"Uncertainty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... left her something to eat. Investigation brought forth some cold meat, a bottle of milk, and some bread. Jinnie ate all she could swallow. Then for an hour and a half she paced up and down, wishing something would happen, some one would come. Anything would be better than such deadly uncertainty. ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... the contemplation of that abandonment, and who will, no doubt, seize it with avidity, as being highly lucrative and important; while the African's chains will still clink in the ears of the civilized world, his fetters be rivetted more closely, and his miserable fate be consigned to the uncertainty of human events. ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... perfection that is to be; and, thrilled out of its despondency, feels capable of working out a grand ideal even "in the poor, miserable, hampered actual," wherein it is placed; but in a moment the inspiration, the vision is gone, and this great, much-suffering soul is again enveloped in the darkness of uncertainty and despair. ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... and our hidden romance is at an end. Had I taken this resolution a year ago, it would have saved me many vain hopes, and you, perhaps, a little uncertainty. Forgive me, first, if you can, and then ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... was a man of five-and-thirty, and she could not get over the feeling that her impulsive exclamation had been presumptuous. He saw her uncertainty, and perhaps liked her the better for it, though the delicious naturalness, the child-like recognition of a real though scarcely known ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... We remained in uncertainty as to this war for more than two months, when an arrival from the Sandwich Islands brought us the news of an amicable ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... not always clearly defined, as cross spurs or single mountains sometimes occupy the entire space between two ridges, reducing the customary valley to a mere ravine. The usual uncertainty and redundancy of nomenclature common to mountain regions, adds to the difficulty of obtaining or conveying clear ideas of the local distribution of elevation and depression. On the northern slope, the three rivers, Boquet, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... without malice heaving a stone to crush the life out of his still sleeping comrade, is understood to lack the trained motive which makes a character fairly calculable in its actions; but by a roundabout course even a gentleman may make of himself a chancy personage, raising an uncertainty as to what he may do next, that ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Oswald her love. "Much as I dread being left penniless, such poverty would be nothing compared to loss of you. With all the worry and uncertainty caused by this villainous conspiracy against my father's estate, shadowed by fear of the hateful Paul Lanier, life since meeting you at Northfield has been a joyous dream. Without you I cannot live, pursued by the cunning malice and crafty scheming ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... final decision of the war, the cruelty of Severus was, in some measure, restrained by the uncertainty of the event, and his pretended reverence for the senate. The head of Albinus, accompanied with a menacing letter, announced to the Romans that he was resolved to spare none of the adherents of his unfortunate competitors. He was irritated by the just auspicion that he had never possessed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... envelope the discovery of poisons, whose distinguishing character is the rapidity of these effects, how much greater must be the uncertainty when we are required to ascertain the administrations of what are called slow poisons. This subject, indeed, is so closely entwined with popular superstitions, that it is difficult to separate truth from falsehood. In Italy, for example, it was formerly said, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... ignorant of my secret; the greatest part of those who visited me had not the least idea of it, and by a single action, I was going to make an entire change in my own life and that of my family. Torn to pieces by uncertainty, I wandered over the park of Coppet; I seated myself in all the places where my father had been accustomed to repose himself and contemplate nature; I regarded once more these same beauties of water and verdure which we had so often admired ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... topics of faith are affected by modern biology. In some of these we have learnt at present only a wise caution, a wise uncertainty. We stand before the newly unfolded spectacle of suffering, silenced; with faith not scientifically reassured but still holding fast certain other clues of conviction. In many important topics we are ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... unsatisfactory in the extreme, and to shake one's confidence in any evidence drawn from such a source. Indeed, the Benedictine editor, with great cause and candour, laments this course of proceeding on the part of Ruffinus, as throwing a doubt and uncertainty, and suspicion, over all the works so tampered with. "This one thing (observes that honest editor) would the learned desire, that Ruffinus had spared himself the labour of filling up what he thought deficient. For since the Greek text has perished, it can scarcely ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... making up for some uncertainty as to his own logic by beaming persuasiveness, and Mr. Wrenn was afraid of being hypnotized. "No, no!" he ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... an old and valued servant, almost to ashes before any help could be afforded to him. Upon the following Sunday (13th), the Rev. John Owen, the then curate of Fulham, preached so effective a sermon upon the uncertainty of the morrow, {145} that having printed a large impression "without any loss to himself," a second edition appeared on the 3rd ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... reculmination of all the truths she had ever known concerning, or even remotely relating to, the not easily fathomed qualities of paste and ink. So she stood, focused in an intensity of soul-quivers, and I, all unrelenting, waited, though of a dim uncertainty whether, after all, it might not be only a ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... up your mind definitely and finally before taking up your stance what club you are going to use and exactly the kind of shot that you want to play with it. When you have taken up your position but still ponder in a state of uncertainty, it is very probable that your mind will be affected by your hesitation, and then your swing and the ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... neither peace nor safety for me if I remain—Resolution begins to faint under these repeated and oppressive struggles—Life is useless, virtue inefficient, time murdered, and I must fly!—Here I can do nothing but doubt, hope, despair, and linger in uncertainty: my body listless, my mind incoherent, my days wasted in vain reveries on absurd possibilities, and my nights haunted by the confused phantoms of a disturbed and ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... uncertain how long I should have remained in this uncertainty, had not a brother midshipman, in the coffee-room, accosted me, and kindly helped me out with my pint of port, which I thought I showed my manliness in calling for. He did not roast me very unmercifully, but what he spared in gibes he made up in drinking. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... had originally promised. He is seeking for nothing more than, in this cheating way and in this pretence of waiting for the king's consent—which we have been expecting now for more than eighteen months—to continue the ruinous armistice. Thus he keeps the country in a perpetual uncertainty, the only possible consequence of which is our complete destruction. We adjure you therefore to send a resolution in conformity with our late address, in order that through these tricks and snares the fatherland may not fall into the clutch of the enemy, and thus into eternal ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... any uncertainty, my daughter? If you have the least reason to believe that these statements are slanders of malicious imaginations, tell me so, and I will give your husband the benefit of ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Habit can efface, Interest o'ercome, or policy take place: By actions? those uncertainty divides: By passions? these dissimulation hides: Opinions? they still take a wider range: 170 Find, if you can, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... the following morning, 14th March, we were ordered to be ready to go and support the Staffordshires, but, after considerable uncertainty and waiting, this order was cancelled. Instead, a flagged plan of the Bucquoy trenches was made on the plain N.W. of our village, and here we practised the attack. The weather was bad, but we managed to make all the ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... who he says were more concerned with the recommendation of a favorite remedy than with the natural history of the disease, "as if," he says, "the treatment of every disease without accurate knowledge of its symptoms involved in it neither danger nor uncertainty," and he quotes the following maxim of Dr. Gault: "We cannot cure diseases by the resources of art, if not previously acquainted with their terminations, when left to the unassisted efforts of nature." Exclusive attention to the ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... hour, rendering procrastinatory: the obscurity of the night, rendering invisible: the uncertainty of thoroughfares, rendering perilous: the necessity for repose, obviating movement: the proximity of an occupied bed, obviating research: the anticipation of warmth (human) tempered with coolness (linen), obviating desire and rendering desirable: the statue of Narcissus, sound ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Burough wrote from Jamaica on 19th January 1660, "We are here just like you at home; when we heard of the Lord-Protector's death we proclaimed his son, and when we heard of his being turned out we proclaimed a Parliament and now own a Committee of safety."[151] The effect of this uncertainty was bound to be prejudicial in Jamaica, a new colony filled with adventurers, for it loosened the reins of authority and encouraged lawless spirits to set ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... obstacle to wise choice on the part of young girls who are pushing into industrial occupations is the uncertainty of their continuing as workers outside the home. The average length of the girl's industrial life is computed to be only about five years. She enters upon work at an age when it is often impossible to tell whether she will marry or ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... the foreign-backed rebellion in the eastern part of the country began in August 1998. The war has dramatically reduced government revenue, and increased external debt. Foreign businesses have curtailed operations due to uncertainty about the outcome of the conflict and because of increased government harassment and restrictions. Poor infrastructure, an uncertain legal framework, corruption, and lack of transparency in government economic ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... over Frank had advanced a little in the art of milking, and it may as well be said here that in the course of a week or so he became a fair proficient, so that his father even allowed him to try Vixen, a cow who had received this name from the uncertainty of her temper. She had more than once upset the pail with a spiteful kick when it was nearly full. One morning she upset not only the pail, but Frank, who looked foolish enough as he got ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... tables for the survey of educational work is as great as that of finding tables for medical work, and for the same reasons. There is the same separateness, the same diversity of immediate aim, the same alteration of character, the same uncertainty of policy. ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... start. All details were carefully considered. The first difficulty to be overcome was the want of carriage. No organized system of transport—one of the most essential requirements of an efficient army—existed, and, owing to the restlessness and uncertainty which prevailed throughout the country, the civil authorities were unable to collect carts and camels with ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... would not pay to drench the cotton bales on an uncertainty'said Hazel, her eye mentally fixed on one particular bale for which she had ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... he will strike the rocky terrace in the foreground with his slender, silver hooves, or will swoop down into the valley below, or will soar to heaven and out of sight. You are left by the painter in a pleasant uncertainty, but Hippocrene may break out anywhere, and of the vivacious courser himself all that we can be sure of is that we are certain to see him alighting before us ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... light wind from SW. The weather is more | |hazy than when the wind was from the Eastward, and the horizon not so | |distinctly marked; but the above sights are good. There is still a swell | |from SW, which causes some little uncertainty as to the exact moment of | |taking the angle. | 100|In the night there has been a light breeze from W by S. Weather hazy; but | |the horizon sharper than yesterday morning. | 101|During the night almost calm; just now a light air from the NE. ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... middle of May, when Mr Chamberlain began to press the matter, Mr Balfour had a difficult hand to play, so long as it was uncertain how the party would follow the new lead. The Board of Trade was asked to supply full figures, and while its report was awaited the uncertainty of attitude on the part of the government afforded grateful opportunity for opposition mischief-making, since the Liberal party had now the chance of acting as the conservative champions of orthodox economics. Another opportunity for making political ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... the view of any one who might be passing on the road. They were not so far from the main path but that the footsteps of their pursuers could be heard, and voices too, in loud and earnest discourse. The latter kept their horses at a very deliberate pace, as if passing forward at some uncertainty. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the surplus hair which had not been used by the jeweler, in Mary Grice's bracelet, and which had been returned to her in her friend's letter—was all he wanted in the first place; for this would be enough to clear up every present uncertainty and suspicion connected with the ornament in the drawer of ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... would require improvement for general use. The extensive and fundamental character of the necessary changes is not, however, realized. The difficulties of English are of four kinds: (1) its special sounds, very troublesome for foreigners to learn to pronounce, and the uncertainty of its accentuation; (2) its illogical and chaotic spelling, inevitably leading to confusions in pronunciation; (3) the grammatical irregularities in its verbs and plural nouns; and (4) the great number of widely different words which are almost or quite similar ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... joyous. She took no part in the glad triumph of her family, and the loud hosarmas of the people found no echo in her breast. With heavy heart and misty eyes she walked slowly backward and forward in her boudoir. For three days she had borne this terrible torture, this anguish of uncertainty. Her soul was moved with fearful anticipations, but she was forced to ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... somewhat to his embarrassment, the entire regiment of the worthy merchant's relatives, including the girl's great uncle, Abbe Viote, one of the Cathedral dignitaries, who eyed him with a sanctimonious calm that gave him his first tremor of uncertainty. Demoiselle Alice was formally summoned into the family gathering, and