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More "Uncertain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which usage is more uncertain and fluctuating than in regard to the words which we are always borrowing from foreign languages. Expression generally lags behind thought, and we are now more than ever handicapped by the lack of convenient ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... wandered about the streets of the city with happy faces, and hearts overflowing with joy. The clerks in the various departments also enjoyed a holiday, and they improved it by getting gloriously fuddled. Towards evening I saw S., and many other usually clear-headed men, in the street, in a confused, uncertain state of mind. ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... and thought of the weeks, and months—and, possibly, the years that this wilderness was to be his home. Escape, under present circumstances, he felt to be impossible; and he endeavored to reconcile himself to his fate, and to look forward with hope to a dim and uncertain future. Could his parents and Edith but have been assured of his safety, he thought he could have borne his captivity more cheerfully; but to feel that they were mourning him as dead, and that, perhaps, they would never know that his blood had not been cruelly ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... except, probably, the Duke of Queensbury. The Duke of Grafton has declared himself explicitly. There is no longer any doubt of Thurlow; and there never has been any of Lord Stafford, Lord Weymouth, &c. Lord Lonsdale is still uncertain, and so is, I believe, the Duke of Northumberland—though this will have been brought to a point by this time. The general idea is, that he has connected himself with the Independents, of which there was some appearance last session. ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... beat down upon the fair curly head; the dust rose, shuffled up by the tramp's uncertain step, while the chats and linnets twittered among the furze, and the larks sang high overhead. This and the heat, combined with the motion, sufficed to lull the tiny fellow to rest, and before long his head drooped sidewise, and he ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... experimented, finding that even the charge of a khada was harmless to him. Now, he would find if a sword could be rendered harmless. At the approach of the man, he had pressed the boss on his belt. The man seemed suddenly a little uncertain, ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... and recompose suspected municipalities.—Thus does Jacobinism descend and spread itself, story after story, from the Parisian center to the smallest and remotest commune: throughout provincial France, whether colorless or of uncertain color, the imposed or imported administration imposes its ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Valley entered upon a forced march through country both difficult and strange. It had been of late in the possession of the enemy, and the enemy had stretched felled trees across forest roads and burned the bridges spanning deep and sluggish creeks. Guides were at fault, cross-roads directions most uncertain. The wood grew intolerably thick, and the dust of the roads was atrocious; the air cut away by the tall green walls on either hand; the sun like a furnace seven times heated. Provisions had not come up in time at Beaver Dam Station and the troops marched upon half-rations. Gone were the mountains ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... did not seem quite himself. He was red instead of pale, and his movements were uncertain and restless. He cleared his throat nervously at intervals and more than once left his chair as if to ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Manuscripts, with an English Translation and Notes. By Lady Charlotte Guest. London and Llandovery, 1837-49. The word Mabinogi (in the plural Mabinogion) designates a form of romantic narrative peculiar to Wales. The origin and primitive meaning of this word are very uncertain, and Lady Guest's right to apply it to the whole of the narratives which she has published is open to doubt.] the pearl of Gaelic literature, the completest expression of the Cymric genius. This magnificent work, executed in twelve years with ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... hours! for in that same moment which brought back this one recollection, perhaps by steadying my brain, rushed back in a torrent all the other dreadful remembrances of the period, and now the more so, because, though the event was still uncertain as regarded my knowledge, it must have become dreadfully certain as regarded the facts of the case, and the happiness of all who were concerned. Alas! one little circumstance too painfully assured me that this event had not been a happy one. Had Agnes been restored ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... the affair became more and more complicated, the question remained as difficult, as uncertain as ever. All the appearances and evidences were at variance; probability seemed to incline towards one, sympathy was more in favour of the other, but actual proof was ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... came, there came also a letter from Europe; and thereafter the despatches were as regular and as frequent as the steamers. But they brought no special news as to the point of coming home. Mrs. Iredell lingered on in the same uncertain state, neither worse nor better,—there was no news to send. Everything else the letters had; and though Faith might miss that, she could ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... I do or leave undone. And—God help me!—whatever you do or leave undone, I'll love you. There shall never be a cloud between us for a day; no, sir, not for an hour. We're imperfect enough, all of us—we needn't be so bitter; and life is uncertain enough at its safest—we needn't waste its opportunities. God bless my soul! Here sit I, after a dozen battles and some of the worst climates in the world, and by yonder lych gate lies your mother, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... individuals, but it certainly is not productive in the same degree to the state. Every accession to the food of a country tends to the immediate benefit of the whole society; but the fortunes made in trade tend but in a remote and uncertain manner to the same end, and in some respects have even a contrary tendency. The home trade of consumption is by far the most important trade of every nation. China is the richest country in the world, without any other. Putting then, for a moment, foreign trade out of the question, the man who, ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... Excuse me, it is the dream. But it must be the dream in the week you play. When the man in the dream shall be coming from the other world and shall be saying, 'Please you, play this number,' then they believe you shall certainly win. But if to play the number, very uncertain to win." ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... to wait for a breathless, agonising interval before he heard the next sound, very faint and stifled breathing coming up to him out of the darkness in little uncertain gusts. He heard the breathings pause, then recommence again in quicker and louder succession. Henry, stirred simply, perhaps, by the terror of his anticipation, moved back into the darker shadows in the nook of the cabinet, and stayed there with ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... withdrew again into the comparative safety of the black hallway. I hesitated to waken them, and I could not creep over them asleep—not until I heard the low, guttural voice of a drunken man in the darkness above, and the uncertain shuffle of feet feeling their way to the head of the staircase. Then, my heart in my mouth, quite as much for the fear of what was before me as for what was fumbling about in the darkness behind, I came boldly out and stood over the ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... extricated from his complicated distress; for, besides the invasion of his territories by the French under the duke de Richelieu, the Russians, who had made for a long time a dilatory march, and seemed uncertain of their own resolutions, all at once quickened their motions, and entered Ducal Prussia, under mareschal Apraxin and general Fermor, marking their progress by every inhumanity that unbridled cruelty, lust, and rapine, can be imagined capable of committing. A large body of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... mid-air, while the crowd upon the top of the capitol and on the ground below looked on in horror. The lightning-rod was one of the old-fashioned sort, and more than an inch in diameter. One after another the staples gave way under the weight. The rod swayed gently back and forth as if uncertain which way to fall, but finally lurching towards the up-town side. Every one expected that the lad would be so disconcerted and appalled when he struck the edge of the roof, that he would be unable to look out for his own safety. One of ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... disappeared. They saw it once or twice afterwards in sudden and passing gleams, as if it were a torch in the bark of a fisherman rising and sinking with the waves, or in the hand of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked from house to house. So transient and uncertain were these gleams, that few attached any importance to them; Columbus, however, considered them as certain signs of land, and, moreover, that the land ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... the chief, as the Jewish Temple did, stands in their metropolis; and is named Almack's, a word of uncertain etymology. They worship principally by night; and have their Highpriests and Highpriestesses, who, however, do not continue for life. The rites, by some supposed to be of the Menadic sort, or perhaps with an Eleusinian ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... foreign policy passed as yet almost without notice. The attention of the nation was naturally concentrated on the work of political and social restoration. What shape the new England would take, what was to be its political or religious form, was still uncertain. It was still doubtful which political or religious party had really the upper hand. The show of power lay as yet with the Presbyterians. It was by the Presbyterians that the chief part in the Restoration had in fact been played; and it was the Presbyterians who still almost exclusively ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... from the wayside houses, there poured forth little groups of girls in crimson, or of men in white. And to these must Poni pass the news of who the strangers were, of what they had been doing, of why it was that Poni had a boat-whistle; and of why he was now being haled to the vice-residency, uncertain whether to be punished or rewarded, uncertain whether he had lost a stick or made a bargain, but hopeful on the whole, and in the meanwhile highly consoled by the boat-whistle. Whereupon he would tear himself away from this particular group of inquirers, and once more we would hear the shrill call ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Janet commanded, and watched her rather anxiously, uncertain as to the after effects of drunkenness. But Lise got up. She sat on the edge of the bed and yawned, putting ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for some weapon, but finding none, got me down the ladder (and marvellous clumsy about it) and reaching; the deck stumbled more than once over stiffening forms that sprawled across my way. Here and there a battle lanthorn yet glimmered, casting its uncertain beam on writhen legs, on wide-tossed arms and shapes that seemed to stir in the gloom; and beholding so many dead, I marvelled to find myself thus unharmed, though, as I traversed this littered deck, its ghastliness ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... lady turned about, and as he rode down, still uncertain of her, she came cantering up alone, and there could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and perhaps even impossible, to accurately estimate the value of tobacco to the race; but let us glance at the pros and cons, and then each one can roughly estimate for himself. Tobacco may be used medicinally, but it is a dangerous and uncertain remedy, and it probably has not one medicinal use that cannot be more suitably met by other remedies. One can readily imagine easier digestion as the result of the sedative influence of the after-dinner ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... the complexion be, to justify thee in receiving such uncertain evidence?" inquired ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... call to prophecy?" Hosea replied: "I can neither send my wife away nor divorce her, for she has borne me children." "If, now," said God to him, "thou who hast a wife of whose honesty thou art so uncertain that thou canst not even be sure that her children are thine, and yet thou canst not separate from her, how, then can I separate Myself from Israel, from My children, the children of My elect, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!" Hosea entreated God to pardon him. But God said: "Better ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... much interested in his case, that he aroused a certain interest in me, though at that time the word 'hysteria' conveyed an impression to me of a very uncertain and ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... father fell on his knees, overcome, and hiding his face in his hands sobbed aloud in the intensity of his relief and joy, while the Cardinal murmured a devout 'Thank God!' A few minutes passed, and still the fluttering uncertain breathings came and went, and still Manuel stood by the couch, quietly watchful. Presently the closed eyelids quivered and lifted,—and the beautiful true eyes shone star-like out upon the world again! She stirred, and tried to raise herself, but ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... burdensome than that of Rome, and erasing almost every sign of the civilization that had been engrafted upon them. How far the British population disappeared under the subsequent invasion and the still more oppressive yoke of the Danes is uncertain; but as the invaders would naturally desire to retain the people to cultivate the land for them, it is probable that the great mass of the Britons were not exterminated. It is at any rate pleasant to believe that with the Saxon, Danish, and Norman blood in our veins, there is still ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... through one of the suburbs, I saw, all on a sudden, a respectable-looking female fall down in a fit; several persons hastened to her assistance. 'She is dead,' said one. 'No, she is not,' said another. 'I am afraid she is,' said a third. 'Life is very uncertain,' said a fourth. 'It is Mrs. —-,' said a fifth; 'let us carry her to her own house.' Not being able to render any assistance, I left the poor female in the hands of her townsfolk, and proceeded on my way. I had chosen a road in the direction of the north-west, it led ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... sufficiently convinced of the irresponsibility of poets to be half uncertain whether Helen was joking or not; it was very frequently difficult to tell, anyway, for Helen would look serious and amuse herself by watching another person's mystification—a trait of character which would have been intolerable in anyone ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... police station scene anyone could imagine. Instead of making charges against us the various policemen and detectives all looked bewildered and uncertain how to proceed. Everybody looked at everybody else; and everybody waited to see what would happen next. And things kept right on happening. The door opened a second time and an officer came in leading a young woman in a stylish blue suit. Her ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... flashes of uncertain light Cleave the thick darkness, driving far athwart The up-piled glooms, as lightnings plough their bright Fire-furrows through the barren cloud They sow with thunders. Thought on burning thought Shatters the doubts and terrors which have bowed Weak hearts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... by his fall, was not considerably hurt; without hesitation, he commenced the hazardous descent, difficult by day, but perilous and uncertain in the darkness. Clinging to each projecting rock and feeling cautiously for a foothold among the slippery ledges, he had accomplished half the distance and could already hear the light plashing of the wave upon the boulders below. He heard a voice ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... office," he said, after a moment; his voice sounded a little uncertain. "I don't think it would really suit her, though—now I've seen her," he hastened to add. "It would be too hard work—late hours and all the rest of ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... to his feet and began to pace the floor with a nervous, uncertain tread, while during the next few days he appeared as if ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... brother-in-law, who had come more slowly up out of the darkness of the glen, following Stair as closely as might be in the uncertain dusk, for the eyes of the ex-ambassador were not habituated to night duty like those ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... for refusing to say when she would marry him, though she talked feebly of its being so soon, and of not being ready; but when he reminded her of the special considerations that made delay inexpedient, of her own peculiarly unprotected condition, and of Miss Ludington's uncertain health, and desire to see them married as soon as possible, she attempted no reply, but took refuge in tears, leaving him no choice but to relinquish the question, and devote himself to ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... weeks for the Camoens, circumstances over which we had no control made both impossible, and we had reluctantly to give up the excursion. While these volcanoes and their adjuncts must ever remain, from their uncertain eruptions, a cause of terror to the inhabitants—boiling and bubbling for years, and then suddenly bursting forth, to the entire destruction of all around—they have, we know also, a beneficial effect in the world's domestic economy. ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... the camp was not astir as early as usual. On the cook's arousing us, in the uncertain light of dawn, the herd was slowly rising, and from the position of a group of four horsemen, it was plainly evident that our guest had shaded all competition. Our camp was in plain view of Los Lobos, and only some five or six ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... the army affords no solid contentment. What is called military glory is a fitful and uncertain thing. Time and the newspapers play strange tricks with reputations, and of a hundred officers whose names appear with honor in this morning's despatches ninety may never be mentioned again till it is time ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... in the space of a few years, and be thereby raised to the level of West-European civilisation, or even higher. The older nations had for centuries groped in darkness, or stumbled along in the faint light of practical experience, and consequently their progress had been slow and uncertain. For Russia there was no necessity to follow such devious, unexplored paths. She ought to profit by the experience of her elder sisters, and avoid the errors into which they had fallen. Nor was it difficult to ascertain what ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... his beautiful mother, and, as he saw her, a little wandering smile began to spread from his uncertain lips to his deep-brown eyes, till his whole face shone, held to hers as to a ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... world of actors and actresses, writers, artists, and certain women of uncertain means, he lived well, went to the theatre without paying, gambled at Frascati, and often won. Artist by nature and really profound, though by flashes only, he swayed to and fro in life like a swing, without thinking or caring of a time when the cord would break. The liveliness ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... proposition with a different subject; as, for instance, "all properly instructed men are wise." There are other forms of particular propositions; as, "Most men are imperfectly educated:" it being immaterial how large a portion of the subject the predicate is asserted of, as long as it is left uncertain how that portion is to be distinguished from ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... and Ashgabat's unwillingness to adopt market-oriented reforms. Turkmenistan's economic statistics are state secrets, and GDP and other figures are subject to wide margins of error. In particular, the rate of GDP growth is uncertain. ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... as to-night. The river slept soft and mystic below the woods, the sky was full of light, the air ripe with summer. Out of the yellow honeysuckles that climbed around, clouds of delicious fragrance stole and swathed me; long wafts of faint harmony gently thrilled me. Dewy and dark and uncertain was all beyond. I, possessed with a joyousness so deep through its contented languor as to counterfeit serenity, forgot all my wealth of nature, my pomp of beauty, abandoned myself to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... them, and immemorial custom seemed as it were to sanctify their wildness. Every border-man, almost without exception, was brought up in a state which we would call unhappy, and every circumstance of his life tended to confirm his partiality for an uncertain ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... Epistle to Diognetus is one of the choicest pieces of ante-Nicene literature. Although it is commonly included among the Apostolic Fathers, the date is uncertain, it is anonymous, and the reason for its inclusion is not clear. The weight of opinion is in favor of an early date. It was preserved in but one manuscript, which was unfortunately destroyed in 1870. The main themes of the epistle are the faith and manners of the Christians, and an attempt to explain ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... his own bank and plunder his own till. It was supposed also that he remained good friends with Mademoiselle Desmarets; but if he visited her at her house, he was never to be seen there. In fact, his temper was so uncertain, his courage so dauntless, his strength so prodigious, that gentlemen who did not wish to be thrown out of the window, or hurled down a staircase, shunned any salon or boudoir in which they had a chance to encounter him. Mademoiselle Desmarets had ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... loudest and sternest against the reign of blood; amongst those most disenchanted of the Revolution; amongst those most appalled by its excesses,—was, as might be expected, the Englishman, Clarence Glyndon. The wit and accomplishments, the uncertain virtues that had lighted with fitful gleams the mind of Camille Desmoulins, had fascinated Glyndon more than the qualities of any other agent in the Revolution. And when (for Camille Desmoulins had a heart, which seemed dead or dormant in most of his contemporaries) ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... placed upon some soft articles of furniture in the waggon which held their household goods. This story is too circumstantial to be without foundation, nor is there any reason to doubt the badness of a country lane; but the particular family-flitting referred to must be left uncertain. ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... "She was ever an uncertain little witch, but—to an old friend! I dare say lovers have turned her head. Perhaps I ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... hesitate. That word "honor" had frightened her for Evander, had frightened her for herself. She now groped uncertain, who thought ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... happened to him from that moment until the evening of that day ever afterwards lingered in his memory in a confused and uncertain form, like the wild vagaries of a person in a fever, so weary was he, so troubled, so despondent. And at nightfall on the following day, after having slept over night in a poor little chamber in a house in Boca, beside ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... was among the five hundred members of the majority, uncertain and floating as it was, that the intelligence and experience were to be found. The technical committees to whom the useful work of the Convention was due were recruited ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... dwelling forty feet below, or sometimes dragging sixty feet of line about the pond as I drifted in the gentle night breeze, now and then feeling a slight vibration along it, indicative of some life prowling about its extremity, of dull uncertain blundering purpose there, and slow to make up its mind. At length you slowly raise, pulling hand over hand, some horned pout squeaking and squirming to the upper air. It was very queer, especially in ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... somewhat uncertain in these days of economic unrest. Strike succeeded strike, and with each there came a greater show of violence. Lines were more sharply drawn. Labor and capital organized for ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... occurrence of such notes of authorship; as well as explain why a name duly prefixed in one copy is often missing in another.(527) Whether Victor's Commentary can in strictness be called a "Catena," or not, must remain uncertain until some one is found willing to undertake the labour of re-editing his pages; from which, by the way, I cannot but think that some highly interesting (if not ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... conjecturing I had left the university, exclusive of my father's knowledge, gave but slender encouragement to a young beginner. However, no whit daunted (my first resolution still standing by me) I launched forth into the world, committing myself to the mercy of fortune, and the uncertain temper of the town. I soon acquired a new set of acquaintance; and began to have a relish of what I had only tasted before by hearsay; and indeed, every thing served to convince me, I had changed for the better, except that my slender subsistance began to waste extremely; and ruminating ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... Glabrio,[42] and by a difficult march over the mountains broke in on the king's rear, and so was chiefly instrumental in winning the great battle of Thermopylae, by which Antiochus was driven out of Greece. Immediately after the battle Cato returned home with despatches. We have dim and uncertain information that he took the field once or twice again, but his career as a soldier ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... man himself is uncertain about the call, God will deal patiently with him, as He did with Gideon, to make him certain. His fleece will be wet with dew when the earth is dry, or dry when the earth is wet; or he will hear ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... short colloquy, but it was a sad and wakeful night for her as Cicely slept by her side. Her love was too truly motherly not to be deeply troubled at the claim of one of differing religion and nation, and who had so uncertain and perilous a lot in which to place her child. There was also the sense that all her dearest, including her eldest son, were involved in the web of intrigue with persons far mightier and more unscrupulous than themselves; and that, however they might ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... regarded as the most heinous of all offences. Much the same feeling applied to the slaying of a lord—an offence for which no compensation could be rendered. How far the armed followers of a lord were entitled to compensation when the latter was slain is uncertain, but in the case of a king they received an amount equal to the wergild. Another important development of the principle of allegiance is to be found in the custom of heriots. In later times this custom amounted practically to a system of death-duties, payable in horses and arms or in money to the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... failed to find anything like suitable help in the house, which we greatly needed. Before starting out one morning, in secret I prayed to God to direct me as I went on my uncertain business, and prayed as I called at different places, and soon found a colored girl sixteen years old wanting a place, who came and proved to be the best help we ever had, before or since. For seven years and a half ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... Zuni, the letter probably did not reach him till his return. The northern country, notwithstanding several small entradas and the considerable one of Juan Maria Ribera in 1761, who went as far as Gunnison River, was still a terra incognita, and the distance to the Pacific was also an uncertain quantity. Escalante believed a better road existed to Monterey by way of the north than by the middle route, and a further incentive to journey that way was probably the rumours of large towns in that direction, the same will-o'-the-wisp the Spaniards for nearly ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... "do let us take her over to the church now. The younger the better, I think; it is so uncertain about our ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... about him in doubt and perplexity, uncertain whether to go to the captain of the boat, and demand that he be landed at once, or to explain the situation to some of the passengers, in the vain hope that they might be able to aid him, when he heard the sound of sobs ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... for placing Reid above him in rating on account of the encounters they had shared, or for bending down a bit in his manner, or taking him for a soft one who could be led into long labors on the promise of an uncertain reward. ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... they must overtake those they chased long before such utter weariness seized upon them. He knew that Hen Condit himself, although no weakling, could not stand hours upon hours of continual walking, especially when it consisted of such uncertain footing as fell to their portion ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... Beira and Fontesvilla, and then again on the track between Chimoyo and Mtali, has since my visit become a thing of the past. Early in 1896 the railway was opened from Fontesvilla to Beira, so that the tedious and vexatiously uncertain voyage up or down the Pungwe River is now superseded by a more swift if less exciting form of travel. And the permanent way was rapidly laid from Chimoyo northward, so that trains were running all the way from the sea to Fort Salisbury by the middle of 1899. Should the resources ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... modelled in terra-cotta certain heads of women smiling. This was in the workshop of Verocchio, who had already fixed a smile on David's face in bronze. When an old man, he left "Mona Lisa" on the easel not quite finished, the portrait of a subtle, shadowy, uncertain smile. This smile, this enigmatic revelation of a movement in the soul, this seductive ripple on the surface of the human personality, was to Lionardo a symbol of the secret of the world, an image of the universal mystery. It haunted him all through his life, and innumerable ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... perplexed and confused questioning, the young woman was as glad for the companionship of Patches as he was glad to welcome her. She felt a curious sense of relief and safety in his presence—somewhat as one, who, walking over uncertain bogs or treacherous quicksands, finds, all ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... wildfowl wings, Long and green the grasses wave Between the river and the sea. The sea's cry, wild or grave, From bank to low bank of the river rings; But the uncertain river though it crave The sea, knows ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... symptoms of trichinae are very uncertain, being the same as those of some other disease. The patient complains of severe pain in the abdomen and is troubled with diarrhea. When the trichinae pass into the muscles, they occasion great suffering. ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... $2,000 in gold dust and coin. Jansen was revived with difficulty and, after a period of delirium, described what had occurred. The next morning's Alta published a sensational account of the affair, describing Jansen's assailant and stating that the victim's recovery was uncertain. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... when they suspected what the tortoise had come after, and catching him napping turned him over on his back so that he could not move or bite. Then they took his under shell off, so that he had to travel back to Riu Gu and get another one. This last version however is uncertain and it looks like a piece of invention to suppose that the monkeys had a sufficient medical knowledge to make them suspicious of the design of the tortoise on the monkey's liver. ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... galloping to the village while dawn was yet grey, met Doctor Parsons, and heard the truth of these uncertain ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... the adjoining room was doubtless getting weary. Suddenly Ludwig heard the tones of a piano. Some one was playing, in the timid, uncertain manner of a new beginner, Miska's martial song. Ludwig listened, and turned questioningly toward his betrothed. Katharina did not speak; she merely smiled, and walked toward the door of the adjoining ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... the Senator from Indiana tell me that upon any principle of justice, humanity, or law, if peace had come when these laborers had a crop half gathered, the Government of the United States, having rightfully placed them in possession, and pledged its faith to protect them there for an uncertain period, could immediately have turned them off and put in possession those traitor owners who had abandoned their homes to fight ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... was led there by a subtle, delicate, and fatherly tenderness, and shown a thing which should at once touch my sense of beauty, and then rising, as it were, and putting the superficial aspect aside, speak with no uncertain voice of the deep hopes, the everlasting peace on which for a few years the little restless world of ours is rocked and carried to and ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in Lower Canada was simplified by the conditions prevailing among the French Canadians. For Lower Canada was whole-heartedly Catholic, and the Canadian branch of the Roman Church had its eulogy pronounced in no uncertain fashion by the Earl of Durham, who, after praising its tolerant spirit, summed up the services of the priesthood in these terms: "The Catholic priesthood of this Province have, to a remarkable degree, conciliated the good-will ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... drunk nothing for days. A child's face, of about twelve, delicate,—a breath of fever or cold would shatter such weak beauty; big, dark eyes, (her mother was pure Castilian,) out of which her little life looked irresolute into the world, uncertain what to do there. The painter, with an unapt fancy, had clustered about the Southern face the Southern emblem, buds of the magnolia, unstained, as yet, as pearl. It angered Lamar, remembering how the creamy whiteness of the full-blown flower exhaled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... gained; for the pupil rejoiced in the anticipation of success. The struggle over single difficult places destroys all pleasure, palsies talent, creates disgust, and, what is worse, it tends to render uncertain the confirmation of the faculty already partially acquired,—of bringing out a fine legato tone, with loose and quiet fingers and a yielding, movable wrist, without the assistance of ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... close her eyes during the whole night after the conversation that she had held with the stranger. His sudden appearance, his strange dress and odd speech, had awakened in her an uncertain feeling that had been lying asleep in the bottom of her heart. She was at this time in all the vigour of her youth and of her resplendent beauty. Nisida was not one of the weak and timid natures that are broken by suffering ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Hast thou any lease of thy life? Did ever God tell thee thou shalt live half a year, or two months longer? nay, it may be thou mayst not live so long. And therefore, 2. Wilt thou be so sottish and unwise, as to venture thy soul upon a little uncertain time? 3. Dost thou know whether the day of grace will last a week longer or no? For the day of grace is past with some before their life is ended: and if it should be so with thee, wouldst thou not say, O that I had begun to run before the day of grace had been past, and the gates of heaven ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... shouts of "The Queen!" at once arose from all the booths, and hats and handkerchiefs were every where waved in token of respect. As soon as her Majesty came in sight of the coronation platform and Westminster Abbey, she stopped for a few moments, apparently uncertain what course to take, as she had hitherto met with no obstruction, and yet had received nothing like an invitation to approach. At this moment the feelings of the spectators were wound up to a pitch of the most intense curiosity and most painful anxiety. The persons who ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... Dhammasa@nga@ni, Dhatukatha, Puggalapannatti, Vibha@nga, Yamaka and Kathavatthu. There exists also a large commentary literature on diverse parts of the above works known as atthakatha. The work known as Milinda Panha (questions of King Milinda), of uncertain date, is of considerable ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... of this illuminated desolation, whilst it was as yet far away, something caught my eye, something so strange to the place, so utterly unfamiliar that I watched it earnestly, wondering what it might be. Nearer and nearer it came, with curious, uncertain hops; yes, a little brown ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... steps united, my friends in Mauritius conceived the hope of a success almost certain; but from having been so often deceived I was less sanguine, and saw only that if this memorial and these letters failed, there was little hope of being restored to liberty before the uncertain epoch of peace. ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... the neighbourhood of Ripon was inhabited during, and perhaps before, the Roman occupation of Britain. Whether the place was a settlement of the Romans is uncertain; but it was assuredly in touch with their civilization, for several of their roads passed near it—notably Watling Street, on which, six miles to the east, was Isurium, the modern Aldborough; while imperial coins and other Roman objects have been dug up in Ripon itself. It ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... the convention at best, declined to assume. To raise the money outside by a private loan presented this risk, that in the case of the rejection of the constitution, then in embryo, the lender might find himself the holder of an uncertain claim. The convention, however, was not left long in doubt. With a heroic and patriotic abandon, General Toombs declared that if Georgia would not pay her debts, he would pay them for her. Selling a dozen or two United States bonds, he placed ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... it in kindness. I could not bear to give you a moment's certain uneasiness for an uncertain evil. I really cannot discover either the use or the virtue of tormenting one's self by anticipation. I should think it quite as rational to case myself in a suit of mail, by way of security to my person, as to keep my mind perpetually on the rack of anticipating evil. I perfectly agree with ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... uncle, Charles Kellogg, had written of his father. In that I find this remarkable anticipation of what befell his son, written of Roswell M. Field—who, be it remembered, started in life with a healthy and vigorous body, whereas uncertain health and a rebellious stomach were Eugene Field's portion all the days of ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... telephone message to Mr. Peters's house had been answered to the effect that the man whose hand was gloved was abroad, and the date of his return uncertain. ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... extreme, the result uncertain, the effort almost foolhardy, it may be thought; but the storm and darkness were in my favor, and I was fleet of foot, as were not all of my pursuers, as far as I could foresee who these ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... famine and panic-struck by an outbreak of the sweating sickness which carried off two thousand in London alone, laid all its suffering at the door of the Cardinal. And now that Henry's mood itself became uncertain Wolsey knew his hour was come. Were the marriage once made, he told the French ambassador, and a male heir born to the realm, he would withdraw from state affairs and serve God for the rest of his life. But the divorce had still to be brought about ere marriage could be made or heir be born. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... the district Saburo[u]zaemon stood uncertain. All sense of locality was lost. The Bancho[u] by day and by night greatly differed. The wind sighed through the great pine trees and whispered in the long suzuki grass. He thought to reach the neighbourhood of the Gomizaka. The noise and bustle of the Ko[u]jimachi would give direction. Just ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... from those vague, uncertain thoughts respecting the dead which we find occasioned by the gentle manner in which death most frequently occurs. The breath is shorter and shorter, and finally ceases, yet so imperceptibly, that, for a moment, it is uncertain whether ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... fortune, which, while appearing to favor her, gave her in reality the worst training which was possible for a nature such as hers. She was impulsive, generous, affectionate, but she was also perverse, and, so to speak, uncertain. She was a creature of moods and she was almost absolutely without self-control; and yet nature had been kind to Maggie, giving her great beauty of form and face and a character which a right ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... who were clustering at the long, open window which led out into the balcony. His head, as he glanced at them, was poised with a proud air of defiance, while they surged and oscillated in the opening, uncertain whether to rush ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... story," he said, gravely. "He crossed the river to tell me. I'll take the matter in hand myself; I telegraphed before leaving Benwood, in advance. The Twenty-Fourth Ohio, they say there, have gone on to camp at Piedmont; but the movements of the troops are so uncertain, we will wait until the answer comes to my despatch at the next station. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... bounds, in a manner, after a fashion, so to speak. almost, nearly, well-nigh, short of, not quite, all but; near upon, close upon; peu s'en faut[Fr], near the mark; within an ace of, within an inch of; on the brink of; scarcely, hardly, barely, only just, no more than; about [in an uncertain degree], thereabouts, somewhere about, nearly, say; be the same, be little more or less; no ways [in no degree], no way, no wise; not at all, not in the least, not a bit, not a bit of it, not a whit, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... braided; Curious sunbeams cluster'd thick Vines her casement shaded. Deep with leaves and blossoms white Of the morning glory, Shaking all their banners bright From the mill, eaves hoary. Swallows turn'd glossy throats, Timorous, uncertain, When to hear their matin notes, Peep'd she thro' her curtain, Shook the mill-stream sweet and clear, With its silver laughter— Shook the mill from flooring sere Up to oaken ratter. "Bouche-Mignonne" it cried "come down! "Other flowers are stirring; "Pierre with fingers strong and ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... deliberately chosen, which has no all-inclusive aim, which has no steady progress. There may be much running hither and thither, but it is as aimless as the marchings of a fly upon a window, as busy and yet as uncertain as that of the ants who bustle about ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... picked up a couple of like kind with himself—two sloops off Madagascar. With these he sailed away to the coast of India, and for a time his name was lost in the obscurity of uncertain history. But only for a time, for suddenly it flamed out in a blaze of glory. It was reported that a vessel belonging to the Great Mogul, laden with treasure and bearing the monarch's own daughter upon a holy pilgrimage to Mecca (they being Mohammedans), had fallen ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... lies on the first day of Ramazan repents on the day of Bairam," returned the Jew, quoting a Turkish proverb, and grinning. I was struck by the words. Somehow the mention of Bairam made me think of Alexander's uncertain fate, and suggested the idea that Marchetto knew ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... steered for Quibo, having very uncertain winds and variable weather, and were thirteen days on this short allowance. No one who has not experienced it can conceive our sufferings in this sultry climate, by the perpetual extremity of thirst, which would not permit us to eat an ounce of victuals in a day. We even drank our urine, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... down the shovel or whatever he happened to have in his hands. They would stand and stare with their weapon half raised as they saw their opponent laying aside his only means of defence. They did not know what to expect, and while they were in this uncertain condition the Englander got in his first blow. We became quite notorious for our methods of fighting, and when we would be put to work with any new men, their first question would be, "What did you do before joining the Army?" and we always said, "We were boxers." ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... was manifestly near its close. Under the Stuarts, the judges who lost their places for courageous fidelity to law, were wont to resume practice at the bar. To provide against the consequences of ejection from office, great lawyers, before they consented to exchange the gains of advocacy for the uncertain advantages of the woolsack, used to stipulate for special allowance—over and above the ancient emoluments of place. Lord Nottingham had an allowance of L4000 per annum; and Lord Guildford, after a struggle ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... supposed to be notes; at the sight of which our hearts leapt for joy; and that instant the Captain, clapping his hands, cried out, 'Thank God, here it is.' But when we took up the trunk, and began to examine the supposed treasure and long-looked-for bounty, (alas! alas! how uncertain and deceitful are all human affairs!) what had we found! While we thought we were embracing a substance we grasped an empty nothing. The whole amount that was in the nest of trunks was only one dollar and a half; and all ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... pleasure will be equally unchangeable with that of knowledge. But when we come to view either as phenomena of consciousness, the same defects are for the most part incident to both of them. Our hold upon them is equally transient and uncertain; the mind cannot be always in a state of intellectual tension, any more than capable of feeling pleasure always. The knowledge which is at one time clear and distinct, at another seems to fade away, just as the pleasure of health after sickness, or of eating ...
— Philebus • Plato
... of Scripture may be, he would not feel certain of having grasped it, so long as he remained doubtful of the truth of what, was written. (168) For we are in doubt whether a thing is in conformity with reason, or contrary thereto, so long as we are uncertain of its truth, and, consequently, we cannot be sure whether the literal meaning of a passage ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... Uncertain reference of which: He dropped the bundle in the mud which he was carrying to his mother. [The reader for a moment refers the pronoun to the wrong noun. Bring which nearer to ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... the fishing appears to have been most productive, by vessels belonging to Tromsoe alone, 2,167 white whales. Their value was estimated at fifty-four Scandinavian crowns each (about 3l.). The fishing, though tempting, is yet very uncertain; it sometimes falls out extraordinarily abundant, as in the spring of 1880, when a skipper immediately on arriving at Magdalena Bay caught 300 of these animals at a cast of the net. Of the whales thus killed not only the ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... youth, but he did not fail to be fearful on account of his affair with the Caliph, so that it showed itself in his countenance, and this anxiety was apparent to the youth who knew that he was anxious, frightened, dreaming and uncertain. Ja'afar perceived that the youth was ashamed to question him on his position and the cause of his condition, but the youth said to him, O my lord, listen to what the Sages ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... take a mouthful of bread and butter, so Faith attempted to speak. The words came slowly, for she was a little uncertain how to say them. "I am sorry if Miss Brady does not like me, I am sure. But you are wrong, Miss Willis. I have not 'cut her out' with Mr. Denton. On the contrary, I have never spoken to the young man but once, and that was yesterday, when ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... power they will cast off the bondage of sin or weakness; but how and by what means this great and necessary change is to be brought about they do not stop to think, and meanwhile they yield to worldly or fleshly appetite, trusting vaguely to an uncertain ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... sounds that I heard, and they appeared to be made by the heel of a heavy boot. The person who demanded admission to the cottage at that unseemly hour was evidently in earnest, and the door groaned under the vigorous assaults he made upon it. Of course I could not be uncertain in regard to the errand of the midnight visitor—for such the striking of the clock in the hall below now assured me he was. "The tug of war" was at hand, and I was to be called upon at once ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... but the old woman, who had the inevitable bad leg. All men and beasts were either in the fields or at the races, and Rosamond, uncertain whether her patient was not in a dying state, rejoiced in her recent acquisition of a pony carriage, and speeding home with renewed energy, roused her 'parson's man' from tea in his cottage, and ordered him off to take Betty Reynolds to see her ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but herself knew; but this charming young person, although the daughter of a widowly exile of France who made an uncertain living by letting lodgings in the region between south and west of Washington Square, always managed to dress herself delightfully. It is true that feminine analysis might reveal the fact that the materials of which her gowns were made were of the cheapest product ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... fire not being strong and quick enough to flame up, so as to take the rigging and sails, lies smothering a great while, half an hour before it flames, in which time they can get the fire-ship off safely, though (which is uncertain, and did fail in one or two this bout) it do serve to burn our own ships. But what a shame it is to consider how two of our ships' companies did desert their ships for fear of being taken by their boats, our little frigates being forced to leave them, being chased by their greater! ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... She had an exhilarating sense of having achieved a conquest undreamed of. She also was feeling a little giddy, a little uncertain of the ground ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... beautifully transparent, permitted the eye to penetrate into its green depths for many fathoms around, though every object presented, through the agitated surface, an uncertain and fluctuating outline. I could see, however, the pink-colored urchin warping himself up, by his many cables, along the steep rock-sides; the green crab stalking along the gravelly bottom; a scull of small rock-cod darting ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the day she had come out of a grave and resumed living. It had seemed as if she must learn to walk again, to breathe, to discover anew the meanings of words. At first—listless, uncertain. Then new steps, new meanings. Her mind moved back through the year. She had wept only once—on the night of the divorce. But that was as one weeps at an old grave, even a stranger's grave. The ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... of agitation, but even when she is walking, or talking on any subject that interests her. Without this peculiarity her paleness would be a defect. With it, the absence of any colour in her complexion but the fugitive uncertain colour which I have described, would to some eyes debar her from any claims to beauty. And a beauty perhaps she is not—at least, in the ordinary acceptation of ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... the sands at a pace which seemed to him miraculous, swinging her hat in her hands, and humming the maddening refrain of some French song, which it seemed to him was always upon her lips, and which had haunted him for days. He hesitated, uncertain whether to follow, ashamed of himself, ashamed of the passion which was burning in his blood. And while he hesitated she passed out of sight, turning only once to wave her hand as she crossed the line of grass-grown hillocks which shut him out ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... socialists hold that such a wholesale transfer from private to public ownership would be the only way in which a socialistic regime could be successfully inaugurated. But if this revolution were accomplished it is evident that it is highly uncertain whether its results would be permanent. For all that we have learned concerning human society leads us to say that social organization at any particular time is very largely a matter of habit. Now collective habits are less easily changed than individual habits, because ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... but tranquil rule of Nerva, when there was a brief interlude of tolerance and intellectual freedom, into the reign of Trajan, who was to deal his people injuries as deep as those Titus had inflicted. It is uncertain whether he survived to witness the horrors of the desperate rising of the Jews, which sealed their national doom throughout the Diaspora. At least he did not survive to describe it. His last work that has come down to us is the Life, which is an apologetic pamphlet, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... but quickly recovers from the action of these forces. It therefore seems that the rate of tidal evolution of the Earth-Moon system at present and in the future must be extremely slow, and possibly almost negligible. What the conditions within the Earth and Moon were in the distant past is uncertain, but these bodies probably passed through viscous stages which endured through enormously long periods of time. No one seriously doubts that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are now largely gaseous, and that they will ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... patience, or enjoy in quiet, elementary changes, whether for the better or the worse, as they are never secrets.' BURNEY. In The Idler, No. II, Johnson shews that 'an Englishman's notice of the weather is the natural consequence of changeable skies and uncertain seasons... In our island every man goes to sleep unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... uncertain and inconsistent position of woman in our community, not fully recognized either as a slave or as an equal, taxed but not represented, authorized to earn property but not free to control it, permitted to prepare papers for scientific bodies but not to read them, urged to form political ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... that on striking the head or the chest, it gives forth a sound indicating that the statue is hollow. Such evidence must in any event be very uncertain, and now ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... Elsie loved her father, she more than half dreaded the meeting with him now; so entirely uncertain was she how he would feel in ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... to hesitate. That word "honor" had frightened her for Evander, had frightened her for herself. She now groped uncertain, who thought to ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... long frontier line in every continent, and a very tempting bit of plunder at the centre, by mere volunteer recruits, who mostly come from the worst class of the people—whom the Great Duke called the "scum of the earth"—who come in uncertain numbers year by year—who by some political accident may not come in adequate numbers, or at all, in the year we need them most. Our War Office attempts what foreign War Offices (perhaps rightly) would not try at; their officers have means of incalculable ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... discovered, were not of the slightest present value to me. It takes years of practice to know how to use a complicated microscope. The optician looked suspiciously at me as I made these valuable purchases. He evidently was uncertain whether to set me down as some scientific celebrity or a madman. I think he was inclined to the latter belief. I suppose I was mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject in which he is greatest. The unsuccessful madman is disgraced ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien
... the only reply to the captain's short but pithy speech. The cheer was feebly answered by the enemy, who from her uncertain movements was evidently puzzled at the apparent change in Sir Sidney Salt's tactics. It seemed to those on board the Pride that contrary orders had been issued; for she first luffed, as if to beat to windward and fight the British frigate beam ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... obliged to fire again, but remained uncertain as to his luck in the raging storm of lead ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... the chain of necessity to the sources of this grand instability, is merged at once in a haze of speculations, beautiful as sunlight through morning mists, but uncertain as the veriest chimeras. While beyond the idea of comprehensive motion the colossal symmetry of Truth expands in ultimate outlines, her features are shrouded, but in such an attractive clare-obscure of inviting analogies and semi-satisfying glimpses, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... from St. Paul, for instance—I should never accept it if it began well and afterward became vague and uncertain; and should you break it off before you reached Philadelphia and excuse yourself by telling me that ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... OF PEOPLE TO CULTIVATE IT, who in the end were all killed and massacred by this barbarous people" (fol. 1002 B.). This statement seems to justify what the President De Thou, the contemporary of Thevet, says of him, that he composed his books by putting "the uncertain for the certain, and the false for the true, with an astonishing assurance." (Hist. Univ., tom. II, 651, Loud., 1734.) Thevet had published before this, in 1557, another book, called Les Singularites de la France Antarctique, ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... of their meeting a stranger in the walk, who moved with the indecision of one uncertain whether to advance or to recede. Rockets frequently fell into the grounds, and there had been one or two inroads of boys, which had been tolerated on account of the occasion; but this intruder was a man in ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... frightful surge it is of waves immense that here we toss upon through this uncertain world— windy quarters over ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... get possession of a property that you call a poor stake,” I said. “A few acres of land, a half-finished house and an uncertain claim upon a school-teacher!” ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... be thankful enough; after this my children soon came about; we began to do pretty well again; my dear wife work'd hard and constant when she could get work, but it was upon a disagreeable footing as her employ was so uncertain, sometimes she could get nothing to do and at other times when the weavers of Norwich had orders from London they were so excessively hurried, that the people they employ'd were often oblig'd to work on ...
