"Vacant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time a more restrained mode of acting was evidently considered good taste; witness de Off. (I. 36. 130): "Histrionum non nulli gestus ineptus non vacant, et quae sunt recta et simplicia laudantur."[74] But the passages cited above bear ample testimony to the vigor of histrionic gesticulation even at this later and far more cultivated epoch. Again we repeat, what must have been the energy and abandon ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... in the Cox family, so it was not advisable to have the party, which he wished to give, at his home. Consequently, he used one of these houses which was vacant at that time, number 3337; had it furnished from top to bottom, his eldest daughter, Sally, acting in her mother's place as hostess for the distinguished party invited to meet the hero of ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... say with a jolly laugh, "the government was too many for me; I'm cleaned out, done for, except my plantation and private mansion. We played for a big thing, and lost it, and I don't whine, for one. I go for putting the old flag on all the vacant lots. I said to the President, says I, 'Grant, why don't you take Santo Domingo, annex the whole thing, and settle the bill afterwards. That's my way. I'd, take the job to manage Congress. The South would come into it. You've got to conciliate the South, consolidate ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... which had impressed me so favourably elsewhere; and everything had a lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful. The moping idiot, cowering down with long dishevelled hair; the gibbering maniac, with his hideous laugh and pointed finger; the vacant eye, the fierce wild face, the gloomy picking of the hands and lips, and munching of the nails: there they were all, without disguise, in naked ugliness and horror. In the dining-room, a bare, dull, dreary place, with nothing for the eye to rest ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... to a new senatorial term, beginning the 4th of March. He came to Washington and was sworn in, but within a few days sailed for Europe, and during the greater part of the long interim between that time and the succeeding Presidential campaign his seat in the Senate remained vacant. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... we, because Those clanging bells had quite Absorbed us in delight. A happiness so perfect awes The failing pulse and breath, Like the mute doom of death: Then, in an instantaneous pause Flashed on my vacant eye A swift Eternity; And starting, as ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... very foolish, my dear. I heard yesterday, on very good authority, that my son, Lord Chandos, will be offered the vacant Garter. I believe it is true, I feel sure of it. I would not for the world anything should happen now, any disgrace of any kind; and these matrimonial quarrels are disgraceful, Marion. ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... The spirit of man, like nature, abhors a vacuum; and into the heart from which the love of the beautiful has been suffered to depart, these hideous and ugly traits of character make haste to enter, and occupy the vacant space. What Shakspere says of a single art, music, is true of art ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... convinced he would not weary of the reality. Travellers, however, differ strangely in perception. Some are observers, with imagination to brighten and judgment to weigh, and, if need be, correct, first impressions; whilst others, with vacant eye, or out of harmony with novel and perhaps irksome surroundings, see, or profess to see, nothing. The readiness, for instance, of the Eastern "fling" at Western Canada thirty years ago is still remembered, and it is easy to transfer ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... see the splendid but barbarous spectacle in which Spaniards take so much delight. The two girls placed themselves in front of the only vacant box, and I sat behind on the second bench, which was a foot and a half higher than the first. There were already two ladies there, and much to my amusement one of them was the famous Duchess of Villadorias. She was in front of me, and sat in such a position that her head was almost between ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... laughing to himself with a sort of invisible chuckle. The unseen in that volume was revealed to us through that laugh of the old bookworm, and quite unseen we partook of his amusement. Another alcove was vacant; a crabbed manuscript, just laid down by the writer, was on the desk. He was invisible; but the watchful guardian at the head of the room saw us peering in, and warned us with a loud voice not to enter. Safely might we have been permitted to do so, for we could hardly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... no. None of them are as pretty as he was." Such is the opinion of the shepherdess. "We see only one like him in a lifetime," she testifies. A wee, blue chair is vacant in the first row at the end—clearly the place of honor. A withered wreath lies on the chair. The man's eyes are fastened on that spot. Here is a world of which he knew nothing. Here he ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... protection out of this country; from such a result of injuries, from such a conjuncture of circumstances—the law of the land authorizes me to declare, and it is my duty boldly to declare the law, that George III. King of Britain, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant; that is, he has no authority over us, and we owe no obedience to him. . . The new constitution is wisely adapted to enable us to trade with foreign nations, and thereby, to supply our wants in ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... a grim smile, "seems about as likely as that I should hear that I am to be Lord Chancellor when the Woolsack is next vacant!" ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... our lodge, and fill my brother's vacant place!' exclaimed Oriana. 'Do not send him back to the white men; and his father, and his mother, and his little sister will still weep for him, and believe ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Through the long day its penance did maintain: But when the lingering twilight hour was past, Revel and feast assumed the rule again. Now all was bustle, and the menial train Prepared and spread the plenteous board within; The vacant gallery now seem'd made in vain, But from the chambers came the mingling din, And page and slave, anon, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... with the night-mare, when the suffocating grasp of the fiend is upon his throat. Her presence of mind forsook her, and, with a shriek of uncontrollable terror, she flung herself across the bed, and endeavored to awaken her husband. The place he had occupied a few minutes before was vacant; and, raising her fear-stricken head, she perceived, with feelings scarcely less allied to fear, that the figure she had mistaken for the ghost of Algernon was the ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... resigned and nominated MacDowell as his successor, a proposal seconded by Raff. The gifted American, however, possessed the criminal fault, in the eyes of jealous and intolerant old men, of being young; the fact that he was quite capable of filling the vacant post was, to them, a secondary ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... was going to be a vacant seat beside him, and I asked if I might go along. He said: "Yes, if mother says so." He always would stick that in. So I ran to ask her, and she didn't care, if Shelley made no objections. I was just ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... pointing at Clint with a baked potato impaled on a fork, announced loudly: "A contretemps, Mr. Thayer, a veritable contretemps!" Clint was blushing when he finally reached the first of the tables occupied by the 'varsity players and found a vacant chair. There, too, amused glances awaited him, and he was heartily glad when Freer laughingly pulled him into the ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... got up willingly enough and ran downstairs to the kitchen; and when she saw her little friend sitting by the fire, looking very white, her head dropped forward, and her big black eyes fixed with an almost vacant expression straight before her, a great lot of Nancy's heart did go out to the sad and unhappy girl. She rushed to her side, threw her arms round her, and hugged ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... of one of the companies was among those killed, and Charlie, who had, since he rejoined the regiment, been doing duty as lieutenant, now took the vacant place. ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... cheeks more mantling with his passion than The cup with the ruby wine. She heeds him not, For too great heed of him:—but seems to hold Debate betwixt her passion and her pride— That's like to lose the day. You read it in Her vacant eye, knit brow, and parted lips, Which speak a heart too busy all within To note what's done without. ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... Parties kept arriving, and when there was not room for them to thrust themselves round the hut, they sat down in groups, perfectly unconcerned, employing themselves in cleaning their firelocks, or playing off upon each other some practical joke; but the moment a vacant space was presented near the hut, they deliberately stripped themselves, put on a most sorrowful countenance, and, seating themselves as near to the ornamented bones as possible, they immediately began their howling and slashing; no one seemed to like the idea of being ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... Virginia, (O. S.) has addressed a Pastoral letter, on the instruction of the colored people, to the churches under its care, and ordered the same to be read in all the churches of the Presbytery, in those that are vacant, as well as where there are pastors or stated supplies. It commences by saying: "Among the important interests of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, which have claimed our special attention since ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... said. "I'm expecting some one else, but he probably won't come till later." She led the way and everybody trooped downstairs to the dining-room, feeling that disappointment was in store for them. Mrs. Bergmann left the place on her right vacant; she did not dare fill it up, because in her heart of hearts she felt certain Shakespeare would arrive, and she looked forward to a coup de theatre, which would be quite spoilt if his place was occupied. On her left sat Count Sciarra; the unknown friend of Angela Lockton sat at the end of ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... of piety. Conspicuous among them are St. Denis carrying his head, St. Sebastian pierced with arrows, St. Stephen stoned, St. Lawrence on his gridiron, etc. The apse (formerly separated from the body of the building by a rood-screen, now destroyed), contains the vacant base of the high altar, behind which stands an arcaded tabernacle, now empty, in whose shrine