ague, and I have been in a mortal shake with the same, day and night, ever since. I call it 'The Symphony': I personify each instrument in the orchestra, and make them discuss various deep social questions of the times, ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... as they talked behind the stove in the grocery; the brown-bearded, thin-lipped minister in the brick church; the shouting, pleading evangelists who came to visit the town in the winter; the gentle old grocer who talked vaguely of the spirit world,—all these voices were at the mind of the boy pleading, insisting, demanding, not that Christ's simple message that men love one another to the end, that they work together for the common good, be accepted, but that their own complex interpretation of his word ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... of life ascending Faintly, vaguely, meet the ear, Murmur of bells and voices blending With the rush of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... trifling height, were seen in wavy lines upon the horizon. Their profile, muffled by the heavy mist, was defined but vaguely. The monotony, however, was beginning ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... everything; my pride was excited in spite of myself, so much was I honored in belonging to you. Then the few persons of your household who at Paris had occasion to speak to me called me 'your highness,' I could not prevent myself from being proud of this title. If I thought then, at times, vaguely of the past, it was to say to myself, 'I, formerly so humble, the beloved daughter of a sovereign prince who is blessed and revered by every one; I, formerly so miserable, I am enjoying all the splendors of luxury, and of an almost royal existence.' Alas! my father, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... but Hillard did not like his handsome face any the more for this virtue. He sang remarkably well, however, and with a willingness Hillard had not believed he possessed. He wondered vaguely why he disliked the man. He had never met him before, and knew nothing at all about him. It was one of those inexplicable things which can not be answered. Otherwise Hillard enjoyed himself vastly. He found these people full of hope, ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... and peace came to his mind as he sat at the long, bare table which occupied the centre of the living-room of the hotel, munching the beef and damper the red-cheeked girl brought to him. Vaguely the idea came to him that the presence of such a girl at his homestead would be a decided improvement to the loneliness he had for the first time experienced on his return from his former visit to the township, ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... much clearer that we resolved to venture out. Our plan for the day was to go in the first place to Westminster Abbey; and to the National Gallery, if we should find time. . . . . The fog darkened again as we went down Regent Street, and the Duke of York's Column was but barely visible, looming vaguely before us; nor, from Pall Mall, was Nelson's Pillar much more distinct, though methought his statue stood aloft in a somewhat clearer atmosphere than ours. Passing Whitehall, however, we could scarcely see Inigo Jones's Banqueting-House, on the other side of the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... no guarantee for the understanding; and these instincts, powerful as they are, may be found often in minds wild and chaotic, which, although they vaguely foresee the future, yet have no power of sound judgment, and know not what they foresee, or how wisely to estimate it. Their wisdom, if we may so use the word, combines crudely with any form of superstition or ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... vaguely, like one who thought it best to mention no names, who would be afraid to ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... meanwhile—what agitations meanwhile! The foundations of Property and Propriety are laid bare, twin rocks; Family Pride flounders to the surface, puffing and blowing, and refusing to be comforted; Theology, vaguely ascetic, gets up a nasty ground swell. Then the lawyers are aroused—cold brood—and creep out of their holes. They do what they can; they tidy up Property and Propriety, reassure Theology and Family Pride. Half-guineas are poured on ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... acquisitions of the company should be claimed for the nation. With him it was a matter not merely of revenue but of government, and though his ideas are indistinctly indicated, and were perhaps vaguely formed, it is probable that he had in his mind some idea of making the government of India an imperial matter. Yet, sharing as he did the general belief as to the wealth of the company, he certainly attached much importance to the possibility of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... saying?" she cried vaguely in her distress, refusing to believe that there was none, which the corroborating action of ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... of his companions soon assured de Spain that both were asleep. The horses were quiet, and the night gave no sound save that vaguely through the darkness came the faint brawl of tiny cataracts tumbling down far mountain heights. De Spain, lying on his side, his head resting on his elbow, and his hands clasped at the back of his neck, meditated first on how he should capture Sassoon ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... It was held in honey-comb cells or cups formed in the rock, twenty or more in number, holding three to six gallons each, the whole together forming an irregular shelf along one side of the cavern. There were dark passages and mysterious inner chambers, vaguely reported to be half a mile in extent, but we had no time to make further explorations. Before the shower ceased we were ordered to move, and proceeded down the face of the hill to the selected halting ground on the Hagerstown pike, a little out of the village. Here the ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood

... vivacious girl in the transitionary sixteen-year-old stage, were in the drawing-room at Linden Gardens. It was the ordinary double drawing-room of a London house, but everything in it was beautiful and harmonious. The eye was vaguely rested by the delicate and subdued colour of walls and hangings; cabinets, antique Persian pottery, rare bits of china, all occupied the precise place in which their decorative value was most felt; a room, in short, ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... the sloping desk, referred vaguely to a wish that, as she hastened to add, could never in any circumstances be gratified. Urged by Gertie, on the other side, to put the desire into words, Madame took off spectacles which she wore only when the rest of the staff had gone, and said wistfully ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... the other day an old letter from Henley that told me of the circumstances in which he wrote that poem. 'I was a patient,' he writes, 'in the old infirmary of Edinburgh. I had heard vaguely of Lister, and went there as a sort of forlorn hope on the chance of saving my foot. The great surgeon received me, as he did and does everybody, with the greatest kindness, and for twenty months I lay in one or other ward of the old place under his care. It was a desperate business, but he ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie

... and wintry noon-light On its roofs and steeples shed, Shadows weaving with the sunlight From the gray sky overhead, Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... spoke thus, in a tone full of sympathizing sadness, and Sarah listened vaguely as to those harmonies which ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne

... to be increasing in good looks as more and more his pretensions became distasteful to her. The slight cast of sourness on his lower features had almost vanished, his nature seemed to have enlarged. He complimented her for her 'generous benevolence,' vaguely, yet with evident sincereness; he admitted, that the modern world is 'attempting difficulties with at least commendable intentions'; and that the position of women demands improvement, consideration ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Schoen recognized the justice of these considerations and vaguely stated that hope was always possible. When I asked him if we should give to the Austrian note the character of a simple mise en demeure, which permitted a discussion, or an ultimatum, he answered that ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... as vaguely as an Anglican bishop apprehends God. He was obscured altogether by shadows; he had only one known characteristic, that he was totally unlike Sir Isaac. And the play was false she felt in giving this speech to a broken woman. Such things are ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... chromo had fallen violently from its nail. But the nail remained—ready. He took her into the supper-room and got her a glass of champagne. She subsided on to a sofa beside another woman, vaguely suspecting trouble in the air. He felt thankful that Rachel had already gone. Dick, nearly the last, was putting on his coat, arranging to meet Lord Newhaven the following morning at his club. They had been in Australia together, ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... up was the wonderful and mysterious old house of Madame Jumel—Aaron Burr's Madame Jumel—set apart from all other houses by its associations with the fierce, vindictive passions of that strange old woman, whom, it seems to me, I can still vaguely remember, seated very stiff and upright in her great old family carriage. At the foot of the heights, on this side, the Harlem River flowed between its marshy margins to join Spuyten Duyvil Creek—the Harlem ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... by a kindly squire, Mr. Hicks-Beach, great-grandfather of the present Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. Mr. Hicks-Beach offered Sydney the post of tutor to his eldest son; Sydney accepted it, started for Germany with his pupil, but (as he picturesquely though rather vaguely expresses it) "put into Edinburgh under stress of war" and ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... intelligently, giving him many details, sufficiently interesting, although of no great value. To his desire for information relative to Chambers' advance from the south, and the number of his troops, I was obliged to guess rather vaguely, but finally got away with a vivid description of Miss Hardy's night ride, which caused even the girl herself to laugh, and chime in with a word or two. With the officers the meal was nearly completed when I joined them, and it was therefore not long until the general, noting the ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... clever girl, Lollie, and I'm going to make it worth your while to get close to that fellow. He's the one man in Scotland Yard that we want to put out of business. Not that we've anything to be afraid of," he added vaguely, ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... had escaped when Henry was a little boy; (his name was Benjamin Tucker). A still greater incentive, however, moved him, which was that his mother had been sold South five years prior to his escape, since which time he had heard of her but once, and that vaguely. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... things," confessed Hen vaguely. "I can't tell you all that crowd has, for I didn't see it and they wouldn't ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... personality. His energy and geniality, his keen sense of humor, his social and bouyant disposition, even his positive and opinionated temper, were sources of popular strength to him. People were strongly drawn to him. His friends were devoted to him. He had that quality, which we vaguely term magnetic, the quality of attaching others to us, and maintaining over them the ascendency of ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... a charming room, with pale grey walls and a pale green carpet, and very little in it except, let in as a panel, a delicate low-toned portrait of the mistress of the house, vaguely appearing through vaporous curtains, holding pale flowers, and painted with a rather mysterious effect by that talented young amateur, her cousin, Harry de Freyne. It had been his sole success in art, and had been exhibited at the Grafton Galleries under the name of The Gilded ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... vaguely through the principal streets, and then, baffled, made our way to the faubourg in which is situated the zoological garden, toward which a considerable portion of the inhabitants was going even as ourselves. At the entrance our carriage encountered that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... that Shelley did not need to enter furtively the house of his benefactor to injure him in his nearest tie, but that circumstances drew Shelley to Mary with equal force as her to him. The meetings by her mother's grave seemed to sanctify the love which should have been another's. They vaguely tried to justify themselves with crude principles. But self-deception could not endure much longer; and when Godwin forbade Shelley his house on July 8, Shelley, ever impetuous and headstrong, whose very virtues became for the time vices, thrust ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... entered I was startled: I thought she was dead. There seemed no life present until she opened her eyes, and even then they rested upon us vaguely, as though she did not know who we were. But as I approached a light came into them: she recognized me, and this sudden revivification, this return of the soul to the almost deserted bod, was the most wonderful ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... that the whole of attraction was summed up in it: that to nothing else did we move by nature, and to nothing else were we drawn but to Peace. I said that a completion and a fulfilment were vaguely demanded by a man even in very early youth, that in manhood the desire for them became a passion and in early middle age so overmastering and natural a necessity that all who turned aside from it and attempted to forget it were justly despised ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... features a reason for the horror which grew in him as he gazed, trying to build back into life again that thing which once had been a man. For there was something about it which seemed different from those Egyptians of whom he had read. Slowly the vaguely-familiar features filled out, until Simpkins saw—not the swarthy, low-browed face of an Egyptian king, but the ruddy, handsome face of an Englishman, and—at last he was sure, a face like that of a photograph in his pocket. And in that ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... hoped the change in your appearance would place you beyond danger of recognition, and so it would with any one who had not known you personally. Madame McVeigh has been vaguely impressed with your resemblance to Monsieur Dumaresque's picture. But the impression of Dr. Delaven would probably be less vague—his remembrance of you not having been entirely the memory ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... region which runs eastward from the point above mentioned in a general parallel direction to the south coast of Asia Minor; and the name was extended to the high lands of Armenia east of the Euphrates. Its eastern limit was very vaguely conceived, as we may collect from Strabo ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... one left anyhow," thought I as I entered the hall. Just then the gate creaked and I could vaguely distinguish in the deepening twilight the forms of mother Poupard and Julia hurrying ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard

... have been confronted with a difficulty because of this double objective. The role of the interpreter is not always welcome. If I write what is vaguely known as a "popular" book, wise men have warned me that any scientific intrusion, however lightly and dramatically rendered, will displease its natural audience. If I write the simplest of scientific books, ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... lightning speed over the world, and Jerry Bridges' eyewitness accounts of the incredible event was syndicated throughout the nation. But his sudden celebrity left him vaguely unsatisfied. ...
— The Delegate from Venus • Henry Slesar

... followed, while the little girl was slowly fighting her way back to a sure hold on life, there often came into her mind, vaguely at first and then more clearly, the promise that the cattleman had made her the night they thought she was dying. "Ye kin hev anything on th' whole ranch," had been his exact words; and in the intervals when, having gratified an appetite that was ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... uncertain. But from moment to moment his tones would call me back from visions, and I would vaguely hear that one was gone who had warned his fellows against the pitfalls of political jealousy, and bade all who loved their country band against those who would seek to pluck a laurel from the wreath of our ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the remotest semblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon and employed in vain attempts to realize that instrument, the theory of whose construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass containing these oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as "bull's eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining lenses of marvellous power. I even went so far as to extract the crystalline humor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... that important duty by Polly and all the boys in unison. There was a faint evasive trace of perfume about her, more like the freshness of morning or the delicacy of starlight than an actual essence, he vaguely thought with a groping return to his poetic inclination. He felt the warmth of her velvet cheek, even at its distance of a foot away, and there seemed to be a pulsing thrill in the very air which intervened. ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester

... he too was shouting, "Hurrah for the Union! Hurrah for the Union!" And the cheers of the multitude again rang in response to the old man's shout. We could but note the similarity and the disparity. One vaguely dreamed of those blessings which the other had fully realized, and for which he had struggled; and the same shout was lifted up by those two children—the one of four, and the other of fourscore—the one with the flaxen curls of childhood, and ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... the developing antagonism and prospective relationship of these two characters. In a company of ladies the grandmother, drawing the conversation to herself, remarked with a suggestive laugh that as there were no men present she would tell a certain story. "Grandmother," interposed Isabel, vaguely startled, "please do not say anything that you would not say before a man;" and for an instant, amid the hush, the child and the woman looked at each other like two repellent intelligences, accidentally meeting out of the heavens and ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... influences which agitated her father and drove him into precipitate action. Gabrielle, with the assistance of the maid, soon persuaded Mrs. Tescheron and prepared her for departure into that foreign land vaguely situated on the map of the earth, as she remembered it. With heavy sighs and gasps she told where things could be found and how Bridget, the cook, was to feed the parrot. She would take the parrot, but she did not know if the air of Hoboken agreed with birds. ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... if he does not expect to need it. When one has "packed a gun" for years, he feels uncomfortable without it; not because he thinks he has any use for it, but because it has become a part of his attire and its absence unconsciously frets him and sets him wondering vaguely if he has lost his suspenders or forgotten to ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... full of sympathy. Inwardly, too, she was relieved to find Anne's non-appearance so simply accounted for. She had been vaguely suspicious, down there in the garden—suspicious of what, she hardly knew; but there had seemed to be something a little louche in the way she had suddenly found herself alone with Ivor. Not that she minded, of course; far from it. But she didn't like the idea ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... are coming back to Norway some day, perhaps,—who can tell? It is one of the hundred places that we are vaguely planning to revisit. For, though we did not see the midnight sun there, we saw the honeymoon most distinctly. And it was bright enough to take pictures by ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... fortune by the death—date not mentioned—of a relative with whom his father had not for years had communication, and Cosmo never any. Lord Lick-my-loof, after repeated endeavours to get some information about this relative, was perplexed, and vaguely suspicious. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... With a sort of horrible pleasure, she recognized that this was Donald's half-brother, and looked for a family resemblance. She found a very strong one, in the eyes and general stature. Mercifully for her feelings, the shape of the head was hidden in the swathed capote and fur cap. She wondered vaguely if he knew of ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... not reply. The mirrors, the lights, the gleaming silver and glass had filled her with a delight too great for words. She was vaguely conscious of her husband, of Mr. Livingstone, and of a smooth-shaven little man in gray who was presented as "Mr. Harding." Then she found herself seated at that wonderful table, while beside her chair stood ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... with a sloping ceiling and narrow windows; there was nothing in the least unusual about it. Gyp and Jerry looked about them, vaguely disappointed. It might have been, with its litter of old furniture, chests of books, piles of magazines and papers, an attic room in any house. The October sunshine filtered in thin bars through the dust-stained ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... months before the composer's marriage. In one of his letters to his betrothed he writes, "Yesterday I composed all the forenoon and thought of you very often, for I was at work on a scene of Agatha, in which I still cannot attain all the fire, longing, and passion that vaguely float before me." And his son testifies that Weber's love influenced all his work at the time. "It was the reason," he says, "that Weber took to heart, above everything else, the part of Aennchen, in which he saw an embodiment of his bride's special talent and characteristics, and it was under ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... she apply for help in the plan that has already vaguely formed itself in her mind. She knows quite well that he would rather hinder then help her in any effort to save Power Magill. If he is to be saved at all, it must be at once, before they have time to remove him to Dublin; and the girl's heart throbs ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford

... that no such means of employment were likely to present themselves, and dreading the consequences of delay, he drew up a short advertisement, stating what he wanted, and inserted it in the leading newspapers. Pending the receipt of the twenty or thirty answers which he vaguely expected, he reduced his wardrobe to the narrowest limits consistent with decent respectability, and carried the overplus at different times to the pawnbroker's shop, for conversion ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... resolution, read by the Town Clerk, that "the freedom of the City should be presented to Horace Ventimore, Esq., Citizen and Candlestick-maker" (which last Horace was not aware of being, but supposed vaguely that it had been somehow managed while he was at the buffet in the Library), "in recognition of his services"—the resolution ran, and Horace listened with all his ears—"especially in connection with ..." It was most unfortunate—but at this precise point the ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... I should have remained in this state, and in fact how long I did remain, I don't know. Vaguely, I recall that our acquaintance, Johnson, who had the apartment across the hall, at last heard my cries and came out to his own door. He needed only a moment to listen at ours to ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... He was always vaguely conscious that there was a Mrs. Dougherty. He would have received without denial the charge that the quiet, neat, comfortable little woman across the table at home was his wife. In fact, he remembered ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... not seem to be sorry. He did not understand anything about illness. The thought of it worried him; so he put it from him. He remembered vaguely that Bernardine's father had suddenly become ill, that his powers had all failed him, and that he lingered on, just a wreck of humanity, and then died. That was twenty years ago. Then he thought of Bernardine, and said to himself, "History repeats ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden

... this event, he wrote his Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia; concerning the publication of which Sir John Hawkins guesses vaguely and idly, instead of having taken the trouble to inform himself with authentick precision. Not to trouble my readers with a repetition of the Knight's reveries, I have to mention, that the late Mr. Strahan the printer told me, that Johnson wrote it, that with the profits ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... point the watcher on the promenade-deck began vaguely to understand that the first man was disabled in some way, and that the other was trying to lift him. While she looked, the engine-room bells jangled and the wheels began to turn. The mate forgot her and swore out of a ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... you, dear.... Here, alone in my room tonight, it is all that matters, Out through my window, vaguely hushed, the city clatters, Telling ever its tale of woe and mirth, Sighing ever its song of death and birth, Singing ever its potent, mad refrain, Swept with tears and the bitter weight ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster

... scourge of civil war; perhaps it would be enough if the queen-mother were made acquainted with the general discontent. The constable's secretary coincided with Coligny, whose opinion was carried. It was agreed that the Prince of Conde should restrain his ardor, and let himself be vaguely regarded as the possible leader of the enterprise if it were to take place, but without giving it, until further notice, his name and co-operation. He was called the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... the interference of Great Britain, and calling upon the assembly to support him. He at the same time, however, declared that he would be faithful to his engagements in putting an end to the trade in Africans. This was so vaguely expressed, and the desire of the Brazilian government was so evidently to foster that illicit commerce, and, if possible, involve England in a quarrel with some of the other maritime powers, that the English government was much incensed, and resolved upon stringent measures. In this they ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... above his eyes. A cloud of dust was rising from the London road and drifting off across the fields like smoke when the old ricks burn in damp weather—a long, broad-sheeted mist; and in it were bits of moving gold, shreds of bright colors vaguely seen, and silvery gleams like the glitter of polished metal in the sun. And as he looked the shifty wind came down out of the west again and whirled the cloud of dust away, and there he saw a long line of men upon horses ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... settles at last not far from the truth. Despite this curious inversion of the facts by Lord Hood, there probably was no one among the naval forces, nor among the soldiery, who did not thoroughly, if perchance somewhat vaguely, appreciate that Nelson was the moving spirit of the whole operation, even beyond Hood himself. As the Greek commanders after Salamis were said to have voted the award of merit each to himself first, but all to Themistocles second, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... accordingly took a good room, enjoyed a good dinner and then sat down in the lobby to have an equally good smoke. He chose a chair which gave him a prospect of the river, and for a long time, while vaguely listening to the talk about him, he feasted his eyes on the view and allowed some of its calm to enter his perturbed spirit. But gradually, as he looked and smoked, he found his attention caught, first by what a man was saying in his rear, and secondly by something he saw ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... that, I supposed Greenton was a village with a population of at least three or four thousand, and was wondering vaguely at the absence of lights and other signs of human habitation. Surely, I thought, all the people cannot be abed and asleep at half past ten o'clock: perhaps I am in the business section of the town, among ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... any sense, not a person of wide circumference, but a nucleus of pure imagination that never stirred or shifted, but scintillated in all directions. The function of Gabriel Rossetti, or at least his most obvious function, was to sit in isolation, and to have vaguely glimmering spirits presented to him for complete illumination. He was the most prompt in suggestion, the most regal in giving, the most sympathetic in response, of the men I have known or seen; and this ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... Hill, and the valley of the Stour opens the Downs in the north to interminable hills beyond Wye. All Romney Marsh lies southward at one's feet, Dymchurch and Romney and Lydd, Hastings and its hill are in the middle distance, and the hills multiply vaguely far beyond where Eastbourne rolls up to ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... "Ye-e-s!" said Jessie, with vaguely hesitating assent. "Yes, even these:" she showed two dice in the palm of her little hand. "I found 'em in ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte

... Great Geyser. At every effort of his memory he recognized some trait of the dreamy Messenger of Destiny, in this pompous, bustling, self- important, little great man of the village. Amid such musings Ralph Cranfield sat all day in the cottage, scarcely hearing and vaguely answering his mother's thousand questions about his travels and adventures. At sunset he roused himself to take a stroll, and, passing the aged elm-tree, his eye was again caught by the semblance of a hand, pointing downward at the half-obliterated inscription. As Cranfield walked ...
— The Threefold Destiny (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne



Words linked to "Vaguely" :   mistily, vague



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