— A Narrative Of The Most Remarkable Particulars In The Life Of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As Related By Himself • James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
... the Creeks hesitated, and it was uncertain what they would do. But during the summer of 1813 they broke out in hostility, and on the 30th of August their great leader, Weatherford, or the Red Eagle, as they called him, stormed Fort Mims, the strongest fort in the Southwest. He took the fort by surprise, with a thousand warriors ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... that went on round him, the very game in which he was engaged, and from which he dared not draw back, seemed in his eyes the most appalling mockery; but ignorant who were in the secret, unable to guess how his diabolical plot had been discovered, uncertain even whether the whole were not a concerted piece, he went on playing his part mechanically; with starting eyes and labouring chest, and lips that, twitching and working, lost colour each minute. At ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... "but I am tired and nervous, and you told your news so abruptly! Why, it seemed but a moment ago he was here at work, and now he is dangerously ill. What an uncertain stumbling forward in ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... the original letters addressed by Junius to Mr. Wilkes? The editor of the Grenville Papers says, "It is uncertain in whose custody the letters now remain, many unsuccessful attempts having been recently made to ascertain the place of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... "Quite uncertain. Even if he promised to-day that he would go next week, I could not be sure but he would change his mind ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... sensitive reforms has slowed. For example, in the third and final year of its $1.3 billion IMF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, Islamabad has continued to require waivers for energy sector reforms. While long-term prospects remain uncertain, given Pakistan's low level of development, medium-term prospects for job creation and poverty reduction are the best in nearly a decade. Islamabad has raised development spending from about 2% of GDP in the 1990s to 4% in 2003, a necessary step towards reversing ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... when she found a telegram on her plate next morning (almost before her letter had left New York) she opened it anxiously, uncertain whether such promptness meant success or failure for her. But it was from Mr. Francis, asking her to lunch with him. She got through the morning in almost ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... in its own direction, to nourish the various quarters of the body. This greatly resembles the system of circulation, with which we are already acquainted. The veins only are unsatisfactory. They form a kind of transition between the uncertain currents which convey the blood of insects from one end to the other of the cavity in which these strange organs lie bathed, and the closed canals of the higher animals. But they are not canals, properly speaking. The irregular intervals which separate the ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... agency. They have a reservation containing 768,000 acres, set apart for them by the treaty of Oct. 14, 1864, and by executive order of March 14, 1871, situated in the extreme southern portion of the State. This reservation is not well adapted to agriculture. The climate is cold and uncertain; and the crops are consequently liable to be destroyed by frosts. It is, however, a good grazing country. Although this reservation is, comparatively speaking, a new one, the Indians located upon it are making commendable progress, both in farming operations and in lumbering. ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... should lead but I? Unfortunately—observe—I have given my word of honour to Don Carlos not to let the mine fall into the hands of these thieves. In war—you know this, Padre—the fate of battles is uncertain, and whom could I leave here to act for me in case of defeat? The explosives are ready. But it would require a man of high honour, of intelligence, of judgment, of courage, to carry out the prepared destruction. Somebody I can trust with ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... intrusted with this portion of his father's stock; for the Bible tells us that "Abel was a keeper of sheep." What other animals were domesticated at that time we can only conjecture, or at what exact period the flesh of the sheep was first eaten for food by man, is equally, if not uncertain, open to controversy. For though some authorities maintain the contrary, it is but natural to suppose that when Abel brought firstlings of his flock, "and the fat thereof," as a sacrifice, the less dainty portions, not being oblations, were hardly ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... stone post, her nursling in her arms. She sat there quite still; her face was colourless and her tearless eyes seemed to see nothing. The infant was sucking her finger voraciously. Gamelin stood a while in front of her, abashed and uncertain what to do. She did ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... chronologically before all the preceding chapters; they are made to be 28 years before the 16th chapter, 266 before the 15th, 245 before the 13th, 195 before the 9th, go before the 4th, and 15 years before the 1st chapter. This shews the uncertain and fabulous state of the Bible. According to the chronological arrangement, the taking of Laish, and giving it the name of Dan, is made to be twenty years after the death of Joshua, who was the successor of Moses; and by the historical order, as it stands in the book, it is made to be 306 ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... becomes the theater of northern buccaneers and bushraiders. A treaty of neutrality in 1686 provides that the bay shall be held in common by the fur traders of England and France; but the adventurers of England and the bushrovers of Quebec have no notion of leaving things so uncertain. Spite of truce, both fit out raiders, and the King of France, according to the shifting diplomacy of the day, issues secret orders "to permit not a vestige of English possession on ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... as to the objections to distant proximal ligature for primary or recurrent haemorrhage. In some situations this may be unavoidable, and it is sometimes successful, but none the less it is opposed to all rules of good surgery and a most uncertain procedure. It leaves the patient exposed to all the risks attendant on the employment of simple pressure. In one case which I saw, the third part of the subclavian artery had been ligatured for axillary bleeding; secondary haemorrhage, as might ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... a definite sum each week, for the cloak and suit business has its dull spells between seasons, when profits occasionally turn to losses. Thus Louis could advance as a reason that he would feel safer if he be paid, say, twenty dollars a week the year round in lieu of his uncertain share ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... weather still uncertain, but more beautiful in its effects on these grand mountains, in their October glory, than I can describe to you. They are grand—Mount Washington[A] being higher than Mount Rhigi and Mount Rhigi is majestic even in the presence of Mont Blanc and of the Jungfrau. The rich coloring of our autumnal ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... containing zinc the position is less satisfactory. One method of assay gives a lower proportion of cyanide when this metal is present; and the loss of available cyanide thus reported depends, though in a fitful and uncertain way, upon the quantity of zinc present. The other method of assay reports as full a strength in cyanide as if no zinc were present. Unfortunately, using both methods and accepting the difference in the results as a measure of the quantity of zinc present, or at any rate ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... be surprised that our Church rulers are perplexed. For consider the embarrassing state of critical investigation. Critical study of the Gospels has shown that very little of the traditional material can be regarded as historical; it is even very uncertain whether the Galilean prophet really paid the supreme penalty as a supposed enemy of Rome on the shameful cross. Even apart from the problem referred to, it is more than doubtful whether critics have left us enough ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... business is so uncertain as surface-mining. Your claim may be good, and it may be worthless. It may make you well off in a month; and then again you may have to dig and slave for half a year, at heavy expense, only to find out at last that the gold is not there in cost-paying quantity, and that your time and your ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... from such uncertain evidence, the outline of Young's character is too distinctly traceable in the well-attested facts of his life, and yet more in the self-betrayal that runs through all his works, for us to fear that our general estimate of him may be false. For, while no poet seems less easy and spontaneous ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... country, when it is left to chance, is a most uncertain and capricious matter. The narrow views and interests of a clique in the colony, or even of an influential individual, often direct emigration out of its natural course, involving unnecessary suffering to ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... of the tent Diana was waiting for Gaston and the horses, pulling on her thick riding-gloves nervously. She was wrought up to the utmost pitch of excitement. Ahmed Ben Hassan had been away since the previous day and it was uncertain if he would return that night or the next. He had been vague as to how long he would be absent. There had been a constant coming and going amongst his followers—messengers arriving on exhausted horses at all hours of the day and night, and the Sheik himself had seemed unusually preoccupied. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... and she had left him and sped back to Jerrold's door-way. He was there to meet her, and Chester looked with grim and uncertain emotion at the radiance in her face. He had to get back to the office and to pass them: so, as civilly as he could, considering the weight of wrath and contempt he felt for the ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... There, in the uncertain glow, she stood, a Diana of flesh and blood, whose open hunting-shirt fell away from her rounded throat in soft, fringed folds. Her short skirt of heavy drilling came only to her knees; she ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... ridden the other horse that day, for Kit was fresh and ready. The moon had risen and was nearly full, but Wilbur shivered as much from nervousness and responsibility as from fatigue. It was useless for him to try riding at any high rate of speed in the uncertain light, and in any case, the boy felt that his labors for a half an hour more or less would not mean as much as when it had been a question of absolutely extinguishing a small blaze. Kit danced a little in the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... day they seem to have needed it, for even at nineteen, those who had any money to lose, staked it at the tables with as much gusto as the wrinkled, puckered, greedy-eyed 'single woman,' of a certain or uncertain age. Nash protected and cautioned them, and even gave them the advantage of his own unlimited experience. Witness, for instance, the care he took of 'Miss Sylvia,' a lovely heiress who brought her face and her ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... and his companion underwent in London, about the same period. Lodged in a dismal garret, they were at one time obliged to economize their food almost as closely as the inhabitants of a beleaguered town. He speaks of walking the streets for hours together, utterly uncertain what to do, passing stately houses and groups of blooming English children, and then returning late at night to his attic, where his companion, 'trembling with cold,' would rise from his ill-clad bed to open the door for him. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... going to eat our grandfathers like the merry cannibals that we are." The oyster is one of the primitive manifestations of life on the planet—one of the earlier forms of organic matter, still resting, uncertain and aimless in its evolution in the immensity of the waters. The sympathetic and slandered monkey only has the importance of a first cousin who has failed to make a career for himself, of an unfortunate and absurd relative whom one leaves outside the door, feigning ignorance of his family ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... words, he felt morally certain. She spoke in the most natural way and on the most commonplace topics, but there were frequent silences and it was during those he felt that without looking directly at him, she was watching him. And once or twice he got it into his head that she was a little puzzled and uncertain, though whether it was about what to think or what to do, he had no conception. He told himself that all this was only his own morbid imagination. Still, it made that walk an uncomfortable ordeal and seldom did actor have to work harder ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... Baltimore, and sails back in the Flying Dutchman to South Wales. I fancy, from the tradition of the dollars, that he had made good affairs here with the stock of flannels he brought over with him; but all is rather uncertain about him, especially the land he bought, though the story of it is pretty sure to fire some descendant of his in each new generation with the wish to go down to Washington, and oust the people there who have unrightfully ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... but to obey her. Bruised, worn out, hungry, uncertain of everything, and miserable about his aunt, he could only wander slowly away, feeling himself a traitor. He found his way to the workshop, and had just thrown himself down in the wood-shed, when he heard his master's voice ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... She felt so ill that she could have cried out. It was the first time she had seen Serge and Jeanne together since the dreadful discovery at Nice. She had avoided witnessing their meeting, feeling uncertain of herself, and fearing to lose her self-control. But seeing the two lovers before her, devouring each other with their looks, and making signs to each other, made her feel most ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... deficient both in the south and the north of France, seems to point to north Germany and Scandinavia, by way of the rich ore-fields of middle Europe. But the archaeology of the Peninsula for this early period is at present too uncertain to speak with confidence. There are indications, even in Neolithic times, which, perhaps, point to Spain; but, again, there are relations which indicate a considerable correspondence with Brittany and the North of France in the early Bronze Age. The late Dr. Much ("Die Kupferzeit," p. ...
— The Bronze Age in Ireland • George Coffey
... upon a wintry road, and the oar leaves blue gashes upon the ground at every stroke, or is entangled among the thick weed that fringes the banks with the weight of its sullen waves, leaning to and fro upon the uncertain sway of the exhausted tide. The scene is often profoundly oppressive, even at this day, when every plot of higher ground bears some fragment of fair building: but, in order to know what it was once, let the traveller follow in his boat at evening ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... world uncertain is: Fond are life's lustful joys, Death proves them all but toys. None from his darts can fly; I am sick, I must die— Lord, have ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... cheerful, no matter what happens," we are beginning at the wrong end. We may be able to work back from our mottoes to real living, but the chances are we shall stop somewhere by the way, too confused and uncertain to go on. Self-control, at its best, is not a conscious thing. It is not well that we should try to be good, but that we should so dignify our lives with the spirit of good that evil becomes ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... Kangaroo, I'm sorry to see you've taken up with Humans. You know I have quite set my face against being on familiar terms with them, although my cousin is intimate with the whole race. Take my word for it, they're most uncertain friends. Two Kookooburras were shot last week, in spite of Government protection. Fact!" And as the bird spoke he nodded his head warningly towards the place where ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... almost too weak and giddy to stand, but he had swallowed, he had triumphed over the rising flood that had threatened to engulf him, and he was, outwardly, himself again. He could go through with it now, and though his face might be ghastly, his lips white, his hand uncertain, his gait considered and careful, he would he able to chat lightly, to meet Ross-Ellison's jest with jest—for that Ross-Ellison would die ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... past where Lucien was; but, notwithstanding his eagerness to fire, it moved so rapidly along the trail that he was unable to take sight upon it. It did not halt for a moment; and, as Lucien's gun was a rifle, he knew that a flying shot would be an uncertain one. In the belief, therefore, that the fox would stop soon—at all events when it came up with the ermine—he restrained himself from ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... now, when far uncertain Lips of yore Call, call me to the curtain, There once more, But ONCE, to tread the ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... in the old world galleries, pictures in which the shadowy and somewhat uncertain background thus forced into strongest projection the main figure, yet without clearly defining it. The rough frame of the doorway gave just the rustic setting suited to Alice's costume, the most striking part of which was a grayish short gown ending just above her fringed ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... strife of political parties comes at last to be civil war, which, in its turn, becomes a religious war, and such war soon grows to a war of unbelief against Faith, of antichrist against Christ. The end is not uncertain. Christ will be victorious; for it is appointed that the power of hell shall not prevail." In such a state of things the first duty of German Catholics is that they be united. It is necessary that the German church should remain in intimate union with the ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... tidily furnished little room—"every thing here looks clean and comfortable. I wonder if we could get accommodated with beds, instead of having to tramp it three miles further over the sandbanks in this uncertain weather, in order to reach our original destination ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... ride that horse was to feel free, exultant, invincible. His gallop was like Marching Through Georgia, vigorously rendered by a good brass band. All that has been written of man's noblest friend— from the dim, uncertain time when some unknown hand, in a leisure moment, dashed off the Thirty-ninth chapter of the Book of Job, to the yesterday when Long Gordon translated into ringing verse the rhythmic clatter of the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... line, two points being given, can be defined. And if I could steer for some given point on the opposite bank, I could hit it if the current did not take me down stream; but a curve is awfully uncertain, and my mind was in a state of perturbation. However, I got across with nothing worse ...
— The American Missionary, October, 1890, Vol. XLIV., No. 10 • Various
... their shaping," Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,— "Give!"—So, he gowned him, Straight got by heart that book to its last page: Learned, we found him. Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, Accents uncertain: "Time to taste life," another would have ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... Orator, in a panic lest one of the Latin puns in his forthcoming address should escape him, said hurriedly—"Yes!"—and then "No"—being quite uncertain to which girl in mauve the great man referred, and far too nervous to find out. The great man smiled, and looked up blandly at the shrieking gallery overhead, wondering—as all persons in his position do wonder in each succeeding generation—whether ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... being erected. It often occurred to me that our position at that time was like that of persons sitting on a barrel of gunpowder in a house on fire. So alarming were the accounts received in the daytime, that I often lay down at night uncertain what might occur before morning. Often I got up, looked towards the cantonments, and listened. Thankful that all was quiet, I returned to ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... earlier than the dawn of written history there lived somewhere among the great table-lands and plains of Central Asia a race known to us only by the uncertain name of Aryans. These Aryans were a fair-skinned and well-built people, long past the stage of aboriginal savagery, and possessed of a considerable degree of primitive culture. Though mainly pastoral in habit, they were acquainted with tillage, and they grew for themselves at least one ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... here; but it is very uncertain whether any of the stones that still remain can be claimed as parts of such fortification. It is a fine position for an inferior force to choose for defense against a superior one; but while it can not be declared with absolute certainty that this is not the place where the fighting took place, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... shorthand writer for the proctors. And I recollect I wrote the letter from a little office I had there, where the answer came also. It wasn't a very good living (though not a very bad one), and was wearily uncertain; which made me think of the Theatre in quite a business-like way. I went to some theatre every night, with a very few exceptions, for at least three years: really studying the bills first, and going to where there was ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... million all seemed to coalesce and become one—one little child; and the swift flutter of change grew vague and faint around it, so that although there was a soft uncertainty around the child and a half-visible smoke of growing forms arising from it, yet that small, dimpled shape remained, a little uncertain in outline as in a composite photograph, but steady and changeless as to the eyes—the clear, deep, searching eyes of ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Parrotts trained on Fort Sumter were in batteries from 1,750 to 4,290 yards distant from their target. They were very accurate, but their endurance was an uncertain factor. The notorious "Swamp Angel," for ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... possibly recover by casting blame on their confreres,—you never could. But it is not for you to oppose that Government with an enemy on its march to Paris. You are not a soldier; military command is not in your rode. The issue of events is uncertain; but whatever it be, the men in power cannot conduct a prosperous war nor obtain an honourable peace. Hereafter you may be the Deus ex machina. No personage of that rank and with that mission appears till the end of the play: we are only in the first act. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... proverbially uncertain, Mr Thompson. That is principally the reason why I was so bent on making him confess if he had anything to confess. I can't expel a boy and ruin his whole career on mere suspicion. The matter must be ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... man in uniform bit his lip and started to move his chair back; then, as if uncertain what to do, remained where ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... was to instruct the people in the law and the circumstances of its passage, and thus to inspire confidence in spite of the refusal of the ballots. It was suggested that as the Presidential election was near at hand, politicians would not leave it uncertain as to whether or not women were entitled to vote, but would secure an interpretation of the law from the Supreme Court without proper argument and presentation of the facts, hence the State W. S. A. decided to test the matter itself. The case was brought by Mrs. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Saxon and Frank Scherman represented audience, with clapping and stamping, and laughter that suspended both,—making as nearly the noise of two hundred as two could,—this being an essential part of the rehearsal in respect to the untried nerves of the debutant, which might easily be a little uncertain. ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... passed crouching over the river at the feet of the statue. She had been very near to death, and for a while could hardly realise the fact of her safety. She knew that she was glad to have been saved; but what might come next was, at that moment, all vague, uncertain, and utterly beyond her own control She hardly ventured to hope more than that Anton Trendellsohn would not give her up to Madame Zamenoy. If he did, she must seek the river again, or some other mode of escape from that worst of fates. But ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... Damaris answered. "Her plans, I believe, are uncertain at present. You and Dr. Horniblow will stay to tea with us, won't you?"—this charmingly. "It will be here in a very few minutes—I can ring for ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... slowly, while Mr. Weil looked on, uncertain what to do or say. He wanted more than anything else in his life to lay hands upon the cause ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... not have you go into this danger, I will not!" stammered Molly incoherently. The dusk was spreading, and her eyes seemed to grow larger and larger in the uncertain light. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... managers undergo revolution, these risks are likely to become greater rather than smaller. The natural result is that in London, the city which sets the example to most English-speaking communities, Shakespearean revivals are comparatively rare; they take place at uncertain intervals, and only those plays are viewed with favour by the London manager which lend themselves in his opinion to more or less ostentatious spectacle, and to the interpolation ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... new spirit, and therewith to transcend the old philosophical standpoint of Locke and Hume, was Coleridge with his Aids to Reflection, published in 1825. But even after this impulse of Coleridge the movement remained in England a sporadic and uncertain one. It had nothing of the volume and conservativeness which belonged ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... States. She scorned the idea of an aristocracy based upon two accidents of the body. She paid an eloquent tribute to Kansas, the pioneer in all reforms, and said that it would be the best advertisement that Kansas could have to give the ballot to women, for thousands now waiting and uncertain, would flock to our State, and a vast tide of emigration would continually roll toward Kansas until her broad and fertile prairies would be peopled. It is useless to attempt to report her address, as she could ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... feet, Leon stood for some moments uncertain how to act. He fully believed they were snakes—anacondas, or water-snakes no doubt—that had just crept out of the river; and he felt that a movement on his part would bring on their united and simultaneous attack upon the sleeping party. Partly influenced ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... Alexander's generals compelled him to return! Woe to us! We are lost!" He sank down on the sofa; and now, when none could see him, the veil dropped from his face, the imperial mantle fell from his cowering form, and he was but a weak, grief-stricken man, who, with a pale and quivering face, was uncertain what to do. Hour after hour elapsed. He was still sitting in the corner of the sofa, rigid and motionless; only the sighs which heaved his breast from time to time, and the quiver of his eyelids, betrayed the life ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... far pointed to the old hackneyed plea of an alibi. He had evidently determined on this course of action when he sat listening to the stories Bud's father and the girl had told him as he sat beside them on the bench near the door. Their testimony, taken in connection with the uncertain testimony of the Government's principal witness, the mail-carrier, as to the exact time of the assault, together with the prisoner's testimony stoutly denying the crime, would insure either an acquittal or a disagreement. ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... give the composer the name which he now usually bears, was the second of the twelve children born to the Rohrau wheelwright. The exact date of his birth is uncertain, but it was either the 31st of March or the 1st of April 1732. Haydn himself gave the latter as the correct date, alleging that his brother Michael had fixed upon the previous day to save him from being called an April fool! Probably we shall not be far off the mark if we assume ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... warmly, perhaps, for the timber-tower, whose features wore an uncertain expression during the operation, and who at last broke out into a yell of pain, as Joe cast him off with a defiant laugh. Nor did the bully wait for any further explanations, for, whether the man who had ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... was uncertain about it. But when I came back that way I looked again, and I caught him peeping out at me from one of the bar-room windows. As soon as he saw me look he dodged out ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... productive occupation, which is honorable in its character, healthful in its nature, and conducive to the welfare of society, rather than to aspire to callings, not so laborious perhaps, yet more deceptive and uncertain in substantial remuneration, and far less calculated ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... arrival of the emigrants, and that their numbers had been fearfully reduced by its ravages. Some authors have hinted at the probability of this disease having been the yellow fever, whose visitations are known to be at uncertain, and, apparently, at very distant intervals. Whatever might have been the cause of this destruction of his people, Massassoit is believed to have been induced, by the consequences, to cultivate the alliance of a nation, who could protect him ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... [767] It is uncertain whether Pamphilus, a tragedian, is meant here, who, like Euripides and Aeschylus, made the Heraclidae the subject of a tragedy, or the painter of that name, so celebrated in later times, who painted that subject in the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... convinced of the irresponsibility of poets to be half uncertain whether Helen was joking or not; it was very frequently difficult to tell, anyway, for Helen would look serious and amuse herself by watching another person's mystification—a trait of character which would have been intolerable in anyone ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... 70, and perhaps 80, per cent, of the whole population, the Government of India have no reason to be ashamed of their record. Famines can never be banished from a country where vast tracts are entirely dependent upon an extremely uncertain rainfall, and the population is equally dependent upon the fruits of the soil. But besides the scientific organization of famine relief, the public works policy of Government has been steadily and chiefly ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... incalculable differences from the uncertain doubts and fears that had tormented Lenore on the ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... being born and dying are very simple when they come. It is the mistaking the big and little things that makes us all so uncertain. Aunt Polly, Larry has left me." The start had ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... fairness and justice and right, has been apparently without effect. It is unfortunate for the people of Georgia that an appeal to the pocketbook should be necessary to bring back the enthronement of law, but if moral suasion is powerless, the question of personal interest has entered and in no uncertain degree. ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... government and is head of the State Council and National Assembly cabinet: State Council is the collective executive authority; members appointed by the president elections: president elected by the National Assembly; election last held 8 June 1993 (next election date uncertain as the National Assembly did not hold a presidential election in December 2001 as anticipated) election results: ISAIAS Afworki elected president; percent of National Assembly vote ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... would have seriously crippled the colony had it not been for his restraining hand, were courteous but convincing; it was Bradford who led the colony from the unsatisfactory communism of its first years to the system of individual property that, from 1623, held sway, and turned an uncertain venture into a career of industrial prosperity. Always tolerant, never injudicious, and alike pure-minded, liberty-loving, courageous, and wise, no hand could have better guided than did his, or have more systematically shaped, the destinies of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... is for the most part ideal; the cyclic year serves as the connection between the world of absolute being and of generation, just as the number of population in the Republic is the expression or symbol of the transition from the ideal to the actual state. In some passages we are uncertain whether we are reading a description of astronomical facts or contemplating processes of the human mind, or of that divine mind (Phil.) which in Plato is hardly separable from it. The characteristics of man are transferred to the world-animal, ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... besides terrible suffering, great and noble joys, and not an hour in which his desire for virtue was weakened. He had spent happy years here in the peace of his simple home, and now must again set forth and wander on and on, with nothing before his eyes save an uncertain goal, at the end of a long, toilsome road. What had hitherto been his happiness, increased his misery in this hour. It was hard, unspeakably hard, to drag his wife and child through want and sorrow, and could Elizabeth, his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... man who could so make such a statement to his son concerning his mother, must indeed have been capable of the wickedness assumed! but also the man who could make such a statement was surely vile enough to lie! The thing remained uncertain, and he was assuredly not ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... determined to speculate no more, to give her no hopes that might prove groundless. The future was uncertain: the patient might have convulsions, paralysis, locomotor ataxia, mere imbecility with normal physical functions, or intermittent insanity. It was highly unprofessional to speculate in this loose fashion about ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... occupied in mining or in supplying the miners with the necessaries of life. Diggers and shopkeepers are the two principal classes, and of these the latter are best off; for their trade is steady and lucrative, while the success of the miners is very uncertain. Frequently a large sum of money and much time are expended in mining without any adequate result; but the merchants always find a ready sale for their merchandise, and, as they take diamonds and gold-dust in exchange, they generally realise large profits and soon become rich. The ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... and eighteen positions of the fingers of the right hand stood for the nine hundreds and the nine thousands. For larger sums, such as ten thousand and more, various parts of the body were touched. Any one who betrayed, according to Quintilian, "by an uncertain or awkward movement of his fingers, a want of confidence in his calculations," was thought to be but imperfectly trained ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... Eve moved towards the door, discovering for the first time, on her way, the sleeping child. She stopped for a moment, and the other watched her with breathless curiosity, uncertain how far ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... time many great dissensions rose amongst us, but it was uncertain who were the movers, or by what occasion the chancellor exercised such office, further than became him. He keeped both the Castle of Edinburgh and also our young King thereintill, who was committed to his keeping by the haill nobilitie and ane great part of the ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... increase of population. The riches of China incline some of the Spaniards to plan for its subjugation to Spanish power. Commerce with that land would be very desirable; but the viceroy cannot persuade Spanish merchants to embark therein, on the uncertain and vague reports thus far received; moreover, the Chinese already possess all the goods that the Spaniards would export to them. Enriquez asks that some large ships be provided for the Philippine trade, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... ran bases with such daring that they had the Boston players confused and uncertain. Cady did not know whether to throw the ball or hold it, and the general exhibition of speed on the bases which was made by New York was characteristic of the team's dash in the race for the championship of the National League, and a system which ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... the sergeants and corporals were a little uncertain about Gerhardt. His laconic speech, never embroidered by the picturesque slang they relished, his gravity, and his rare, incredulous smile, alike puzzled them. Was the new officer a dude? Sergeant Hicks asked of his chum, Dell Able. No, he wasn't a dude. Was he a ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... plague-spot which has eaten into the heart of Graham Thornton, and woven many a thread of silver among his raven locks. It has bent the stately form of his lady mother, and his once gay-hearted wife wanders with a strange unrest from room to room, watching over the uncertain footsteps of their only child, whose large, dark eyes, so much like those which, four long years ago flashed down on Helen their scrutinizing gaze, are darkened forever, for little Maggie Lee ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... another was vetoed. To burn any of the property would cause Rennick nothing worse than temporary annoyance; as he merely rented the farm. Daylight shooting was a dangerous and uncertain job; especially since automobiles had opened up the district to constantly passing outsiders. It was Schwartz himself who decided against waylaying his foe by night. He had too recent memories of Rennick's physical prowess to care ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... with him by this time—his doors have opened to her. The little wretch! And I've been trying so hard to pity her!" She laughed again so shrilly that his lordship stirred and then looked up at her stupefied, uncertain. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... He watched Tony, digging and talking, uncertain whether the lad was really in his right mind. Had the fearful experience in Giant Gorge turned his brain? he wondered. He had read of such things. There was something uncanny about the way Tony talked to himself, and, brave though he was, ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... suffering torments worse than any imagination had ever depicted the tortures of the damned; the pulses were beating, and the blood was rushing in his ears and in his eyes, he wrote, in such sort that all sounds seem to him one universal buzzing, and all objects vague and uncertain, and tinged with the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... sometimes out of earth against the heavens. The soldier, when he lets his whole self go Lost in the common good, the common wrong, Strikes truest ev'n for his own self. I crave Thy pardon—I have still thy leave to speak. Thou hast waged God's war against the King; and yet We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may, Yea, even when we know not, mix our spites And private hates ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... of dry wood, peat and coal lighted up this snug but spacious apartment—flashing on pots and pans, and dressers high-piled with pewter plates and dishes; and making the uncertain shadows of the long "hanks" of onions and many a flitch and ham, depending from the ceiling, dance ...
— Madam Crowl's Ghost and The Dead Sexton • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... stavano forse sull' Arco di Nerone in Roma" (now at Venice). The publication of the Saggio also contains the reproduction of a drawing in red chalk, representing a horse walking to the left and supported by a scaffolding, given here on Pl. LXXVI, No. 1. It must remain uncertain whether this represents the model as it stood during the preparations for casting it, or whether—as seems to me highly improbable—this sketch shows the model as it was exhibited in 1493 on the Piazza ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... O'Neill, and continued: "One element alone is uncertain; one only is to be ascertained. The force and disposition of the defending troops in shell holes, in their concrete 'pill-boxes,' in their flanking trenches all have been ascertained. They will be blasted out by our artillery. But they ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... that Nature and History require for their interpretation the presence of a spiritual life. Nature involves the spiritual in the very power of mind in knowing external things. He would not state that the physical course of things is enough in itself to prove the existence of spiritual life. We are uncertain of any working towards [p.90] definite ends in Nature. The whole matter belongs to the region of speculation; and speculation based on something other than observation and experiment has greatly retarded progress in connection with the truest interpretation of the highest things. ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... exclaimed, "between these lights and those that illumine the King's Highway! They shine from above, with increasing splendor, while these cast forth, from below, their uncertain lights. It seems to me that the farther we go the darker becomes the way, and its lights the more inconstant,—so fitful is their ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... to the window and was silent for a full minute. I knew that I had in no uncertain measure forfeited his good opinion—that, I had earned the forfeiture: also, I knew perfectly well what he was doing; he was leaving me entirely out of the question and was weighing the hazards for Polly. When he turned it was to put a hand upon ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... which Morris had made his old friend not to let his thoughts dwell on suspicion and conjecture as yet uncertain of foundation was one of those promises which are made in absolute good faith, but which in their very nature cannot be kept. The thought of the hideous treachery, the gratuitous falsehood, of which, ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... have a reservation containing 768,000 acres, set apart for them by the treaty of Oct. 14, 1864, and by executive order of March 14, 1871, situated in the extreme southern portion of the State. This reservation is not well adapted to agriculture. The climate is cold and uncertain; and the crops are consequently liable to be destroyed by frosts. It is, however, a good grazing country. Although this reservation is, comparatively speaking, a new one, the Indians located upon it are making commendable progress, ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... motionless, uncovered, suffering for the death of him who in life fought against his freedom. I see him, when the mould is heaped and the great drama of his life is closed, turn away and with downcast eyes and uncertain step start out into new and strange fields, faltering, struggling, but moving on, until his shambling figure is lost in the light of this better and brighter day. And from the grave comes a voice saying, "Follow ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... the seed of agnosticism has been sown but a few years; give it time to catch root." She had laughed, his wit amused her, but our feelings are—well, they are ours, and we cannot separate ourselves from them. They are certain, though everything else is uncertain, and when she looked into her mind (she tried to avoid doing so as much as possible, but she could not always help herself) something told her that the present was but a passing stage. Often it seemed to her that she was like one out on a picnic—she ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... her to the man in the background, who again had awkwardly raised his hat—a cheap but new cylinder, which, together with his slop-made coat and trousers, classed him among uncertain specimens of humanity. ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... headquarters in the saddle, and told his soldiers they would always find him there. My opinion has always been, though I have never had much to do with war, that the general who establishes his headquarters in the saddle, was not always to be found when you wanted him. In short, the saddle is a very uncertain locality, and very difficult to find when you have information to convey, and orders to receive; both of which may be necessary during a battle. I rode an hour once to find a general whose headquarters were in the saddle, and did ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... at the door, and was about to close it after him, when, hearing the voices of the brothers again, and also the mention of his own name, he stood irresolutely, with his hand upon the lock, and the door ajar, uncertain whether to return or go away. In this position he could not help overhearing ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... nonce, [Footnote: For the nonce: for the present.] ate his dates as he leaned against one of the palm-trees, casting an interrogating glance from time to time across the desert in quest of some deliverer, and on his terrible companion, watching the chance of her uncertain clemency. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... after such trials, I should do with no fear of your still thinking it a duty to cleave to him who will not suffer me to live (for this is true), if he can help it, in my own land. How long I may be absent is, of course, uncertain; but it shall not be very long. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... necessity of work—hard work, if they were to go off on an unknown and uncertain cruise. And work is, perhaps, even better than hope, ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... for entirely wrong purposes, taking the Dispensatory as authority, and three of these are evidently used on account of some fancied connection between the plant and the disease, according to the doctrine of signatures. Three of the remainder (Nos. 1, 3, and 6) may be classed as uncertain in their properties, that is, while the plants themselves seem to possess some medical value, the Indian mode of application is so far at variance with recognized methods, or their own statements are so vague ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... bid for blood-injected the idea into the warty heads of a trio of thugs that by way-laying and beating me to death they would pass into history as heroes. Then the real manhood of Waco rose en masse and laid down the law in no uncertain language to the hungry hypocrites and their Baylorian hoodlums. They declared that religious intolerance would no longer be permitted to terrorize this town. Fearing just retribution at the hands of the citizens, Baylor ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... actors and actresses, writers, artists, and certain women of uncertain means, he lived well, went to the theatre without paying, gambled at Frascati, and often won. Artist by nature and really profound, though by flashes only, he swayed to and fro in life like a swing, without thinking or caring of a time when the cord ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... congregation entered they were met by mild sweet chords issuing from a harmonium, where Miss Willett, concealed from view by a baize curtain, struck emphatic chords with uncertain fingers. The sound spread through the chapel as the rings of water spread from a fallen stone. The twenty or twenty-five people who composed the congregation first bowed their heads and then sat up and looked about them. It was very quiet, and the light down here seemed ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... this. Wouldn't you prefer to give your cook a certain cash payment instead of having her taking uncertain amounts of your foodstuffs ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... tide of Time, Rolls onward ever to the shore Of that uncertain, unknown clime, From which it ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... are the sentiments of our women, our cause is sure to triumph, madam," said the colonel. "Still it is my duty to try and persuade you not to expose yourself and niece. The fortune of war is always uncertain. Independent of the risk you run from the shot of the enemy, we may be overcome, and then your fate would be a sad one. It will be wise in you if you will consent to leave us at once. A boat is being made ready to ferry ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... with which we are acquainted—the Lower Laurentian [Footnote: The age of granite is uncertain.—Lyell'a Student's Geology, p. 548.]—were formed under water, but had begun to be elevated before the next series, the Upper Laurentian, were deposited. Ripple marks are found in the Cambrian group [Footnote: Ibid. p. 470], indicating ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... Stettin was the first he practised on. For having recovered from her sickness, she one day presented herself at church in the nun's choir as usual; but while joining in the closing hymn, she suddenly changed colour, began to sob and tremble in every limb, then continued the chant in a strange, uncertain voice, sometimes treble, sometimes bass, like that of a lad whose beard is just beginning to grow. At this the abbess and the sisterhood listened and stared in wonder, then asked if the dear sister ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... meeting, how can there be? Their ways have gone too far apart. The years—nearly twenty, since they parted in Los Angeles—have brought gold and kith and kin to the one, with an enfeebled constitution and an uncertain temper. To the other, they have brought the glory of health for his manhood's crown, content and peace unutterable. To learn to subdue the ground is to learn one great lesson. So the strange meeting is soon over. The Christmas ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... down on the table, replied that he had not read that particular work of M. de Tocqueville, but that he had often reflected on the question treated by him. A conversation began to spring up. Rudin seemed uncertain at first, and not disposed to speak out freely; his words did not come readily, but at last he grew warm and began to speak. In a quarter of an hour his voice was the only sound in the room, All were crowding in a ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... being always selected with judgment and discretion, generally vagrants emboldened to insolence by seeing no men about the kitchen when all hands were out mustering or busy on the run. When Puck bit, it was with no uncertain tooth. He was suspected of a desire to taste the blood of every one who went near Norah, though his cannibalistic propensities were curbed ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... sum required to defray his passage to China. But having made up his mind, such trifling difficulties were not likely to deter him. He sailed from Bombay, not merely under the displeasure of his superiors and uncertain as to his own status, but also in that penniless condition, which was not wholly out of place in his character of knight-errant. But with that solid good sense, which so often retrieved his reputation in the eyes of the world, he left behind him the following public proclamation as ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... may hold that the beliefs that constitute knowledge are distinguished from such as are erroneous or uncertain by properties which are intrinsic either to single beliefs or to systems of beliefs, being in either case discoverable without reference to outside fact. Views of this kind have been widely held among philosophers, but we shall find no ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... Ridley paused, as if uncertain whether to proceed or not; but at an encouraging nod from the coroner ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... struck may or may not yield the three ounces to the ton they are boomed as having, but what is not explained to the investing public is the fact that the mines are limited and uncertain—they are not continuous, they are most expensive to open and work, and consequently they are practically worthless, and the investors' money is swamped and the ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... here is the fact that the blue of the vault is never mentioned—only the scarlet shafts of sunrise and the blaze. Whether this omission was intentional or not, may be uncertain. ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... movements of the attack on June 11 were in the nature of a reconnaissance in force, as it was uncertain how far to the north and south the Boer front extended. The usual tactics were adopted. French with the 1st and 4th Cavalry Brigades under Porter and Dickson was to work round the enemy's right flank ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... name?" I cried, eagerly. A long-silent chord of memory began to give forth a vague, uncertain murmur. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... was crimson, for some one had stabbed him. A woman stood above the corpse and lighted yet another candle while Raimbaut de Vaquieras waited motionless. A hand meant only to bestow caresses brushed a lock of hair from this woman's eyes while he waited. The movements of this hand were not uncertain, but only quivered somewhat, as a taut wire shivers in the wind, while ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... little trees trimmed at the butt into a broad, thin, wedge shaped point, which was carefully smoothed by rubbing it with sandstone, so that no offensive splinters should present themselves to the lips of the dancers. The smooth end was painted red, probably to make the spectators, at night, by the uncertain firelight, suppose that the dissemblers had torn their throats in their great efforts. Sometimes the saplings have all their branches removed, and are then trimmed with cross pieces and circles of evergreen sprays. In most cases, ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... finding himself deprived of light in the manner we have described, and placed in a very uncertain situation, proceeded to descend the narrow and broken stair with all the caution in his power, hoping that he might find at the bottom some place to repose himself. But with all his care he could not finally avoid making a false step, which brought him down the four or five last steps too ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... something strange appear against it, moving about like a fly over its burning face. This looked as if it were coming out of the sun's furnace heart, and was a living creature of some kind surely; but its shape was very uncertain, because the dazzle of the light all around melted ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... Only I think every time something'll happen to prevent me. I'm afraid of being ill or dying before I can get away. And they might send me anywhere any day. It's awful to be so uncertain." ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... Liberal-Conservative, if anything, as that happy medium, in which truth is said, though not proved, to lie, enabled him to agree with anybody. Everybody liked him, except perhaps a few fiery zealots who seemed uncertain whether to regard him with indignation, pity, or contempt. It mattered not to which feeling the zealots leaned, Sir James smiled on them ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... home. A door opened and shut and uncertain footsteps came down the hall. Jerry, half asleep, thought it must be the faithful and sensible Peregrine-Sarah, groping her way to the third floor after having put the Duchess to bed. Then, across the quiet pierced the wildest shrieking—a shrieking ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... females, and with polygamy—three great moral evils, the sources of endless rapine, injustice, and misery. Famine also frequently prevails, and is a dreadful scourge, even compelling mothers to sell some of their children that they may save the rest. For in such an uncertain state of society, no one cares to lay up for the future, as his hordes would only incur the greater risk ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... dear Lord, art is long, almost unto eternity. And she who serves it needs help, much help, and then must wait, long and wearily, for the world's response and recognition, that, even if they come, are apt to be somewhat uncertain, unless they can be cut on a marble tomb; then they are quite positive and hearty. But in the art of acting the response and recognition come swift as lightning, sweet as nectar, while you are young enough to enjoy ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... this chronology, i.e. from the creation of the world, which he thinks preferable to the vulgar mode from the Christian aera. But how vague and uncertain the scale which depends on a point so remote and undetermined as the precise time when the world was created. If we examine the chronometers of different writers we shall find a difference, between the maximum and the minimum, ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... morning he left Henley, my father parted with him with the greatest tenderness; yet the moment he was gone, he used me very cruelly on his account. This had such an effect upon me, that it threw me into hysteric fits. His conduct for some time was very uncertain; sometimes extremely tender, and at other times the reverse; he on certain occasions saying very bitter and cruel things ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... you," Violet said. "Perhaps you had better leave a message. Or will you call again? Mr. Ruff is very uncertain in his movements." ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... flickering firelight, slowly emerged from the intense darkness overshadowing the lagoon, ponderously splashing through the shallows toward the beach—and toward the two white men, a pair of enormous eyes, glistening in the uncertain light of the flames, being all that could be distinctly seen. The thing—whatever it may have been—was not more than ten yards distant when first seen, and there was a gleam of such deadly malignancy in those two glistening eyes, and a suggestion of such implacable ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... back and get some more."—"But what will cook say?" The poor man was more afraid of the cook than he would have been of a squadron of cavalry. "Never mind the cook. Tell her you must have some more as soon as it can be got ready." He stood uncertain for a moment. Then his face brightened. "I will tell her I want my luncheon. I always have soup. And I'll get out through the greenhouse, and carry it to Jones."—"Very well," I said; "that will do ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... Undoubtedly she had hoped the manager was following her when she intrusted the message to that erratic postman, Chance, who plied his vocation long before the black Washington or the bronze Franklin was a talisman of more or less uncertain delivery. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... Rakshasas, by name Pingala, the friend of Rudra, who is always busy in places where corpses are burnt, and who is agreeable to all people, marched with them merrily, at one time going ahead of the army, and falling behind again at another, his movements being uncertain. Virtuous actions are the offerings with which the god Rudra is worshipped by mortals. He who is also called Siva, the omnipotent god, armed with the Pinaka bow, is Maheswara. He is ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... stiffened in his saddle and peered through the uncertain light to make out if Sliver were jesting. But ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... from the time they had been tramping through the forest, they ought to have very nearly reached its southern skirts; but as far as the eye could penetrate, in the uncertain moonlight, through the sylvan vistas, there was no sign of break or opening of any kind; nothing but an apparently endless succession of trees and dense undergrowth. Seeing this, Leicester began ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... reading of Canning's Bill, and that they talk of the 31st for it; that day being opportunely hitched in between the two important epochs of Ascot and Epsom. But these arrangements of days for Parliamentary business are always so uncertain, and so liable to be varied up to the last moment, that I have never found one got much previous communication of them; nor do I, to speak fairly, think that the want of it affords the smallest ground of offence. As to the yeomanry arrangements, it does not seem ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Cardinal Granvelle. Young Monsieur de Soulas was always talking of leaving Besancon, a dull town, church-going, and not literary, a military centre and garrison town, of which the manners and customs and physiognomy are worth describing. This opinion allowed of his lodging, like a man uncertain of the future, in three very scantily furnished rooms at the end of the Rue Neuve, just where it opens into the Rue de ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... Frank Scherman represented the audience, with clapping and stamping, and laughter that suspended both; making as nearly the noise of two hundred as two could: this being an essential part of the rehearsal in respect to the untried nerves of the debutant, which might easily be a little uncertain. ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Ham Logan. Not since Joe had first taken the old and broken circus actor into his employ had Ham been away more than a few hours at a time, and then Joe knew where he was. This time Ham had left no word, save the uncertain one that he was going into the city, on the outskirts of which the circus was at the ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... in the room. She fetched the sonata, and spread it out. Both sat down to the piano in silence. From up-stairs there came the feeble sound of scales, played by Lenochka's uncertain fingers. ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... time is left wherein to expiate it by repentance. Again it is not lawful for anyone to take his own life for fear he should consent to sin, because "evil must not be done that good may come" (Rom. 3:8) or that evil may be avoided especially if the evil be of small account and an uncertain event, for it is uncertain whether one will at some future time consent to a sin, since God is able to deliver man from sin ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... towns where land is cheap and wood abundant, or in college communities exempt from taxes, comfortable housing is found in this country for as little as fifteen or eighteen per cent of the total income. In some mining towns where all prospects are uncertain and the house has no particular social significance the rent may be even lower, although it is often very high. It depends on the demand, on competition rather than quality. In our older and more settled communities it is most common for rent to ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... save in suffering, and in this world we have to choose either love, which is suffering, or happiness. And love leads us to no other happiness than that of love itself and its tragic consolation of uncertain hope. The moment love becomes happy and satisfied, it no longer desires and it is no longer love. The satisfied, the happy, do not love; they fall asleep in habit, near neighbour to annihilation. To fall into a ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... early, Helbeck entered the dining-room, where Dr. Friedland was sitting. He approached the doctor with an uncertain step, like one finding ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and from that evening her illness recommenced, with a more uncertain character, it is true, and more complex symptoms. Now she suffered in her heart, then in the chest, the head, the limbs; she had vomitings, in which Charles thought he saw the first ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... not as high, is the jury-box. This is a pen with twelve seats within a high-sided inclosure like an old-fashioned pew. What the object of the inclosure may be is uncertain, unless it is a relic of a time when it was necessary to imprison the jurors. Jury duty has doubtless always been arduous and disagreeable, and in earlier days men were probably as anxious to escape serving on the jury as ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... south-west of Padua], will still find them there. A modest house, apparently of great antiquity, passes for his last habitation. A chair in which he is said to have died is shown there. And if these details are uncertain, there is no doubt that the sarcophagus of red marble, supported on pillars, in the churchyard of Arqua, contains, or once contained, his mortal remains. Lord Byron and Mr. Hobhouse visited the spot more than sixty years ago in a sceptical ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... agitation, and her breath came more and more quickly. At the very last moment, when a second later he might have seen her, she sprang to the window, looked once again, then in a fury snatched at the shade and jerked it down. Driscoll paused uncertain, but wheeled and galloped back to the head of the column. Berthe turned to her mistress. She was lying weakly against the cushions, staring at nothing and ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... must admire the consistent fidelity and patriotism of the English race, as compared with the uncertain and erratic methods of the German people, their mistrust, and suspicion.... In spite of numerous wars, bloodshed, and disaster, England always emerges smoothly and easily from her military crises and settles down to new conditions and surroundings in her usual ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... rhythm all things ARE conscious, for all have motion, and all motion is rhythmic. I wondered if Moxon knew the significance and breadth of his thought—the scope of this momentous generalization; or had he arrived at his philosophic faith by the tortuous and uncertain ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... Of filial love? No grasp of the hand at parting? It is a bloody war to which we are going, And the event uncertain and in darkness. So used we not to part—it was not so! Is it then true? I have a son ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... men," he continued, more uncertain; "nor in seminaries of virtue. They have their reward. But in men whose bitterness of longing grew out of hideous fault. The distinction of beauty—not a payment for prayers or chastity. The distinction of love ... above ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... this latter guise it had really no existence. Those who were familiar with the Prince of Wales' career and character knew that mere wealth was the last thing which ever attracted him, and the one thing which was a most certainly uncertain basis upon which to gain his patronage; to say nothing of his friendship. Many disappointed millionaires can speak with accuracy upon this point—if they wished to. On the other hand, honest love of racing, or shooting, or yachting; brilliancy of conversation in man or woman and conspicuous beauty ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... was not a confident lover. There were times when he felt uncertain as to whether he should succeed. Perhaps true and reverential love is always timid. Lord Earle had smiled to himself many long weeks at the "pretty play" enacted before him, and Lady Helena had wondered when ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... won't," said Ellis, breaking in with his usual air of an unprejudiced outsider, "But after all, what does it really matter? Whatever the reason may be for our uncertainty as to Good, the fact remains that we are uncertain. There's my Good, thy Good, his Good, our Good, your Good, their Good; and all these Goods in process of flux, according to the time of day, the time of life, and the state of the liver. That being so, what is the use of discussing Good in itself? ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... phenomenon in which was revealed to the full the singular complexity of his nature. The Slav's especial characteristic is a prodigious, instantaneous nervousness. It seems that those beings with the uncertain hearts have a faculty of amplifying in themselves, to the point of absorbing the heart altogether, states of partial, passing, and yet sincere emotion. The intensity of their momentary excitement thus makes ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... ruins of their houses, are sometimes of a not ungraceful form. Their pottery was made by hand, and was not painted or varnished, but they often gave to it a fine lustre by means of a stone-polisher. Other peoples of uncertain origin, but who had attained a civilization as advanced as that of the Trojans, were the Maeonians, the Leleges, and the Carians who had their abode to the south of Troy and of the Mysians. The Maeonians held sway in the fertile ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... whether Maud's was a passionless nature, or whether it was possible that her reserve had the same origin as his own. The latter he felt to be unlikely; sometimes there was a pressure of her hands as their lips just touched, the indication, he believed, of feeling held in restraint for uncertain reasons. She welcomed him, too, with a look which he in vain endeavoured to respond to—a look of sudden relief from weariness, of gentle illumination; it smote him like a reproach. When the summer had set in, he ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... are at present uncertain ; Mrs. Delany,s Windsor house is still unfinished, but I suppose it will be fit for her reception by the beginning of next week, and I have the happiest reasons for hoping she will then be fit for it herself. Her maid has been to see what forwardness ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... the Liberator Garrison's occupation, from which he had derived a regular though somewhat uncertain income for the support of his family, was gone. He was not in destitute circumstances, however, thanks to the generosity of friends, who had already secured him the home in Roxbury, where he spent the remaining years of his life. He had also been one of the legatees ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... the bottom of his heart. "Bitter is this life," cried he, "and fulfilled of all pain and anguish, if this be so. And how can a body be careless in the expectation of an unknown death, whose approach (ye say) is as uncertain as it is inexorable?" So he went away, restlessly turning over all these things in his mind, pondering without end, and ever calling up remembrances of death. Wherefore trouble and despondency were his companions, and his grief knew no ease; for he said to himself, "And is it true ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... surmounted by a straw hat, with a rim of immense width. They do not carry on the manufactures of silk or woollen now, which were Rapp's boast; they have "struck oil" instead, and are among the most successful and skillful land-owners in Pennsylvania in the search for that uncertain source of wealth. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... Maitland's voice was troubled and uncertain. "Tony Perrotte! Why, you don't mean to tell me that Perrotte is not a good man. He knows his job from ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... It is liable to mistake, and its greatest excellence is to acknowledge it. To the error of its thoughts, it adds the disorder and irregularity of its will and desires; so that it is forced to groan in the consciousness and experience of its corruption. Such is the mind of man, weak, uncertain, stinted, full of errors. Now, who is it that put the idea of the infinite, that is to say of perfection, in a subject so stinted and so full of imperfection? Did it give itself so sublime, and so pure ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... weather is exceedingly uncertain on all these North Carolina mountains; they are apt at any moment to be enveloped in mist; and it would rather rain on them than not. On the afternoon of our arrival there was fine air and fair weather, but ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... various States together in a manner that justifies the national motto, "E pluribus unum," the question of slavery hangs fearfully over their Union; and the thread by which it is suspended is more uncertain than the fragile hair of the sword of Damocles, for it is dependent upon the angry ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... matter how delicately or how thick; the very paint—the very choice of colours red or white—betrays the nature lurking beneath it, and no amount of artifice or imitation in a writer can obscure the secret of self. Artifice and imitation reveal the finikin or uncertain soul as surely as deliberate bareness reveals a conscious austerity. Except, perhaps, in mathematics, there seems no escape from this revelation. I am told that even in the "exact sciences" there is no escape; even in physics the ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... foot; some mystery hung about; she had felt thus much, and had felt, too, that it was connected with Rita; but all had been vague, uncertain. ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... of the Sentinel commands all the map-like detail of Pun-nul Bay, with its labyrinthian creeks among a flat density of mangroves, like lustrous, uncertain byways in a sombre field, erratic of shape, magnificent of proportion. Beyond are many islets—dark blue on a lighter plain. In the distance, on the other hand, islands and islets trail away until lost in the vague blending of sea and sky; and for a background ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... the outer door with his stick—a somewhat faint, doubtful knock; not with the free hand of one at ease with himself and the world. For one thing, he was uncertain as to the ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... government for themselves, issued by the Congress in May, 1776, was quickly acted upon. Before the expiration of a year, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, and New York had drafted new constitutions as states, not as colonies uncertain of their destinies. Connecticut and Rhode Island, holding that their ancient charters were equal to their needs, merely renounced their allegiance to the king and went on as before so far as the form of government was concerned. South Carolina, which had drafted a temporary ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... ethical instruction, in conformity with the supposed commands of a God who watches over conduct. As among ourselves, the ethical ideal, with its theological sanction, is probably rather above the moral standard of ordinary practice. What conclusion we should draw from these facts is uncertain, but the facts, at least, cannot be disputed, and precisely contradict the statement of Mr. Huxley. He was wholly in the wrong when he said: 'The moral code, such as is implied by public opinion, derives no sanction from theological dogmas,'[7] ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... his mouth shut and turned toward the kitchen where he knew his son sat, a stupid lump that couldn't even crawl of its own volition. The stupid lump stood firmly in the doorway, an uncertain, placating smile on its lips, a pup cradled in ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... a long while, and then agreed to accede to their wish. Outwardly it could not be called an unusually successful evening, but his auditors felt his power. People with the thinnest smattering of music forgot themselves and became infatuated with his arms and his eyes. An uncertain, undetermined happiness which he brought to the hearts of real musicians carried him further along on his career. For two successive winters he directed concerts in the provincial towns of North Germany. He was the first ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... or spring wheat, no positive directions can be given, adapted to all climates. In many localities it is of little use to sow winter wheat, as it is very uncertain. In other localities winter wheat almost always succeeds best. This question then must be determined by circumstances. The time of sowing winter wheat varies in different climates, according as it may be exposed to depredations of worms and insects in the fall. Farmers are not liable ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... had shaken his reason, or that the horrible suspicion of having murdered the uncle of his intended wife, made him look upon themselves with a secret shudder, and that they were mingled up in his mind by no unnatural, though unjust confusion, with the causes of his present awful and uncertain state. With the generality of the world, these two tender friends believed Houseman the sole and real murderer, and fancied his charge against Aram was but the last expedient of a villain to ward punishment from himself, by imputing crime to another. Naturally, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... air balmy and the motion delightful, and if the Martians, with their purer nature and keener senses, enjoyed the trip that morning more than we earth-dwellers did, then their capacity for enjoyment must have been beyond ours. The ship seemed to be under perfect control; there was nothing uncertain in her movements, and as we went sailing along without fear of harm, in the very poetry of motion, the doctor and I realized over and over again that we had much to learn ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... title of HAERETICAE PRAVITATIS INQUISITOR, formed his highest distinction; and he is said to have given no peace or rest to heretics or Lollards. Whether Laurence of Lindores resigned his situation as Abbot on obtaining other preferment, is uncertain. In July 1432, when elected Dean of the Faculty of Arts, at St. Andrews, he is styled Rector of Creich, Master of Arts, Licentiate in Theology, Inquisitor for the Kingdom of Scotland, &c. This office of Dean he held till his death, when (post mortem felicis memoriae Magistri ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... as large as the egg of a hen, and legs in proportion, it moved slowly, in a groping manner, as if uncertain of its whereabouts. Ralph fancied he could see its dull, cruel eyes. He lay as if dead, until the thing had left his person, then recovered his breath and courage ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... undone. And—God help me!—whatever you do or leave undone, I'll love you. There shall never be a cloud between us for a day; no, sir, not for an hour. We're imperfect enough, all of us—we needn't be so bitter; and life is uncertain enough at its safest—we needn't waste its opportunities. God bless my soul! Here sit I, after a dozen battles and some of the worst climates in the world, and by yonder lych gate lies your mother, who didn't move five miles, I suppose, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... and uncertain way, he realized two things—that there had been a terrific explosion and that the old boathouse containing their precious camping outfit ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... heard it all. One by one, every one looked at this young woman who borrowed her golden tints from the rising sun. She bore the popular name of the new minister. She entered into prominence with him, accepting gracefully and unaffectedly the weight of his fame. Her timid, almost restless, uncertain smile, seemed to crave from the other women pardon for her own success, and there, surrounded by a group of men seated near the window, were two persons for whom chairs had just been placed, one of whom was a young, happy man, who exhaled an atmosphere of joy, and looked ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... are almost all conducted by French or German owners, with now and then a Jew of uncertain nationality; few are kept by Spaniards, and none by Americans, or citizens of the United States. American enterprise seeks expression here in a larger field. Where a trunk line of railroad a thousand miles or more is demanded, as in the instance of the Mexican ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... streak of red there on the hill—the one above the big dump. That's the shafthouse of the Last Dollar. Drop down it about nine hundred feet and strike an airline west by north for about a quarter of a mile, and you'd be right close to him. He's down there, tackling a mighty uncertain proposition. The shaft and the workings of the Last Dollar are full of water. He's running a crosscut from an upraise in the Radley drift, so as to tap the west tunnel of the ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... earth's bliss! This world uncertain is: Fond are life's lustful joys, Death proves them all but toys. None from his darts can fly; I am sick, I must die— Lord, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... different means. Each man has to be studied and understood, and the particular course taken which seems best in his particular case. But I succeeded even with some who were pretty bitter antagonists at first, and from being one of the most uncertain wards in the city, the sixth has been known at headquarters for the last five years as 'old reliability' from the big majority it always polls. So at headquarters I am looked up to and consulted. Now do you understand why and what ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... white panes in place of that stained glass of gorgeous hue, which led the wondering gaze of our fathers to roam uncertain 'twixt the rose-window of the great door and the ogives of the chancel? And what would a precentor of the sixteenth century say if he could see the fine coat of yellow wash with which our Vandal archbishops have smeared their ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... he declined, as he spread a caribou skin upon the ground to protect himself from the damp earth. Then he produced a Hudson's Bay Company blanket, once white but now of uncertain shade, and rolling himself in the blanket, with his feet toward the fire, was soon ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... said Robert, uncertain whether to laugh or to be awe-struck. "You will cease to be a man, and become one of the great forces of ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rather uncertain about it, but after a time recognised that I was right, and we went up to Miss Wortley's room. I had to knock loudly on her door before I got any answer, but eventually a sleepy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 25, 1914 • Various
... very uncertain as to how Tom would receive him, had been about to make his amende honorable in a fashion graceful, magnificent, and, as he expressed it afterwards laughingly to Thurnall himself, "altogether highfalutin:" but what chivalrous ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... From some uncertain quarter—presumably the lighted room—he could hear a sound, very slight: so slight that it seemed guarded, but none the less unmistakable: the hiss of carbonated water squirting from a syphon into ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... for about half an hour after supper, he rose, with an uncertain sort of smile, and said he supposed he must be moving on,—asking, at the same time, how far it was to the tavern over ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... germ by the person to whom the infection is carried. The second is the feebleness of the germ itself, and the ease with which it dies when removed from the body. In regard to the first of these factors, while natural resistance to the disease in uninfected persons is an uncertain quantity, it is very probable that it exists. It is certain that the absence of any break in the skin on which the germs are deposited makes a decided difference if it does not entirely remove the risk of infection. A favorable place for the germ to get a foothold ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... the lads started off across the field. The field was so dark that they could scarcely distinguish objects about them. Here and there they dodged wagons and teams that stood like silent sentinels in the uncertain light. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... stumbling and slipping. At last, by the dim light of the stars, she saw a haggard, despairing face with fearful eyes; and then she knew it was a poor man who had lost his way and was floundering on to his death. Now he caught sight of a gleam of light from the captive Moon, and made his uncertain way towards it, thinking it meant help. As he came nearer and nearer the pool, the Moon saw that her light was luring him to his death, and she felt so very sorry for him, and so angry with herself that she struggled ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... winter following I was indifferent hearty, and my disease was not so violent as it used to be at that time formerly. But whether through God's mercy I received this through Mr. Greatrackes' touch, or my journey and vomiting at sea, I am uncertain; but, by some circumstances, I guess that I ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... whether I am here or not, if you go to either of the places I told you of. There are a great many safe places here, but I gave those places you know so well, and can find day or night I shall probably go to my home in Michigan next week, and it is uncertain when I return; but don't forget to carry your burden to the Lord by constant prayer for his directing hand; and whatever way he opens, take it; if it should be any other way than the plan I suggested, take it, regardless of what I have said, except to mind closely the ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... constitution of his kingdom; whence it comes that many Laconian laws and customs appear amongst the Roman institutions. Yet, in any case, Numa was descended of the Sabines, who declare themselves to be a colony of the Lacedaemonians. And chronology, in general, is uncertain; especially when fixed by the lists of victors in the Olympic games, which were published at a late period by Hippias the Elean, and rest on no positive authority. Commencing, however, at a convenient point, we will proceed to give ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... that he rightly understood himself, you see. I think his mind was troubled by their having broke with one another; and that but for being ashamed before the gentlemen, and perhaps for being uncertain too, how she might take it, he'd have gone through any suffering or trial to have had Meg's promise and Meg's hand again. That's my belief. He never said so; more's the pity! He took to drinking, idling, bad companions: all the fine resources ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... son: poor Esther comes of uncertain blood; would it do for you—the missionary's nephew, and adopted son, you might say—to marry the daughter of a pagan Indian? Her mother is hopelessly uncivilized; her father has a dash of French somewhere—half-breed, you know, ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... seemed to have closed on every hope, Betty held the tallow dip aloft, and by its uncertain and flickering light surveyed her prison. The briefest glance sufficed. The room contained two shakedown beds and a stool, there was a window in the gable, but a piece of heavy plank was spiked ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... but a premature darkness was falling as the clouds dropped over Dunge Marsh, and the rain hung like a curtain over Rye Bay, blotting out all distances, showing them nothing but the crumbling, uncertain track. In half an hour they were both wet through to their shoulders, for the rain came down with all the drench of May. Joanna could see that Martin was beginning to be worried about himself—he was worried about her ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
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