were once preserved the Crown of Thorns, the fragment of the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... of manners the Salesman took off his neat brown derby hat and placed it carefully on the vacant seat in front of him. Then, shifting his sample-case adroitly to suit his new twisted position, he began to stick cruel little prickly price marks through alternate meshes of pink and ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... of a patron saint. Imagination transported me back to the eventful times in which Erasmus flourished, opening to my mind's eye a long vista of historical recollections, till my absorbed demeanour attracted observation. I found myself exposed to that vacant stare with which people are so apt to disconcert your composure, if they observe you contemplating with curiosity and interest, objects which they have seen every day of their lives, and for that very reason always ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... Sicily, to the crowns of Spain and the Indies." By a subsequent decree, 15th of July, he appointed "his dearly-beloved cousin, Joachim Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, to the throne of Naples and Sicily, which remained vacant by the accession of Joseph Napoleon to the kingdoms of Spain and the Indies." Both these documents are signed Napoleon, and countersigned by the Minister Secretary ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... form of life only Grim Hagen might have told them. They were cindered—their atmosphere, which had not been oxygen, had burned away. Ato's probing instruments found neither liquid nor gas. His screens found an occasional shattered city, where broken spires reached twisted fingers into the vacant sky. ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... allusion to their events. The first proof I had of Mr. Clements being commanding officer, was my being transferred from the cabin to the gun-room. It is true, there was no want of space in my new apartment, for officering and manning the prize had left several state-rooms vacant in the Briton's gun-room, which fell to the shares of the French prisoners and myself. Poor Captain Rowley was preserved in spirits and then things went on pretty much as before, with the exception that our crippled condition and reduced crew rendered us no longer anxious to fall in with Frenchmen. ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the same vacant way when, at the end of half an hour, a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and the captain's voice said in a low ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... a vacant position in the Adrian company. I have accepted it and am off for the war. I leave on the first train for Detroit and shall join the company ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... the group might fewer grow The vacant chairs should still be placed Around the board whereon should glow The glories of the ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... to the bedside and took a vacant chair. The nurse was sitting by the window. She glanced up at him and at Mrs. Mason, who followed close behind him, but continued ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... of cocoa, plantain, banana, yam, potatoe, and other tropic vegetables, were scattered all around within five or six miles of a plantation. We were much pleased with the appearance of them during a ride on a Friday. In the forenoon, they had all been vacant; not a person was to be seen in them; but after one o'clock, they began gradually to be occupied, till, at the end of an hour, where-ever we went, we saw men, women, and children laboring industriously in their little gardens. In some places, the hills to their very ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... with some thousands of spectators. At first many rows of seats had been left vacant, though usually on the eve of the great races, the people would set out soon after midnight and every place would be filled long before the games began; indeed the upper tiers of the tribune, which were built of wood and were free to all comers, with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... year he had been engaged on what has since been found to be the real work of his life. He had already written much, but had written as one who had been anxious to fill up vacant spaces of time as they came in his way. From this time forth he wrote as does one who has reconciled himself to the fact that there are no more days to be lost if he intends, before the sun be set, to accomplish an appointed task. He had already compiled the De Oratore, the De Republica, and the ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... but hopping into a Cape cart that has both steps missing takes some practice. The mules did most of the hopping; she scrambled, climbed, sprawled, and sprained herself all over before she reached the vacant seat, already encumbered with many parcels. With a blithe crack of the whip and a string of strange words flung like a challenge at her mules, Miss Connal got ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... and who, owing to his years and impenetrable dignity, was not to be considered from the ordinary view-point of woman. She would coquet with Senator Burleigh; it was on the cards that she would love him, for he was brilliant, ambitious, and honourable; but Senator North was exalted to the vacant pedestal reserved for ideals, and Betty settled herself comfortably to his worship; not guessing that he would be under her memory's dust-heap in ten days if Senator Burleigh ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... the most intelligent Persons, as well Friends as Enemies to King James. While I was diverting my self at London, I receiv'd a Letter from Paris, that there was a Lieutenant Collonel's Place vacant, which I might easily be promoted to in Case I wou'd be at the trouble to, make use of what Interest I might reasonably Command. But I quickly understood, that by my Interest was meant my Money, so employing ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... a little space in the crowded room had been left vacant about them; nobody came up to her, no woman, in passing by, signalled to Marchmont; the constant give-and-take of companions was suspended in their favour. In fine, people supposed that they wanted to talk to one another; it would not be guessed that one of the pair ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... graces of the Spirit, and show wherein every one of them are scanty and wanting of perfection. Now look, what they want of perfection is supplied with sin and vanity; for there is a fullness of sin and flesh at hand to make up all the vacant places in our souls. There is no place in the souls of the godly but it is filled up with darkness when the light is wanting, and with sin so far forth as grace is wanting. Satan, also, diligently waiteth to come in at the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... little waiting-room. One of them was Fat Ed Meyers. His huge bulk overflowed the spindle-legged chair on which he sat. His brown derby was in his hands. His eyes were on the closed door at the other side of the room. So were the eyes of the other two travelers. Jock took a vacant seat next to Fat Ed Meyers so that he might, in his mind's eye, pick out a particularly choice spot upon which his hard young fist might land—if only he had the chance. Breaking up a man's sleep like that, the great ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... you the effect it had on me to see this puppet of a monarch moved by the strings which Count Bernstorff holds fast; sit, with vacant eye, erect, receiving the homage of courtiers who mock him with a show of respect. He is, in fact, merely a machine of state, to subscribe the name of a king to the acts of the Government, which, to avoid danger, have ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... the same Crawfish prances into camp on this yere occasion with Julius bushwacked 'way 'round back in his shirt, an' sech vacant spaces about his person as ain't otherwise occupied a- nourishin' of ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... conspire with singlestick and rapier. Next there's a post of danger vacant here; They give me forged credentials; here I am. I'm here; but every day I see the Countess, For I have found the cave your Highness dug With your preceptor Colin in the garden To play at little Robinson. All right! I hide in it. I find it has two ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... his heart was still sore over Blazing Star, and he was not ready yet to put another into the vacant place. After a silent five minutes' walk, they reached the corral with fifty horses of all colours, sizes, and shapes. Then Kyle said: "Jim, I've been thinking, preachers ain't exactly broken-backed carrying their spondulix. I kind o' think I owe ye something ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... for the last half-hour, thinking that the walk would take her twice as long as it did, and fearing that she might keep the Vicar waiting. She had put on her Sunday clothes and her Sunday bonnet, and when she climbed up into the vacant place beside her friend she found her position to be so strange that for a while she could hardly speak. He said a few words to her, but pressed her with no questions, understanding the cause of her embarrassment. He could not but think that of ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... that little red-haired imp doing all this time? Why was she so quiet? She opened the door noiselessly, and listened. She fancied that she heard, above the multitudinous small noises and creakings and warpings of the vacant house, a smaller voice singing on the floor above. This, as she remembered, was only an open attic that had been used as a storeroom. With a half-guilty consciousness, she crept softly upstairs and, pushing the door ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... be reappointed to the committee. But Lieutenant- Governor Porter distinguished himself by reappointing to the committee Wolfe, Leavitt and Kennedy. Weed and Savage were added to take the places left vacant by Irish and Lynch. Weed in 1907 voted with Leavitt, Wolfe and Kennedy against compelling the committee to release the Anti-Racetrack Gambling bill. Senator Savage (1907) voted for the bill's release, but Senator Savage at the opening ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... Uncas appeared, arrayed in the most gorgeous ornaments that the wealth of the tribe could furnish. Rich plumes nodded above his head; wampum, gorgets, bracelets, and medals, adorned his person in profusion; though his dull eye and vacant lineaments too strongly contradicted the idle tale of pride they ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... Given Him. I have already (in another chapter) told of the effect of Fray Marcos's report. It made a most popular man of him, and soon thereafter, when the position of father provincial of his order was vacant, he was chosen to fill the office,—the highest in the district. Henceforth he was called to fill all the pulpits of the region. He became known as a great preacher, and doubtless interlarded his sermons with many references to his wonderful adventures ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... the Indian tribes. A difficulty occurs, however, in the application of this policy to Texas. By the terms of the compact by which that State was admitted into the Union she retained the ownership of all the vacant lands within her limits. The government of that State, it is understood, has assigned no portion of her territory to the Indians, but as fast as her settlements advance lays it off into counties and proceeds to survey and sell it. This policy ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... this letter over, and I must admit that it skips lightly from topic to topic. But though it may not contain news of any great moment, I trust you will realize that its writing has consumed every vacant minute during the ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... out, his clothes in disorder, and himself not a little hurt; but his delight made him lose all thought of his injuries. "That's M. Ferailleur," he muttered, "I'm sure of it, and I'm going to prove it." So saying he hid himself in the doorway of a vacant house a few paces distant ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... sudden silence, When round the hearth gathers each well-known face,— But one is missing, and no future presence, However dear, can fill that vacant place; For ever shall the burning thought remain,— "Never, beloved, again! ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... acted against me. "The Essex Register," of yesterday, speaks of an intention to offer me some better office than that of which I have been deprived. Now, I do not think that I can, preserving my self-respect, accept of any compromise. No other office can be offered me that will not have been made vacant by the removal of a Democrat; and, even if there were such an office, still, as charges have been made against me, complete justice can be done only by placing me exactly where I was before. This also ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... victim; but, at least, you will remember that the dearest hope of us artists, of us lovers of glory, is to obtain a place here. I have already fixed upon mine," said she pointing to a niche still vacant. "Oswald! who knows whether you will not come again to this same enclosure when my bust shall ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... are inscribed the names of the heroes of independence, and that of the Emperor Augustin Yturbide is placed on the right of the presidential chair, with his sword hanging on the wall; while on the left of the chief magistrate's seat there is a vacant space; perhaps destined for the name of another emperor. The multitude of priests with their large shovel-hats, and the entrance of the president in full uniform, announced by music and a flourish of trumpets, and attended by his staff, rendered it as anti-republican-looking ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... DEAR SIR,—I have great pleasure in offering you the living of which you are now curate, vacant by the lamented death of Mr Stephenson. I assure you that the united request of your friends and parishioners was but the echo of my own will, as I have long known and appreciated your untiring labours ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... bed, and as Mrs. Bumpkin looked at the cosy old hearth, and put up the embers of the log to make it safe for the night, it seemed as if the prosperity of their old home had burnt down at last to dull ashes, and she looked sadly at the vacant place where Joe had used ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... want and toll! The sun that warms thy native soil Has ripen'd not thy knowledge; 'Tis obvious, from that vacant air, Though Padua gave thee birth, thou ne'er ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... beside a vacant chair, and, in the lonely vigil of her tears, prayed that God would bless and spare her boy. In the window hangs a service flag. Tomorrow, My God! there shall a message come from overseas ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... remember that we, likewise, are lost in the same throng; that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... the fabric was gradually disclosed, and struck upon her heart a horror such as she had never before experienced. The broken battlements, enwreathed with ivy, proclaimed the fallen grandeur of the place, while the shattered vacant window-frames exhibited its desolation, and the high grass that overgrew the threshold seemed to say how long it was since mortal foot had entered. The place appeared fit only for the purposes of violence and destruction: and the unfortunate captives, when they stopped at its gates, felt the ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... keep up a clucking sound with his tongue, sway his big body from side to side, and drum a tattoo upon his knee. Now and again would come a suppressed whistle, and then a low humming sound, backed up by a vacant non-compos-mentis smile. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... we have a sitting-room and two bedrooms vacant," she answered to Viola's query. "Shall I show them ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... that I found out in practicing law that can very well apply to nut growing. If you will pardon the reference to personal experience, I can bring forth to you about four situations. One, a good, close friend of mine had a vacant lot close to his home. He had been planting nut trees and papaw trees and persimmon trees for years. On this vacant lot he had a 25-year-old Busch walnut growing back on the alley, on the lawn was a beautiful Japanese flowering cherry, and there were ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... the confidential adviser of the Queen, and counselled her "to go alone,"—that is, to throw off the shackles which she had too long ignominiously worn; and Anne at once appointed high-church divines—Tories of course—to the two vacant bishoprics. The under-stream of faction was flowing unseen, but deep and strong, which the infatuated ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired "on which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear "whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... bewildered faces; faces merely curious, or curiously exalted, slightly ecstatic, open-mouthed, fascinated by each other and by the movements and the lights; laughing, frivolous faces, and faces utterly vacant and unseeing. ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... said Jack, laughing, as he shook her hand heartily and sat down, "for my own sake as well as yours; because I have come to take my old room if it is vacant." ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... in March, 1622, in the same fleet with the Count Vidigueira, on whom the king had conferred the viceroyship of the Indies, then vacant by the resignation of Alfonso Noronha, whose unsuccessful voyage in the foregoing year had been the occasion of the loss of Ormus, which being by the miscarriage of that fleet deprived of the succours necessary for its defence, was taken by the Persians ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... only practised by those persons who are candidates for great employments, and high favour at court. They are trained in this art from their youth, and are not always of noble birth, or liberal education. When a great office is vacant, either by death or disgrace (which often happens,) five or six of those candidates petition the emperor to entertain his majesty and the court with a dance on the rope; and whoever jumps the highest, without falling, succeeds in the office. Very often the chief ministers ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... himself by inducing the inhabitants of the district to take up arms in the defence of the country, during the excitement, which then prevailed respecting an invasion. In the spring of 1799, the parishes of Lochmaben and Ruthwell, both in the gift of the Earl of Mansfield, became simultaneously vacant, and the choice of them was accorded to Mr Duncan by the noble patron. He preferred Ruthwell, and was ordained to the charge of that parish, on the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... to the deserted farm-house. It loomed dimly out of the vacant fields and against the background of travelling clouds. Victor stayed at the wheel. Mrs. Bracher, the Commandant, and the four soldiers, jumped off into the road. The six silently filed into the door-yard. The ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... a very stormy Session, the Queen wishes to give a public testimony of her continued confidence in Lord Aberdeen's administration, by offering him the vacant Blue Ribbon. The Queen need not add a word on her personal feelings of regard and friendship for Lord Aberdeen, which are known to him now for ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... advantages of superadding to the means of education provided by the several States a seminary of learning instituted by the National Legislature within the limits of their exclusive jurisdiction, the expense of which might be defrayed or reimbursed out of the vacant grounds which have accrued to the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison
... hand on her hip and stared insolently at the various groups of people in the court, Lady Cardington sighed, and Lady Holme assumed a vacant look, which suited her mental attitude at the moment. She generally began to feel rather vacant if she ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... time about the postponement of marriage, and they can no more control it than they can control the size of the city of New York. Theoretically, everybody on Manhattan Island could get up and go away and leave the island vacant. Actually, it can't and won't be done. Theoretically, we should all of us get married young. We fall in love young enough. But, actually, we can't get married young, and don't. The reasons are given later. Meanwhile, just notice, and just ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... centre of the board, he would have the power of taking any one of the men stationed on the squares numbered, by removing the man and placing himself on the vacant square. ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... not answer. A moment later an asthmatic gas-jet caught its breath and he saw a bare studio room almost vacant of furniture. There was a bed and a screen and a few chairs, one window facing an alley wall. The ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... impulse or vague prescience moved Marcia to open the door herself. It was Greenleaf. Notwithstanding the untoward state of affairs, she could not deny herself the pleasure of meeting him, and ushered him into the parlor, then fortunately vacant. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... scarcely knew how it was that there was a whist party in his library one Friday evening; rather a silent one, with a few sighs from the Misses Woodhouse and a suspicious dimness in Mr. Dale's eyes. The rector somehow slipped into the vacant chair; he said he thought he was so old whist would not hurt him, if they were willing to teach him. But as he swept the board at the first deal, and criticised his partner's lead at the ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... assistant's duties. Now he must prepare it himself, and he was hungry and sleepy. He mentally vowed that he would no longer delay notifying the authorities of the desertion, and would urge them to hurry in sending some one to fill the vacant place. ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... fresh paint, stagnant air, and machine-oil. They emerged in a round hallway at the foot of a staircase. The officer went to a window for a conference with the official behind it, and returned to Sylvia to say that there was no room, not even a single berth vacant. Some shabby woman-passengers with untidy hair and crumpled clothes drew near, looking at her with curiosity. Sylvia appealed to them, crying out again, "My mother is very sick and I must go back to America at once. Can't any of you—can't ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... easily driven into any port; and as those who joined with them in manning the vessel were the most directly opposite to his opinions, measures, and character, and far the most artful and most powerful of the set, they easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his friends; and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of the course of his policy. As if it were to insult as well as to betray him, even long before the close of the first session of his administration, when everything was publicly ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... contributed any perceptible momentum to the social machine: her unique distinction was that of filling to perfection her special place in the world. So many people are like badly-composed statues, over-lapping their niches at one point and leaving them vacant at another. Mrs. Grancy's niche was her husband's life; and if it be argued that the space was not large enough for its vacancy to leave a very big gap, I can only say that, at the last resort, such dimensions must be determined by finer instruments than any ready-made standard ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... take up the standard and cry 'Follow me'? We should leave England with sad hearts, it is true, but for her good and for the good of unborn generations, who shall create a second England under other skies. And last, but not altogether least, the colonial bishopric is vacant, and has been offered to me. If I accept it I shall save the life most precious to me, and find another home in the midst of my ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... rather vacant laugh, exhaling, in the excitement of her hilarity, a more poignant perfume, like a scented ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... thirty-five per cent tariff on farm implements, and complained of the retention by the Dominion of the vacant lands in the province. And her {96} grievances in respect to transportation would not down. The Canadian Pacific Railway had given the much desired connection with the East and had brought tens of thousands of settlers ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... high-priesthood, with which Augustus was invested and which made his person more sacred and inviolable than even the tribunitial power. It was not therefore for nothing that the most judicious of all poets made that office vacant by the death of Pantheus, in the second book of the "AEneis," for his hero to succeed in it, and consequently for Augustus to enjoy. I know not that any of the commentators have taken notice of that passage. If they have not, I am sure they ought; and ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... Indians themselves, residing in the region on the south side of the Blackwater River and in Pamunkey Neck had requested in 1688 that colonists be allowed to settle across the boundary line in the area now made vacant by the gradual dying out of their tribes. The basis for the request seems to have been a desire for relief in their precarious economic condition and the fear of invasion by hostile Indians, whom they regarded with more apprehension than they did the ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.
... ways were vacant. Before he died they were the most crowded of all, and vast light frameworks with wheels of twenty and thirty feet in diameter, hurled along them at paces that year after year rose steadily towards two hundred miles an hour. And by the ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... began to conceive prejudices against him; and when I one day expressed my surprise to the First Consul that M. de Chateaubriand's name did not appear on any of the lists which he had ordered to be presented to him for filling up vacant places, he said: "He has been mentioned to me, but I replied in a way to check all hopes of his obtaining any appointment. He has notions of liberty and independence which will not suit my system. I would rather have him my enemy than my ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... ordered me to light the Comanche calumet of peace, and advancing to the place left vacant by the ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... your rhymes, but mankind live in them only in the flesh. The soul I tell you, still occupies the basement, even the sub-cellar. And an inundated cellar at that. The soul, Shakib, is kept below, although the high places are vacant." ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... of the spaces left for Greek words are filled in manuscript, but more are left vacant. When Jenson later in the same year printed Cicero's Letters, he was provided with Greek type. The blank fol. 9^a is occupied by a transcript in an early hand of the greater part of lib. i, cap. iv (De ficu), from a MS. ...
— Catalogue of the William Loring Andrews Collection of Early Books in the Library of Yale University • Anonymous
... differences soon began to assert itself in repeated division and subdivision on the part of the idealists. One-half withdrew at New Orleans to work out their individual salvation. The remainder followed Cabet to the deserted Mormon town of Nauvoo, Illinois, where vacant houses offered immediate shelter and where they enjoyed an interval of prosperity. The French genius for music, for theatricals, and for literature relieved them from the tedium that characterized most co-operative colonies. Soon their numbers increased to five hundred ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... Kansas, dropped into the Vacant Chair. When the Delegate from The Rookery, Wormwood Scrubs, Islington S. E., resumed his scorching Arraignment of the U. S. A., he got an awful Rise out of the ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... of Wales to inspect the top of the Great Pyramid—thinking it likely to improve his acquaintance with the views of the people. Her Majesty further communicates that she has made up her royal mind (and that the Prince Consort has made up his illustrious mind) to the bestowal of the vacant Garter, let us say on Mr. Roebuck. The younger Royal children having been introduced at the request of the Bleater's London Correspondent, and having been by him closely observed to present the usual external indications ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... going, come on." There were no dissenters to the programme. I saw at a glance that my bunkie was heart and soul in the play, and took my cue and kept my mouth shut. We circled round the town to a vacant lot within a block of the rear of the dance hall. Honeyman was left to hold the horses; then, taking off our belts and hanging them on the pommels of our saddles, we secreted our six-shooters inside the waistbands of our trousers. The hall was still crowded with the revelers when we ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... seats inside the stage were occupied, but as the day, though cold, was clear and pleasant, we mounted the box, and took the vacant places beside the driver. That worthy was a rough, surly character, with a talent for profanity truly wonderful. His horses were lean, half-starved quadrupeds, with ribs protruding from their sides like hoops from a whisky-barrel, and he accounted for their ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Cardross," he said, taking a vacant chair beside her hammock, "I really am perfectly well and perfectly acclimated, and I enjoy every moment of the day whether here as your guest or in the saddle with your husband or in the office ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... toward night of a hot sultry day in the month of August, that Ella Barnwell was seated by the door of a cabin, within the walls of Bryan's Station, gazing forth, with what seemed a vacant stare, upon a group of individuals, who were standing near the center of the common before spoken of, engaged in a very animated conversation. Her features perhaps were no paler than when we saw her last; but there was a tender, ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... he—Barker—would not have first discovered it, and as if anybody—even dear Kitty herself—was responsible for HIS convictions and actions but himself. Nevertheless, this gentle egotist was unusually serious, and when the child awoke at last, and with a fretful start and vacant eyes pushed his caressing hand away, he felt lonelier than before. It was with a slight sense of humiliation, too, that he saw it stretch its hands to the mere hireling, Norah, who had never given it the love that he had seen even in the frivolous Mrs. ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... to the fall of Mohammed Basha, the Vice-royalty of Algiers became vacant, and, through the good offices of his old friend Piali, Ali became Governor. He thus returned to occupy a position of literally sovereign power to the city which he had first ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... voice was still in his ears, but the turf whereon he had sprawled was clearly vacant. Not an Otter to be seen, as ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... was rapidly going down towards the western peaks, which stood out dark and clear against the golden orange sky, when Gedge opened his eyes and began to stare in a vacant way at a little peculiarly shaded brown leather case which rose and fell in regular motion a few inches from his nose. He watched it for some minutes, feeling very comfortable the while, for his pillow was ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... tent, a commingling of the rough voices of men and the humming of wheels, the clinking of glasses and gold, the rattling of dice, the hoarse call of a dealer, the shuffling of feet—a roar pierced now and then by the shrill, vacant, soundless laugh ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... his partner in the prize. If her poet-husband gain a prize in poetry, she asks, will some ticket when his statue's built tell the gazer 'twas a cricket helped his crippled lyre; that when one string which made "love" sound soft, was snapt in twain, she perched upon the place left vacant and duly uttered, "Love, Love, Love", whene'er the bass asked the treble to atone for its somewhat ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson |
