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More "Indecision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Prussians under Wellington and Bluecher, to enter France by the Netherlands; the two others, commanded by the Czar and Prince Schwarzenberg, to advance from the middle and upper Rhine. Nowhere was there the least sign of political indecision. The couriers sent by Napoleon with messages of amity to the various Courts were turned back at the frontiers with their despatches undelivered. It was in vain for the Emperor to attempt to keep up any illusion ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... is Sunday, and a very muggy, disagreeable one it proves. There is an indecision about it truly irritating. A few drops of rain here and there, a threatening of storm, but nothing positive. Finally, at eleven o'clock, just as they have given up all hope of seeing any improvement, it clears up in a degree,—against ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... The girl clasped her hands over her breast in dismay, which changed to terror when she saw Trevison stiffen and leap toward the door. She was afraid for him, horrified over this second lawless deed, dumb with doubt and indecision—and she didn't want them ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... court popularity! It is well known with what exterior fortitude Charles received the news of the duke's assassination; this imperturbable majesty of his mind—insensibility it was not—never deserted him on many similar occasions. There was no indecision—no feebleness in his conduct; and that extraordinary event was not suffered to delay the expedition. The king's personal industry astonished all the men in office. One writes that the king had done more in six weeks than in the duke's time had been done in six months. The death of Buckingham ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... relative silence inside the ship. Maril watched Calhoun in a sort of despairing indecision. The four young blueskins still slept, still bound hand and foot upon the control room floor. Murgatroyd regarded them, and Maril, and Calhoun in turn, and his small and furry ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... face him, and for a week or ten days there was a series of marches and countermarches, and several minor engagements which it would be too long and wearisome to describe, and which resulted only in the useless killing of men and the demonstration of the indecision ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... main street of La Chance, and Aunt Victoria directed the coachman to drive them to "the" drug store of town, and offered Sylvia her choice of any soda water confection she might select. This completed the "about-face" of the mobile little mind. After several moments of blissful anguish of indecision, Sylvia decided on a peach ice-cream soda, and thereafter was nothing but sense of taste as she ecstatically drew through a straw the syrupy, foamy draught of nectar. She took small sips at a time and held them in the back of her mouth till every minute bubble ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the more one had, the more one wanted, and going to bed now without a parting word seemed to Percival really more than he had a right to ask of himself. He circled the deck several times in indecision, then he ascended the companionway and made ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... efficient. When the children reflected upon the history of their childhood they saw one important aspect of it as a long series of detached hours spent in the sitting-room, in a state of desire to do something that could not be done without disturbing father, and in a state of indecision whether or not to disturb him. If by chance, as sometimes occurred, he chose to sit on the sofa, which was unobtrusive in the corner away from the window, between the fireplace and the door, the room was instantly ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... felt as if he were sinking through space. Darkness and fear were upon him. But there was no time for indecision. The lady stood holding her glass and looking at him fixedly. An instant and the struggle was over. He turned to the table and filled another glass. A smile and a bow, and then, a draught that sent the blood leaping along his veins with ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... he was back. No doubt he had done foolishly, bought unwisely; but there had been no time for indecision, and the woman who waited on him had been a great help. As he was shown warm dresses and thick coats for the mother and little girls, suits and shoes and stockings for the boys, bedclothing, towels, soap, ribbons, and neckties, he had smiled at the absurdity of his opinion being ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... either of you, his weakness, his indecision; but it was not for me to warn you, how could I? Then, Marie, changes came to all of us. McAllister came into his inheritance; you went to seek your fortune; I to work hard in a merchant's office in Montreal. For four years, I labored there at most uncongenial ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... I implore you, father," said the poor woman, whose indecision and anguish increased every minute; "satisfy my doubts!—How can I act thus, when I have ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... keys, and the diamonds were taken out of their locked case and spirited away. My first suspicion attached to Celestine and her soldier friend. They had been aroused before at Robinson. Then came this stunning surprise in my discovery next day, and a week of great indecision and distress. Now, of course, the inspiration of the villany is captured, though more than ever do I suspect Celestine as being confederate, or possibly principal actor. She has been utterly daft ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... more freedom than I have. If you—I'm going to the stable—to see Charles—and if you dare to follow me, I'll—" The girl walked away and disappeared through the doorway, leaving Philemon standing by the box, the picture of indecision and anxiety. "He does n't know that Charles was sent to the village," thought Janice, laughing merrily to herself as she went to a stall, and pulling the horse's head down put her cheek against it. "Oh, Joggles dear," she sighed, "they are all against me but ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Father himself was doubting. In his indecision, he ordered a month of prayers and masses. The suspense grew and grew. Everything seemed against Manning. The whole English episcopate was opposed to him; he had quarrelled with the Chapter; he was a convert of ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... on the one side, the three "adventurers" whom he heartily opposed, and, on the other, the "Kentucky gentleman," for whom he as heartily voted. There was no wavering in his convictions—no uncertainty; he was troubled by no delicate shades of indecision. What he believed, and that alone, was God-given right; what he did not believe, with all things pertaining to it, was ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... near that brought him to himself. The influence of her steadfast nature, of her clear, broad, straightforward view of things, the decision of her character, the high, unselfish motives which animated her, all together supplied that which was wanting in himself. His indecision, his too impressionable disposition, which checked and stayed the force of his talent, and counteracted the determination of a naturally iron will; these, as it were, were relieved; in a word, with her ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... shilly-shallying, she was angry with herself and inclined to be ashamed. The excuse she had made to Mina Zabriska did not acquit her in her own eyes. Yet she was also interested, excited, and pleasantly awake to the importance which her indecision gave her. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... have speech with him. They arranged to escape from Room 18 before three o'clock. The Commander-in-Chief feigned a nose-bleed, the Prime Minister developed an inward agony, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, after some moments of indecision, boldly plucked out a tottering tooth and followed—bloody but triumphant—in their wake. They found the enemy just as they had expected, and Morris, being again elected spokesman, stepped forward and took him by his dastard ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... alone, Kneeling on the floor of stone, Prayed the Monk in deep contrition For his sins of indecision, Prayed for greater self-denial In temptation and in trial; It was noonday by the dial, And the Monk ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... on the piece of gold. In the same instant he knew he ought not to accept, and found himself struggling in the throes of indecision. That bit of gold meant food, life, and light in his body and brain, power to go on writing, and—who was to say?—maybe to write something that would bring in many pieces of gold. Clear on his vision burned the manuscripts of two essays he ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... not know." Again the indecision that had been in her eyes when Yolara had launched her defiance crept back. "The Shining One is strong—and ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... having carefully covered his chest with my two sights, I gently pressed the trigger. When the smoke blew away the fellow was lying motionless upon his face, and some twenty others who had been following him had come to an abrupt halt, and were gazing with indecision, first at the house ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... she had a momentary indecision as to her next step. As she stood on the platform she felt herself to be desperately, hopelessly alone; and for one wild moment she wondered how Owen would receive her if she went back and ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... softly-dropped distinct words, and looked up at the beloved face, perhaps a little less fair, with rather less of the boyish delicacy of feature, but more noble, more defined—as soft and sweet as ever, but with all the indecision gone; all that expression that had at times seemed like weakness. He was not the mere lad she had loved with a guiding motherly love, but a man to respect and rely on—ready, collected, dealing with easy coolness with the person who had domineered over that house for years. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was a city passionate and highly vitalized. George had soon begun to be familiar with its organic existence from the inside. The amazing delays in the construction of the town hall were characteristic of the city, originating as they did not from sloth or indecision but from the obduracy of the human will. At the start a sensational municipal election had put the whole project on the shelf for two years, and George had received a compensatory one per cent on the estimated cost according to contract, and had abandoned his hope. But ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... taken no steps to reinforce and re-supply the weak garrison under the command of Major Anderson. On March 5, Lincoln learned that Sumter would soon have to be yielded unless reinforcements were sent. There followed ten days of delay and indecision; then on March 15 Lincoln requested from each member of his Cabinet an opinion on what should be done. This brought to an issue the whole question of ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... and tempted, underpaid and destitute, who might be saved from a life of ill-fame if a helping hand and a shelter were offered her in her hour of indecision and ...
— Chicago's Black Traffic in White Girls • Jean Turner-Zimmermann
... we had ruthlessly disturbed. But in the darkness our progress, more the guidance of some mysterious instinct than any apparent volition of our own, gave an indefinable charm of security to our journey that a moment's hesitation or indecision on the part of the driver ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... stairs which way to go—proposed different directions, to Charing Cross, to St. Paul's—found some objection to them all, and at last turned back for want of a casting motive to incline the scale. Tucker gives this as an instance of professional indecision, or of that temper of mind which having been long used to weigh the reasons for things with scrupulous exactness, could not come to any conclusion at all on the spur of the occasion, or without some grave distinction to justify its choice. Louvet in his ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Soult, deceived by treachery in his own corps, neglected to guard the river with proper vigilance, Wellington collected boats at different points, crossed over his army, surprised the French, and, had it not been for the singular delay and indecision of General Murray, would most certainly have forced the entire army to capitulate; as it was, his operation produced a decided influence on the campaign, and effected the safety of Beresford's corps. Soult destroyed his artillery ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... account. It was Tom's place to write her. She had answered his first letter. Yet she could not believe that carelessness was responsible for his silence. Something must have happened to him. But what? She knitted her brows in an agony of indecision, then giving her pen an energetic shake that betokened definite ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... which had taken place in St. Domingo, as an argument against the abolition of the Slave-trade; but could any more weighty argument be produced in its favour? What were the causes of the insurrections there? They were two. The first was the indecision of the National Assembly, who wished to compromise between that which was right and that which was wrong on this subject. And the second was the oppression of the People of Colour, and of the Slaves. In the first of ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... after supper, and left us to talk on our particular affairs, I found the same indecision, the same loathness to bring our courtship to a period, as formerly. Her previous excuses were renewed, and her wishes to have a union still longer delayed were zealously urged. She could not bear the ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... Temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course, I had taken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. After a little show of indecision, which there were none to see but the two or three amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went on board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I steering. It ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... very pale when he emerged into thronged Broadway, but there was no indecision in his movements. He hailed a hack passing, sprung in, and was driven rapidly to the east side—to the humble abode ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... must go to the Blue Boar, my mind was much disturbed by indecision whether or not to take the Avenger. It was tempting to think of that expensive Mercenary publicly airing his boots in the archway of the Blue Boar's posting-yard; it was almost solemn to imagine him casually produced in ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... been to awe the barbarous and at first disunited tribes of Affghanistan and Scinde, our numerous conflicts, our late reverses, and our heavy losses fully prove. I admit that a blind confidence in persons around the late envoy—a total want of forethought and foresight on his part—unaccountable indecision at first, followed by cessions which, day by day, rendered our force more helpless—inactivity, perhaps, on some occasions—have led to these reverses; but we must not overlook the effects of climate, the difficulty of communication, the distance from our frontier, and the fanatical zeal of our ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... whole destiny be affected by the mood of an idle moment; by some superficial indecision, mere fruit of a transient unrest. We lightly debate, we hesitate, we yawn, unconscious of the brink. We half-heartedly decline a suggested course, then lightly accept from sheer ennui, and "life," as I have ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... eye on the groaning and sputtering agent, contrived at the same time to turn a corner of it on Marston Greyle. That momentary glance showed him much. The Squire was mortally afraid of his man. That was certain—as certain as that they were there. He stood, a picture of vexation and indecision, glancing furtively at Chatfield, then at Audrey, and evidently hating to be asked to take ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... grappled each other fiercely, half rising to their feet in the strenuousness of endeavour. Jeems tried frantically for a half-Nelson. While preventing it the wily Bert awaited his chance for a hammer-lock. In the moment of indecision as to which would succeed in his charitable design, a knock on the door put an end to hostilities. The gladiators ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... rushed out, and in a few moments she was in the middle of the crowd, who at that time were endeavoring to rescue my prisoner. Her sudden appearance had a curious effect, and calling upon several of the least mutinous to assist, she very pluckily made her way up to me. Seizing the opportunity of an indecision that was for the moment evinced by the crowd, I shouted to the drummer boy to beat the drum. In an instant the drum beat, and at the top of my voice I ordered the men to "fall in." It is curious how mechanically an order is obeyed if given at the right moment, even in the midst ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... indecision ceased to be possible. She had promised to marry Frantz when he had obtained a good situation; and now an engineer's berth in the South, at the smelting-furnaces of Grand Combe, was offered to him. That was sufficient for the support of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... known to many; he had belonged to one of the smaller colleges, and had always been shy and reserved; but those who in youth had cared to penetrate to the delicacy of thought and feeling that lay below his silence and indecision, took him to their hearts, with something of the protecting kindness which they would have shown to a woman. And the renewal of this kindliness, after the lapse of years, and an interval of so much change, overpowered him more than ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... each other with that monotony, marked by small events, that quickly lays the years aside. Loo lingered on, with a vague indecision in his mind which increased as the weeks passed by and the spell of the wide marsh-lands closed round his soul. He took up again those studies which the necessity of earning a living had interrupted years before, and Septimus Marvin, who had never left off seeking, opened ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... truth and to shew herself entirely submissive to his will. I found myself placed in a strange position, and above all, I regretted having made the all-important application, precisely because it was certain to have too decisive a result. I longed to get out of the state of indecision in which I was, and I was surprised to see my young mistress less anxious than I was. We parted with heavy hearts, but with the hope that the next night would again bring us together, for the contrary did not seem ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... fatal scene before him, this indecision, he walked the streets, resolving and re-resolving, weighing and re-weighing the consequences, hoping without a chance for hope. He would be a father as he has been a kind master; but the law says, no! no! Society forbids ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... Edgecumbe was, and although I was almost stunned by his sudden action, I could not help comparing him, as he was now, with the first occasion on which I had seen him. Then, with his nondescript garments, his parchment-like skin, and the look of wistful indecision in his eyes, he was a creature to be pitied. Now, in the uniform of a major, he stood stalwart and erect. In spite of the fact that his left arm was in a sling, there was something commanding in his attitude. His eyes ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... "The man of culture is in politics," cries Mr. Frederic Harrison, "one of the poorest mortals alive!" Mr. Frederic Harrison wants to be doing business, and he complains that the man of culture stops him with a "turn for small fault-finding, love of selfish ease, and indecision in action." Of what use is culture, he asks, except for "a critic of new books or a professor of belles-lettres?"[425] Why, it is of use because, in presence of the fierce exasperation which breathes, or rather, I may say, ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... cordially, and when Jewett had bowed himself out, Temple opened negotiations, very cautiously and with every seeming of indecision, as to what he might ultimately decide ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... at her in surprise, then, after a moment's indecision, dropped her eyes upon the page and read the short clauses through; then once more—as if she did not understand—then again, a scarlet ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... did not move. Nor did Deveny change his position. A queer, cold chill had come over Deveny—a vague dread, a dragging reluctance—an indecision that startled him and made of his thoughts an odd jumble of half-formed impulses that seemed to die ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... sacrifice of our Mediator may be extended to those who knew not of its power. But the creed of St. Athanasius stands in the poet's road; and though he disposes of it with less reverence to the patriarch than is quite seemly, there is an indecision, if not in his conclusion, at least in his mode of deducing it, that shows an apt inclination to cut the knot, and solve the objection of the Deist, by alleging, that belief in the Christian religion is an essential ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... support the wanderings fortunes of Mr. Clinton. On this point the Federal party must, if it has not already, divide. Once separated there can be no middle course; a neutrality party in politics, if not an absurdity, at least is evidence of indecision. We are not yet declared enemies, but if I mistake not, the question of Council and the choice of a United States senator must, if these gentlemen persist, decide the matter irrevocably. Mr. W. Duer, Van Vechten, Bunner, Hoffman, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... thought was still in her mind when the carriage turned into Gramercy Park and stopped before the old brown house hidden in creepers in which Laura lived. So changed by this time, however, was Gerty's mood that, after leaving her carriage, she stood hesitating from indecision upon the sidewalk. The few bared trees in the snow, the solemn, almost ghostly, quiet of the quaint old houses and the deserted streets, in which a flock of sparrows quarrelled under the faint sunshine, produced in her an ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... English ports with German soldiers was no light or easy one; no task for a light or gentle hand. In carrying out this undertaking a very little weakness, a very small display of indecision, might easily have meant an appalling amount of bloodshed. As it was, the whole business was completed in a wonderfully short while, and with remarkable smoothness. The judicial and municipal administration of these centres was to remain English; but supreme ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... although he thought of doing so every day to tell her of his determination to marry. But so great was the terror with which the Valencian inspired him, that the pen fell from his hands every time he took it up to acquaint her with the fact. He thus let the days go by in this continual state of indecision, thinking with anxiety how enraged she would be, and like all weak natures, hoping that some unforeseen event would arrange a compromise. That way of breaking the connection without any quarrel or explanation ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... President; and his official attitude may be measured in the various annual reports of the organization. But even in those strenuous days—at the period when the Northern spirits lagged over military reverses, and at the time when the indecision of General McClellan drew from him the satiric broadside,—"Tardy George"—privately printed in 1865—Boker's thoughts were concerned with poetry. His official laureate consciousness did not serve to improve ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... There was a moment's indecision—a moment which was to count for much in the lives of three men. Then the elder one's counsels prevailed. They crept away down the hill, smoothly and noiselessly. Behind them, the faint throbbing grew less and less distinct. Soon they heard it no more. They drove ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ticked loudly in the quiet. Outside a winter blizzard was sweeping in white fury from the hills. Stump crouched silently in a corner, his head upon his paws. And Abner Sawyer, returning to his work in helpless indecision, felt his privacy and his dignity forever compromised by a boy and a dog. He knew of course that a small boy, scantily clad, should not be planing furiously on the bench beside him at midnight with a sociable gleam in his eye—yet—something—a ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... however, but stood irresolute, her eyes on the floor. After a moment of indecision, the detective saw her mouth compress firmly, and with a quick movement of the head, as if she were shaking herself free from some persistent and troublesome thought, she turned and walked deliberately towards the alcove at ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... "Indecision is always discouraging to one's friends, and encouraging to one's enemies," he said, "and I recommend perseverance. The nearer we haul to the rocks, the greater will be our command of them, while the more the chances of the Arabs' throwing ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... not either run or shoot. He wanted to jump out, if his master showed fight, and leap straight at that ugly monster, or he wanted to run away as fast as his legs would carry him. He was shivering in indecision, waiting a signal from David to do either one or the other. And Tara was now moving slowly toward the dog! His huge head was hung low, swinging slightly from side to side in a most terrifying way; ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... done?" I cried. "What is this thing that ye've done against the man who has loved ye ever since his eyes lighted upon you, and whom your own indecision has helped to the ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... important, I recommend you to return at one in the morning." The stranger looked at the head clerk with a bewildered expression, and remained motionless for a moment. The clerks, accustomed to every change of countenance, and the odd whimsicalities to which indecision or absence of mind gives rise in "parties," went on eating, making as much noise with their jaws as horses over a manger, and paying no further heed to ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... remained a moment, and the heat of his resentment remained. He looked with a divided discretion, the pain of his indecision, from his daughter's suitor and his approved candidate to that contumacious young woman and back again; then choosing his course in silence he had a gesture of almost desperate indifference and passed quickly out by the door ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... Madame Graslin looked at the rector with eyes almost glazed with that fatal indecision often observable in persons who are cherishing the thought of death. From that moment Monsieur Bonnet hesitated no longer; he set before him the duty of arresting the progress of this cruel ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... administered. About one third of our schools are tolerably well governed. A portion of them are under a wise and parental supervision, the government being uniformly mild, and at the same time efficient. But indecision, rashness, and inefficiency are far more common. Sometimes teachers resolve to have no whispering, leaving seats, asking questions, etc., among any of the scholars, and severely punish every detected offender. Soon a portion of the patrons justly manifest dissatisfaction. Then all ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... towards her. Far away a sheep bleated. The sound came to Duncan scornfully, as though a wicked elf had laughed at his indecision. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... what powers to claim or how to vindicate them. They turned the power of the purse to little or no account; they discredited themselves in the eyes of the nation by giving proofs of feebleness and indecision in the first great crisis with which they were called to deal, the interregnum of anarchy and conspiracy that ensued upon the capture of King John at Poitiers (1356). The result was that the States General, occasionally summoned to endorse the policy or register the decrees of the monarchy, remained ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... power of the stream against a cable. The noncommittal Indians would give no counsel as to fording. They had ferry hire to gain. Word passed that there were other fords a few miles higher up. A general indecision existed, and now the train began to pile up on the south bank of ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... made to detain Paul. There could be no case against him. He went out of the hotel, and looked up and down Broadway in a state of indecision. He did not mean to sit down passively and submit to the swindle. But he had no idea in what direction to ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... of the house, and opposite, across the hallway, still another door. He observed that the first two doors were each fastened from the outside by bolts and a spring lock, and that the key to each lock was in place. The fact moved him with indecision. If he took possession of the keys, he could enter the rooms at his pleasure. On the other hand, should their loss be discovered, an alarm would be raised and he would inevitably come under suspicion. The very purpose he had in view might be frustrated. He decided ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... In her instant of indecision Marrika had got away from her, but she called the girl back from the door and told her to say to Mrs. Britton that Mr. Kerr had called, but that Miss Gilsey ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... have before recounted. He knew that he had no tool so supple as the cowardly Walter. In the very language of the request, he had given Walter an intimation of what he wanted him to swear to. Walter listened to Small's words as to his doom. He felt that he should die of indecision. The perdition of a man of his stamp is to have to make up his mind. Such men generally fall back on some one more positive, and take all their resolutions ready-made. But here Walter must decide for himself. For the constable was already calling his name; the court, the ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... watched her as she entered the house they were visiting with her arms uncovered, a fan in her hand, and pearls in her hair. She would pause on the threshold (the lintel of the door formed a framework round her head), and she would open and shut her eyes with a certain air of indecision, in order to ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... run. Neither did she spring to Stella for protection. She stood for a second or two in indecision; then with an odd little strangled cry she darted in front of Peter, ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... home, an intense longing came to speak of Herbert,—to tell my proud mother to whom she was indebted for so many acts of kindly friendship; but often as I said, 'I will,' I yet did not. To-day I would wait for the morrow; on the morrow indecision came; and at last, when the intent was stronger than ever, when I had laid me down to sleep after an interview with Mr. McKey, solemnly promising Heaven that with the morning light I would confess all and leave the consequences with my God, in that night-time ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... fresh supply of rice, wheat, and dourra, in exchange for beads and bright-colored cloth, which I had brought with me for the purpose of such traffic, if it should be necessary. Bruce's discovery of the source of the Blue Nile, fifty years before, prevented the necessity of indecision in regard to my route, and so completely was I absorbed in the one object of my journey, that the magnificent scenery and ruins along the Blue Nile, which had so fascinated Cailliaud, presented few allurements ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... clipful of cartridges into his big-game Remington. His carbine was already on the table, and as Pelliter stood staring at him in indecision he pulled out two Savage automatics from under his bunk and gave one of them to his companion. His face ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... There was no indecision in the manner of Uppy's going now. He struck out swift and straight for the pale constellation of stars that hung over Fort Confidence. It was splendid traveling. The surface of the arctic plain was frozen solid. What little wind there was came from behind them, and the dogs ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... who had been pacing the floor, seized the note eagerly. It was written in pencil and by a hand that had trembled much. Yet there was no indecision in the written words. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... talking still? or again?" he asked, just before the door closed. There was a second's indecision with the knob, then, judging discretion the better part, ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Adelle with his little tag of legal Latin. He might be a poet, but he knew the laws of inheritance, and moreover, now in his old age, he had come out from his valleys of indecision and knew that there must be many wrongs both legal and extra-legal in our human system, and that it was not always accomplishing the most good to try to do exact justice. As he had said to Adelle, ours is a world of chance and mistake, and the most ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... York to make our fortune with the system. You see," he continued with senile cunning, "she has taken away the system, and so I am not sure whether I can beat you. But make your play, monsieur." There was at least no indecision in the manner in which he ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... our party who seems to bear his privations the best is Hobart the steward, a man with whom hitherto I have had very little to do. He is small, with a fawning expression remarkable for its indecision, and has a smile which is incessantly playing round his lips; he goes about with his eyes half closed, as though he wished to conceal his thoughts, and there is something altogether false and hypocritical about his whole demeanor. I cannot say that he bears his privations without a murmur, ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... organs. 'He! he! he! ah mun, I doe believe to heaven it's all up—I doe!' gurgled the old man, struggling in spasmodic efforts to get the thing up or down. 'If I die,' he continued, 'with this lump of indecision in my throat, the consequences will be that no man will mourn over me.' Littlejohn, always ready to move as occasion required, sprung to his aid, crying 'Swallow it! swallow it! for the honor of Young England swallow it! If it comes up you're a dead premier: ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... declaring himself. His visit to England, and the delightful reception he had met with there, had weakened somewhat the ties which bound him to his native country, and he found himself in a state of indecision as humiliating as it was painful. Lord Dunmore and Colonel Wilton had each made great efforts to enlist his support, on account of his wealth and position and high personal qualities. It was hinted by one that the ancient barony of the Talbots ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... attempt, the final crushing is indefinitely postponed, every time we put off the attempt, the desired result fades farther and farther away. The habit persists and from time to time the path becomes deeper and broader. In addition, during such a period of weakness and indecision, you may be fostering another habit, that of expecting defeat. From this lack of confidence and little faith in yourself and destiny, you must by all means escape at any cost. There is nothing more pathetic ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... it should be remarked, that whenever the Americans entered upon our territory, they met with similar defeat. Much allowance must at course be made for ignorance of the country, and of the strength and disposition of the enemy's force; but certainly there was no excuse for the indecision shewn by the British general, with such a force as he ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... to Casco Bay, and a vessel was sent to carry news of the miscarriage to Dudley, who, vexed and incensed, ordered another attempt. March was in a state of helpless indecision, increased by a bad cold; but the governor would not recall him, and chose instead the lamentable expedient of sending three members of the provincial council to advise and direct him. Two of them had commissions in the militia; the third, John Leverett, ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... time he asserted that "no man loves, respects and reverences another more than I do General Washington. I esteem his virtues, private and public. I know him to be a man of sense, courage and firmness." But four months later he was lamenting Washington's "fatal indecision," and by inference was calling him "a blunderer." In another month he wrote, "entre nous a certain great man is most damnably deficient." At this point, fortunately, Lee was captured by the British, so that his influence for the time being was destroyed. ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... than most budding authors, and in this case Mark was morbidly anxious to get the money part of the transaction over as soon as possible; he could not decide whether his conscience would be better or worse satisfied if he insisted on the best pecuniary terms he could obtain, so in his indecision he took the easier course ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... when she stopped and caught her breath, audibly, from sheer surprise, the girl sensed the indecision in the attitude of the man before her. But she could not know that it was not a thing of the moment—that irresolution; could not know that throughout the week Steve had periodically abused himself for his inability to settle the question once and for all, and leave his brain ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... moment, Fighting Joe seems to have been afflicted with the fatal indecision, by no means incompatible with perfect physical fearlessness, which has ruined wiser plans than ever were moulded in his brain. Rumor hints broadly at a sudden fit of depression, not unnatural in one notoriously addicted to the use of stimulants; but ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... be undecided?" thought Rostov, but then even this indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... legs made me pluck up heart. I was embarked at any rate in a venture, and had got rid of my desperate indecision. The two of us held close together, and chose the duskiest thickets, crawling belly-wise over the little clear patches and avoiding the crown of the ridge like the plague. The weather helped us, for the skies hung grey and low, with wisps of vapour curling ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... suggests the superior's fixity of purpose, with consequent inspiration to subordinates to prosecute their tasks with determination. The use of indefinite and weakening expressions leads to suspicion of vacillation and indecision. Such expressions tend to impose upon subordinates the responsibilities which belong to and are fully accepted by a ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... His companion pulled down his arm with a savage imprecation. All was still for a few minutes, and the female retired to the landing and then disappeared. The burglars hesitated, when, just at the moment of their indecision, one of the police imitated the low growling of a dog close at hand. Instantly the whole gang took to their heels, closely followed by the constables. No shout had been raised, no word had been spoken, for John Randolph had been most anxious that the thieves should be ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... sand. I think his face must have resembled, then, the face of Elijah when the Lord inquied, with the still, small voice, "What dost thou here?" For, as he arose, he looked back on the waste by which he came,—his face turned homewards. Ay, and his steps likewise; and not with indecision, as though fearing when he surrendered to himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... body. He drops a tear over the Universities Mission, but becomes merry over Bishop Tozer strutting about with his crosier at Zanzibar, and in a fine clear day getting a distant view of the continent of which he claimed to be Bishop. He denounces the vile policy of the Portuguese, and laments the indecision of some influential persons who virtually upheld it. He is tickled with the generous offer of a small salary, when he should settle somewhere, that had been made to him by the Government, while men who had risked nothing were getting handsome salaries of far greater amount; but rather than ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... our revolution has wrought in their old systems, which is felt somehow by all the politicians of Europe, yet they seem some of them not to be sufficiently acquainted with the real nature of it. Hence that strange fluctuation or indecision in some cabinets; at least this is the best apology I can make for it. Sweden it appears to me acts as consistent a part as any power. She maintains her rights as a neutral nation, by constantly convoying her trade, and is besides wisely reaping the benefits of the American commerce, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... come out now. All the conditions are favourable—it is the chance he has always prayed for. You see," she continued, almost confidentially, but without the least loss of composure—"you see he has told me a great deal about himself and his various experiments—his phrases of indecision and disgust. There are lots of tentative talents in the world, and the sooner they are crushed out by circumstances the better. But it seems as though he really had it in him to do something distinguished—as ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... there, desire and indecision struggling for mastery within him, no power could have told Peter that destinies greater than his own were working through the soul of the dog that was in him, and that on his decision to go in or not to go in—on the triumph of courage or cowardice—there rested the ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... perhaps during these years of indecision as to his future religious profession, that Clovis consented to a matrimonial alliance between his house and that of the Arian Theodoric. The great Ostrogoth married, probably about the year 495, the sister of Clovis, Augofleda, who, as we may reasonably conjecture, renounced ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... weaken his own position in the hope of facilitating their movements, and he found their aid a broken reed. In only one passage of his journal does Gordon give expression to this view, although it was always present to his mind:—"Truly the indecision of our Government has been, from a military point of view, a very great bore, for we never could act as if independent; there was always the chance of their taking action, which hampered us." But in the telegrams to Sir Evelyn Baring and Mr Egerton, which the Government never dared to publish, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... might vary as they pleased; this purpose did not vary; it was ever present with him to nerve every better faculty of his head and heart, to invest the chequered vicissitudes of his fortune with a dignity derived from himself. The zeal of his nature overcame the temptations to that loitering and indecision, that fluctuation between sloth and consuming toil, that infirmity of resolution, with all its tormenting and enfeebling consequences, to which a literary man, working as he does at a solitary task, uncalled for by any pressing tangible ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... breakfast that although it was a part of his abstemious discipline on this most solemn fast, to take no milk in his tea, yet when Mrs. Desmoulins inadvertently poured it in, he did not reject it. I talked of the strange indecision of mind, and imbecility in the common occurrences of life, which we may observe in some people. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I am in the habit of getting others to do things for me.' BOSWELL. 'What, Sir! have you that weakness?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... very tone of it he suggested that he did not possess that gem which those who hold it prize above all things. "The Scepticism of Pilate" is the title of one of Robertson's greatest sermons. The preacher traces it to four sources: indecision; falseness to his own convictions; the taint of the worldly temper of his day; and that priestly bigotry which forbids inquiry, and makes doubt a crime. Pilate is the typical sceptic, who is worlds removed from the "honest" doubter. Serious doubt, which is ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... of the spirit-lamp, and the peaceful music of the samovar was still. In her clever eyes there was a little air of sidelong indecision. She could not make up her mind how to take him. Her chiefest method was so old as to be biblical. Yet she could not take him with her eyelids. She ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... not answer, but he watched the mullah's face keenly in the dark and missed nothing of its expression. He decided the man was in doubt—-even racked by indecision. "Should she not ransom thee, hakim, thou shall have a chance to show my men how a man out of India can die! By and by I will lend thee a messenger to send to her. Better make the message clear and urgent! Thou shalt state ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... the ground. Some of our men, with small flying platforms strapped to them, were crowding its top. Its beams preceded it—but I saw the beams breaking intermittently as the bolts struck the power house. The invaders wavered with indecision. Some of them came down to voluntary death; others strove for the cliff-top; some took flight. Our tower swept into them; one of them, injured but not annihilated, fell with a crash ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... the Theatre of the Porte St. Martin a tremendous shout of "Vive la Republique!" came forth from every mouth as though shouted by one man. The soldiers continued to advance in silence, but it might have been said that their pace slackened, and many of them regarded the crowd with an air of indecision. What did this cry of "Vive la Republique!" mean? Was it a token of applause? Was it a shout ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... freshmen in vain for an occupant of the vacant seat. A huge red-headed north-country man, who had never seen a tandem in his life, but who, as far as pluck went, would have ridden postilion to Medea's dragons, was listening with some apparent indecision to Hurst's eloquence upon the delights of driving, just as we came up after a last unsuccessful search through the livery stables; and the pair were proceeding out of college arm in arm, probably to look at the greys, when Leicester, to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... white—the outward and visible distinction between, on the one side, the three "adventurers" whom he heartily opposed, and, on the other, the "Kentucky gentleman," for whom he as heartily voted. There was no wavering in his convictions—no uncertainty; he was troubled by no delicate shades of indecision. What he believed, and that alone, was God-given right; what he did not believe, with all things pertaining to it, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... distinct words, and looked up at the beloved face, perhaps a little less fair, with rather less of the boyish delicacy of feature, but more noble, more defined—as soft and sweet as ever, but with all the indecision gone; all that expression that had at times seemed like weakness. He was not the mere lad she had loved with a guiding motherly love, but a man to respect and rely on—ready, collected, dealing with easy coolness with the person who had domineered over that house for years. He was all, and more ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chance acquaintance. But he watched both the woman and the Frenchman as they advanced slowly from opposite directions and drew nearer together, and he was not altogether surprised, when the in man was within twenty feet of her, to see her start and stand still, and then, with the indecision of a hunted animal, move uncertainly, and then turn and run in the direction of the hotel. Something the man apparently called after her caused her to stop, and Gordon observed them now with undisguised interest as they stood conversing together, oblivious of the conspicuous mark they made ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... the lawyer, exasperated by his own indecision concerning this affair so foreign to ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... break with the past and a complete plunge into the future. His reason told him this, and yet, though he longed passionately to let himself go—to make the wild dash for freedom—his disabled will, the nervous indecision from which he suffered, prevented both his liberation and his recovery. There were hours of grayness when he told himself that he had neither the fortitude to endure the old nor the energy to embrace the new. In his nature, as in ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... retiring to rest, went to her tower; there she remained for some time, pacing up and down the room, now glancing out on the wide ocean, now clasping her hands in a manner expressive of doubt and indecision. ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... quite transitory. He ducked at the first shot; and directly his balloon began to drop, his mind ran confusedly upon how he might explain himself, and whether he should pretend to be Butteridge or not. "O Lord!" he groaned, in an agony of indecision. Then his eye caught his sandals, and he felt a spasm of self-disgust. "They'll think I'm a bloomin' idiot," he said, and then it was he rose up desperately and threw over the sand-bag and provoked the second ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... the glory of being the liberator of Hellas. We are at last assembled. It has not been easy to assemble, nor even now are our objects defined. We ought not to be still inquiring into the fact of our wrongs, but into the means of our defence. For the aggressors with matured plans to oppose to our indecision have cast threats aside and betaken themselves to action. And we know what are the paths by which Athenian aggression travels, and how insidious is its progress. A degree of confidence she may feel from the idea that your bluntness of perception prevents your noticing her; but it is nothing to the ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... at the restraining hand upon his sleeve and Ogden removed it hastily. He stood in dismayed indecision until the ex-lightweight had disappeared before he turned toward Young Denny, who had been watching in silence his effort at intervention. Denny had not moved. Ogden's almost girlishly modeled face was more than apprehensive as he stepped ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... had always been easily measured on the surface; she had had a very complete grasp of its material aspects almost at once, accomplishing exactly what she had planned. Perhaps this was all; and her trouble an evidence of weakness—the indecision, she saw with contempt, that kept so many people in a constant agitation ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... for a reason to send out some new advertising matter making a different appeal. And each proposition is good only up to a certain time. The letters must be mailed and postmarked before midnight of the last day, and this time limit pulls the prospect over the dead center of indecision and gets his order. The last day usually brings in more orders than ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... that closing was inevitable and, in opposition to the opinion of the bankers, urged that immediate steps be taken to bring it about. It may seem strange to people outside of Wall Street that the night before the Exchange closed such apparent indecision and difference of opinion existed. It was, however, a perfectly natural outcome of an unprecedented situation. The crisis had developed so suddenly, and the conditions were so utterly without historic ...
— The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble
... light in 1805, An Essay on the Principles of Human Action: Being an Argu-ment in favour of the Natural Disinterestedness of the Human Mind. Meantime, however,—the ministry having been renounced—the question of a vocation became more and more urgent, and after long indecision Hazlitt packed his portmanteau for London, resolved to learn painting under his brother John, who had begun to do prosperously. John taught him some rudiments, and packed him off to Paris, where he studied ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... It is only fair to say that much of the doubt and indecision on the part of the public is directly attributable to the conflicting statements of our scientists. It should be borne in mind that careful investigation in respect to the relative values of the various forms and sources of lime has been confined ...
— Right Use of Lime in Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... to the mode in which we are to travel to Mexico. Some propose a coach, others a litera; others advise us to take the diligence. While in this indecision, we had a visit this morning from a remarkable-looking character, Don Miguel S——, agent for the diligence office in Mexico, a tall, dark, energetic-looking person. He recommends the diligence, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... at a gallop, being genuinely good riders, and using their brains as well as their spurs in the understanding of their horses, and of certain natural laws, which the more artificial riders of civilization are apt to overlook. Hence there was no hesitation or indecision communicated to the nervous creatures they bestrode, who swept over crumbling stones and slippery ledges with a momentum that took away half their weight, and made a stumble or false step, or indeed anything but an actual collision, ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... he had not been able to face the associations and recollections of Green Hill. This was largely because, though his friends had, with such ease, reached decisions for him, he was himself so absorbed in indecision that he could not go back to the careless pleasantness of old intimacies, (As for that question of the wheels,—"if—if—if anything happens to Eleanor?"—Eleanor herself had answered it in one word: Lily.) So, since her death Maurice's whole ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... for some time trembling and irresolute: He longed to try the charm, yet feared its consequences. The recollection of his sentence at length fixed his indecision. He opened the Volume; but his agitation was so great that He at first sought in vain for the page mentioned by Matilda. Ashamed of himself, He called all his courage to his aid. He turned to the seventh leaf. He began to read it aloud; But his eyes frequently ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... bitterly his indecision; for something in the young man's eyes must have put the brigand on his guard. When they awoke on the third morning, which was the fifth since their imprisonment, some one had searched their rooms thoroughly. The revolver and the knife were both gone, and the loss ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... has been in the habit of going to this mela, and I have been happy to help him and his brethren when opportunity has been given to me. A colporteur has been present with his wares, and succeeds in selling at a small price portions of the Scriptures and tracts. An amusing instance of indecision occurred at the bookstall the last time I was present. A man had purchased a Gospel. He came back saying he was told by his people that he would certainly become a Christian if he took that book to his village, and ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... a tear over the Universities Mission, but becomes merry over Bishop Tozer strutting about with his crosier at Zanzibar, and in a fine clear day getting a distant view of the continent of which he claimed to be Bishop. He denounces the vile policy of the Portuguese, and laments the indecision of some influential persons who virtually upheld it. He is tickled with the generous offer of a small salary, when he should settle somewhere, that had been made to him by the Government, while men who had risked nothing were getting handsome salaries of far greater ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... waited on Johnson, as usual. I observed at breakfast that although it was a part of his abstemious discipline on this most solemn fast, to take no milk in his tea, yet when Mrs. Desmoulins inadvertently poured it in, he did not reject it. I talked of the strange indecision of mind, and imbecility in the common occurrences of life, which we may observe in some people. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I am in the habit of getting others to do things for me.' BOSWELL. 'What, Sir! have you that ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... voice, unwelcoming, vibrant with an odd ring, would have struck a less suspicious man than Dene. The outlaw wrung his leg back over the pommel, sagged in the saddle, and appeared to be pondering the question. Plainly he was uncertain of his ground. But his indecision was brief. ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... fellow's back. Sleepy had made sure of his safety by returning through the Auger Hole. Mr. Allen made no reply to their many inquiries—he seemed to have lost his power of speech. He stood with muscles taut and gun ready. He despised indecision, yet—what should he do? He thought of the mountain lion that had been killed on the carriage road to the Peak the spring before. Could this be its mate? He tried to think what the characteristics of a bob-cat were. He wondered if perhaps ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... crouches in a corner. Prince stands stiff, amazed. The man, with valises in one hand and rug in shawl-strap, looks on with lack-luster eye, frozen by indecision.] ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... days of anguished conjecture, of harassed indecision. As they passed with no sign of the Hoonah she began to recall her last week at Katleean. On the screen of her mind appeared over and over again the White Chief's dark face, in her ears the voice of memory repeated his softly-spoken, ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... it became evident that there was no prospect of restoring the disabled machine to action, one after another of the frightened schoolboys had dropped out over the sides of the car and after loitering an instant or two with a sort of shamefaced indecision, at the suggestion of Bud Taylor they had all ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... from Miss Van Brock's point of view; and Kent was no rock not to be moved by the small tempest of disappointed vicarious ambition. Wherefore he escaped when he could, though only to begin the ethical battle all over again; to fight and to wander among the tombs in the valley of indecision for a week and a day, eight miserable twirlings of the earth in space, during which interval he was invisible to his friends and innocuous to ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... too much of this spirit in the army, and one who can read between the lines will see it in the history of many a campaign. It did not necessarily mean wavering loyalty. It was sometimes the mental indecision or timidity which shrinks from responsibility. It was sometimes also the result of education in an army on the peace establishment, where any spontaneity was snubbed as an impertinence or tyrannically crushed ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... disinclined to bestir herself. An inborn aptitude for drifting, which threatened to become a talent for indecision, had always alternated in her with sudden impulsive conclusions; and when her pride was involved, in decisions which sometimes scarcely withstood the ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... this war with Mirambo—this black Bonaparte. Two months have been wasted here already. The Arabs take such a long time to come to a conclusion. Advice is plentiful, and words are as numerous as the blades of grass in our valley; all that is wanting indecision. The Arabs' hope and stay is dead—Khamis bin Abdullah is no more. Where are the other warriors of whom the Wangwana and Wanyamwezi bards sing? Where is mighty Kisesa—great Abdullah bin Nasib? Where is Sayd, the son of Majid? Kisesa is in Zanzibar, and Sayd, the son of Majid, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... impossible: she would yield to nothing. She would only have become angry and turned away from him altogether, he knew that well already. He suspected, quite correctly, that she, too, was passing through an inward struggle, and was in a state of extraordinary indecision, that she was making up her mind to something, and unable to determine upon it. And so, not without good reason, he divined, with a sinking heart, that at moments she must simply hate him and his passion. And so, perhaps, it was, but what was distressing Grushenka ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... had not the effect which his physical force had. Perhaps the boy, with that peculiar twist he possessed, was reading the indecision, the uncertainty in his captor's mind. Anyway, the terror in his eyes was becoming less, and a defiant light was taking its place. But Will could see none of this, and ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... it. The tender commencement of the second part is followed, as it were, by the several times repeated questions—Yes? No? (Bright sunshine? Dark clouds?) But there comes no answer, and the poor wretch has to begin anew. A helpless, questioning uncertainty and indecision characterise the third mazurka. For a while the composer gives way (at the beginning of the second part) to anger, and speaks in a defiant tone; but, as if perceiving the unprofitableness of it, returns soon to his first strain. Syncopations, suspensions, and chromatic passing ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... pale when he emerged into thronged Broadway, but there was no indecision in his movements. He hailed a hack passing, sprung in, and was driven rapidly to the east side—to the humble ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... With its wonted indecision, Congress dallied with this bold proposal until late in the following February. Meantime, Virginia and other States appointed delegates to the convention which Congress had not yet sanctioned. When Congress finally issued the summons, it made no reference to the Annapolis ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... as he gazed, eager, half advancing, indecision and irresolution dropped from him forever. Resolved from out the shadows, wherein it had never in his most intimate self-searching taken any actual form, he saw the image of that unformulated dream which had haunted his sub-consciousness so long, and which ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... watching to see that they "do it right," or afraid lest they forget to do it at all. He wakes up from a sound sleep in dread lest he forgot to lock the door, turn out the electric light in the hall, or put out the gas. He becomes the victim of uncertainty and indecision. He fears lest he decide wrongly, he worries that he hasn't yet decided, and yet having thoroughly argued a matter out and come to a reasonable conclusion, allows his worries to unsettle him and is forever ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... thrown in, as an inducement to the travellers to ride away with all speed; but instead of having the desired effect, it elicited from the same person, the remark, 'Thirteen miles! That's a long distance!' which was followed by a short pause of indecision. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... motion. In comparison with God they are not so; apart from the creator they can neither exist nor be conceived. In every case where the attempt is made to distinguish between intrinsic and general (as here, between substance in the stricter and wider senses), an indecision betrays itself which is not ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... wonder that it was so long deferred, and even in the fury of his struggles, out of the corner of one eye caught a fugitive glimpse of a tallish man, masked, standing back to the forward partition in a pose of singular indecision, pistol poised ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... she cried, "pray, papa, not yet. Connie is quite contented and reasonable—I believe she is out shopping just now, too. And while you are in this state of indecision yourself, it would be the greatest mistake for you to see her. It would only disturb and upset her—wouldn't ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... rustic bars, ended Pepsy's chores for the day and in the delightful interval before supper she and Pee-wee lolled in the well house by the roadside. Wiggle, with characteristic indecision, chased the cows a few yards, returned to his companions, darted off to chase the cows again, deserted that pastime with erratic suddenness, and returned again wagging his tail and looking up intently ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... back in momentary indecision. Perhaps it were wiser to let sleeping dogs lie. Then he smiled at the incongruity of that proverb applied ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... he advanced, with a pale but firm look. Prepared to assert her rights to the last, she was the very model of a determined woman, who, having been greatly wronged, resolves to be greatly avenged. If her lip quivered, it was evidently from eagerness, not from indecision; and her eye had the lightning of hell, not of heaven, in its glance. Barbara crouched at the feet of her mistress; and Lady Frances, to whom something new was synonymous with something delightful, was tip-toe with expectation. ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... of indecision she stepped into the small room opening off the kitchen, which had been occupied by Pedro and his wife. Having bolted the shutters of the single window, she came back into the kitchen and stood beside the table, making a determined effort for ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... seem lighter, everything takes a different hue, in the morning when the sun is shining and the birds are singing, and after the months of sickening indecision Nancy experienced such a delightful sense of rest, such a freedom from suspense, that she actually laughed aloud as she said to herself: "Oh, I guess perhaps it's not going to be ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... wind from the south-east—is now blowing, and, although there is too much air, one gasps for breath. The brilliant blue fades out of the sky, and the sun just glimmers through layers of dun-coloured vapour. It is a sky that makes one ill-tempered and restless by its sameness and indecision. But the wind is a worse trial. It blows hot, as if it issued from the infernal cavern. It sets the nerves altogether wrong, and disposes one to commit evil deeds from mere wantonness and the feeling that some violent reaction from this influence ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... three exactly knew whether under existing circumstances, any communication, otherwise than through Dodson & Fogg, ought to be held with Mr. Pickwick's servant, they were all rather taken by surprise. In this state of indecision, obviously the first thing to be done, was to thump the boy for finding Mr. Weller at the door. So his mother thumped him, and he ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... Angry indecision hid behind Marthasa's eyes. "Well—maybe that makes it different," he said finally. "We try to do everything possible to make the Ids happy. It's up to you if you want to waste your time on ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... judgment, after a minute of, perhaps, endeavour for self-control, Mr. Knowlton broke down and laughed furiously. Mrs. Starling looked stern. Diana was in a state of indecision, whether to laugh with her friend or frown with her mother; but the infection of fun was too much for her—the pretty lips gave way. Maybe that was encouragement for the offender; for he did not show any embarrassment or express ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... in his pocket, and passed his handkerchief over his face. After a moment of indecision, he suddenly and swiftly stole out of the room, as if he was afraid of their calling somebody in, and stopping him. At the door he turned round for a moment, and said, "You will hear how this ends. ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... man at such moment of trial; but this young girl, with a glance and a laugh, had totally disarmed him. Disturbed conscience, a feeling akin to disloyalty, pricked him, but the temptation left him powerless to resist—those black eyes held him already captive; and yet in this moment of wavering indecision, that teasing hand once again ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... suspicions on that head himself, I imagined; but such was his inexperience, and such were the lady's powers of attraction, and her skill in bringing them to bear upon his young imagination, that they had not disturbed him long; and I believe the only effectual causes of the vacillating indecision that had preserved him hitherto from making an actual declaration of love, was the consideration of her connections, and especially of her mother, whom he could not abide. Had they lived at a distance, he might have surmounted ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... tell her of his determination to marry. But so great was the terror with which the Valencian inspired him, that the pen fell from his hands every time he took it up to acquaint her with the fact. He thus let the days go by in this continual state of indecision, thinking with anxiety how enraged she would be, and like all weak natures, hoping that some unforeseen event would arrange a compromise. That way of breaking the connection without any quarrel or explanation whatsoever was quite in accordance with his character. ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... said, in a later speech, would make it more difficult for Russia to modify her policy, and he believed that without a threat such a modification of the treaty of San Stephano could be obtained as would make it acceptable. He had been accused of indecision and even of cowardice. For his own part he thought it needed more courage to stand up in his place to express views which he knew to be unpopular among the great body of his friends, than to sit at ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... are of material interests, material prosperity, material projects. Of the moral well-being of the people seldom or never a word is heard; and, whenever a moral question does come up for discussion, the vagueness of the theories advanced and discussed, the indecision of the measures proposed, the want of unity in the views developed, show how unfit are modern legislators for even touching on what concerns the soul of man. The legislators themselves feel that their character is far from being a sacred one, and that the spiritual element is not ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... less sugar-coated), cheating, and often in these later years the roar of his voice or the power of his name. But now, facing the formless, impersonal thing called public opinion, hitherto unknown in his scheme of things, he was filled with uncertainty and indecision. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... is there were unusual elements in this temptation, such as have been already set forth, and Bert's course of action from the time when he first saw the translation of Sallust in Regie Selwyn's room, until when at length after days of indecision, of halting between two opinions, of now listening to, and again spurning the suggestions of the tempter, he had a copy of the same book hidden away in his own room, was but another illustration of the familiar experience, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... stable, frowning, fully conscious that he had been worsted in the verbal battle just ended. He was filled with a disagreeable sense of impotence; he felt small, mean, cheap, and uncomfortable, and was oppressed with indecision. In short, he felt that he was not the same man who had ridden up to the Lazy Y ranchhouse at twilight the night before—in twelve hours a change had come over him. And Betty had ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of measures of mass, similar remarks to those on measures of length might be made. The confusion here was perhaps still greater, because, to the uncertainty relating to the fixing of the unit, was added some indecision on the very nature of the magnitude defined. In law, as in ordinary practice, the notions of weight and of mass were not, in ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... sat debating, balanced in the swing of indecision, as to whether I should go, or not. And at last I exclaimed: I will give her just a chance. And I drew my kattari from its sheath, and I said: Now I will throw it into the air. And if it falls back upon its point, I will go and see her: but if not, not. And I threw it up, like ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... essential purposes, the committee are of opinion, that a fixed and permanent office for the Department of Foreign Affairs ought forthwith to be established, as a remedy against the fluctuations, the delay and indecision to which the present mode of managing our foreign ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... commanded them to rally to her side; then, seizing a cutlas from the deck, she glided tigerishly to the main companionway, down which the pirates were now driving the beaten crew, and the men she had picked out were shorn of all indecision as Milo leaped on board with a bull-throated shout ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... relations; to revert, at least, to the old friendship. He had actually risen from his seat in the House of Commons half an hour before the starting of the train; had made his way to the Central Lobby, torn by indecision; and had there been pounced upon by an important and fussy constituent. Of course, he could have shaken the man off. But just the extra resolution required to do it had seemed absolutely beyond his power, and when next he looked at the clock it was too late. He went back to the House, haunted ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... may have had, indecision was certainly not one of them, and the very next day the machinery was set in motion for the advance against the French. Colonel Joshua Fry was selected to head the expedition, and Colonel Washington made second in command. Colonel Fry at one time taught ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... in such a state of indecision and uncertainty as to be perfectly beside himself; he did not know what step to take next, and again addressed himself to the enemies of Jesus, declaring that 'he found no crime in him,' but they demanded his death still more clamorously. He then remembered ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... very thought that such a letter should have been directed to him.' It was in vain that I reasoned against this impression; the conviction that he had been disgraced had taken possession of his mind. He said again and again that nothing but his DEATH could remove the stain which his indecision had cast upon the name of his family. I hurried to the hall, on hearing M'Donough and the captain passing, and reached the door just in time to hear the latter say, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... have liked to put her arms about her hostess's neck, and to seal their extraordinary treaty with a kiss, but she knew better. As well attempt to kiss the vision of a ministering angel. Rachael, one arm on Magsie's shoulder, her whole figure and her face expressing painful indecision, had never seemed so remote, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... private club, and held their sittings in the Rue Vivienne. Their object was to assist the King in the difficulties with which he was surrounded, and their immediate aim was to withdraw him from the metropolis; Louis' own oft-repeated indecision alone prevented them from being successful. These royalists were chiefly from the province of Poitou, and as their meetings gradually became known and talked of in Paris, they ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... fuss of "work," against what John Wesley called the "lust of finishing" any labour, and to serve them in their way rather than in my own. But the change was very great. How we "pottered" through the days!—with what needless formalities, what slowness, what indecision! How fatiguing is enforced idleness! How lengthy were the evening meals, where we sat, trifling with the vine-leaves under a single dish of fruit, till the ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... saying to herself, over and over again: "He will never forgive me, he will never forgive me." Later on, alone in the gloomy library, she sat staring at the curtained window through which the daylight came darkly, and passed final judgment upon herself after months of indecision: "I have been too sure of myself, too sure of him. What a fool I've been to count on a thing that is so easily killed. What a fool I've been to go on believing that his love would survive in spite of the blow ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... requirements of the majority, only renders the exceptional case more rare and prized. We unconsciously admire those who, instead of seeking to be guided by the opinions of others, endeavor to direct them, and who, forming their own standard of judgment, keep themselves aloof from all fluctuations of indecision and weakness. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... folded in her lap and her head bowed, she remains there without moving, heedless of the sun that is scorching her neck. Her wide-eyed gaze wanders over things which it does not take in; her lips, half-parted in a smile, betray the indecision of her soul. At last, blushing all over her face, she ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... Lockbourne's troops was quickly completed, but the process of reassigning them was considerably more drawn-out. The reassignments were somewhat delayed in the first place by indecision, caused by budgetary uncertainties, on the future of Lockbourne itself. By 25 July, a full two months after the screening began, the Lockbourne board had recommended only 181 officers and 700 airmen ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... upon to act. There is no time for hesitation or indecision—no time for haste and excitement. It is a time when the people should rise in the majesty of their might, stretch forth their strong arm, and silence the angry waves of tumult. It is time the people should command peace. It is a question ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... authority with them, it is feared, besides the breaking of promises already made; the difficulty of getting them promptly and properly paid, and of getting the value of their work fairly estimated; the general inefficiency, ignorance, and indecision of the authorities, wanting a defined system and hampered by prejudice and ignorance and selfishness,—all these things make the aspect of affairs dark enough at times, and one gets discouraged and disheartened and disgusted and disappointed, and is ready to part and have nothing more to do with ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... "moral unrest" so deeply penetrating all western societies, the growing vagueness and indecision of personalities, the almost complete disappearance of the "strong and steady character" of old times, in short, the rapid and general increase of Bohemianism and Bolshevism in all societies, is an effect of the fact that not only the early primary group controlling all interests ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... we could find it,) of a man whose interest urgently required him to act one way or the other, and who, instead of acting accordingly, sat down in absolute inaction, on the score that he did not know what course to pursue. That indecision would be always blamable. "Ah!" said I, "those cool heads and skilful hands which pilot the little bark of their worldly fortunes amidst such dangerous rocks and breakers, under such dark and stormy skies, what can they say, if asked why they gave up all ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... After a certain indecision he compromised by entering the front gate and calling the Captain's name from among the scattered ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... stood on the desolate little platform, realizing that she had been carried by her own station, she presented a picture of dismay. For an instant the Other Girl stood regarding her with indecision. Then with a slight flush she stepped to Glory's side, and, placing her ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... and for one moment of weakness and indecision had tried to pass by without seeming to recognize him. But it was impossible to ignore this, and though she had hoped her role would not begin till to-morrow, it was clear now that ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... prayed for. You see," she continued, almost confidentially, but without the least loss of composure—"you see he has told me a great deal about himself and his various experiments—his phrases of indecision and disgust. There are lots of tentative talents in the world, and the sooner they are crushed out by circumstances the better. But it seems as though he really had it in him to do something distinguished—as ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... representation of the third estate, dreaded the indecision of the king and the discontent of the court. Not appreciating sufficiently the importance of a crisis which he considered more as a financial than a social one, he waited for the course of events in ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... crisis of indecision he decided to do what he had so often done before—consult the Bible. This had been a habit of his father's before him; in fact, his whole family had asked guidance on every venture they undertook, no matter how humble it might be, and the training of his childhood was not outgrown. ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... culture. Culture is a desirable quality in a critic of new books, and sits well on a possessor of belles lettres; but as applied to politics, it means simply a turn for small fault-finding, love of selfish ease, and indecision in action. The man of culture is in politics one of the poorest mortals alive. For simple pedantry and want of good sense no man is his equal. No assumption is too unreal, no end is too unpractical for him. But the active exercise of politics requires common sense, sympathy, trust, resolution and ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... doubt was spreading throughout the state as a result of the indecision of the emperor, and all began to ask themselves how long a government could last which was at the mercy of a wanton. The violent death of Caligula, which was still fresh in the minds of the people, added to ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... think and experiment with this selective process as though it was easy and probably final. Nothing could be further from the reality. Even the best adjusted have moments of uncertainty and indecision about their occupational futures. The less adjusted spend a part of their lives looking around for a ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... something, not to go away without leaving a piece of paper as a trace. He explained various symptoms to the husband in order that he might observe them in the patient and he went away shrugging his shoulders again with a gesture that revealed indecision ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... spot was discovered on the water still nearer to the sea. The oar of the gondolier dashed the element behind him, and his boat again glided away, so far altering its course as to show that all indecision was now ended. The darker spot was shortly beheld quivering in the rays of the moon, and it soon assumed the form and dimensions of a boat at anchor. Again the gondolier ceased his efforts, and he leaned forward, gazing intently at this undefined object, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... creatures, as regarded by all good men. The true nature of their characteristics will now be declared by me, with reasons. These shall be stated in aggregation and separation. Do ye understand them. Complete delusion, ignorance; illiberality, indecision in respect of action, sleep, haughtiness, fear, cupidity, grief, censure of good acts, loss of memory,—unripeness of judgment, absence of faith, violation of all rules of conduct, want of discrimination, blindness, vileness ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... base. In December 2003, the World Bank, IMF, and UNDP were forced to step in to provide emergency budgetary support in the amount of $107 million for 2004, representing over 80% of the total national budget. Government drift and indecision, however, have resulted in continued low growth ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... all alone, Kneeling on the floor of stone, Prayed the Monk in deep contrition 5 For his sins of indecision, Prayed for greater self-denial In temptation and in trial; It was noonday by the dial, And the Monk ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... breadth, the barracks of the British troops were situated at some distance from those of the native regiments, and the action of the troops was paralyzed by the incompetency of the general, an old man who had lost all energy, and who remained in a state of indecision while the men of the native regiments shot their officers, murdered all the women and children, and the white inhabitants whose bungalows were situated at their end of their cantonment, opened the jail doors, and after setting ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... back there in the Square, Mr. Boyne," Barbara's voice, good and strong, cut across his panegyric. "Never in my life did I feel like that before. My brain wasn't functioning normally at all. I was confused, full of indecision." She mentioned that state, so painfully familiar to ordinary humanity, as most people would speak of being raving crazy. "It was agonizing," she smiled a little at the others. "Poor Mr. Boyne helping me along—we'd got somehow into a crowd. And I was just a lump of flesh. I hardly knew where we ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... this picture it must surely be unnecessary to say. In the case of Egypt alone did the Latin kings show some sense of the course which prudence called upon them to take; and even here this course was followed with miserable indecision, and at last disgracefully abandoned through ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... an air of high self-possession in marked contrast to her timidity and indecision of the previous day. Amherst thought she looked taller, more majestic; so readily may the upward slant of a soft chin, the firmer line of yielding brows, add a cubit to the outward woman. Her aspect was so commanding that he fancied ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... part this indecision of the ear performs in the feats of the ventriloquist, let the reader suppose two men placed before him in the open air, at the distance of one hundred feet, and standing close together. If they speak in succession, and if he does not know their voices, or see ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... pocket, some he returned to its place. He stood thinking, as it were weighing a possibility. While lingering thus, he noticed the reflected image of his own face in the glass—pale and spectre-like in its indistinctness. The sight seemed to be the feather which turned the balance of indecision: he drew a heavy breath, retired from the room, and passed downstairs. She heard him unbar the back-door, and ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... and so resigning himself to the inevitable boredoms of an English existence. For her the mental horizon was full of Kitty—Kitty insolent, Kitty triumphant. For him, too, Kitty made the background of thought—environed, however, with clouds of indecision and resistance that would have raised happiness in Mary could she ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to wondering what she would do if he were to take hold of the bit and spread his big muscles in one rushing gallop, and go on past the others and get home to the feed box first. He rattled the snaffle in his mouth with nervous indecision—he had a notion ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... already her own that they could be held as witnessed. She followed Lucetta thus mentally—saw her encounter Donald somewhere as if by chance—saw him wear his special look when meeting women, with an added intensity because this one was Lucetta. She depicted his impassioned manner; beheld the indecision of both between their lothness to separate and their desire not to be observed; depicted their shaking of hands; how they probably parted with frigidity in their general contour and movements, only in the smaller features showing the spark of passion, thus invisible to all but ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... written to-day. I fancy how he watches the mail. But I am in a great state of indecision. My heart ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... been gone a week—a week of distress and miserable indecision for Diana, racked as she was between her love and her conviction that marriage under the only circumstances possible would inevitably bring unhappiness. Over and above this fear there was the instinctive recoil ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... in her, sat more easily upon him than the indecision with which he had twice contended. It was his better nature to be true to her, if it were his worse nature to be wholly selfish. And as yet the better nature had the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... either too stupid or too confused to respond; he gazed blankly at his mistress, and when Brown began furtively edging his way toward him Clarence arose, stood a second in alert indecision, then began ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... grapnel had not held. It emerged at once bearing on one fluke, with a ridiculous air of fastidious selection, a small child's chair, and pursued by a maddened shopman. It lifted its catch, swung about with an appearance of painful indecision amidst a roar of wrath, and dropped it at last neatly, and as if by inspiration, over the head of a peasant woman in charge of an assortment of cabbages in ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... and reverences another more than I do General Washington. I esteem his virtues, private and public. I know him to be a man of sense, courage and firmness." But four months later he was lamenting Washington's "fatal indecision," and by inference was calling him "a blunderer." In another month he wrote, "entre nous a certain great man is most damnably deficient." At this point, fortunately, Lee was captured by the British, so that his influence for the time ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... spite of his strenuous attempts the density of the crowd prevented his approaching it. From the fragments of speech he caught, he judged it conveyed news of the fighting about the Council House. Ignorance and indecision made him slow and ineffective in his movements. For a time he could not conceive how he was to get within the unbroken facade of this place. He made his way slowly into the midst of this mass of people, until he realised that the descending staircase of the central Way led to the interior ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... and stood musing over them like a pensive but kindly cormorant. Mr. Joel Ham, B.A., was a small thin man with a deceitful appearance of weakness. There was a peculiar indecision about all his joints that made the certainty of his spring and the vigour of his grip matters of wonder to all those new boys who ventured to presume upon his seeming infirmities. He had a scraggy red neck, a long beak-like ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... above is the result of pre-existing causes. Slowness, indecision, and waste of money, are the prominent ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... give an additional tender gravity to their manner. For Mr. Hale had not been known to many; he had belonged to one of the smaller colleges, and had always been shy and reserved; but those who in youth had cared to penetrate to the delicacy of thought and feeling that lay below his silence and indecision, took him to their hearts, with something of the protecting kindness which they would have shown to a woman. And the renewal of this kindliness, after the lapse of years, and an interval of so much change, overpowered ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... was certainly no Christian prayer and her heart sank within her. When the doctor had ended the ceremony which for all she knew might be an invocation of evil spirits, and entered the house with his wife and child, she went up to him and without a moment's indecision made the sign of the cross on his breast and another on the curly head of the child. Melchior laughed at her but did not rebuff her. Soon the travellers were seated about the neatly laid table in their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a strong Union sentiment at the South. Many prominent men in both sections hoped that war might be averted. The Federal authorities feared to act, lest they should precipitate civil strife. In striking contrast to this indecision was the marked energy of the new Confederate government. It was gathering troops, voting money and supplies, and rapidly preparing for ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... exclaims, "Every day is ladies' day to me." Such a state of mind—or body, rather—is common enough, harmless enough, perhaps, for a few light, ineffectual years; but it is a poor compliment to call it Love, to let this state of shuffling indecision, this weather-cock period, this blindfold chance-shot game of hit or miss, hold such ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... not expect me so soon, I see," said the young man easily. "Well, I was in rather a quandary, something else having offered, so I decided quickly, hating indecision. You got my note of acceptance all right, I hope? It should have reached you ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
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