"Tentatively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dilated; the prospect was alluring. "I suppose there would not be enough for both of us?" she ventured tentatively—"enough for me to be taught some few things properly, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... thought that "suffered under Pontius Pilate" was "suffered under a bunch of violets," she heard her proverbs phonetically and reproduced them thus. She hoped to convey her warning in the quotation. "And we must always try the spirits whether they be of God," she added tentatively. ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... I will state that in a very large number of cases of disease of an obscure nature, and where, to be candid, the electric bath was employed empirically, or, if you please, tentatively, it has served to point out the locus morbi. The number of cases in which I have made this observation, has been sufficiently large to establish beyond a doubt the fact, that as a rule the electric current makes itself more decidedly and often even ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... tentatively at the sheets of paper on his table, covered with unfinished calculations, and hesitated; but his visitor's manner ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... effect. An attempt was made by Administration leaders to force a vote on May 19, 1918. Friends interceded when it was shown that not enough votes were pledged to secure passage. Again the vote was tentatively set for June ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... and mentally, and began to probe tentatively in this new part of his mind. He could feel Horng too reaching slowly for contact; his presence was comfortable, mild, confused but unworried. As his thoughts blended with Horng's the present faded perceptibly; this confusion was merely a moment in centuries, and soon too it ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... tentatively; he really did think that his grandfather was very nice, although he had been puzzled and not a little frightened by his bushy black eyebrows slanting up to a profusion of white hair. Mark had never ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... doubtless, would gladly have amputated their legs, if the ministers had so decreed, and they apologized to the world every time an unforseen circumstance uncovered a portion of these offensive legs. In fact, they denied the existence of "said members," and alluded to them tentatively and with ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... Martians, whose only use was to threaten humanity with extinction. Mr Wells' own sight of our blindness, our complacent acceptance of the sphere as an oblate or prolate spheroid, might be, he hoped, another of the marvels which we should come to accept through the medium of romance. So he began tentatively at first to introduce a vivid criticism of the futility of present-day society into his fantasies, and the first and the least of these books was that published in 1899 as When the Sleeper Wakes, a title afterwards ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... hat back and struggled to a reasonable sitting position. "I don't suppose you have a drink hidden away in the car somewhere?" he said tentatively. "Or would the technicians ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... sure that this had cost him Peter, whom he had come to as his oldest and best friend. Having no idea whom he could turn to next, he rose, tentatively, and for the moral effect, ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the handle of the door tentatively. Could he turn it by degrees so gently and imperceptibly that those in the room would notice nothing? He decided that with great care it could be done. Very slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, he moved it round, holding his breath in his excessive care. A little ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... given him the letter myself, for I have no recollection of parting with it before, but I only remember his offering me his hand, and making me shyly and tentatively welcome. After a few moments of the demoralization which followed his hospitable attempts in me, he asked if I would not like to go up on his hill with him and sit there, where he smoked in the afternoon. He offered me a cigar, and when I said that I did not smoke, he lighted ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... tentatively. There was a little matter upon which she had been speculating ever since they had left home. "Are—are you going to give me half ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... the point of letting go the ladder to swim away beyond my ken—mysterious as he came. But, for the moment, this being appearing as if he had risen from the bottom of the sea (it was certainly the nearest land to the ship) wanted only to know the time. I told him. And he, down there, tentatively: ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... that protest and affirmation received the sword's decisive arbitrament! With what sense of opportune occasion these two kindred nations are surely drawing toward that "modus vivendi," tentatively flexible, yet more potential, responsive, and insistent than treaty covenants, "triple alliances," or ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... this is much more amusing than the law. But I don't quite see where I come in." He rose tentatively ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fully into its "blockhouse and drive" phase. The use of these expedients in combination was, it is believed, new to military history. The principle of the blockhouse had already been tentatively adopted in South Africa without much success, notably between Bloemfontein and Thabanchu, where a line of posts was established which on three occasions was cut by De Wet.[55] The chief defect of the blockhouse is its vulnerability to shell fire; but by this time the Boer artillery was a negligible ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... doctor, Bobby could see, had been made as uneasy as himself by the change in the Panamanian. The doctor cleared his throat. His voice broke the silence tentatively: ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... you have heard that he was in love with my poor niece, who went into a convent after he was lost?' she said tentatively, and watching ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... way tentatively along what seemed to us the safest channel, to 320 deg. b.m., and with trepidation shot the rapids, which were quite fearsome. I must say for my men that by now they had acquired a certain amount of courage—courage, like all things, being a matter of training ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... he said heartily, "Lady Agatha! Lady Agatha! Why don't we have some such custom in America?" He tried it tentatively. "Lady Marietta—that's my mother's name—don't seem to fit altogether does it? Lady Maggie—Oh, Lord! awful! No, I guess we'd better stick to Miss and Mrs. But it does ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... constructive results of the modern historical and literary study of the Bible, not dogmatically but tentatively, so that the reader and student may be in a position to judge for himself regarding the conclusions that are held by a large number of Biblical scholars and to estimate their ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... that it should understand that the best thing it could do to forward this prosperous tendency of things was to do nothing; for this is a lesson which has not yet been learned by any legislature in the world. For several years they had been tinkering, at first modestly and tentatively, at a scheme of internal improvements which should not cost too much money. In 1835 they began to grant charters for railroads, which remained in embryo, as the stock was never taken. Surveys for other railroads were also proposed, to cross the State in different directions; and the project ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... aged man in black-rimmed spectacles, with a distended nose and long upper lip and chin, was tentatively fumbling ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... by the way, was not necessary, all the Governments represented tentatively agreeing with Austria. The treaty, however, was subject to signatures and if it was officially closed, ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... precisely what he did not do. Instead, he enlarged and rearranged the work ten different times, mixing up his worst and his best verses, so that it is now very difficult to trace his development as a poet. We may, however, tentatively arrange his work in three divisions: his early shouting to attract attention (as summarized in the line "I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world"), his war poems, and his later verse written ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... watched a competent portraitist at work? The infinite pains a skilled man spends on the preliminaries before he takes one step towards a likeness nearly always wears down the patience of the sitter. He measures with his eye, he plumbs, he sketches tentatively, he places in here a dab, there a blotch, he puts behind him apparently unproductive hours—and then all at once he is ready to begin something that will not have to be done over again. An amateur, ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... a hard cot, with his eyes closed, yet with his every sense sharply quickened. Tentatively he tightened small muscles in his arms and legs. Across his wrists and thighs he felt straps binding ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... and there is the paper doll, with lovely patterns and pieces to make more clothes out of for it, and there is a game papa just loved. Perhaps you'd like to play that best, too, 'cause you are sick, too?" she said tentatively. ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... peg and bow aside and blew softly and steadily on the glowing point. It spread still more and now a small tongue of flame rose and flickered. Instantly Harrigan laid small bits of wood criss-cross on the pile of tinder. The flame licked at them tentatively, recoiled, rose again and caught hold. ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... was able to decide approximately the whereabouts of his prey by the momentary shaking of a twig. He raised his rifle and covered that twig steadily; his forefinger played tentatively on the trigger; but on second thoughts he refrained. He was keenly conscious of the fact that the beast was doing its work with skill superior to his own. In comparison to his, its movements were almost noiseless. Jack Meredith was too clever ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... aisles, and presently sat down. Not a soul was in the building save themselves. She regarded a stained window, with her head sideways, and tentatively asked him if he remembered the last time they were in ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... his sensitive upper lip he discovered it to be firm as a rock. Next he backed away and wrenched tentatively at the halter until convinced that the throat strap was thoroughly sound. His last effort must have been an inspiration. Attacking the taut buckskin rope with his teeth he worked diligently until he had severed three ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... consideration"—which means that the Entente Cabinets were busy discussing both and unable to decide on either. Distracted by conflicting aims and hampered by inadequate resources, they could not act except tentatively and in an ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... I've no doubt you'd be off to Urbana by first train; but this young man has some sense in his head" (here Cranston began to finger his own skull tentatively), "and in losing his freedom hasn't ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... go out of the company's service and try my own hand. There's a good bit of land about three miles from here that's in the market, and I think I could make something out of it. A fellow ought to settle down and be his own master," he answered tentatively, "eh?" ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the Sultan out of Syria,' I suggested tentatively, 'and to annex Palestine to our ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... Mrs. Hewson laughed tentatively, the uncertain giggle that scarcely dares to come between the teeth. She knew her husband's leaning towards the arid humour of ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... blanks as aforesaid expressed the final determination of the testator with regard to the beneficiaries to whom the same applied; and that the words and figures written in pencil filling such blanks as aforesaid were written only deliberately and tentatively and that as to those words and figures the testator had not at the time when he executed, published or declared said instrument to be his last will and testament determined as to whom or in what proportions he would ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... render them insupportable. The warning should be added, however—and it cannot be added too emphatically—that the social worker must scrupulously refrain from making diagnoses in these cases, even tentatively; she must refer such data as come to her either to the general practitioner or to the psychiatrist, selecting one or the other as the symptoms ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... is one of the most important of his life. He had married Minna Planer, who is said to have been a very pretty woman and quite incapable of understanding her husband and his artistic aspirations; and he began, slowly and tentatively, to shape a course through life for himself. He continued to gain experience in the production of other composers' operas; he studied incessantly, and at last he hit upon the idea of writing a grand opera in the Meyerbeer style, and going to Paris with it, in the ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... of Avignon. 288 and 289 at either end of the R. wall, portraits of Guillaume Jouvenal des Ursins and of Charles VII., are by the well-known Jehan Fouquet of Tours, who unites the gentleness of the Tuscan school with the vivacity of the Gallic temperament. 998D, Virgin and Donors, is now tentatively ascribed to the Master of the Legend of St. Ursula. We next note a Crucifixion, the famous altar-piece (998A) of the Parlement of Paris recently transferred from the Palais de Justice. To the L. are St. Louis and the Baptist, R., ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... large place, sir," he therefore observed tentatively, by way of drawing the mite out and getting some ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... kept his hand on her silver collar as she advanced, fearing that Toni's queer mixture of garments might upset her canine mind; but Olga apparently took her master's friends on trust, and presently strolled over to Toni and laid one long paw tentatively upon her knee. ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Wesleyan Methodist interest, and one of its chief supporters was Mr. T. C. Hincksman, a gentleman still living, who has for a long period been a warm friend of the general cause of Methodism. Although begun tentatively, the school soon progressed; in time there was a good attendance at it; ultimately it was considered too small; and the result was a removal to more convenient premises—to a room connected with the mill of the late Mr. John Furness, in Markland-street: But the little old building did not ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... relates an anecdote which typifies what I mean. "I begged the conductor of a good men's choral society," he says, "to have one of Haendel's choruses sung. But he seemed to hesitate. I had made the suggestion tentatively, and then tried to enlarge on the sincerity and breadth of its musical idea. 'Ah, very good,' he said, 'if you really want to hear it, it is easily done; but I was afraid that perhaps it was rather ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... long stick he used as an alpenstock, he balanced horizontally after the manner of a rope-walker. He thrust one foot forward tentatively, drew it back, and steeled himself with a ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... the trapper tentatively raised his hand and touched the bare arm of Maren where it shone brown beneath the white of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... With all popper's money, we've never been able to get a real good footing. It seems funny to outsiders, especially as popper and mommer have never been divorced or anything. We've just lived quietly right here in the city always. But," she said, looking tentatively at Faraday to see how he was going to take the statement, "my father's a Northerner. He went back and ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... others whom I spoke to at random but have no space to write of, assured me that they were quite satisfied with their treatment at the works, and repudiated—some of them with indignation—the suggestion that I put to them tentatively that they suffered from a system of sweating. For the most part, indeed, their gratitude for the help they were receiving in the hour of need was very ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... unfortunate to lead by a bird," said I, tentatively. For some reason the sport had lost ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... tentatively into the bottom. "Well, I'll be damned!" The blade of the paddle had slipped easily into the ground. Higgins pushed on the handle, pushed the paddle three feet into soil, withdrew it and held it up for inspection. "Muck! ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... Purchas is bad, sir," observed Tom, tentatively, when Miss Trevor had vanished down the companion ladder. "Hope ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... silenced her. Feeling told her she was in the wrong; but the beauty of her sentiment was not to be contested, and therefore she thought that she might distrust feeling: and she went against it somewhat; at first very tentatively, for it caused pain. She marked a line where the light of duty should not encroach on the light of our human desires. "But love for a parent is not merely duty," thought Cornelia. "It is also love;—and is it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ancient words are not obsolete, as father, mother, etc. A word is obsolete which has quite gone out of reputable use; a word is archaic which is falling out of reputable use, or, on the other hand, having been obsolete, is taken up tentatively by writers or speakers of influence, so that it may perhaps regain its position as a living word; a word is rare if there are few present instances of its ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... they'll be looking for me at home," he said, tentatively rising halfway from his chair. "Father isn't well, you see." He had a vague feeling that he could not go unless they formally admitted the adequacy of ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... that system of representative government which has gone on from Sunderland's day to our own. But though William showed his own political genius in understanding and adopting Sunderland's plan, it was only slowly and tentatively that he ventured to carry it out in practice. In spite of the temporary reaction Sunderland believed that the balance of political power was really on the side of the Whigs. Not only were they the natural representatives ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... English conventions to the States, their brothers ordered their clothes from West End tailors, their sisters began to wear walking dresses, to play out-of-door games and take active exercise. Their mothers tentatively took houses in London or Paris, there came a period when their fathers or uncles, serious or anxious business men, the most unsporting of human beings, rented castles or manors with huge moors and covers attached and entertained ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... all shining and aglow; and in the midst of the exultation and triumph he would draw back, a little afraid. He had become ascetic in his studious and melancholy isolation, and the vision of such ecstasies frightened him. He began to write a little; at first very tentatively and feebly, and then with more confidence. He showed some of his verses to his father, who told him with a sigh that he had once hoped to write—in the old days ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... duty to Kohat, to "inquire into" the big- seven-foot, iron-shod spades of that District. People had been killing each other with those peaceful tools; and Government wished to know "whether a modified form of agricultural implement could not, tentatively and as a temporary measure, be introduced among the agricultural population without needlessly or unduly exasperating the existing religious sentiments ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... some such lines as those tentatively traced in the last few paragraphs that the most hopeful solution of the problem of the ugly must be sought. The heart of the matter is that there is no object in external nature which is absolutely ugly—no ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... (see p. 38); to some of them the word may be unknown, and if it is known, they avoid using it because it sounds to them strange or affected. It is difficult to prove that any particular word is in this condition, and the list is offered tentatively. It is made from Jones' dictionary, which is therefore allowed to rule whether the word is obsolescent rather than obsolete: some of these seem to be truly obsolete. Some will appear to be convincing examples of obsolescence, others not; but it must be ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... the two propositions tentatively he heard the thud of footsteps descending the stairs from the dance hall, and governed by an uncontrollable impulse he leaped for concealment behind a pile of building material that was stacked handily upon the sidewalk almost at his elbow. He might possibly have driven himself ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... at breakfast, in a tone of gentle reproach, I announced that I was going out into the cold world, as represented by New York City, to look for a job. I had no idea of doing anything of the sort. I only threw out the suggestion tentatively, and I was exceedingly disgusted when they caught up my plan with such enthusiasm and alacrity, that I was forced to go on with it. I could not see why it was necessary for me to work. I had two thousand dollars a year my grandfather had left me, and my idea of seeking for ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... to tentatively ask about rents, to calculate coal and commutation tickets. The humblest little country house, with rank neglected grass about it, and a kitchen odorous of new paint and old drains, held a ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... tentatively, "have you made up your mind about to-morrow; is it to be Kew, or Cookham and Henley?" But to his surprise the question seemed ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... young widow and the millionaire sugar refiner, the flirtation was rapidly developing into something much warmer and more lasting. So far, the final stage had evidently not been reached; nevertheless, Thomery had suggested, tentatively, that he would like to give a grand ball when he took possession of the new house which he was having built for himself in the park Monceau!... And had he not been so extremely anxious to secure ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... git him?" asked the anxious Johnny, rubbing his welt. "Plum' center," responded the business-like Billy. "Go up agin, mebby I kin git another," he suggested tentatively. ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... eyes and gaping beak of his captor. The tentacles writhed all over him, stealthily but eagerly investigating. Then the great parrot-beak laid hold on the shell, expecting to crush it. Making no impression, however, it slid tentatively all over the exasperating prize, seeking, but in vain, for a ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... tentatively put forward, is justified, to some extent at least, by the following remarkable circumstances: that two such entries, having—as we have said—absolutely no parallel in the whole of the Diarium, should ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... during which Bessy glanced tentatively at Mr. Tredegar, and then said, with a lovely rise of colour: "But, John, I sometimes think you forget how much has been done at Westmore—the Mothers' Club, and the play-ground, and all—in the way of ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... Tentatively, Brice drew aside an armful of branches, just above the waiting dog. And, as though he had pulled back a curtain, he found himself facing a well-defined path, cut through the tangled thicket of root and trunk and ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... not impetuous. He found Desmond in her studio working on the last drawing of the Moving Fortress, with the finished model before her. That gave him his opening, and he approached shyly and tentatively. ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... moved tentatively in his seat, and thoughtfully felt an abrasion or two on his knees ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... the authors separated by long periods. Even if the older narratives are composite, the process of welding or compression was so thorough that detailed analyses are now out of the question. Apart from its broader contentions, the method of the critical school must be used tentatively and without dogmatism. Moreover, we must always remember that the critical student comes to his task with assumptions which are oftentimes more potent with him from his very blindness to their existence. ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... a reproachful protest. "Every form of conveyance you have mentioned is drafty. Coming from the hot climates I have lived in so long—" He paused and coughed tentatively. "But what is the use of all this thrust and parry?" pressing his advantage. "Are you or are you not going to give me a ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... steering-sweep, and four of his Raiatea men bent to the oars. As they landed on the beach he looked curiously at the women under the schooner's awning. He waved his hand tentatively, and they, ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... Mrs. Tighe's room to say good-bye. Awkwardly and with the bearlike roughness of excessive timidity I put my arms about her, drew her to me tentatively. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... tentatively suggested that early Israel had its Ahone in a Being perhaps not yet named Jehovah. Israel entertained, however, perhaps by reason of 'nomadic habits,' only the scantiest concern about ancestral ghosts. We then find an historical tradition of secular contact between Israel and Egypt, from ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... say I actually came out from behind the bench, but I did let go of it, and with something of the relief which those three chaps in the Old Testament must have experienced after sliding out of the burning fiery furnace, I even groped tentatively ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... an onion in the tin with a joint," I said tentatively, for I was not very hopeful. I know that there is always some insuperable objection to anything not consecrated ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... studied animalculae through the microscope, and modelled fungi in plasticine. Stencilling, illuminating, painting, and marqueterie each had a brief turn, and were superseded by raffia-plaiting and poker-work. Miss Beasley suggested tentatively that it might be better to concentrate on a single subject, but Miss Gibbs, who loved arguments about education, was well prepared to defend ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... "A snake-devil—" he suggested tentatively, forming a mind picture of the vicious reptilian danger which the colonists tried to kill on sight whenever and wherever encountered. His hand went to the knife at his belt. One met with weapons only that hissing hatred motivated by a brainless ferocity ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... Perry tentatively gathered up the body and legs and wrapped them about him, tying the hind legs as a girdle round his waist. The effect on the whole was bad. It was even irreverent—like one of those mediaeval pictures ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... return to his desk and with a furtive, shamefaced air take out from a bottom drawer an untidy folder of notes and manuscript. This was the skeleton in his closet, his secret sin. It was the scaffolding of his book, which he had been compiling for at least ten years, and to which he had tentatively assigned such different titles as "Notes on Literature," "The Muse on Crutches," "Books and I," and "What a Young Bookseller Ought to Know." It had begun long ago, in the days of his odyssey as a rural book huckster, ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... worthies, his forefinger laid one side his nose. When we finally got him worked up to the point of going to get some excessively bad photographs, "I haf daken myself!" we began to have hopes. So we tentatively approached once more the subject ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... an old post there, lying beside a rusty, overturned plow. More than once she had stopped and eyed it speculatively, and the day before she had gone so far as to lift an end of it tentatively; but she had found it very heavy, and she had also disturbed a lot of black bugs that went scurrying here and there, so that she was forced to gather her skirts close about her and run for ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... that makes it doubly difficult, relying on developments of style only, to make, even tentatively, a chronological arrangement of Titian's early works. This is that in those painted poesie of the earlier Venetian art of which the germs are to be found in Giovanni Bellini and Cima, but the flower is identified with Giorgione, ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... in China. With the experimental Eighteenth Century French Republic; with the old Spanish Colonies of Central and South America; and above all with Mexico, Dr. Goodnow deals in the same vein. Vast movements, which can be handled only tentatively even in exhaustive essays are dismissed in misleading sentences framed so as to serve as mere introduction to the inevitable climax—the Chinese Constitutional Monarchy of 1915 ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... fashion of most French women, without right or reason, by force of some secret magnetism that was not even physical. Her wide mouth was open in a rather vacant, childish smile, and she was looking up towards the gallery as though she were expecting something. "Hallo, everyone!" she said tentatively, gaily. They stared back at her, stolid and antagonistic, defying her. She began to laugh then, as she laughed every night at the same moment, spontaneously, shrilly, helplessly, until suddenly she had them. It was like a whirlwind. It spared no one. They were like dead leaves dancing helplessly ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... of surmises has been heard hinting tentatively at a possible re-grouping of European Powers. The alliance of the three Empires is supposed possible. And it may be possible. The myth of Russia's power is dying very hard—hard enough for that combination ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... bone fragments. This is of less importance than in civil practice, because an injury by a bullet of small calibre, capable of seriously displacing fragments, has probably at the same time produced grave changes in the cord. In the presence of severe immediate symptoms we may tentatively assume that a simultaneous destructive lesion has been produced. In such injuries pain, combined with a tendency to improvement in the paralytic symptoms and return of reflexes, is the only point in ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... pluck as a man could wish to find in a woman, true as I'm here,' he said, reaching forward his hand and tentatively touching her between ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... of opinion, and the young man continued, with apology in his tone: "It may be bad taste on my part, of course. But one hears it said on every side. If you could tell me what I ought to read ... or, perhaps, advise me a little?" he ended tentatively. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... and stood there a moment, and came back. She picked up a thread on the floor. Sat down again. Picked up her pencil, rolled it a moment in her palms, then, catching her toes behind either foreleg of her chair, in an attitude that was as workmanlike as it was ungraceful, she began to draw, nervously, tentatively at first, but gaining in firmness and assurance as ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... later, however, the woman added tentatively: "I wouldn't care to take the responsibility, myself, ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... floor. Then it got up and made as though it meant to walk to the door, going deliberately and very softly. Flame's eyes followed it until it was beyond the range of sight, and then the cat turned sharply and began patting his tail tentatively with one paw. The tail moved slightly in reply, and Smoke changed paws and tapped it again. The dog, however, did not rise to play as was his wont, and the cat fell to patting it briskly with both paws. Flame still ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... nearly all civilized countries. It is valuable for that proportion of women, whatever it be, who, through some throw of the physiological dice, seem to be without the distinctive factor for psychical womanhood, the existence of which one has tentatively ventured to assume. These individuals, like all others, are entitled to the fullest and freest development of their lives, and it is well that there shall be open to them, as to the brothers they so closely resemble, ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... not like his part," said the leading lady tentatively, hanging a hand in an interminable white glove over the back of the stall in ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... slipped back, tentatively, at least, into his place as clan head, though for a time he found it a post without action. After the fierce outburst of bloodshed, quiet had settled, and it was tacitly understood that, unless the Hollman ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... together at the front door; and after he had handed me down to the pavement I felt rather awkward: I had no desire to break the silence, but neither did I want to take away Peter's coat, which I was wearing, so I said tentatively: ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... a visitor," she said, looking tentatively at Lorry—she hated visitors, for she had to sit ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... deluded as to think you cannot explain that" cried the girl. "How foolish! You are not a servant, never were, and I am sure never will be one. And I know you have n't sneaked in as a yellow newspaper reporter, or magazine writer," tentatively. ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... and I tentatively inferred that she would soon perfectly reconsider her not altogether unobvious course. Furiously, tho' with a tender, ebbing similitude, across her mental consciousness stole a reculmination of all the truths ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... until at last they found themselves a State of the new Union. This recognition of the paramount authority of congress and this demand for self-government under that authority, constitute the foundations of the federal territorial system, as expressed in congressional resolutions, worked out tentatively in Jefferson's Ordinance of 1784, and finally shaped in the Ordinance ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... Professor Bumper had done his rival an injustice. That was in thinking Professor Beecher was responsible for the treachery of Jacinto. That was due to the plotter's own work. It was true that Professor Beecher had tentatively engaged Jacinto, and had sent word to him to keep other explorers away from the vicinity of the ancient city if possible; but Jacinto, who did not return Professor Bumper's money, as he had promised, had acted treacherously in order to enrich himself. Professor Beecher had nothing to do with ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... before they know how, and where consequently the elaborate domestic machinery creaks. There were men-servants of different nationalities, ladies' maids, and a houseful of guests coming and going as in a private hotel. Adelle shrank into the obscurest corner and her anemonelike charm, tentatively putting forth, was quite lost in the scramble. Beechwood was a much less genial home than the slipshod Mexican hacienda of the Mereldas and nobody paid any attention to the shy girl. Eveline Glynn, who expected in another year to be free from school, ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... from this little band of admirers I am afraid that the book does suffer from neglect. Who is there, for example, who has read the "Directions" on page 1, where we are actually shown the method of reading tentatively suggested by the author himself? The ordinary reader, coming across a certain kind of thin line, lightly dismisses it as a misprint or a restaurant car on Fridays. If he had read the Preface he would know that it meant a SHUNT. He would know that a SHUNT means that ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... grunt. As Chester was about to follow his friend out—for there could be no doubt that Red Pepper Burns was his friend in spite of this somewhat surly, though by no means unusual, treatment—another door opened tentatively, and ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... place just as winter was approaching, caused him to suspend his operations (492). He was recalled on account of his failure, and the command was transferred to Datis the Mede and to the Persian Artaphernes. Darius, however, while tentatively using the land routes through Greece for his expeditions, had left no stone unturned to secure for himself that much-coveted sea-way which would carry him straight into the heart of the enemy's position, and he had opened negotiations with the republics of Greece ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... couple with the courage of their convictions," I remark to Josephine, tentatively. "Before the sermon has begun they will be on the river and they will come home delightfully tired just in time ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... knees, and with his eyes open wide from excitement. He presented so unusual an appearance of bewilderment and delight that Mrs. Downs looked at him and at her niece for some explanation. "The young lady seems to interest you," said she, tentatively. ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... knees of the mountain, staring into the abyss... I do not know how long... I could not count the hours, they ran so fast Like little bare-foot urchins—shaking my hands away... But I remember Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein... And a wind came out of the grass, Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw. ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... clustered about the hem of her blue serge skirt like chicks about a hen. The engine shrieked, but its voice sounded weak and far off in that still ocean of space; the girl tightened her grasp on the largest of the satchels and looked at the approaching porter tentatively. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... by steel tubes at its edges and in its exact center. He tentatively put one foot in the middle over the support and gradually shifted his weight to it. The metal complained creakily, but held, and he slowly trod the exact center line to Earth. The stewardess' back was turned toward him as he walked off across ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss
... occurred before this cardiac weakness develops in the presence of aortic narrowing, and digitalis may not be indicated at all. We cannot tell how far degeneration may have gone, however, and small doses of digitalis used tentatively and carefully, perhaps 5 drops of an active tincture two or three times a day, and then the drug carefully increased to a little larger dose to see whether improvement takes place, is the only way to ascertain whether ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... the blank expression of the strenuous man who has learned to utilize his momentary respites; while, stretched along the cushions of the carriage, his face hidden, his eyes wide open and attentive, lay the young Russian, his fingers tentatively caressing the treasure in the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Tentatively she pressed one of the seals. It cracked across. Another went the same way, and as she touched the third there came a sound of talking outside the door. "Open it for me with your pass-key, please," a man said. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... drawn; and there remains the possibility that this Kalinga War was waged by Chandragupta, not Asoka; and that it was he who made this edict, felt the remorse, and became a Buddhist. However, to continue (tentatively):— ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... certain malicious stories going about," she said to him tentatively, "which I have been thinking very ungracious on the part of ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... away into all other phenomena: that, for instance—suppose there should be vast celestial super-oceanic, or inter-planetary vessels that come near this earth and discharge volumes of smoke at times. We're only supposing such a thing as that now, because, conventionally, we are beginning modestly and tentatively. But if it were so, there would necessarily be some phenomenon upon this earth, with which that phenomenon would merge. Extra-mundane smoke and smoke from cities merge, or both would manifest ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... Lloyd Pryor continued to be gracious; he talked gayly of this or that; he told her one or two stories that had been told him in a directors' meeting or on a journey, and he roared with appreciation of their peculiar humor. She flushed; but she made herself laugh. Then she began tentatively to say something of Old Chester; and—and what did he think? "That old man, who lives up on the ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... inclination dictates. This adds to variety, and as digestion is better when the food is better relished, no doubt, in this case, that which pleases the taste best is the best to eat. At least, we can hold this view tentatively for ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... it, she ain't! No, she can't see Bud with a pair of opry-glasses, an' he's a dead game sport, too! Oh, there ain't no flies on Bud, an' nobody can lick him, either; but Hermy don't cotton none, she hasn't got no use for him, see? But say—" Spike rose tentatively and looked on his captor ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... Mr. Gwynn's. Before they entered he gave Mr. Sands a perfecto. The latter, who knew a good cigar from smoking many bad ones, threw away the devastator and lighted Richard's. He rolled it from one corner of his mouth to the other, sucked it tentatively, then passed the fire end beneath his nose after the manner of a connoisseur. His experiments exhausted, he pronounced ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... consequently the new alignments were much the same as those which had supported Adams and Clay in 1828, the South and West uniting on the "reform" Treasury system and Benton's land bills, while the East and certain conservative elements of the West and South indorsed, tentatively, at least, the "American System," or at least lent willing ears to the ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... old man became aware of their presence, he straightened himself up with the slow movement of one stiff with age or rheumatism and threw them a tentatively friendly look out of a pair of ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... with the contention that Canada must create military and naval forces for her own defence which would be available for the wars of the Empire at the discretion of the Canadian parliament. These views put forward almost tentatively in 1902 ultimately bore fruit in definite policies of national defence. Thus the answer to demand for naval contribution, to which policy all the other Dominions had subscribed, was to declare that Canada should have her own navy; ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... stare with Mrs. Gould, added, tentatively, as it were, "And yet, if we had could have ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... companion, and so I advertised after my own fashion. I selected you, tentatively, from the mob; later on I made the test more complete. But you have no ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... the purpose of my visit, which was not to draw philosophic conclusions, but to order my impressions so the columns of the Daily Intelligencer might benefit by the reactions of one so closely connected with the spread of the devilgrass. I began tentatively putting sentences together and by the time I got to my room and sat down with pencil and paper, I was in a ferment of ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... but one thing for Hamilton to do, and he lied with his unsurpassable eloquence. When he paused tentatively, his ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... wholesale (41) we shall make a more expensive and worse job of it than if we finish them off gradually. Again, if we set about bidding for hundreds of slaves at once we shall be forced to purchase an inferior type at a higher cost. Whereas, if we proceed tentatively, as we find ourselves able, (42) we can complete any well-devised attempt at our leisure, (43) and, in case of any obvious failure, take warning and not repeat it. Again, if everything were to be carried out at once, it is we, sirs, who must make the whole provision at our expense. (44) Whereas, ...
— On Revenues • Xenophon
... specify were there, I fancied, because they had heard of Altruria and were curious to see me. As Mr. Twelvemough sat quite at the other end of the table, the lady on my right could easily ask me whether I liked his books. She said, tentatively, people liked them because they felt sure when they took up one of his novels they had not got hold of a tract on political economy ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... food, as usual in Belgium, was of a nondescript occasional character; indeed I have never been able to detect anything in the nature of a meal among this pleasing people; they seem to peck and trifle with viands all day long in an amateur spirit: tentatively French, truly German, and somehow falling ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Gardeners, one and all eviscerated, speak of similar customs. They are the victims of the females when the latter have no further use for them. For four months, from April to August, the insects pair off continually; sometimes tentatively, but usually the mating is effective. The business of mating is all but endless for ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... of the porch admitted; but for all that he was deplorably drenched below the waist. His hose began to freeze almost at once. Death from cold and exposure stared him in the face; he remembered he was of phthisical tendency, and began coughing tentatively. But the gravity of the danger steadied his nerves. He stopped a few hundred yards from the door where he had been so rudely used, and reflected with his finger to his nose. He could only see one way of getting a lodging, and that was to take it. He had noticed a house not far away, ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... fragrant evening air, the Earl seated by Miss Willoughby, Scremerston smoking with Logan; while the white dress of Lady Alice flitted ghost-like on the lawn, and the tip of the Prince's cigar burned red in the neighbourhood. In the drawing-room Lady Mary was tentatively conversing with the Jesuit, that mild but probably dangerous animal. She had the curiosity which pious maiden ladies feel about the member of a community which they only know through novels. Certainly this Jesuit was ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... care to ascertain if she had replenished the lilacs in the tower room, and, at lunch, which was shared with three farm college students from Davis, he found himself forced to extemporize a busy afternoon for himself when Paula tentatively suggested that she would drive Graham up ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... fulfilment of woman's proper function of maternity would, he affirmed, bring all right, since there was no sign of disease in Mrs. Stewart, who appeared to him, on the contrary, a perfectly healthy young woman. When Ian, alone with him, began tentatively to bring to the doctor's notice the changes in character and intelligence that had accompanied the losses of memory, he found his remarks set aside like the chatter of a ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... the package into the stove, but I bit off a corner of one of the chips I held in my hand, and chewed it tentatively. I never forgot the strange taste; though it was many years before I knew that those little brown shavings, which the Shimerdas had brought so far and treasured so jealously, were dried mushrooms. They had been gathered, probably, in some deep ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... University of Michigan? An endowment twice as large as ours would be unavailing.'' Therefore it was that I broached, as a practical measure, in my "plan of organization,'' the system which I had discussed tentatively with George William Curtis several years before, and to which he referred afterward in his speech at the opening of the university at Ithaca. This was to take into our confidence the leading professors in the more important institutions of learning, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... well as the amateur shop-lifter has always presented to me an interesting phase of criminality," remarked Kennedy tentatively, during a lull in their mutual commiseration. With thousands of dollars' worth of goods lying unprotected on the counters, it is really no wonder that some are tempted to reach out ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... that the reason the variant is more intelligible is that its inventor did not understand the original. As to real elucidation of other sort by the later texts, in the minutiae of the outer world, in details of priestcraft, one may trust early tradition tentatively, just as one does late commentators, but in respect of ideas tradition is as apt to mislead as to lead well. The cleft between the theology of the Rig Veda and that of the Br[a]hmanas, even from the point of view of the mass of hymns that comprise the former, is too great to allow us with ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins |
