"Ambiguous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very much better for geology if so loose and ambiguous a word as "contemporaneous" had been excluded from her terminology, and if, in its stead, some term expressing similarity of serial relation, and excluding the notion of time altogether, had been employed to denote correspondence in position in two or ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... of interest, and feels hopeful aspirations of young manhood. Many clear-cut, positive views are expressed in courteous, deferential manner, but in no uncertain or ambiguous phrase. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... accounts were the bete noire of the old sailor's existence. Upon his own confession he "wasn't no arithmetician," and Christian found, upon inspecting his accounts, no cause to contradict this ambiguous statement. ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... found, he removed the stone, and sat in the threshold, feeling if he could lay hold on any man going out with the sheep, which (the day now breaking) were beginning to issue forth to their accustomed pastures. But Ulysses, whose first artifice in giving himself that ambiguous name, had succeeded so well with the Cyclop, was not of a wit so gross to be caught by that palpable device. But casting about in his mind all the ways which he could contrive for escape (no less ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... thinking, from the recollection of several minute circumstances, that Clarence Hervey had endeavoured to gain an interest in her affections, and she felt that there would be great impropriety in receiving his ambiguous visits during Lady Delacour's confinement to her room. She therefore gave orders that Mr. Hervey should not in future be admitted, till her ladyship should again see company. This precaution proved totally superfluous, for Mr. Hervey never called again, during the whole course of Lady Delacour's ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... and discussions, arising from the ambiguity that attends them. It requires great experience, as well as the command of a perspicuous diction, to frame a law in such clear and precise terms, as to secure it from ambiguous expressions, and from all doubts and criticisms upon ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... a revealing religion, a teaching religion, a religion which conveys to the inquiring spirit certain great and positive solutions of the problems of life. It is not silent, nor ambiguous, nor incomprehensible in its utterance. It replies to our questions with a knowledge which, though limited, is definite and sufficient. It tells us that this "order of nature, which constitutes the world's experience, is only one portion of the total universe." That the ruler of both worlds, ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... is the same in all cases. Acts fitted to convey to a reasonable man the proposal of an agreement, or the acceptance of a proposal he has made, are as good in law as equivalent express words. The term "implied contract" is current in this connexion, but it is unfortunately ambiguous. It sometimes means a contract concluded by acts, not words, of one or both parties, but still a real agreement; sometimes an obligation imposed by law where there is not any agreement in fact, for which the name "quasi-contract" is more appropriate ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... Hervey de Montmorency, whom he had sent over to report upon the condition of affairs. Even after Hervey's return bringing with him a favourable report, he had still the king's permission to gain. Early in 1170 he again sought Henry and this time received an ambiguous reply, which, however, he chose to interpret in his own favour. He sent back Hervey to Ireland, accompanied by Raymond Fitzgerald, surnamed Le Gros, and a score of knights with some seventy archers. These, landing in Kilkenny, entrenched themselves, ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... what he had seen or heard in the Boer lines. That condition has been honourably kept, but the Major does not feel himself bound to make any secret of the fact that while the Boers kept him under detention they treated him "devilish well." This way of putting it may seem a little ambiguous, but those who know General Hunter's light-hearted A.D.C. will understand the sincerity of his tribute to the hospitality of Commandants ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... tell how far the ramifications of the plot might extend, and it was impossible to sift the matter. The people openly talked of an extermination, and claimed to have the tacit favour of the Government in this; nay more, the Government itself issued ambiguous, if not insinuating, proclamations, which fomented the excitement of the populace to such an extent that the days were fixed for the "Clearing of Peking." The mob was thoroughly quieted on the first of the days fixed by a twenty hours' pour of tremendous ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... ambiguous remarks and to the great discretion of such conduct, it was generally averred in the neighborhood that Christophe had seen the error of his ways; everybody thought it natural that the old syndic should wish to get his son ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... salary was small, and the colonel had inherited little; but his sister, Miss Agatha Musgrave, who lived with him, was a notable housekeeper. He increased his resources in a gentlemanly fashion by genealogical research, directed mostly toward the rehabilitation of ambiguous pedigrees; and for the rest, no other man could have fulfilled more gracefully the main duty of the Librarian, which was to exhibit the Association's collection of relics to hurried ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... dates are well enough known, it is perhaps not always remembered that Miss Austen, while representing what may, using a rather objectionable and ambiguous word, be called a more "modern" style of novel than Scott's, began long before him and had almost finished her work before his really began. If that wonderful Bath bookseller had not kept Northanger Abbey in a drawer, instead of publishing it, it would ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... Maimonides' death, was absorbed in the conflict between philosophy and tradition. Controversial pamphlets without number have come down to us from those days. Enthusiasts eulogized, zealots decried. Maimonides' ambiguous expressions about bodily resurrection, seeming to indicate that he did not subscribe to the article of the creed on that subject, caused particularly acrimonious polemics. Meir ben Todros ha-Levi, a Talmudist ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... remark is somewhat ambiguous, but the sense demands that we take lo as referring to Don Flix. Remember that it was the Fourth Gambler who had resented Don Flix's overbearing conduct. He acted the coward and now talks like a coward. The Third Gambler is the most skeptical regarding ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... into vain and futile reasonings, derived from the scattered passages of some early writers, from the ambiguous silence of others—and, above all, from the dreams of etymological analogy or mythological fable, I believe the earliest civilizers of Greece to have been foreign settlers; deducing my belief from the observations of common sense rather than from obscure and unsatisfactory ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Nice on the twentieth of July, to join—as Peter supposed—Madame Covington in Paris. Monte himself had been extremely ambiguous about his destination, being sure of only one fact: that he should not return inside of a year, if he did then. Peter had asked for his address, and Monte had given him the same ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... ambiguous words the Stadtholder moved forward, leaving the deputies covered with shame and swelling with indignation, while his countenance had speedily brightened. With more friendly gestures he now accepted the written petitions, and even listened patiently ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... thoughtful, refined, modest behavior; she was so sensible, so clever in everything. In the most delicate situation she could so well maintain a woman's dignity, while side by side she displayed a maiden's innocence. When his comrades were at the table, Topandy strove always by ambiguous jokes, delivered in his cynical, good humor, to bring a blush to the cheeks of the girls, who were obliged to do the honors at table; on such occasions Czipra noisily called him to order, while Melanie cleverly and spiritedly avoided the arrow-point of the jest, without opposing ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... function, as it is occasionally his achievement, to give satisfying, determinate forms to the indeterminate and miscellaneous materials at his command. Formlessness is for the creator of beauty the unpardonable sin. To give clarity and coherence to the vague ambiguous scintillations of sound, to chisel a specific perfection out of the indefinite inviting possibilities of marble, to form precise and consecutive suggestions out of the random and uncertain music of words, is to achieve, in so far, success in art. Nor does form mean formality. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... the mountain Stream Roars in thy hearing; but thy hour of rest Is come, and thou art silent in thy age; Save when the wind sweeps by and sounds are caught Ambiguous, neither wholly thine nor theirs. 5 Oh! there is life that breathes not; Powers there are That touch each other to the quick in modes Which the gross world no sense hath to perceive, No soul to dream of. What art Thou, from care Cast ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... what terrors, does this gift create, Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate! The myrtle (ensign of supreme command, Consign'd to Venus by Melissa's hand), Not less capricious than a reigning fair, Oft favours, oft rejects a lover's prayer. In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain, In myrtle shades despairing ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... said to have visited a temple at Heraclea, where he had her spirit called up and implored her pardon. She duly appeared, and told him that "he would soon be delivered from all his troubles after his return to Sparta"—an ambiguous way of prophesying his death, which occurred soon afterwards. She was certainly avenged in the manner ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... "Lucid, but ambiguous; pathetic, but amusing; poetical, but comprehensive; prosaical, but full of emphasis. That's my nature. Plain-dealing, too, is my nature, and I adore the same quality in others; most especially in those ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... brilliant light break across a sombre surface like cries of joy; the frightened darkness flies away, leaving here and there a melancholy twilight, trembling reflections that seem to be lamenting, profound obscurity gloomy and threatening, flashes of dancing sunlight, ambiguous shadows, shadows uncertain and transparent, questionings and sighs, words of a supernatural language like music heard but not understood, which remains in the memory like a dream. Into this atmosphere he plunged his figures, some of them enveloped by the ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... hacek (Unicode "caron", angled) or breve (curved). Breve was used in the utf-8 versions of this document, as it is phonetically plausible and the characters are more widely available. Hacek is used here because the bracketed form [va] is less ambiguous visually than ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... Simond de Burgh is mentioned in many financial transactions of the time, and he was for some time treasurer of Calais; of John Tichemerssh, I find no mention, and of Robert la Souche very little; Esmon Rose was keeper of the King's horses; information about Laurence Hauberk is ambiguous since there seem to have been two or more men of that name; Griffith de la Chambre and John de Thorpe received minor grants; of Raulyn Erchedeakne I find no mention; Thomas Hertfordyngbury, Hugh Strelley, Hugh Lyngen, Nicholas Prage and Richard Torperle received various small grants; Richard ...
— Chaucer's Official Life • James Root Hulbert
... fumes. A priestess took her seat on a tripod over this chasm, and the answers she gave to inquiries were supposed to be dictated by the god. These answers were almost always unintelligible, and even when interpreted by the priests were ambiguous and of little use. Nevertheless, the Greeks believed in oracles firmly, and never undertook any important work without first consulting one or more of them.] of Apollo whether he or his family had ignorantly offended any of the gods. Eagerly he watched for the return ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... going to be somebody in the house who was congenial. It wasn't that she had anything against Miss Thatcher and the rest of them—they just didn't have the same tastes. She thought a person ought to spend some of the time improving their minds. Although the expression was ambiguous, it served as a sort of sedative to the aching vacuity of the hours which Peter spent away from Siegel Brothers. He found himself spending as many as possible of them with Miss Havens. She had a way of making the frivolling talk of the supper table appear a warrantable substitute for the things ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... it! The more they can mystify and mislead and perplex you, and leave their real or their possible meaning doubtful and involved, the greater the pleasure they have. They will carry on a conversation for hours by hints, suggestions, ambiguous terms, allusions, phrases that may mean anything or nothing, and then leave at the end, in obscurity, the whole matter, which could have been explained and made perfectly clear and settled on a satisfactory ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... brought up all over the world, divided her time now between two continents and quaintly diversified her dancing, hunting, yachting existence by the arduous study of biology. Jack, in appearance more ambiguous than either, looked neither useful nor ornamental; but, in point of fact, he was a much occupied person. He painted very seriously, was something of a scholar and devoted much of his time and most of his large fortune to intricate benevolences. His shabby clothes ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... was made. When the questions were not known beforehand we are in the dark as to the source of the answers. Sometimes, doubtless, they were happy or unhappy guesses; sometimes they were enigmatical or ambiguous in form, so that they could be made to agree with the events that actually occurred. In most cases the authorities would know how to explain the issue in such a way as to maintain the credit of the oracle. The best-known and the most impressive ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... Captain Murray, it was agreed that a proclamation should be issued at the different settlements, requiring the attendance of the people at the respective posts on the same day; which proclamation would be so ambiguous in its nature, that the object for which they were to assemble could not be discerned, and so peremptory in its terms, as to insure implicit obedience. This instrument having been drafted and approved, was distributed according to the original plan. That which was addressed to the people ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... those who interrogated Him. But I rejoin, First, That this does not abolish the rule which He has given us to make confession of our faith when so required. (I Peter iii., 15.) Secondly, That He never used any disguise to save His life: and, Thirdly, That He never gave an answer so ambiguous as not to embody a sufficient testimony to all that He had to say; and that, moreover, He had already satisfied those who came to interrogate Him anew, with the view not obtaining information, but merely of laying ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... it must be fully equipped, and thoroughly competent and equal to its work. For God always adapts means to ends. Hence it can never resemble the tribunals existing in man-made churches, which can but mutter empty phrases, suggest compromises, and clothe thought in wholly ambiguous language—tribunals that dare not commit themselves to anything definite and precise. Yea, which utterly fail and break down just at the critical moment, when men are dividing and disagreeing among themselves, and most needing a prompt and clear decision, which may ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... the beginning of a sentence is used for alone: "Only ten came," "Only Caesar approved." Alone is less ambiguous. The ambiguity of only is illustrated by such a sentence as, "Don't hesitate to bring a few friends of yours to shoot on my estate at any time. Only five (fifteen) came yesterday," which might mean, "I don't mind a few; ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... them of old, and they have clung about her waist ever since. She has put her uniform upon them, and made them do service in her cause, and keep alive with their breath the fast expiring embers of faith and imaginative credulity, which she so much loves and commends. Like an equivocal and ambiguous nature, the old Mother Church, as she is called, is upward fair and Christian, but downward foul and ethnic. She attacks human nature on the side of the heart, the senses, and those old instincts which Coleridge says bring back the old names. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... objected. "Say rather that the forces are drawn up in the proportion of one and a half to one and a half. I stand in the ambiguous position of the peacemaker, inclining now this way, now that, and receiving in turn the whacks of each contestant. I have been compelled to accept on faith the reward that Scripture promises to such as myself, for it has not yet ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... prudent to omit, dwelt upon one thing, and slurred over and accommodated another, just as would best suit the purpose they had in hand. Beside this, for the most part they clothed the apparent meaning of the oracle in obscurity, and often devised sentences of ambiguous interpretation, that might suit with opposite issues, whichever might happen to fall out. This was perfectly consistent with a high degree of enthusiasm on the part of the priest. However confident he might be in some things, he could not but of necessity feel that his ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... to rest with interest, curiosity, speculation, on the unemblazoned name which but a day before had seemed slipped out of date,—obsolete as that of an actor who figures no more in play-bills. Unquestionably the sensation excited was due, in much, to the "ambiguous voices" which Colonel Morley had disseminated throughout the genial atmosphere of club-rooms. "Arrived in London for the season!"—he, the orator, once so famous, long so forgotten, who had been out of the London world for the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... And that man Fothergill had put all this before him in so terribly clear a light! Now that the day for his final demolishment had arrived, the necessity that he should be demolished—finished away at once, out of sight and out of mind—had not been softened, or, as it were, half hidden, by any ambiguous phrase. "You have had your cake, and eaten it—eaten it greedily. Is not that sufficient for you? Would you eat your cake twice? Would you have a succession of cakes? No, my friend; there is no succession ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... heart warmed to the girl. I respected her brave departure—I rejoiced that it was needless. Willingly I would have quieted her distress with some hopeful, ambiguous word, but that would have been trenching, as no one ever ought to trench, on the lover's sole right. So I held my tongue, watching with an amused pleasure the colour hovering to and fro over that usually ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... Atchison, Kans., it was supplanted by the present doctrinal basis. Inasmuch as it canceled both the former limitation to the twenty-one doctrinal articles and the phrase "in a manner substantially correct," the York Amendment was an improvement on the General Synod's basis. Yet the formula was left ambiguous, because the question was not decided whether all of the articles of the Augsburg Confession were to be regarded as fundamental doctrines of the Bible. The facts are: 1. While, indeed, all doctrines ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... Mr. Tyndall are, to say the least, somewhat ambiguous and shadowy. Yet, when he informs us that eating and drinking "illustrate the control of mind by matter," and "that the line of life traced backwards leads towards a purely physical condition," it is a little difficult to avoid the conclusion that he regards science ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... Sweet's the dawn's ambiguous light, Quiet pause 'tween day and night, When afar the mellow horn Chides the tardy gaited morn, And asleep is yet the gale On sea-beat mount, and rivered vale. But the morn, though sweet and fair; Sweeter is when thou art there; Hymning ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... will think the best thing for Myra to do will be to marry, so as to get rid of the ambiguous position in which she is placed. Wife to a convict serving his time. Poor child, it gives me a shudder every time I think of it. There, I will not think of it any more. I've made my mind up, and I ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... that, after all, is "Government" as understood by the man in the street; he is still the intellectual equal of the rustic, or of the child, who, smiting the reptile upon the head, "learns him to be a toad"; and it is down to his imagination that modern government has to play. And so, to ambiguous cheers uttered by rival factions, the triumphal procession of prisoner and escort ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... heaven! Is she dead? Ah, yes, now I remember you wrote to me that she was dead——Look at this dress, sisters—a present from my dear husband; is it not handsome? and then quite modern. Yes, yes, dear Gabriele, you need not make such an ambiguous face; it is very handsome, and quite in the fashion, that I can assure you. But, a propos, how is the Court-preacher? Exists still in a new form, does it? Now that is good! I'll put it on this afternoon on purpose to horrify Jacobi, and tell ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... could be accomplished, or the duty performed at once. In going to the House of God, he left all worry about the world on the outside of it, the moment he entered the porch; the drudgery of every-day life did not go with him into the pew; the prejudices of an ambiguous man troubled him not, while the disposition to "take things easy," while others bore the burden, was never ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... dogmatise on what must still remain conjectural. And he has given us a series of reproductions of portraits, of the highest importance in the study of one who is not merely a difficult poet, but a very ambiguous human being. They begin with the eager, attractive, somewhat homely youth of eighteen, grasping the hilt of his sword so tightly that his knuckles start out from the thin covering of flesh; passing into the mature Donne as we know him, the lean, humorous, large-browed, courtly thinker, with ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... him under guard, though not in bonds. And [Decebalus sending an envoy to Trajan, asked that he might get back the territory as far as the Ister and receive indemnity for all the money he had spent on the war,] in recompense for restoring Longinus to him. An ambiguous answer was returned, of a kind that would not make Decebalus think that the emperor regarded Longinus as of either great value or small, the object being to prevent his being destroyed on the one hand, or being preserved on excessive terms, on the ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... second, Warren gave an ambiguous answer; but said that the majority of persons afflicted with all the different species of this disorder, recovered. An explanatory question was put to him, which it took about an hour and a half to settle; whether, as far as experience enabled him ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... was soon made at Rome by the Pontifices who had the regulation of the Kalendar. The rule was to intercalate a day in every fourth year (quarto quoque anno). Now such expressions are ambiguous in Latin, as is shown by numerous examples. (Savigny, System des heut. Roem. Rechts, iv. 329.) The expression might mean that both the year one and the year four were to be included in the interpretation of this rule; and ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... had heard any thing, that he ought to have come to him, and let him know, before he began loading pistols. He then demanded to know, what he had heard. Humphreys answered at first in a very suspicious and ambiguous manner, but at length said, that Gilbert Smith, the boat-steerer who was saved, and Peter Kidder, were going to re-take the ship. This appeared highly improbable, but they were summoned to attend a council at which Comstock presided, and asked if they had entertained any such intentions. ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... in the text, at this place, and also in the preface, that the "historic method of study" is the great feature of this century. The term is ambiguous. The meaning of it however is, that each problem ought to be approached from the historic side. Whether the problem be a fact of society, or of thought, or of morals, in each case the questions are asked—What are its antecedents? how did it happen? How came ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... same time a bewildered fear of this explosive engine in his arms, whose works he did not understand, and yet had been tampering with. There arose from before him the curtains of boyhood, and he saw for the first time the ambiguous face of woman as she is. In vain he looked back over the interview; he saw not where he had offended. It seemed unprovoked, a wilful convulsion of brute ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discovered, with that cautious perception which is an instinct with rustic minds, that before them stood a man completely ignorant of the customs of the country, and very poorly informed on Claude de Buxieres's affairs. They made no scruple of mystifying this "city gentleman," by means of ambiguous statements and cunning reticence. The young man could get no enlightenment from them; all he clearly understood was, that they were making fun of him, and that he was not able to cope with these country bumpkins, whose ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... necessary and impersonal flow or radiation but a voluntary activity having a purpose. The solution is unsatisfactory, as all such solutions are bound to be, because it introduces as many difficulties as it solves. The nature of this divine Will is ambiguous. If it is God's will, and God is the One in whom there can be no distinctions, we have only a new word, and nothing is solved. If on human analogy we are inclined to take the will seriously, we are endangering God's unity. This ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... greater than that which is cogitated in the general conception. And yet the whole intellectual system of Leibnitz is based upon this false principle, and with it must necessarily fall to the ground, together with all the ambiguous principles in reference to the employment of the ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... Ja'afar swore to him an ambiguous oath that they were not those he named, whereupon he laughed and said: "Know, O my lords, that I am not the Commander of the Faithful and that I do but style myself thus, to win my will of the sons of the city. My true name ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... is that the word "supremacy," so often used in this controversy, is one of ambiguous meaning. Parliament is supreme in the United Kingdom, Parliament is likewise supreme in New Zealand; but the two supremacies are of widely different kinds. Supremacy consists of two ingredients—authority to enact and power to enforce; and without the latter the former is little more than a legal ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... crags of the hill, on the other by an old graveyard. Between these two the roadway runs in a trench, sparsely lighted at night, sparsely frequented by day, and bordered, when it was cleared the place of tombs, by dingy and ambiguous houses. One of these was the house of Colette; and at his door our ill- starred John was presently beating for admittance. In an evil hour he satisfied the jealous inquiries of the contraband hotel-keeper; in ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... certain inequalities in the distribution of wealth; but they fiercely resented the idea that such inequalities should give a group of men any special advantages which were inaccessible to their fellow-countrymen. The full meaning of their complaint against the Bank was left vague and ambiguous, because the Bank itself possessed special legal privileges; and the inference was that when these privileges were withdrawn, the "Money Power" would disappear with them. The Western Democrat devoutly believed that an approximately ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... ambiguous," said he, pulling up the blind. "Look at this—a sheet from a note-book, with 'For God's sake come at once—P. T.,' scrawled upon it in pencil. Our friend, the doctor, was hard put to it when he wrote this. Come along, my dear fellow, for it's ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Herzchen," said she, with her usual ambiguous, mocking laugh; "but I was not compelled to come home, like a good little girl, the moment I came out of the Tonhalle. I have been visiting a friend. But where have you been, for the probe must have ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... had been listening to some work of mine: and he said at the end, "That is graceful enough, and rather attractive—but it has a great fault: it is sometimes ambiguous. Several of your sentences can have more than one meaning. I remember once at Oxford," he said, smiling, "that Collins, one of our lecturers, had been going through a translation-paper with me, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... as well as thought, are copied; as, Nathan said to David, "Thou art the man." An indirect quotation is one whose thought, but not whose exact words, is copied; as, Nathan told David that he was the man. The reference here of the pronoun he is somewhat ambiguous. Guard against ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... communicating with Fitzgerald. The difficulty is in what tone I should address him. I cannot say that the man directly affronted me—I cannot recollect any one expression which I could lay hold upon as offensive—but his language was ambiguous, and admitted frequently of the most insulting construction, and his manner throughout was insupportably domineering. I know it impressed me with the idea that he presumed upon his reputation as a DEAD SHOT, and that ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... and when Dr Kirke came, which he did every few days, he listened with patience which grew to pleasure as time went on. When at last he repeated to Doctor Fleming himself, the question which he had put to Allison, the doctor's rather ambiguous answer ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... first hear of Indian influence spreading northwards. His Empire included Nepal and Kashmir, he sent missionaries to the region of Himavanta, meaning apparently the southern slopes of the Himalayas, and to the Kambojas, an ambiguous race who were perhaps the inhabitants of Tibet or its border lands. The Hindu Kush seems to have been the limit of his dominions but tradition ascribes to this period the joint colonization of ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... copiousness, the consequence of its great flexibility in adopting foreign words, merely as roots, from which, by means of its own resources, stems and branches seem naturally to spring. Another excellence is the great freedom of construction which it allows, without any danger of becoming ambiguous. It is clear, euphonious, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... that I would not favor a bill that limited volume of business, and would not sign it if it were passed; but that I favored legislation that would make it impossible to place, through agents, policies that were ambiguous and misleading, or to pay exorbitant prices to agents for business, or to invest policy-holders' money in improper securities, or to give power to officers to use the company's funds for their own personal profit. In reaching this determination I was helped by Mr. Loeb, then ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... of Julian Avenel, engaged in a variety of feuds, and a party to almost every dark and mysterious transaction which was on foot in that wild and military frontier, required all these precautions for his security. His own ambiguous and doubtful course of policy had increased these dangers; for as he made professions to both parties in the state, and occasionally united more actively with either the one or the other, as chanced best to serve his immediate purpose, he could not be said to ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... at the due epoch in 1900, its individuality might have been considered assured; but the formidable vicegerent of the sun once more interposed, and, in 1897, swept it out of the terrestrial range of view. Hence the recognition remains ambiguous. ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... clearly ambiguous as that of the President here referred to, it was my duty to inform the President of my interpretation of it and to abide by that interpretation until I ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... taken to task for rendering lisiere "fringes," but the actual English equivalent "list" is not only ambiguous, not only too homely in its specific connotation, but wrong in rhythm. And "selvage," escaping the first and last objections, may be thought to incur the middle one. Moreover, while both words signify a well-defined edge, lisiere has a sense—special enough to be noted in dictionaries—of the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... got the power to draw the teeth of seven devils, and you both consider the words of his mouth or he'll git the teeth outen yourn," Mammy called after us in ambiguous warning. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... exclaims;— "Of Daphnis' love, so known, on Ida's hill, "His flocks who tended, whom his angry nymph, "To stone transform'd (such fury fires the breast "Of those who desperate love!) I shall not tell: "Nor yet of Scython, of ambiguous form, "Now male, now female; nature's wonted laws "Inconstant proving: thee, O Celmis! too "I pass; once faithful nurse to infant Jove, "Now chang'd to adamant: Curetes! sprung "From showery floods: Crocus, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... flatuous melancholy, the symptoms are so ambiguous," saith [2633]Crato in a counsel of his for a noblewoman, "that the most exquisite physicians cannot determine of the part affected." Matthew Flaccius, consulted about a noble matron, confessed ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... a quiet, inoffensive creature, without any principle or opinion whatsoever at variance with those of her husband, rose upon hearing this announcement; but so ambiguous were her motions, that we question whether the most sagacious prophet of all antiquity could anticipate from them the slightest possible clue to her opinion. The husband, in fact, had not yet spoken, and until he had, the poor woman ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... promising. Emden, which I had inclined to on the spur of the moment, was out of court in comparison, for many reasons; not the least being that it was served by three trains between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., so that the phrase 'night train' would be ambiguous and not ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... my condition and my whereabouts from all except near relatives and a few intimate friends who shared the secret. I quite enjoyed leading this legitimate double life. The situation appealed (not in vain) to my sense of humor. Many a smile did I indulge in when I closed a letter with such ambiguous phrases as the following: "Matters of importance necessitate my remaining where I am for an indefinite period." ... "A situation has recently arisen which will delay my intended trip South. As soon as I have closed ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... him to the king of heresy; but not being then in favour with James, they got no answer, and Buchanan was commanded to repeat the castigation. Having found out that the friars were not to be touched with impunity, he wrote, he says, a short and ambiguous poem. But the king, who loved a joke, demanded something sharp and stinging, and Buchanan obeyed by writing, but not publishing, "The Franciscans," a long satire, compared to which the "Somnium" was bland and merciful. The storm rose. Cardinal Beaten, Buchanan ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... melody remains unaltered. Let any one imagine to himself a five-act drama, preceded by a telegraphic intimation of all its incidents—how insupportable would the slow procession of events become after such a revelation! Up to this, Ministers performed a sort of Greek chorus, chanting in ambiguous phrase the woes that invaded those who differed from them, and the heart-corroding sorrows that sat below the "gangway." There has come an end to all this. All the dramatic devices of those days are gone, and we live in an age in which many men are their own priests, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... Mlle. de la Haye's ambiguous position brought most of the upper town to the signing of the marriage contract. The comparative poverty of the young couple and the absence of a corbeille quickened the interest that people love to exhibit; for it is with beneficence as with ovations, ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... acknowledgment he would desire, but Ainsworth though poor would accept of nothing but conference with some of his rabbis upon the prophecies of the Old Testament relating to the Messiah, which the other promised, but not having interest enough to obtain it he was poisoned." This rather ambiguous sentence means that Ainsworth was poisoned, not the Jew. Brooks's account of the story is that the conference took place, the Jews were vanquished, and in revenge poisoned the champion of Christianity afterwards. Dexter most ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... harvest in their happier years. And, 'companying the order of their steps Upon the way, they sung the choruses And sacred burdens of their country's songs, And, sitting down by hospitable gates, They told the histories of their far-off cities. And sometimes in the lonely darknesses Upon the ambiguous way they found a light,— The deathless lamp of some great truth, that Heaven Sent in ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... of the intellect coheres with the well-known formula, "Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed"—a formula by means of which it has been sought to interpret the ambiguous principle of the conservation of energy, forgetting that practically, for us, for men, energy is utilizable energy, and that this is continually being lost, dissipated by the diffusion of heat, and degraded, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... sections relating to persons residing within the limits of the United States in 1795 and 1798 have now only a historical interest. Section 2172, recognizing the citizenship of the children of naturalized parents, is ambiguous in its terms and partly obsolete. There are special provisions of law favoring the naturalization of those who serve in the Army or in merchant vessels, while no similar privileges are granted those who serve in the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... if that was why Sam Carr looked at Tommy with that ambiguous expression when Tommy was chanting his work or fight philosophy. Carr knew the ins and outs of the deal if he ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... You have wounded this poor fellow, and you very nearly hit me! Are you satisfied?" It was an awkward question to answer with due tact. Rattled as he was by the dressing down he had just received the man could hardly be blamed if his reply was ambiguous. At least it might have been more neatly expressed. It ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... woman, perhaps it was the consciousness of the bribe which the bargain covered and a desire to leave as little record of it as possible, perhaps it was only the carelessness of extreme haste, that caused Irons to send to the widow so ambiguous and dangerous a note as ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... meaning of this rather ambiguous sentence may either be, that all men are not able to succeed in more enterprises than one at a time; or that it is not given to every one to make the best both of the present world and of ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... eye Transfixed his soul and kindled amorous flames, Chloe, or Phillis, he each circling glass Wisheth her health, and joy, and equal love. Meanwhile, he smokes, and laughs at merry tale, Or pun ambiguous, or conundrum quaint. But I, whom griping Penury surrounds, And Hunger, sure attendant upon Want, With scanty offals, and small acid tiff, (Wretched repast!) my meagre corpse sustain: Then solitary walk, or doze at home In garret vile, and with a warming ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... daily presented to their eyes, were flattered with the stern joy of believing that the war which then raged around them was intended to put their moral armor to the proof, and that out of the triumph of their victories were to flow honor and security to the church. Then came ambiguous qualifications, which left it questionable whether a return of the invisible powers, that had been known to be so busy in the Provinces, were not the judgment intended. It is not to be supposed that Meek himself had the clearest mental intelligence on a point of this subtlety, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... bring to bear upon a matter vital to the State one-half the intelligence, zeal and sense of responsibility you will throw this evening into some ambiguous question of fleeting policy of speculative finance. Here are one hundred and eighty souls to whose correction, cure and protection the State is pledged. No one of all these lives is safe a single day. In six weeks I have saved two lives that were gone but for ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... idea that I was not alone in the tavern. At the other end of the room stood a hideous group with haggard faces and harsh voices. Their dress indicated that they belonged to the poorer class but were not bourgeois; in short they belonged to that ambiguous class, the vilest of all, which has neither fortune nor occupation, which never works except at some criminal plot, which is neither poor nor rich and combines the vices of one class with ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... on the other hand, etc., are used to indicate more or less directly a relation in thought between the phrase or sentence in which they occur and some preceding one. If the reader cannot readily determine to what they refer, the meaning becomes obscure or ambiguous. The pronominal adjectives and the personal pronouns are especially likely to be used in such a way as to cause ambiguity. Care must be taken to use them so as to keep the meaning clear, and your own good sense ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... insignificant word. Eating his cutlet and drinking his tea, he buried his chin in his sky-blue cravat, into which were thrust two diamond pins, held together by a small gold chain; and he smiled a singular smile, in a sugary, ambiguous fashion. But noticing that her feet were damp, ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... church-yard!' said the white gentleman, with an ambiguous playfulness, very like a sneer. 'I'm too old to play Horatio; but standing at his elbow, if the Prince permits, I have a friendly word or two to say, in my own ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... miserable days then. It was useless to upbraid her mother. She always posed as the injured one, and could not see that in robbing her child of a real home she was strewing her path with dangers as well, by placing her in an ambiguous, comfortless position, from which any ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... way I proposed to employ the treasure when I had secured it; but that question I refused to answer, hinting that, in the present position of affairs, the less they knew about my plans the better it would be for everybody concerned; and with that rather ambiguous assertion they have been obliged to remain content. The outcome of the whole affair, however, is that to-morrow we start for the Sacred Island, accompanied by a gang of thirty labourers provided with the necessary tools; ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... have reflected that in prosecuting Jeanne for a matter of faith he was serving his master's wrath and furthering the temporal interests of the great of this world. On these things he did not reflect; on the contrary, this case at once temporal and spiritual, as ambiguous as his own position, excited his worst passions. He flung himself into it with all the thoughtlessness of the violent. A maiden to be denounced, a heretic and an Armagnac to boot, what a feast for the prelate, the Councillor of King Henry! ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... breaking off of the conference was the crisis, and to appreciate men you must watch them in a crisis. Mr. Balfour expressed his unbounded confidence in Kruger's sweet reasonableness and in the justice of the British cause; he could not believe there would be war. Mr. Chamberlain entered into ambiguous negotiations, beginning in a way that made everyone, especially Kruger, imagine that the Government would accept less than the Bloemfontein minimum. Of preparing to coerce the Boers there was no sign. The Boers began to get their forces in order. In England big speeches ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson
... so terrible in its nature, and in its manifest consequences, that there is no way of quieting our apprehensions about it, but by totally putting it out of sight, by substituting for it, through a sort of periphrasis, something of an ambiguous quality, and describing such a connexion under the terms of 'the usual relations of peace and amity.' By this means the proposed fraternity is hustled in the crowd of those treaties, which imply no change in the public law of Europe, and which ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... most vapid pas of Maenads and Bacchantes, forbids our elegant, new-fangled conductors to cut the traces of their "culture." They are afraid such a thing might lead to a scandal a la Offenbach. Meyerbeer was a warning to them; the Parisian opera had tempted him into certain ambiguous Semitic accentuations in music, which fairly scared the ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... automatically eliminate the Lansing-Ishii agreement with its embarrassing ambiguous recognition of ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... Greece. Here the oracle of Apollo gave answers to those who came to consult that divinity. The priests who managed the temple kept themselves well informed in regard to occurrences in distant places. Their answers were often discreet and wholesome, but not unfrequently obscure and ambiguous, and thus misleading. In early times their moral influence in the nation promoted justice and fraternal feeling. In later times they lost their reputation for honesty and impartiality. In civil wars the priests ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... AEschylus. I am sorry, Philip, that you are not familiar with ancient Greek life. There is so much I could tell you of, in that event, of the quaint cult of Kore, or Pherephatta, and of the swine of Eubouleus, and of certain ambiguous maidens, whom those old Grecians fabled—oh, very ignorantly fabled, my lad, of course—to rule in a more quietly lit and more tranquil world than we blunder about. I think I could explain much which now seems mysterious—yes, and the daffodils, also, that Herrick wrote of so constantly. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... ask Proofs of his love, and not proofs of his honor. Duty and honor! Those are ambiguous words with many meanings. You should interpret them for him: his love Should be the sole definer of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... executing the latter clause of the Seventh Section of "An Act in relation to the payment of the principal and interest of the State debt," approved Feb'y 22, 1859, we reply that said last clause of said section is certainly indefinite, general, and ambiguous in its description of the bonds to be issued by you; giving no time at which the bonds are to be made payable, no place at which either principal or interest are to be paid, and no rate of interest which the bonds are to bear; nor any other description except that they are to be coupon ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... other Ralph had come, and she learned in half-pronounced ambiguous whispers what was the nature of his position in the world. She did not know,—at that time her cousins did not know,—how nearly successful were the efforts made to dispossess the heir of his inheritance in order ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... for her. But, as if to tarnish its delight, like an envious sprite of evil, deep down in her mind lay that other news, just read—the ambiguous ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... the master of my ceremonies," she said to des Lupeaulx,—ambiguous words, by which she expressed the annoyance she felt with the secretary for presuming to interfere with her private parties, to which she admitted only a select few. She left the room without bowing to Rabourdin, who remained alone with des Lupeaulx; the latter was twisting ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... the data of the memorandum. To Professor Laughton's argument may be added another, which goes far actually to fix the date. The principal signal which Nelson's second method of attack required was 'to engage to leeward.' Now this signal as it stood in the Signal Book of 1799 was to some extent ambiguous. It was No. 37, and the signification was 'to engage the enemy on their larboard side, or to leeward if by the wind,' while No. 36 was 'to engage the enemy on their starboard side if going before the wind, or to windward if by the wind.' Accordingly ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... meant till now. Comfort your heart, dearest Bess, I shall sorrow for us both. I shall sorrow the less because I have not long to sorrow, because not long to live.' He expressed a hope, which must be allowed to be ambiguous, that 'God will send us somewhat before we return.' He bids her tell about Keymis to Lord Northumberland, Sir John Leigh, and Silvanus Skory, a London merchant, who had in verse dissuaded him from the Guiana ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... sufficiently patent to students of those matters today that no such community of free and ungraded men had any part in the Germanic beginnings; that is to say, in the early experiences of the Fatherland under German rule. The meager and ambiguous remarks of Tacitus on the state of domestic and civil economy among the inhabitants of Germany need no longer detain anyone, in the presence of the available archaeological and historical evidence. The circumstantial evidence of the prehistoric antiquities ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... is such an ambiguous phrase!" she said. "Every man is a good fellow who eats a lot and laughs a lot and flirts a lot. Is he that sort of good fellow? Oh! I hate milksops. I needn't tell you that; but there are plenty of good fellows whom I should be sorry to ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... Elizabeth, Whose avarice all disbursements did importune, If history, the grand liar, ever saith The truth; and though grief her old age might shorten, Because she put a favourite to death, Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation, And stinginess, disgrace her ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... we detest their system of slavery in our hearts, let us not play the hypocrite with our lips. Let us not pay so poor a compliment to their understandings as to suppose that we can deceive them into a compliance with our views of justice by ambiguous sophistry, and overcome their sinful practices and established prejudices by miserable stratagem. Let us not first do violence to our consciences by admitting their moral right to property in man, and then go to work like so many vagabond pedlers ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... presented a somewhat comical sight, for though the back seat did not appear to be occupied, in the front seat two ambiguous looking individuals were sitting with their backs to the coachman. Who or what they were it was difficult to make out, for they had wrapped themselves up so completely in their shaggy woollen mantles, or gubas, ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... told nowadays of evolution, as if the progress of humanity were upwards; but if you withdraw the influence of supernatural revelation, the evidence of power in manhood to work itself clear of limitations and lower forms is very ambiguous at the best—in reference to morals, at all events. Evil is capable of development, as well as good; and perhaps Nebuchadnezzar's colossus is a truer representation of the course of humanity than the dreams of modern thinkers who see manhood becoming steadily better ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... impression that it would compel the Treasury officers to receive all bank notes possessing all the characteristics described in the first and second sections, and that the Secretary of the Treasury would have no power to forbid their receipt. It must be confessed that the language is sufficiently ambiguous to give some plausibility to such a construction, and that it seems to derive some support from the refusal of the House of Representatives to consider an amendment reported by the Committee of Ways and Means of that House, which would substantially have ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... The ambiguous light of a December morning, peeping through the windows of the Holyhead mail, dispelled the soft visions of the four insides, who had slept, or seemed to sleep, through the first seventy miles of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... Christians from teaching the arts of grammar and rhetoric. The motives alleged by the emperor to justify this partial and oppressive measure, might command, during his lifetime, the silence of slaves and the applause of flatterers. Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word which might be indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the Greeks: he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the advantages of science; and he vainly contends, that if they refuse to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Company. Afterward they would stroll home in the balmy air of August night, dreaming along Hennepin and Nicollet Avenues, through the gay crowd. Amory wondered how people could fail to notice that he was a boy marked for glory, and when faces of the throng turned toward him and ambiguous eyes stared into his, he assumed the most romantic of expressions and walked on the air cushions that lie ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... to the assembly, and act as jurors; which at first seemed nothing, but afterward was found an enormous privilege, as almost every matter of dispute came before them in this latter capacity. Besides, it is said that he was obscure and ambiguous in the wording of his laws, on purpose to increase the honor of his courts; for since their differences could not be adjusted by the letter, they would have to bring all their causes to the judges, who thus were in a manner masters of the ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch |
