"Uncertain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... uncertain as though puzzled by the trace of human habitation; it turned in different directions, coiling and uncoiling, and frequently rearing its head, but keeping about the middle of the space in front of the cave, when suddenly, as though unable to resist doing so, one after ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... 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
... uncertain glimmer of light cast by the shaded kerosene lamp, sat the doctor, Bradford and Aunt Timmie, each with eyes on the little sufferer. They did not look up, and he passed through, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing down with the others at the pitiful scene. Nor did ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... 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 |