announced her intention of remaining single with all the innocent and unaffected purity of a novice at a convent. After which, Madame presented the disappointed suitor with ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... Scotland, led by Christopher Anderson, Chalmers, and the Haldanes—all England, except the Dyer faction and Robert Hall for a time, among the Baptists, and nearly all America, held with the Serampore men; but their ever-extending operations were checked by the uncertainty, and their hearts were nearly broken. The junior missionaries in India formed a separate union and congregation by themselves in Calcutta, paid by the Society, though professing to carry out the organisation of the Serampore Brotherhood ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... market. Such a sweeping charge is most unjust; but, if granted, the admission cuts deeply in the opposite direction, requiring no analysis to discover the preponderance of venality. It may happen between the receiver of stolen goods and the thief that impulse to steal is sometimes weakened by uncertainty of market. The Negro delegate has no market to seek; the market is jammed under his nose at every turn by immaculate white men, often entrusted with large sums to be placed "where it will do the most good," report to those interested the purchase of Negro votes, when ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... for some music put an end to his lamentations. Lilias was vexed by the uncertainty about the ball, and was, besides, too tired to play with spirit. She saw that Emily was annoyed, and she felt ready to cry before the evening was over; but still she was proud of her exploit, and when, after the party was gone, Emily began to ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... should be required by my country to assist in repelling it. And if there be good cause to expect such an event, which certainly must be better known to the government than to private citizens, delay in preparing for it may be dangerous, improper, and not to be justified by prudence. The uncertainty however of the latter, in my mind, creates my embarrassment; for I can not bring it to believe, regardless as the French are of treaties, and of the laws of nations, and capable as I conceive them to be of any species of despotism and injustice, that they will attempt to invade this country after ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... sudden and unexpected denouement, a terribly dramatic end to our troubles if we could but clear up the horrible uncertainty remaining. ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... of land in 1616, there was granted private use of land under a tenant-farm policy which most probably was first inaugurated in 1614 under Sir Thomas Dale, although there is some uncertainty about the date. Three acres of "cleare ground" were allotted to men of the old settlement. In effect they became tenants of the company and were obligated to render only one month's service to the colony at some period ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.
... your more important works, that the present one should proceed from a different publisher. Many might fancy that Longman had declined it. Longman might suspect me of interference; and thus, in the uncertainty of acting with propriety myself, I should have little hope of giving satisfaction to you. I therefore refer the matter to your own feelings and consideration. It has afforded me great pleasure to learn frequently of late that ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... Mr. Davies, of "inaccurate memory" (Letter to Murray, December 4, 1816), discharged his trust is a matter of uncertainty. The "original MS." (Byron's "fair copy") is not forthcoming, and it is improbable that Murray, who had stipulated (September 20) "for all the original MSS., copies, and scraps," ever received it. The "scraps" were sent (October ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... the various rotations and movements within, respecting the Excise. There are many things plead strongly against it; the uncertainty of getting soon into business; the consequences of my follies, which may perhaps make it impracticable for me to stay at home; and, besides, I have for some time been pining under secret wretchedness, from causes ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... wife's faith has made a new woman of me. I have always wished to live for ever, I had such a fear of death and uncertainty as to the future. My fears ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... after much consideration it has been so arranged with the concurrence of many learned men, that thus the revolutions of the year may come to one regular end, removed from all vagueness and uncertainty, so that the theory of the heavens may not be clouded by any error, and that the months ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... disaster impended over her husband or herself. He had predicted evils, but professed himself ignorant of what nature they were. When were they to come? Was this night, or this hour to witness the accomplishment? She was tortured with impatience, and uncertainty. All her fears were at present linked to his person, and she gazed at the clock, with nearly as much eagerness as my father had done, in expectation of ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... am to blame, mademoiselle," continued Raoul, "better informed than yourself of the difficulties of this life, I should have enlightened you. I ought not to have relied upon uncertainty; I ought to have extracted an answer from your heart, whilst I hardly even sought an acknowledgement from your lips. Once more, mademoiselle, it is I ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to bring him to. But he couldn't get hold of the bulging suit anywhere without danger of slashing it with one of those hooks. What if that fall had been fatal! Ulana was at his side now and he stared at her, white-faced, trembling in his uncertainty and horror. ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... his throne. The post has been very disorganised and Boulogne is a far cry from Brestalou, but I did write to you as soon as Victor de Marmont made his formal request for Crystal's hand. To this letter I had no reply, and I could not keep him waiting in indefinite uncertainty." ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... the morning it was decided to lead out a strong well armed party to make sure whether the enemy was down by the lagoon, for the state of uncertainty seemed worse than the danger likely to be incurred in an advance and careful retreat. The mate determined to go himself, and selecting four men with Smith and Wriggs they set off, leaving Drew in ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... these things on paper; but believe me, my dear brother, I know a little of what I say. There was a time when I was as extensively engaged in business, according to my means, as you are now. I have had large sums of acceptances to provide for, with nothing towards them but what was in the uncertainty of the drapers' hands. When I have set out on a journey I have had to take the distressing fear along with me, that if I failed of getting in almost every shilling that was due to me, I failed in paying my acceptances. Add to this, the painful prospect of losing my property ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... answered, "The elder branch, sir." No one at Screwstown had ever seen these Digbies: they lay amidst the Far, the Recondite,—even to the wife of Colonel Pompley's bosom. Now and then, when the colonel referred to the lapse of years, and the uncertainty of human affections, he would say, "When young Digby and I were boys together," and then add with a sigh, "but we shall never meet again in this world. His family interests secured him a valuable ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... control it. On the other hand, it sometimes stoops in a way that defies prediction; pride is vanquished or disarmed, resentment melts away like frost, and the resolution that at first seemed firm as the everlasting rock proves to be no barrier. Nor is this uncertainty confined to the sex at whose foibles the satirists have been wont to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... panic-stricken, the troops uncontrollable, and foreign warship will enter our harbours. European and American newspapers will be full of special dispatches about the complicated events in China, and martial law will be declared in every part of the country. All this will be due to the uncertainty regarding ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... hypocrite's hope shall perish" (Job viii. 13, Authorized Version), but, "The hope of the hypocrite shall perish"; not with Barrow, "No man can be ignorant of human life's brevity and uncertainty", but "No man can be ignorant of the brevity and uncertainty of human life". The consummation which I anticipate may be centuries off, but will ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... waits for that he will wait to all eternity," he said to himself. "I shall write and make it worth his while to stay where he is. He knows too much of Amy's birth and her mother's death to be trusted here. Uncertainty is better than the truth. I have made matters right for Amy, and confessed everything. They'll find it when I'm gone, and can wag their tongues all they please. It won't hurt me then, but while I live I'll keep up the farce. It might have been better to have told the truth ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... out and found some solution as I did, but in case these difficulties are still formidable I will tell you of one way to reduce them to impotence. I take with me, on all occasions where there is to be great uncertainty of light, some coloured chalks. About six colours, picked to suit the kind of work attacked; either chalk pencils or hard pastilles will give you certain colour values in whatever light you find yourself, and even if you ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... round the contents of our wallets, John and I, at all events, feeling in much better spirits than we had been in the morning; even the recluse threw off some of his reserve. We took the opportunity of telling him of our anxiety about our parents, and of the uncertainty we felt whether they had passed down the river. He in return asked us further questions, and seemed interested in ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... my life! O happiness before eventide! O haven upon high seas! O peace in uncertainty! How I ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... an artistic quality. But here again Browning's work requires a somewhat more cautious and sympathetic analysis. There is a certain kind of fascination, a strictly artistic fascination, which arises from a matter being hinted at in such a way as to leave a certain tormenting uncertainty even at the end. It is well sometimes to half understand a poem in the same manner that we half understand the world. One of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... some such lacunae do exist is demonstrated daily by the phenomena of volcanoes. So, after all, the crust theory has been supplanted by a compromise theory rather than completely overthrown, and our knowledge of the condition of the telluric depths is still far from definite. If so much uncertainty attends these fundamental questions as to the earth's past and present, it is not strange that open problems as to her future are still more numerous. We have seen how, according to Professor Darwin's computations, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly, through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die; die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously and ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... Bay and the River Plate was ready to take us for a named sum, but only on the understanding that should the weather be too rough to land us on Tristan we should have to go on to Buenos Ayres. In spite of the uncertainty involved it seemed right to accept this offer. We embarked on the steamer Surrey on March 31, but did not start till next day, Sunday, as some repairs had to be done to one of the engines. There went with us ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... to have known best; and the probability of his story is to a certain degree borne out by the uncertainty as to Harold's positive interment, which long prevailed, and which even gave rise to a story related by Giraldus Cambrensis (and to be found also in the Harleian MSS.), that Harold survived the battle, became a monk in Chester, and before ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... look overspread the girl's face, a turmoil of busy thought was in her brain, but there was no uncertainty in the voice with which ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... economical, and far more to be relied on than gutta percha. A good bath so made should require about six ounces of solution of nitrate of silver to take a picture eight inches square. Your observations in a former Number, respecting the uncertainty of gutta percha, I have found to be perfectly true. Samples of gutta percha constantly vary; and one may contain impurities acted upon by the chemicals, which another does not. A small rim formed by sealing-wax dissolved in spirits of wine, and applied twice or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... written six years ago, as to the objects and aims of this work; except to say, and by no means as a boast, that the work lays claims to one kind of interest which I certainly never desired to effect for it—viz., in exemplifying the glorious uncertainty of the Law. For, humbly aware of the blunders which Novelists not belonging to the legal profession are apt to commit, when they summon to the denouement of a plot the aid of a deity so mysterious as Themis, I submitted to an eminent ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the air. It was "high times" in Tiverton Hollow when a road needed opening; some idea of the old primitive way of battling with the untouched forces of nature roused the people to an exhilaration dashed by no uncertainty of victory. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... This uncertainty, and this life on a bough, as it were, did not alarm Florine; she believed in her talent, and she believed in her beauty. Her robust faith was somewhat comical to those who heard her staking her future upon it, when remonstrances were ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... whole aspect changed. He seemed to don likewise a new action, a new outward appearance altogether. His straight back bent and assumed a stoop such as one sees in men who have long grown old. There came a feebleness into his gait, a slight uncertainty into his movements. And all this was done so naturally, so cleverly, that Cuthbert, as he gazed fascinated at the figure before him, could scarcely believe that his eyes had not played him some strange trick—could scarcely credit that this could be the same ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that last, dreadful thing. There has been no further manifestation of anything abnormal so that there is an extraordinary uncertainty in my conclusions. If we had not heard those last sounds and if Parsket had not shown that enormous sense of fear the whole of this case could be explained in the way in which I have shown. And, in fact, as you have seen, I am of the opinion that almost all of it can be cleared ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... had come back, the next that it would have been better if he had not. She had gradually come to regard her profession and all it meant to her in the future as the only thing that mattered, and now in a flash at the sight of him all was uncertainty and distraction. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... themselves in endless speculations on the question how far, in the government of God, punishment is to be considered as possessing one or the other of these two characters, or both combined. There seems to be also some uncertainty in the minds of men in relation to the precise light in which the penalties of violated law are to be regarded by civil governments, and the spirit in which they are to be administered—they being apparently, as prescribed ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... surrounded by the log-built barracks of the soldiery, who, in the intervals of siege and combat, passed their days impatiently, thinking of the distant homes from which they came, and muttering their discontent at inaction and uncertainty. The region round the junction of Lake George and Lake Champlain, where stood the strongholds of Fort Edward and Fort William Henry, of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, was the scene of many desperate conflicts, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... weather, though cold, was wholesome and serene. My spirits were high, and I saw nothing in the world before me but sunshine and prosperity. I was conscious that my happiness depended not on the revolutions of nature or the caprice of man. All without was, indeed, vicissitude and uncertainty; but within my bosom was a centre not to be shaken or removed. My purposes were honest and steadfast. Every sense was the inlet of pleasure, because it was the avenue of knowledge; and my soul brooded over the world to ideas, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... you the dead body of the child, you might weep, but you would bless him, for it is the uncertainty that kills. ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... an uncertainty about the first letter) "and haughty in her presence. Let yourself out ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... They must see each other—they were neither of them quiet people who could love forever at a distance without real hope. Great Lord, if he and Nancy could ever have one definite basis to work on, one definite hope of money in the future no matter how far off that was—But the present uncertainty—They couldn't keep on like this—no two people in the world could be expected ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... was livid, and the sweat was running down his beard. As he spoke he ran out and disappeared, leaving the two men poring over the papers together. Beside the burning heap of brushwood he stood a moment, torn in an agony of uncertainty and fear. ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... reached my stomach. When the variegated and viscid compound was tucked away, I wound a soft string about the disk to keep it in shape, and enveloped it, first in raw cotton, then in a bit of red flannel. In my uncertainty as to which end would bourgeon into a head, and from which would be evolved the tail, I left both ends open that IT might be able to breathe when breath came. Lastly, I secreted it under my cricket. It was what was known as "a box cricket," and the enclosing sides ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... January 20, the hills once more re-echoed the roar of distant artillery. This was the attempt at Spion Kop and Potgieter's Drift. After days of uncertainty, we learned that our ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... marches; when it glides down and lies motionless the march is stopped, and the tents are pitched. The main point which is dwelt upon in this description of the God-guided pilgrimage of the wandering people is the absolute uncertainty in which they were kept as to the duration of their encampment, and as to the time and circumstances of their march. Sometimes the cloud tarried upon the Tabernacle many days; sometimes for a night only; sometimes it lifted in the night. 'Whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... providing for the recording of deeds, mortgages, and other conveyances affecting real estate in the District of Columbia," being House bill No. 1922, I have the honor to state that the bill seems to me objectionable because of indefiniteness and uncertainty as to the time which it purports to fix when deeds of trust, mortgages, etc., shall take effect and be valid as to creditors and subsequent purchasers for valuable consideration without notice. Although there is no constitutional objection to the act, yet for the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... noting the alteration in her, bowed, but made no remark. The face of the octoroon showed uncertainty. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... be that I was too late? I thought, in an agony of uncertainty, as the carriage drew up at the pier. Thrusting my head and as much of my body as possible out of the carriage window I looked out the gray, winding channel toward the Heads. Not a sail in sight! This was encouraging, ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... the wicker-basket with the waterproof material, float down some favoring stream. On and on for hours in an unknown direction, over an unknown region, winged by the wind and ally of the storm, they went, until, in the dismal watches of the early morning, to darkness, uncertainty and the intensity of isolation a new horror was added. The murmur of plashing forest-streams, which had hitherto been the only sound greeting them from the nether gloom, now gave place to the measured roll of the surf, and this, in turn, to complete silence. They were ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... been risking that for ten years, yet the likelihood was still a horror to him. The uncertainty made it harder to take than any human-devised torture could be. There was no way of guessing what an alien might do to anyone who discovered that all men were not human—that some were ...
— Dead Ringer • Lester del Rey
... yet lady Glamorgan had had no news of her husband's arrival in Ireland, and the bright June weather continued clouded with uncertainty and fear, lady Broughton came panting into her parlour with the tidings that a courier had just arrived at the main entrance, himself pale with fatigue, and his horse white ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... "I fail to see your point. If it were certain that the man was alive, it would be impossible to presume that he was dead; and if it were certain that he was dead, presumption of death would still be impossible. You do not presume a certainty. The uncertainty is of the essence ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... wrong, but mostly because a lost person seldom thinks he is lost and traveling in the wrong direction, but instead doubts the accuracy of the compass. At most he will admit he is off the trail, but he does not think that is synonymous with being lost. His tracks will record the uncertainty of his mind, wavering, haphazard, indefinite, but he will not admit, even to himself, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... slow to remark their failure to present him to her. The omission may have been due to ignorance or uncertainty on their part, but that was not the construction he put upon it. Striker was the free-and-easy type who would have made these strangers known to each other in some bluff, awkward manner,—probably by their Christian names; he would never have overlooked this little formality, no ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... comforted by the last remark is a point of uncertainty; but, feeling that he was now entirely in Omar's power, and knowing that although the soldiers whom he styled his "party" were not nearly numerous or influential enough to place him on the throne, he willingly ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... course, though with much grumbling. It seemed an almost excuseless waste of good energy; a heavy price in economic efficiency to pay for insurance against what seemed a very remote peril. But we did not know, and our uncertainty ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... anticipation of life is eternal. The singing of the birds, the blowing of the south wind, the sparkle of the waves, all found a response in Edith's heart, which leaped with joy. And yet there was a touch of melancholy in it all, the horizon was so vast, and the mist of uncertainty lay along it. Literature, society, charities, all that she had read and experienced and thought, was nothing to this, this great unknown anxiety and bliss, this saddest and sweetest of all human experiences. She prayed that she might be ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... burning heart. From outer to hawse-hole, from shaft-tunnel to crow's-nest, he explored and loved her. In the whole of her proud, faithful, obedient fabric he divined honour and exultation. Poised upon uncertainty, she was sure. The camber of her white-scrubbed decks, the long, clean sheer of her hull, the concave flare of her bows—what was the amazing joy and rightness of these things? And yet the grotesque passengers regarded her only as a vehicle, to carry them sedatively to some clamouring dock. Fools! ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... Senate-gallery, and saw the oath of office administered to the Vice-President, Mr. Fillmore, a man of splendid physical proportions and commanding appearance; but on the faces of Senators and people could easily be read the feelings of doubt and uncertainty that prevailed. All knew that a change in the cabinet and general policy was likely to result, but at the time it was supposed that Mr. Fillmore, whose home was in Buffalo, would be less liberal than General Taylor to the politicians of the South, who feared, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the Confederate Army was killed farther to the right, at half-past two o'clock in the afternoon. As the news of this loss spread, there was a feeling of uncertainty and visible relaxation of effort in parts of his command. In front of Prentiss and Wallace attack was suspended ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... his artistic method and turns from the story well pleased with himself and with the writer. There is, however, something more than a pampering of pride in the charm of this suggestive method: it enables the writer to cast a light veil of uncertainty over rather bald facts, and thus to maintain that romantic glamour of unreality which plays so important a ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... that we are enabled to do so in regard to the very same writers among whom our enquiry is to lie. We can thus form a general idea of their idiosyncracies, and we know what to expect when we come to examine a different class of quotations. There is, however, the element of uncertainty of which I have spoken above. We cannot be quite clear what text the writer had before him. This difficulty also exists, though to a less degree, when we come to consider quotations from the New Testament in writers of an early date whom we know to ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... to be stopped soon, or Party control would disappear. Ilya Simonov felt an edge of uncertainty. Nikita Khrushchev should never have made those first motions of liberalization following Stalin's death. Not if they eventually culminated in this ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... did not go to work as usual. He did not feel like it, while matters were in such uncertainty. He knew the squire would be at the cottage a little before twelve o'clock, and he wanted to be with his mother at that time, for he felt that, if the place must be sold, he would be more likely to get good terms ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger |
