"Vacantly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the urgency of his porter, and even while he was still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt to arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his eyes staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my observation, looked up at me, and put out a spiritless hand for his newspaper. Then he glanced again ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... and absorbed; he eats little; trifles annoy him; his father's presence is offense; at Pierre's curious look or speech Paul frowns or is pertly insolent. Suddenly starting, aimlessly pausing, fiercely scowling, vacantly staring, he is again seated. Passing hatless and partially disguised up the rickety cellar stairs, he turns upon his father, resentment gleaming from those glowing black eyes, then weak and nerveless submits to restraint, abjectly penitent, mutely concurring ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... from the girl interrupted him and he looked up. She was staring at him vacantly, as though ransacking the ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... he knew not why, and passed his hand over his high forehead. "Yes, I go there very often," he replied vacantly. "But you, ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... my attention. His face—of a Caucasian type—was framed in a handsome beard. He haunted me. I saw him standing for hours together on the stone quay, with the handle of his walking stick in his mouth, staring down vacantly, with his black almond-shaped eyes into the muddy waters of the harbor. Ten times a day, he would pass me by with the gait of a careless lounger. Whom could he be? I began to watch him. As if anxious to excite my curiosity, he seemed to cross my path more and more often. In the end, ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... eyes looked keenly at the farmer, and sometimes they scanned vacantly the ceiling, where a wandering fly seemed, like Mr. Bumpkin, in search of consolation or redress. Sometimes Mr. Prigg nodded his respectable head and shoulders in token of his comprehension of Mr. Bumpkin's lucid statement: then he nodded two or three times in succession, ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... that Glory Goldie met some person in the street," he blurted out, his half-dead eyes vacantly staring at space. He seemed not to ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... on, until there came a memorable day in July on which I must touch for a moment. It was evening. I was returning with Tom to Lizard Town from Dead Man's Rock, where we had been basking all the sunny afternoon, Tom reading, and I simply staring vacantly into the heavens and wondering when the time would come that should set me free to unravel the mystery of this ill-omened spot. Finally, after taking our fill of idleness, we bathed as the sun was setting; and I remember wondering, ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... said, staring vacantly at me, and moving her hands slowly to and fro in the air. "I see him! But he's a long way off; he can't hear our secrets, and he does not suspect you as mother does. Don't tell me that about him any more; my flesh creeps at it! What are you looking ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... torture!" rang out the cry of the lieutenant's dying friend behind him; and there before him, right against the wall, lay the sailor Ralling, that fine chap from Maryland who was one of the men who had won the gig-race at Newport News; now he stared vacantly into space, his mouth covered with blood and foam. "Shot in the lung!" thought Meade, hurrying on and trying, oh so hard, ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... he do now? Wander over the town, and gaze vacantly at one little object and another about the house fronts. One thing he will not look at; and that is the bright summer sea, all golden in the sun rays, flecked with gay white sails. From all which is bright ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... hooked loosely in each other, stared vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really were uncertain (I believe he was) whether Tackleton had done anything to deserve her thanks or not. If he could have been a perfectly free agent at that moment, required, on pain of death, to kick the ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... on the face of Mr. Garie—the brow was still knit, the eyes staring vacantly, and the marble whiteness of the face unbroken, save by a few gouts of blood near a small blue spot over the eye where the ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... when all this should be, I should bewail the days of my youth as misspent, provided I had not in them founded for myself a home, and begotten strong children to take care of me in the days when I could not take care of myself; and thinking of these things, I became sadder and sadder, and stared vacantly upon the fire till my eyes ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... continue when the policeman took him by the arm, turned him towards the gate, and pointed expressively in that direction. Smilash looked vacantly at him for a moment. Then, with a wink at Fairholme, he walked gravely away, amid general staring ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... was so bright and mild that Lady Flora left open the door as she entered; she seated herself at the table, and, unmindful of her pretended employment, suffered the portefeuille to remain unopened. Leaning her cheek upon her hand, she gazed vacantly on the ground, and scarcely felt the tears which gathered slowly to her eyes, but, falling not, remained within the fair lids, chill and motionless, as if the thought which drew them there was born of a sorrow less agitated ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... chiefly furnished, as far as I can see, with scrubbing brushes. And when the human race has progressed to the stage where seventeen thousand chairs are manufactured on every day except Sunday—" he paused. Rose and Key regarded him vacantly. "Will you tell me," went on Peter, "why you choose to rest yourselves on articles, intended for the transportation of water from one ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the court-room, "His Honor," with a startled glance at Judge Hardin, who is gazing vacantly at the two figures before him, says, "Which of these young ladies is ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... was over, the hearth was swept, the fire was heaped up, and the rug was down. He entered the porch quietly, tapped lightly at the door, and stepped into the house. He hoped she was well. She answered mechanically. He asked after Pete. She replied vacantly that he had been gone since morning on some fishing business to Peel. It was a commonplace conversation—brief, cold, almost trivial. He spoke softly, and stood in the middle of the floor, swinging his soft hat against ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... an empty drinking horn in his bony hand, sat by the hearth looking vacantly into the dead embers of the fire. Sweyn the Silent stood beside him with his thumbs stuck in his leathern girdle; while Roderic of Gigha sat upon the table facing the door and swinging his legs to and fro. The light of a hanging cruse lamp shone upon his long red hair and beard. ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... by witnessing a Missouri slave-vendue. A man with a bell, which he rang most energetically at the door, shortly after summoned the company, the auction being about to commence. On a table inside, a negress, of a little over middle age, was standing, vacantly gazing with grief-worn countenance on the crowd that now thronged to the table. On the floor stood two children, of about the ages of ten and thirteen respectively. The auctioneer, with the customary volubility of ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... lots of fellows in California. I know the haughty and self-helpful stage. You're all right, Roberts. But don't lose time. What's the matter now?" Roberts has come back from his dressing-room and is staring vacantly ...
— Evening Dress - Farce • W. D. Howells
... automatic bow. Then a bewildered, struggling look came into his face, then a helpless look, and he stood staring vacantly, like a somnambulist, at the waiting audience. The moments of painful suspense went by, and he still stood as if struck down. I saw how it was; he had ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... been heard by Pao-yue, he gazed vacantly for some time, feeling the while very unhappy; but raising himself impetuously: "Well!" he exclaimed, "if you don't notice me, all right, I too will go to sleep," and as he spoke he got up, and, descending from the couch, he betook himself to his own bed and went ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... The mind sees all the logical relations of being with an apparent subtlety and instantaneity to which its normal consciousness offers no parallel; only as sobriety returns, the feeling of insight fades, and one is left staring vacantly at a few disjointed words and phrases, as one stares at a cadaverous-looking snow-peak from which the sunset glow has just fled, or at the black cinder left by ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... wondered what there was in those common crowds to attract our Lord Jesus? Perhaps if you have ever walked in those narrow crowded alleys called streets, in China or Japan, you may have wondered, sometimes. Tired, dirty, pinched faces, eyes vacantly staring, or else fired with low passion, high-keyed voices bickering and jangling,—all this crowds in and out on every hand. Dirt, disease, low passion, selfishness, apparent absence of anything noble or refined, are all tangled inextricably up ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... Upton folk, stood his rival, Martin Tyrer! Much enveloped, indeed, in wraps and comforters, rather pale as to complexion, very hoarse as to voice, but nevertheless no other than Martin Tyrer himself. Bob's face fell, and he stared vacantly forth ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... easel one morning, watching her father work on his picture. Not that she was especially interested in him or the picture, but there was nothing else for her to do. She stood with her slim legs apart, her hands clasped behind her, staring rather vacantly, when he looked up and ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... The poor girl's wretchedness at this time was beyond all fancy or narration. She had sunk down on the lowest stair; and there she sat, her mouth blue and dry, and her dark eyes fixed vacantly upon him, as if she wondered whether it were not all ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... father looked vacantly from me to him and from him to me, and at last, his old hospitable instincts coming uppermost, he said, "Thou hast not asked thy cousin to take ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... looked vacantly at the place where he had been, dropped into a chair and burst into a storm ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... within half a mile he broke into the "double," and never pulled up until he reached the round white circle upon the cliff. Poor old Tom! when I came up, his mood had changed, and he was standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing vacantly before him ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... be found, probably, at that hour in the whole of London, appeared from a lower storey in answer to his summons. Pushing her hair off a grimy forehead with a grimier hand, she listened to his directions, staring vacantly, as is the manner of her kind, but understanding them, nevertheless, and not incapable of remembering their purport: they were short and ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... left it, upon a table, and while he was loosening the latter's clothing Steve shook it, experimentally, and found it empty. He swung it aloft and drove it through a window. The crash of shivered glass made the other stir. He opened his eyes and stared vacantly up into ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... that Randall should call on her and see her husband, bade him a cordial adieu. He stood there watching her out of sight with an unconscious smile of the most refined and subtle cynicism. Then he sat down and stared vacantly at the close-cropped grass on the opposite side of the path. By what handle should he ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... the wearily dreamy manner which, when first he had seen her, had aroused Soames' respectful interest, she raised her thin hand to her hair, slowly pressing it back from her brow, and directed her big eyes vacantly upon him. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... had laid the cold hand of the corpse back on its breast—and she stood gazing vacantly before her ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... Gregory paused irresolutely. He did not know what course to pursue, so he repeated vacantly, "I am ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... had been thinking of something else and was mentally thousands of miles away—on the banks of the Nile, in fact—regarded him rather vacantly. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... great excitement. "See that horse! There—that fellow just walking over the hill! By Jove; he's off. It's your big horse, Shaw; no it isn't, it's Jack's! Jack! Jack! hallo, Jack!" Jack thus invoked, jumped up and stared vacantly at us. ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... [Laughs vacantly: all gather round him, shaking their heads, his Mother falls fainting at his feet, as Curtain falls upon a strong and moral, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... suspected nothing. He merely sat, rigid, silent, white-faced, tossing aside stub after stub of cigarettes, and gazing, vacantly, into the spaces of past and future, trying to reconstruct the broken life of that starving boy whom he once ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... and the blue eyes, brighter than ever, stared vacantly around. The sound of her father's voice seemed to have roused her, for she began to speak a little prayer: "God bless papa and mamma, and God bless all on board this ship. God bless me, and make me a good girl, for Jesus Christ's sake, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... been told to proceed incontinently up the chimney before him, he could not have looked more aghast. Reply was quite out of his power. So sudden and unexpectedly was this charge of mine made that he could only stare vacantly from one to the other; while I, warming with my subject, and perhaps—but I'll not swear it—stimulated by a gentle pressure from a soft ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... another individual, belonging to a very different class, formed a part of the scene, though appearing only on its outskirts. A canal ran along at the rear of the Dust-heap, and on the banks of its opposite side slowly wandered by—with hands clasped and hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his hands—the forlorn figure of a man, in a very shabby great-coat, which had evidently once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman. And to a gentleman it still belonged—but in what a position! ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... Paul gazed vacantly from the zenith to the nadir, and from west to east, when suddenly his eyes fell on the Abbot of Antinoe. His face grew pale with a holy terror, and his eyeballs ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... up vacantly, "do what you think proper," and turned again to Mrs. Mackintosh, who proceeded placidly with ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... surrounded with sand Clara lay buried. Jurgen did not seem to know this; it did not enter his mind, which could only retain fragments of the past. Every Sunday he went to church with the old people, and sat there silently, staring vacantly before him. One day, when the Psalms were being sung, he sighed deeply, and his eyes became bright; they were fixed upon a place near the altar where he had knelt with his friend who was dead. He murmured her name, and became ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... ensued the others smiled vacantly, breathlessly, and expectantly, until Corbin advanced and held out his hand, when Julia Jeffcourt, drawing hers back to her bosom with the palms outward, uttered an inarticulate cry ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... more stones," cried Vada authoritatively. "Run along, dear," she added patronizingly, as the boy stood with his small hands on his hips, staring vacantly after his father. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... it was invaded by so dense a flood of people that the turf became invisible beneath the sea of black hats. By and by, when this crowd had become somewhat less disorderly and a lane had been formed as far as the exit and Nana was again applauded as she went off with Price hanging lifelessly and vacantly over her neck, she smacked her thigh energetically, lost all self-possession, triumphed in ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... that two weeks of Radville had driven Duncan to desperation; on the morning of the fifteenth day he wakened in his room at Miss Carpenter's and lay for a time abed staring vacantly at the gaudily papered ceiling, not through laziness remaining on his back, but through sheer inertia. The prospect of rising to ramble through another purposeless, empty day appalled his imagination; it had been all very well when the humour ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... winter sunshine slanted now on roof and pane, flooding the western side of the shabby boulevard, dappling the snow with yellow patches. He had stopped in the chilly shadow of a gateway and was looking vacantly about. He saw the sunshine across the street and shivered where he was, and yet he did not leave the shadow. He stood and watched the sparrows taking bold little baths in the puddles of melted snow water. They seemed ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... scribbling hasty notes in dog-eared notebooks, he, a human statue of Amaze, gazed at the open window, continuously and vacantly. Jostled by the crowds of curious and interested visitors, he stood, the most surprised man in ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... a little more pertaining in an indifferent way to the above household, but Virgie had read enough, and the letter fell from her nerveless fingers, while she sat staring vacantly before her, her brain almost turned by the heartless words she had just read, her heart broken with its weight of woe, while a feeling of utter wretchedness and desolation made her long for death to steep her ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Archie stood in solemn silence, hands crossed on his breast and thumbs revolving rapidly. His lips made odd movements, although from them came no sound, and vacantly he stared ahead of him, in his eyes no expression, in his manner no hint of what was coming. Short and fat, with face round and red, hair red and curly, and ears of a prodigious size, he made a queer picture; and, ignorant of his power of mimicry and ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... bewail the days of my youth as misspent, provided I had not in them founded for myself a home, and begotten strong children to take care of me in the days when I could not take care of myself; and thinking of these things I became sadder and sadder, and stared vacantly upon the fire until my eyes closed ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... whom such scenes were not new, followed his advice; but Ivan walked up and down before the tent. A huge fire had been made, which was amply fed by the wood of the river bank, and it blazed on high, showing in bold relief the features of the scene. Ivan gazed vacantly at everything; but he saw not the dark and glancing river—he saw not the bleak plain of snow—his eyes looked not on the romantic picture of the tent and its bivouac-fire: his thoughts were on one thing ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... into the hall and stared vacantly at the pond and the village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese ... God sent the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... to I cannot remember, nor how I got out of it; I only know that I suddenly found myself free, and walking away with my hand in Rosa's. I remember vacantly feeling the rough edge of the stitches on her flat kid fingers, and wondering ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Fred was father enough to turn with anxiety to the child. But his trembling nervous fingers and bemused eyes could make nothing of the "case" thus so suddenly brought before him. He turned fiercely and vacantly upon his wife and demanded why everything was suffered to go to ruin when Nettie was away. Mrs Fred, screaming and terrified, began to recriminate. The pallid figure of the child on the table gave a certain air of squalid tragedy to the scene, to the sordid miseries of which the ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... for gossip. But she had far less confidence in Jacques Monnier's wisdom, and thought it not inexpedient to go downstairs, after the doctor's departure, and give her customer a word of exhortation. He was seated at the table as before, twirling the glass in his fingers, and gazing vacantly ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... bewildered by the circumstances that surrounded him, and gazed vacantly at the judge and jury. He was a dull, stupid fellow, and did not readily comprehend ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... of hunger. Then he glanced at Grenfell, who lay fast asleep close by, with his blanket falling away from him. The man's face was half buried among the withered needles which were thick in his unkempt hair, and he lay huddled together, grotesque and unsightly in ragged disarray. Weston vacantly noticed the puffiness of his cheeks, and the bagginess beneath his eyes. The stamp of indulgence was very plain upon him, and the younger man, who had led a simple, strenuous life, was sensible of a certain repulsion ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... bey, in that lawless Orient, the land of arbitrary power. And, pressing his burning brow against the streaming glass, with the perspiration standing on his back, and hands cold as ice, he stares vacantly out into the night, no darker, no more impenetrable than his ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... whose hands were dyed a deep orange-colour with the henna, and who rattled and clinked as they moved and the barbaric ornaments of silver and gold which circled their arms and ankles shifted upon their small-boned limbs. The blind man was singing loudly. The women, staring vacantly, held the corners of their cloaks mechanically to their already covered faces. The man with the bristling beard talked violently with friends, and occasionally, interrupting himself abruptly, joined almost furiously in the blind man's hymn. On the platform lay a ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... exclaimed with a reckless air,—"Begin your incantations at once! Send me hence, no matter where, so long as I am for a while escaped from this den of a world, this dungeon with one small window through which, with the death rattle in our throats, we stare vacantly at the blank unmeaning honor of the Universe! Prove to me that the Soul exists —ye gods! Prove it! and if mine can find its way straight to the mainspring of this revolving Creation, it shall cling to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... and smiled. "I will light you there then," he said, and led the way to the door. As they went out La Marmotte, who was last, dropped her handkerchief, and stooping to recover it made a warning gesture to me; but I stared vacantly to ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... at the window—for even the dreary rain was a relief, because of the sound it made; a relief, also, because it moved, and had some faint suggestion, in consequence, of life and companionship in it—while he was standing at the window, and looking vacantly into the black darkness outside, he heard a distant church-clock strike ten. Only ten! How was he to pass the time till the house ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... at my companion as he put my question; the woman gazed vacantly at the lowering horizon, but neither uttered a word. The canary in its little prison of wire-work piped joyfully, as a gleam of sunshine lit up the watery landscape. Somewhere the guns spoke in a dull thunder. The woman was pleating ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... step, and covered his face with his hands. For a full minute there was absolute silence. Rathbawne had returned to the table, and, with his fore-arms across the back of a chair, and one foot on the lower cross-bar, was staring vacantly at his autographs, his hands moulding and remoulding each other into an infinity of forms. Natalie was at the window, her face in the crevice between the curtains. The same impulse had prompted both father and daughter. There are some things ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... still rolling and rattling around on the floor. Verily, I felt my shame must consume me, and took refuge in this humble occupation to hide my face. There is some sort of a confused recollection now abiding with me, that a man-servant at length came to sweep up the fragments, while I watched him vacantly, a tangled bunch ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... mad!" quoth Miss Peggy to herself, "How truly gratifying! I must foster the delusion." She turned her magazine ostentatiously upside down, smiled vacantly at the pictures, and feigning to fall asleep, watched beneath her eyelashes the compassionate glances with which she was regarded, shaking the ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... your sonnet. On reading the sentences in your letter respecting it, I stood staring vacantly on the paper, in a state of feeling not unlike that which I have too often experienced in a dream: when I have found myself in chains, or in rags, shunned, or passed by, with looks of horror blended with sadness, by friends and acquaintance; and convinced ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various
... unconsciously grasped a small object on the table upon which his left hand had been lying. It was a miniature daintily painted on ivory. He looked vacantly upon it; his mind at first quite absent from his eyes. But as he gazed, something familiar in the lovely face depicted there fixed his attention. Before long he was examining the picture ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the landscape. But the drowsiness of autumn is a lethargy in the true sense of that word—a forgetfulness. A forgetfulness of past discontents and future joys; a forgetfulness of toil that is gone and leisure to come; a mere breathing existence in which one stands vacantly eyeing the human scene, living in a gentle simmer of the faculties like a boiling kettle when the ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... skirt-filled ottoman stood vacantly gaping, the little chairs seemed lonely about the hearthrug, even the sofa where the invalid ladies sat was unoccupied, and the perforated blinds gave the crowds that passed up and down the street a shadow-like appearance. The prospect was not inspiriting, ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... indeed of all; and I burnt my ships with that plain word. I never had the answer. When I lifted my head, my lord had risen to his feet, and the next moment he fell heavily on the floor. The fit or seizure endured not very long; he came to himself vacantly, put his hand to his head, which I was then supporting, and says he, in a broken voice: "I have been ill," and a little after: "Help me." I got him to his feet, and he stood pretty well, though he kept hold of the table. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the big room, Nicol Brinn staring down vacantly into the empty fireplace, Paul Harley standing watching him in a state of almost stupefied mystification. Muffled to a soothing murmur the sounds of Piccadilly penetrated to that curtained chamber which held so many records of the troubled past and ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... slip by me unimproved, and this bloom of mine is wasted, and, as it were, lying idle, for want of its proper mirror, which is not this ring, but a pair of new eyes, which would look back at my own, not as this does, vacantly and without a soul, but lit up by the soft lustre of passion and admiration. And all at once, he started up, and exclaimed aloud: What! do ye all sit easily, when I am dying for lack of recreation? Know ye not that even ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... he wandered about in the hot streets, bought a cheap suit-case and some underclothes, and then went down to the port in search of a little hotel he remembered there. An hour later he was sitting in the coffee-room, smoking and glancing vacantly over the papers while he waited for dinner, when he became aware of being timidly but intently examined by a small round-faced gentleman with eyeglasses who sat alone at the ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... the brim with smoking linen, just out of a boiling suds. Darting one fiery glance toward her forceless husband, sitting humped up over the stove, his head supported on his hands, she exclaimed, "What does this mean?" Mr. Pimble looked up vacantly; Peggy turned round from her occupation of washing the dinner dishes, and Dilly kept to her wash-tub. No one seemed to understand to whom the stately mistress addressed her brief interrogatory. "Have you all lost your tongues?" at length exclaimed ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... her vacantly. It was some time before he answered. Then his answer showed vagueness; for what with the howl of the wind and the eternal presence in the closet of his soul of the skeleton of despair, his mind had become a little erratic ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... fled The hues of heaven that canopied his bower Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep, The mystery and the majesty of Earth, The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes 200 Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven. The spirit of sweet human love has sent A vision to the sleep of him who spurned Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues 205 Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade; He overleaps the bounds. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... turned vacantly upon him, and it was full half a minute before he comprehended. "Yes, yes, of course, read it to the directors next Friday. They'll approve it, you know. That will be regular, and according to rule. But about Steinmeyer, you know. When a man like Steinmeyer does such ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... hatch-coamings, the Somersetshire lad gratefully filled his lungs with the cool night air, and professed himself revived thereby. Then with the seaman's instinct his eyes wandered to the darkling vault of heaven, spangled already with a myriad golden points of light. Awhile he scanned it idly, vacantly; then, his attention became sharply fixed. He looked round and up at Captain Blood, who stood ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... interval of a minute or two, she slowly opened her eyes, stared about her vacantly for a little, and finally said: "Ah, yes, I remember! I was to tell you something, Senor. Have you learned what ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... twinkling over the rickety flight, light as kittens, swift as terriers; and in an instant she was through the upper hall, out on the gallery, and beyond sight and hearing. A few moments, dazed and confounded, Hatton stood there gazing vacantly after her. Then he thought he heard McLean's voice, and entering found him propped on his elbow, a queer look on ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... the sheriff grinning vacantly into the dark. There was a peculiar something in Jig's smile that ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... floundered down uncouthly and grasped the beech leaves with his hands, and then lay still. Ab stood there weaponless, a creature wandering of mind. His yellow ax had parted from his hand, sunk deeply into the skull of Oak, and he looked upon it curiously and vacantly. He was not sane. He stepped forward and pulled the ax away and lifted it to a level with his eyes and went to where the sunlight shone. The ax was not yellow any more. Meanwhile a girl was flitting toward her home and the shadows of the waning day ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... silent for a few moments. Her face had regained its composure, and her eyes were bent vacantly upon her tapestry frame as she turned over in her mind all that was involved ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... join vacantly in the laugh, when a sound in the doorway caused me to lift my eyes from my plate, and the next instant I sat paralysed by the figure that towered there over ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... pathetic tone in which these words were uttered affected me not a little; and when the ceremony was over I continued staring vacantly at the speaker, ignorant of the fact that the beautiful young girl had her wide-open, startled eyes fixed on the bush which, I vainly imagined, concealed ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... or inlets. After a while we began to pass dilapidated houses by the roadside. One little frame house I remembered particularly; the door was off the hinges and leaned against the jams, the windows had but a few panes left, which glared vacantly. The yard and little garden spot were overrun with a heavy growth of timothy, and the fences had all long since gone to decay. At the head of the lake a large stone building projected from the steep bank and extended over the road. A little beyond, the valley opened to the east, and looking ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... yielding wrist. Dropping her fingers into it she brought forth a tobacco-pouch, of her own embroidering, and from it, while the reticule fell unheeded to the floor, drew two or three small things which she laid on it in her doubled hands and regarded with a smile. Vacantly the smile increased as she raised it to Flora, then waned while she looked once more on the relics, and grew again as she began to handle them. Her slow voice took the tone of ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... became conscious she found herself in a small cabin, with many others in like pitiable plight. Her aunt was bending over her on one side and Gregory on the other, chafing her hands. At first she could not remember or understand, and stared vacantly at them. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... anything—'pon my word, quite s'prise." The events of to-day, the House of Commons, the City, had little interest for him. All the children went up and shook him by the hand, with awe in their looks, and he patted their yellow heads vacantly and kindly. He asked Clive (several times) where he had been? and said he himself had had a slight 'tack—vay slight—was getting well ev'y day—strong as a horse—go back to Parliament d'rectly. And then he became a little ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... eau-de-vie. It was some time before she recovered her consciousness; she then slowly opened her eyes and fixed them wonderingly on me, but with no look of recognition in them. A long shiver passed over her, and she sighed heavily once or twice as she looked vacantly at the letter on the floor. I was terrified, and seized the letter, to gain, if possible, some explanation of the miserable state ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... had read it she stared rather vacantly into the corner of her room for a few seconds, and then tossed the bit of paper into the basket ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... and deadly conception; the shells went beyond, except one, that ripped through the canvas, somewhat near the ground; and Augustus, dripping, turned at length, and saying, "It won't go down," stood vacantly wiping his white face. Then the two chiefs got his leave to stretch a rope between their horses and ride hard against the tepee. It was military neither in essence nor to see, but it prevailed. ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... man sitting on the fence, smoking a pipe. He wore a tattered old brown felt hat and overalls, and his long gray hair and beard were tangled and unkempt. I passed the time of day and he answered me civilly enough, although vacantly; and I saw that his eye had the red film of the drunkard. When I asked him for Quirk, the schoolmaster, who used to live thereabout he gave ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... was silent—vacantly contemplating the bare floor. There had been no revelation. She was not taken unaware. She had watched his purpose form. Long before, she had perceived the issue approaching, and had bravely met it. But it was all now definite and near. ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... somewhat lonely location on the seaboard. Here he drank for many days without stint, keeping himself the whole time in a state of semi-intoxication. One night he stood leaning against a tree, looking listlessly and vacantly out upon the ocean; the waves breaking on the beach, and the white sails of passing vessels vaguely impressing him like the pictures of a dream. He was startled by a voice whispering hoarsely in his ear, "You ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... into the depths of his desk, staring vacantly. His rounded shoulders suggested grief. Orne settled his wallet more firmly, pressing on the outside of the buffalo coat. His face again sagged with sympathy. "Mr. Britt, it's only like what most of us do in this life—take smiles ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... vacantly. Somehow, it had never hitherto dawned on her that the chemist might possess relatives in some ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... looked up painedly, and put his hand to his brow. He studied Harry for some time, vacantly. There was the faintest sort of a resemblance ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... his brothers and Stanley stared somewhat vacantly at the president and the professors. The students wanted to speak several times, but Doctor Wallington ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... was something she had not done, some teasing, unimportant thing, she ought to finish before going on with the letter. She looked up vacantly, half-absently, wondering what it was. Her eyes fell on Toucle. Toucle was looking at her, Toucle who so seldom looked at anything. She felt a momentary confusion as though surprised by another person in a room she had thought empty. And after ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... lost again in spasms of pain. When he revived, Marlowe Mann had come. The boy lifted his eyes to his beloved teacher vacantly; then the light of intelligence came back to ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... packages were in it, although they were entered on the way-bill which accompanied the pouch, and were duly checked off. The poor messenger was thunder-struck, and for a time acted like an idiot, plunging his hand into the vacant pouch over and over again, and staring vacantly at the way-bill. The Assistant Superintendent of the Southern Division was in the Atlanta office when the loss was discovered, and at once telegraphed to Maroney for an explanation. Receiving no reply before the ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... music, unless it is the watchers at the bedside of Mr. Leonard Tappleton, the richest man in town, who has lain dying these three days, and can not last till sunrise. Or perhaps some mother, drowsily hushing her wakeful baby, pauses a moment and listens vacantly to the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... made another attempt to escape, gazed vacantly at Peterkin again without moving, except in regard to ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... and looked vacantly out of the window, with a vague dissatisfaction at heart. Unrecognized fully as yet, the great law of nature, which brings to each a distinct and separate existence, was beginning to operate. As she had said to Mara, vital interests were looming up, new experiences ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... young man were alone, there was a silence of some moments, during which he stood at the fire, looking rather vacantly at the dying embers, whilst her ladyship busied herself ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Colonel," he answered, lifting his chin from his breast, upon which it was resting, "arranged, quite satisfactorily arranged." Then he looked about rather vacantly, for his mind, it was clear, was far away, and added, "Do you want: I mean, were you talking about the new drainage mill for the salt marshes?" Mary interrupted ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... of recognising familiar landmarks and houses, everything seemed strange and new to me. Said the man on my left in the ranks, "There's the farm where those Tommies got the porkers." To which I remarked vacantly, "Oh!" Then, further on, "Haven't the oats come on in that field?" Again, I helplessly "Er—yes." Then, "I wonder if they've got any fowls left in that shanty over there?" I, dissembling knowledge no longer, at last observed, "Really I don't understand it. I can't remember this ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... pretty," he repeated in a meditative manner; and stared so long and vacantly at a fricandeau which a footman was just offering him, that any less well-trained attendant must have left ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... notice, or to care, how things went on around her; and Willie—poor Willie!—there he stood lounging against the door-sill, enormously grown and developed, to be sure, but with restless eyes and ever-open mouth, and every now and then setting up a strange kind of howling cry, and then smiling vacantly to himself at the sound he had made. As the two old labourers passed him, they looked at each other ominously, ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... steps drew nearer. The door opened and Nejdanov, supported under the arm by Pavel, appeared in the doorway. He was deadly pale, without a cap, his dishevelled hair hung in wet tufts over his forehead, he stared vacantly straight in front of him. Pavel helped him across the room (Nejdanov's legs were weak and shaky) and made him sit down on ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... renunciation; and in a world devoid of evil and full of excellent brocade and armour and eatables, and lovely maidens who dress and undress you, and chastely kiss you on the mouth; a world without desire, aspiration, or combat, vacantly happy and virtuous. A world purely ideal, divorced from all reality, unsubstantial like the kingdom of Gloriana, but, unlike Spenser's, quite unshadowed by any puritan sadness, by any sense of evil, untroubled ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... stare vacantly, hopelessly. After a pause the man continued in a less aggressive manner and more confidential tone, which, however, only increased her terror. "I ain't sayin' that YOU knowed anything about this, ma'am, and whatever other folks might say when ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... Mulcahy looked vacantly down the room. Bid a boy defy his father when the pantomime-cab is at the door, or a girl develop a will of her own when her mother is putting the last touches to the first ball-dress, but do not ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... drank some of the water of the fountain. In the afternoon, there they sat, and Bellerophon had thrown his arm around the child, who likewise had put one of his little hands into Bellerophon's. The latter was lost in his own thoughts, and was fixing his eyes vacantly on the trunks of the trees that overshadowed the fountain, and on the grape vines that clambered up among their branches. But the gentle child was gazing down into the water. He was grieved, for Bellerophon's sake, that ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... but in a fit of gloomy disgust destroyed everything. So it went on for a few weeks. Miss Marston was more regular than an alarm-clock; sometimes she brought some work, but oftener she sat vacantly watching the young man at work. Her only standard of accomplishment was quantity. One day, when Clayton had industriously employed a rainy afternoon in putting in the drapery for the figure, she was so much ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... entered the room to find an overbearded young man and a very touzled, plump young lady sitting sheepishly hand-in-hand. They rose as he entered and stared vacantly at him. The man was a mean specimen of the Dutchman, tall and thin, narrow chest, and sloping shoulders. An aggressive red beard for one so young, growing backwards after the fashion prevailing with the Sikhs. A cadaverous wretched creature, yet ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... and physical made him think that all things were revolting and abominable. He groped his way to a seat, and sat there, staring vacantly at the garden, seeing only broad black patches amid the general gloom. Sad, dismal ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... against the frost of winter. The rough door of such a cellar appeared in the side of this small declivity, and as Caius came round the back of the byre in sight of it, he was surprised to see the farmer's wife holding the latch of its door in her hand and looking vacantly into the dark interior. She looked up and answered the young man's greeting with apathetic manner, apparently quite indifferent to the scene she had ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... haste to be gone, it was plain that he thought little of where he was going. For when he came to the foot of the valley, where the paths divided, he stood between them staring vacantly, without a desire to turn him this way or that. The imperative of choice halted him like a barrier. The balance of his mind hung even because both scales were empty. He could act, he could go, for his strength was untouched; ...
— The Sad Shepherd • Henry Van Dyke
... that, flinging up the moist soil with an asperated "a-ah" that punctuated regularly each heave of his shoulder muscles. In a little he climbed out and helped Mike rig a windlass over the hole. Mike pottered a good deal, and stood often staring vacantly, studying the next detail of their work. When he was not using them, his hands drooped helplessly at his sides, a sign of mental slackness never to be mistaken. He was willing, and what Murphy told him ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... from her long insensibility, she found herself supported in the arms of some one, who seemed watching over her with the utmost solicitude. She at first gazed vacantly on his face; but, as her recollections became more vivid, she started and uttered a faint cry, recognizing the features of father Gilbert. The expression of his countenance was gentle, even to softness, and his eyes were evidently moistened ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... wearisome in the extreme, neither for a true explanation thereof can help be got from highly or lowly born native. Without movement for hours he will sit or squat, as becomes his station, staring, as we should say, vacantly into space, in reality seeing and hearing that which others, blinded by material enjoyment, can never ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... of her own berth. Jack busied himself in a locker near this berth, until an opportunity occurred to touch Rose, unseen by her aunt or Biddy. The poor heart-stricken girl raised her face, from which all the colour had departed, and looked almost vacantly at Jack, as if to ask an explanation. Hope is truly, by a most benevolent provision of Providence, one of the very last blessings to abandon us. It is probable that we are thus gifted, in order to encourage us to rely on the great atonement to the last moment, since, without this ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... could also be seen to stare vacantly at the distance while they strained their ears to listen. As for Hugh himself he found it hard to believe his senses, for the absolute quiet and dead calm brooding all day long over that retired spot in the wilderness had been rudely shattered by a most astonishing noise as of many hoarse ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... came when the old man calculated that even with the utmost economy Bruce must have been two days without food. He looked pinched and shrivelled as he stared vacantly at the mouth of the canyon ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... brings a table and chair, and goes out. She sits a while, vacantly gazing on the ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... centre light of her little domain, fitted with a charming shade of Japanese silk, and removing her coat (purchased locally at a price which she had considered preposterous) she stood gazing vacantly into the little square mirror above the mantelpiece behind the china clock. It reflected the figure of a slim girl wearing a blue serge skirt, a blue jersey coat and a grey velour hat—a very pretty girl indeed, her colour heightened by the ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... gentleman slowly brought his eyes down from the sky, fixed them vacantly upon Lynde, and made no response. Presuming him to be deaf, Lynde repeated his question in a key adapted to the exigency. Without a change in his mild, benevolent expression, and in a voice whose modulations were singularly musical, the old gentleman ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... something that the courageous mount and ride out to sea on—the hair blown back (so she envisaged it, and the breeze stirred slightly among the orange trees) and she herself was emerging from silver spray—when she saw Jacob. He was standing in the Square with a book under his arm looking vacantly about him. That he was heavily built and might become stout in time ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... outdoor things, then took the fatal letter from her pocket and handed it to him. Jasper gave a whistle of consternation, and looked vacantly from the ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... her eyes as she turned away and stared vacantly out of the window at the dark houses opposite. The sun, which had been shining until that moment, disappeared behind a mass of driving clouds, and a few drops of rain began to beat against the panes of glass. The world seemed suddenly ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... impotent in the face of such a calamity. Two first field dressings, one open and the contents trod on the ground, the other fresh as when it left the hands of the makers, (p. 066) lay idle beside the dead man. A little distance to the rear a youngster was looking vacantly across the parapet, his eyes fixed on the ruined church in front, but his mind seemed to be deep in something else, a problem ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... onlooker must have laughed at their bewilderment. Even Uncle Ulick, whom a steady good humour had steered clear of many a brawl—so that a single meeting on Aghrim racecourse made up the tale of his exploits—stared vacantly at his kinsman. Never before had he heard any one question the right of an Irish gentleman to fight at pleasure; and for the others whose blood was hotter and younger, for the three Kerry Cocks, the Conclave had not been more surprised if a Cardinal ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... on the side of the bed, her chin resting on her clasped hands, her gaze fixed vacantly on the floor,—"Poor baby! Dead,—thank God!" was all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... his head from its pillow on the breast of the beloved corpse and stared vacantly at the royal speaker. His haggard face, tangled hair, and wild eyes gave him the appearance of one who had long wandered in a labyrinth of frightful visions from which there was ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... Vacantly her eyes rested on this sky-Hecla, and its splendor passed away unheeded, for she was looking far beyond the western gates of day, and saw a pool of blood—a ghastly face turned up to the sky—a coffined corpse strewn ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... passed, but no summons came. Anthony rose and went to the window again, for, in spite of himself, this waiting told upon him. The dog had gone back to his kennel and was lying with his nose just outside the opening. Anthony wondered vacantly to himself what door it was that he was guarding, and who lived in the rooms that looked out beside it. Then suddenly the door from the gallery opened and ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... I can't find Master Piers anywhere in the house or garden, Sir Beverley," he said, looking straight before him and blinking vacantly at the lamp. "I'm inclined to believe, sir, that he must have ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... her letter indicated, was far too happy to be angry for a single moment. With a smile, Alice finished the childlike letter, so much like Anna. Then feeling that Hugh would be glad to hear from Willie, she went in quest of him, finding him at the end of the long piazza, where he sat gazing vacantly at the open letter in his hand—Irving Stanley's letter, which he passed at once to Alice in exchange ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... plunged into a study of the mystery. Nothing appeared to be further from his intention. With an air of nonchalance which, under the circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he lounged up and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground, the sky, the opposite houses and the line of railings. Having finished his scrutiny, he proceeded slowly down the path, or rather down the fringe of grass which flanked the path, keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground. Twice he stopped, and once I saw him smile, and heard him utter ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... chosen as the limit for the first of the three main stages into which the vast palaeolithic epoch has to be broken up. The man of the late St. Acheul period, as it is termed, was truly a great artist in his way. If you stare vacantly at his handiwork in a museum, you are likely to remain cold to its charm. But probe about in a gravel-bed till you have the good fortune to light on a masterpiece; tenderly smooth away with your fingers the dirt sticking to its surface, and bring to view the tapering or oval outline, the straight ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... Admitted March 26th. The remaining space on the card was left blank to receive the statement of regimen, etc. A nurse was giving the patient an iced drink. After swallowing feebly, the man relapsed into a semi-stupor, his eyes opening and closing vacantly. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... said nothing; but what I might have said, was written in my face. Julia regarded me with a gaze of painful anxiety. What she read in my looks must have been troublously impressive. Her cheeks grew paler as she looked. Her eyes wandered from me vacantly, and I could see her thin soft lips quivering faintly like rose-leaves which an envious breeze has half separated from the parent-flower. Mrs. Delaney watched our mutual faces, and I left the room to avoid ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... prayers and chanting, they carry the statue of the Virgin around the sacred pile. I am conscious of all the details of the ceremony: the sly old cure perfunctorily bearing a small reliquary; four choirmen opening their mouths to bawl forth vacantly the Latin words which convey nothing to them; two mischievous serving-boys in frayed cassocks; a score of little girls, young girls and old maids in white, all starched and flounced, followed by six or seven village notables in baggy frockcoats. ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... savage-looking intruder, but fortunately he held his hand and bent over his companion wonderingly, and hardly able to believe what he saw; for as the dog nuzzled about Nic's face, the young man, partly aroused by the shaking, opened his eyes, looked vacantly at the brute for some moments, and then, as if his intellectual powers were returning, he smiled, the animal stopping short and ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... Spunyarn shakes his head reprovingly, fusses over Tom, turns him over on his wales, as he has it, and finally gets him on his beam's ends, a besotted wreck unable to carry his canvas. "Lost yeer reckonin', eh, Tom?" he continues as that bewildered individual stares vacantly at him. The inebriate contorts painfully his face, presses and presses his hands to his burning forehead, and says they are firing a salute in his head, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... lost its charms for me. Metaphysics—faugh! I tried to study; took down volume after volume, ran my eye vacantly over a few pages, and threw them by with distaste. I loitered about the house, with my hands in my pockets, and an air of complete vacancy. Something was necessary to make me happy; but what was that something? I sauntered to the apartments of ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving |
