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More "Uncertainty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passed, while obstinacy contended silently with obstinacy. Bela sat looking at nothing with all the stoicism of her red ancestors; Sam maintained his futile pretence of business. Occasionally he glanced at her full of uncertainty and unwilling admiration. Bela never looked ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... give the approximate bearing of its center. Thus, with the wind NE., the center will probably be from S. to SSE. of the observer's position. However, it is difficult to estimate the center of the vortex from any given point. This partly arises from the uncertainty as to the relation between the bearing of the center and the direction of the wind, and greatly from there being no means of knowing whether the storm be of large or small dimensions. If the barometer falls slowly, and the weather grows ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... 2. The uncertainty of a foreign language even in a day contemporary with the original writer, and therefore over and above what arises from lapse ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... they might have sat and looked at each other, in a state of uncertainty not the most pleasant of its kind, it is difficult to guess. It is not necessary to make any guesses on the subject, however; for the sudden entrance of the two young ladies whom Oliver had seen on a former occasion, caused the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... antecedent of each pronoun be clearly apparent. Note the uncertainty in the following sentence; He sent a box of cheese, and IT was made of wood. The antecedent of it is not clear. Again, A man told his son to take HIS coat home. The antecedent of his is very uncertain. ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... was a subject of uncertainty, and so was the state of the tide. Whether he was drifting up or down the bay he could not tell for certain. His recollection of the state of the tide at Petitcodiac, was but vague. He reckoned, however, from the ship launch of the preceding day, and then, allowing ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... wrangle." One section is thrown over towards secularism, pure and simple, in recoiling from Church-education exclusive and reactionary. The leading of the little child, the favorite indication of the millennium's arrival, is frustrated amid the clamor of the free thinkers and the uncertainty of the Church and the necessities of the State. We are slowly but surely, if we go on in this way, taking our children out of Christ's arms and our youth from beside His footsteps. And that is at once the most fearful sin against Him, and the most terrible injustice to them, we could possibly ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... she answered Archie when he spoke to her, it was with very obvious effort. She glanced from time to time at her husband as if in some uncertainty. Finally, when they took leave of the matron and went down to the car she seemed to hail ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Seton's variations of mood became remarkable. There were times when her excited cheerfulness astounded her sister, and there were times when her depression caused her the greatest anxiety. Kate was displaying a variableness and uncertainty to which Helen was quite unaccustomed, and it left the girl laboring under a great strain ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... i.e. "want not the light of beauty, your son-in-law shows far more fair than black." Here the opposition between light and black is much in its favour. In Cymbeline, I must confess it is not quite so clear: "to make my gifts, by the dark uncertainty attendant upon delay, more lustrous (delighted), more radiant when given," is not more satisfactory than Mr. {201} HICKSON'S interpretation of this passage. But is it necessary that delighted should have the same signification in all the three ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... same crime as to divorce her from all that she holds dear on earth—to root up and pull out her imbedded affections, and to tear her from her rightful husband. First love is always constant. The second love brings uncertainty—too often desertions before ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... the Altrurian pursued, "is in a state of perpetual uncertainty, and to save himself in some measure he has organized, and so has constituted himself a danger ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... in Mongolia to resume the chief conduct of the war, and he signalized his return by the capture of Changchow. At this town he is said to have sanctioned a massacre of the Chinese troops, but the facts are enwrapped in uncertainty; and Marco Polo declares that this was only done after the Chinese had treacherously cut up the Mongol garrison. Alarmed by the fall of Changchow, the Sung ministers again sued for peace, sending an imploring letter to this effect: ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... turning till long after midnight, and when she slept she dreamed, not of him, but of Sibley and her mother and the toil-filled, untroubled days of her girlhood. She rose early next morning and awaited his coming with more of physical weakness as well as of uncertainty of mind than she had ever ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Twins, who were entirely unused to this sort of thing, were too taken aback to proceed to their second move—the utterance of some trivial and artless remark, delivered by both simultaneously, and thereby calculated to throw the victim into a state of uncertainty as to which he should answer first. Instead, they stood ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... Wall Street like soot, and settles on the professional and the public alike. It is a sporty business. It appeals to the idle, the reckless, the prodigal and the declasse. In the quickness and uncertainty of its evolutions, it is unfortunately so analogous to racing and gaming that their terms are interchangeable, and to the thoughtless the stock market is the ranking evil ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... grin, and keep yourself heartwhole; And you'll find the fun of the fair's in taking chances: It's the uncertainty makes the race—no sport In putting money on dead-certainties. I back the dark horse; stake my soul against The odds: and I'll not grouse if life should prove A welsher in the end: I'll have had my fling, At least: and yet talk's ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... threw off only their outer clothing and lay down on the hard husk mattresses and were soon fast asleep notwithstanding the uncertainty and danger of ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... The uncertainty of this, and the evident effort of the great bird to fly a little farther, greatly excited the two older of the six ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... course of procedure exactly opposite to that which I had followed while prosecuting my former search. Then, I had gone to windward of the spot when I expected to find the boats, and had run down to leeward along the course which I thought it probable they had taken; but now my uncertainty as to their precise position necessitated a search over a belt of ocean several miles in width. I therefore determined to get well to leeward of the spot where my calculations indicated that I ought to find them, and from there work to ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... must have been impressed with the might of Britain. No less than two hundred and twenty-nine ships set their sails and covered the sea for miles. When they had disappeared out of sight of the New Jersey shore their goal was still unknown. At sea they might turn in any direction. Washington's uncertainty was partly relieved on the 30th of July when the fleet appeared at the entrance of Delaware Bay, with Philadelphia some hundred miles away across the bay and up the Delaware River. After hovering ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... Hafiz? It is for wine to exalt men, and raise them beyond uncertainty and doubt. It overfloweth us with courage, and ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the door a moment later and when Jim Girty and Deering entered he turned to his friends with a dread uncertainty in his ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... itself away, the judge lived through the many stages of doubt and uncertainty, for suppose anything had happened to Mahaffy! When the sheriff came with his supper he asked him if he had seen ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... marked the first quarter or the first half of this century. Great Britain, if left to herself, could act with all the force, consistency, and energy given by unity of sentiment and community of interests. The distraction and the uncertainty of our political aims, the feebleness and inconsistency with which they are pursued, arise, in part at least, from the connection with Ireland. Neither Englishmen nor Irishmen are to blame for the ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... go to her friends at Elche, she would, at least, have comforted us with the hope of meeting her again; whereas, this utter silence did point to a knowledge on her part that we were sundered for ever, and that she could give us no hope, but such as we might glean from uncertainty. ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... trouble him. He bent in the dusk to see her face. She was asleep. Terror, pity, anguish, the dreadful uncertainty, had strained her child's nerves to the utmost; after that came the deep fatigue that follows torture, and she lay in his arms, limp, pallid, exhausted. Her sleep was almost the unconsciousness of ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... was Imperialist versus Imperialist. One of the outstanding lessons of the last decade is the fact that the world's natural enemies haven't yet had a chance at each other, being too busy murdering among themselves. It's coming, though. Another tableau. All this hysteria and uncertainty will gradually simmer down into another right-and-wrong issue—with life boiling away as always under a black ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... troubled him was an uncertainty about the manner of his father's death. It was given out by Claudius that a serpent had stung him; but young Hamlet had shrewd suspicions that Claudius himself was the serpent; in plain English, that he had murdered him for ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... of sunlight were striking almost level into her eyes. She must have slept two hours. Her father had not returned; she knew the passage of the wagon would have awakened her. She began to feel strange, but not yet alarmed; it was only the uncertainty that made her uneasy. Had her father really gone on by some other trail? Or had he really hurried on and left her, as he said he would? The thought brought an odd excitement to her rather than any fear. ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... kind of man for this kind of job. In the first place I hated quarrels, and knowing Grogoff's hot temper I had every reason to expect a tempestuous interview. Then I was ill, aching in every limb and seeing everything, as I always did when I was unwell, mistily and with uncertainty. Then I had a very shrewd suspicion that there was considerable truth in what Semyonov had said, that I was interfering in what only remotely concerned me. At any rate, that was certainly the view that Grogoff would take, and Nina, perhaps also. I felt, as I rang the bell of No. 3, that unpleasant ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... among the leaders of the party on the Front Opposition Bench. Still he sits in the corner immediately behind, which is the spectral throne of exiled rulers. He has the power of all strong natures of creating around him an atmosphere of uncertainty, apprehension, and fear. Of all the many problems of this Session of probably fierce personal conflict, this was ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... drastically since the mid-1980s. The war, which began in August 1998, has dramatically reduced national output and government revenue and has increased external debt. Foreign businesses have curtailed operations due to uncertainty about the outcome of the conflict, lack of infrastructure, and the difficult operating environment. The war has intensified the impact of such basic problems as an uncertain legal framework, corruption, raging inflation, and lack of openness in government economic ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... who take an interest in such things, and apparently also as regards a large portion of the medical profession, our clever countryman succeeded in restoring the subject to a state of uncertainty similar to that which followed the publication of Pouchet's volume ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... with which the inhabitants were supplied, in years when the Nile overflowed in a favourable manner, and the uncertainty of future plenty were inducements for accumulation and foresight, which are not equally necessary in countries where the important circumstances of plenty or want do not depend on one single event over the whole face of a country, separated, besides, ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... countenance assumed an expression of intense interest; she became very pale; and then suddenly red; hope seemed struggling with doubt and anxiety, and never were contending emotions more strongly painted upon the human face: at this moment of painful uncertainty, the mother drew her close to her side, and kissed her fondly, when at once the truth flashed upon the child, and all mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her face, as with an expression of exceeding joy she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her parent, and yielded herself ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... looked ahead with the first shiver of dismay. Her limbs seemed ready to collapse. The flush of anger and excitement left her face; a white, desolate look came in its stead. Her eyes grew wide and she blinked her lashes with an awed uncertainty that boded ill for the stability of her adventure. An owl hooted in mournful cadence close by and she felt that her hair was going straight on end. The tense fingers of one hand gripped the handle of the travelling-bag while the other went ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... who was as much nettled by a feeling of uncertainty how to act as by the impertinence ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... to his movements, and at a loss how to act. At one time he talked of remaining a year at Bermuda, and wrote to his wife to come out with George and rejoin him there; but the very same letter shows his irresolution and uncertainty, for he leaves her coming to the decision of herself and friends. As to his own movements, he says, "Six weeks will determine me what to resolve on. Forbes advises the south of France, or else Barbadoes." ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... the earnest, ingenuous appeal of one crying out of the wilderness of human uncertainty—of one who saw the evils in those attempts of men to curb greed and appetite—of one earnestly seeking a remedy, but not clearly understanding that so long as the world shall endure, with men and women weak and human, ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... majesty." He straightened himself as he spoke, and looked at Harwin with such gravity that the latter, meeting the light of his eyes, was puzzled whether this was jest or earnest, until Miss Royal's laugh relieved his uncertainty. Katie laid her hand on the speaker's arm ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... Nigran fleet was beginning to reveal the disorder and uncertainty that arose from desperation, for they were cornered in the most undesirable position possible. They were outside the Solarian fleet, and their ships were lighted by the glare of the sun. The defenders, on the other hand, were in such a position that the enemy could ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... find out the truth—would rob him of the one precious thing left him, the uncertainty, the dim hope that maybe, after all, his boy escaped, and he will see him again ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... circumstances at all similar. He had a confidence in George's character, which entirely relieved him from any fear that the slightest taint could have infected it. But an act of imprudence might have destroyed his peace of mind—sickness have wasted his body. Nor was his uncertainty regarding George, Delme's only cause of disquiet. When he thought of Julia Vernon, there was a consequent internal emotion, that he could not subdue. He endeavoured to forget her—her image haunted him. He meditated on his past conduct; and at times it occurred to him, that the ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... of discussions bearing on the subject; but he defined his own part in advance by saying: "My reason makes me a disbeliever in many things; but the impressions of my childhood and the inspirations of my early youth have flung me back into uncertainty." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... united by means of rope or electric wire in lengths of 100 to 150 feet. When fired all sections remain together for some distance; the rear section then first begins to separate; then the next, and so on. It is primarily intended to envelop an enemy's vessel, and to remedy the present uncertainty of elevation in a gun mounted in a pitching boat; but it is found that when it strikes the water in its lengthened out condition, it will neither dive nor ricochet, but will continue for some distance just under the surface until all momentum is lost, when it will ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... says Feuillant, "that this is not so certain; for controversy indicates uncertainty, (Saint Athanasius, ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... of course no credence can be attached to any of them. The vessel is plainly of the same type as that which destroyed Kronstadt two months ago, but larger and more powerful. The inference is that she is one of a fleet in the hands of the Terrorists, and the profoundest uncertainty and anxiety prevail throughout naval and military circles everywhere as to the use that they may make of these appalling means of destruction should they take ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... you how sad I am. I have had fortitude in afflicted positions in which I have found myself, and I shall have enough to bear my reverses of fortune; but I have not sufficient to sustain me under absence from my children, and uncertainty respecting their fate. For two days I have not ceased to weep. Send me tidings respecting yourself and your children. If you can learn any thing respecting Eugene and his ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... bring forth? There are thousands of other evils growing out of our present situation, too hourly, universally and bitterly felt to require to be mentioned. Who will say that these things do not exist? Who will say that we have not suffered the harassing uncertainty and ...
— Texas • William H. Wharton
... coming with mingled feelings of pleasure and uncertainty. She would be entertaining largely, of course. Would she foolishly begin by attempting to invite him and Jennie? Surely not. She must know the truth by this time. Her letter indicated as much. She ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... third Friday evening the boys came together in some uncertainty in regard to who was to be the story-teller. But Will Sampson, the stammering president of the club, had taken care to notify John Harlan, the widow's son, that he was to tell the story. If there was any general ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... 12th June, 1801, to Clementi, and apart from the curious spectacle of these two pianists in commercial correspondence with each other, the letter is of interest, in that it belongs to a period of Dussek's life concerning the details of which there is some uncertainty.[85] Dussek, it may be mentioned, does not ever appear to have returned to London. In 1803 he became attached to Prince Louis Ferdinand, to whom he offered advice in pianoforte playing and composition. There is another letter extant of ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... not the man for such a crisis: Lacy, too, it is remarked, has always been more expert in ducking out of Friedrich's way than in fighting anybody. [Archenholtz's sour remark.] In fine, such is the total darkness, the difficulty, the uncertainty, most or all of the reinforcements sent halted short, in the belly of the Night, uncertain where; and their poor friends got ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... uneasiness in their eyes as the creature sat, acting like a human being and, at the same time, like nothing from this world. You could see a vague revulsion in the people surrounding the creature. There was also uncertainty, and this from men who were required by their profession to be fairly certain ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... fear and necessity, and be conscious of no other feeling but terror? What can I hope for? Am I worthy of Paradise? Or worthy only of Hell? What an alternative! What perplexity! Nothing is so mad as to leave one's safety thus in uncertainty; but nothing is more natural; and the foolish life I lead is perfectly easy to understand. I plunge myself into these thoughts; and I find death so terrible, that I hate life more because it leads to death, than because it leads me through troublesome places. You will say I wish to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... opposition to this uncertainty of the ministers, the Irish Attorney-General has drawn the same argument from the Act of Settlement which we have drawn. In February 1844, the Irish Attorney-General pronounced his views; Blackwood's Magazine ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... But the uncertainty of what their tomorrow might hold and the worry and dread lest he find himself unable to damage the big gun made real ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... authority of the parent and the penalties by which he sustains it, guide the child during those years when reason and the power of self-denial are weak. But to make this discipline easy and effective, there should be no hesitation or uncertainty about the exercise of it. Parents often have to strain their authority, and use very largely their right of punishment, because they are so unequal and irregular in their methods of government. A child soon ceases to thrust his finger into the fire. Fire is not a ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... of uncertainty in her voice, and Peg's blue eyes gleamed with a vixenish light as she settled herself comfortably ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... passing fancy, engendered by foolish compliments or ill-judged signs of admiration, and therefore she did not doubt that the offer of freedom and restoration would be gratefully received. Her only uncertainty was with regard to the manner in which it would be listened to—whether with tears of joy or with loud protestations of gratitude upon bended knees; or whether the prospect of once again visiting that cottage ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... estimates are exceeded by Dr. T.W. Rhys Davids (intimating also the uncertainty of the statements, and that numbers are no evidence of truth) in the introduction to his "Manual of Buddhism." The Buddhists there appear as amounting in all to five hundred millions:—thirty millions of Southern Buddhists, in Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Anam, ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... their presence. It was, indeed, necessary to "make a party" in this way, as other schemers were already trying to undermine the Colombian company in influential directions. The engineer did not exaggerate when he said, "The uncertainty of transacting business in this country ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... tempted to fight the battle; but it is impossible for several reasons. Were we the losers, we should be totally unable to pay the costs, and a load either of debt or obligation would be a burthen we have no right to assume. Moreover, the uncertainty of our position pending the decision would be as mischievous to myself as to the parishioners. It would destroy any fitness to be their Vicar, whether we gained or not. The holding the Rectory is in itself an abuse; and now that ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boulders and little hillocks; his eyes wandered stupidly about; I was in plain view within four or five yards of him, but he heeded me not. Then he turned back a few paces, but some slight obstacle in his way caused him to change his mind. One thought of a sleep-walker; uncertainty was stamped upon every gesture and movement; yet he was really drifting towards camp. After a while he struck the well-defined trail, and his gray, shapeless body slowly disappeared up the slope. In five or six minutes I overtook him shuffling ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... of adventure about my dinner. It was as inevitable as six o'clock and as inevitably eaten in the seclusion of the Philadelphia second-story back-building dining-room, if not of my family, then of one or another of my friends. In Rome it became a delightful uncertainty that transformed the six flights of stairs leading to it from our rooms into the "Road to Anywhere". That road was by no means an easy one to climb up again and if we could help it, we never climbed down more than once ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Johnsonian trip to the Hebrides; but the puzzled Englishman has at least his own language and a fairly familiar ground to deal with. When, however, we come to unpronounceable Chinese names of strange individuals, moving about amid hitherto unheard-of surroundings 2500 years ago, with a suspicion of uncertainty added about the genuineness and good faith of the whole story, things are apt to seem hopelessly involved, even where the best of good-will to understand is present. Thus Confucius may be called K'ung-tsz, K'ung Fu-tsz, or Chung-ni, besides other personal applications under the influence of tabu ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... went out that the School captain had been present, everyone, at any rate, would have to admit there had been fair play and no opening for dispute, whatever the result might be. So Smedley, although it might be to see his own record beaten, came down to the fields that morning. There was a little uncertainty as to his reception at first, for Railsford's was in an Ishmaelitish mood, and was ready to call everybody an enemy ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... fairly peaceful and secure, something ghastly, like the smell of burning Hindoo, recalls to one the uncertainty of all things. We rose to go home, feeling depressed, ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... thing to wait here in the greatest doubt and uncertainty while the afternoon was visibly waning. She began to grow afraid. Perhaps the men had stolen the dog, and left her with this shovel as a blind. Her husband must have come home, and would be astonished and perplexed by her absence. Surely, he would have the sense to dine by himself, instead ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... sight they may not appear to do so; and when I differ from the translators, I think that in some places they are wrong, and in other places I am sure that they are. I have placed in some passages a , which indicates corruption in the text or great uncertainty in the meaning. I could have made the language more easy and flowing, but I have preferred a ruder style as being better suited to express the character of the original; and sometimes the obscurity which may appear in the version ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... stating that he was beheaded; and that he was condemned upon the Saturday, and executed upon the Monday. (See Biog. Britann.) Was any reader of English history ever sceptic enough to raise from hence a question whether the Marquis of Argyle was executed or not? Yet this ought to be left in uncertainty, according to the principles upon which the Christian history has sometimes been attacked. Dr. Middleton contended, that the different hours of the day assigned to the crucifixion of Christ, by John and by the other Evangelists, did not admit of the reconcilement which learned men had ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... individuals, is a fair inference from the form of the expression, "THEY shall be your possession. Ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children to inherit them for a possession." To say nothing of the uncertainty of these individuals surviving those after whom they are to live, the language used, applies more naturally to a body of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... expressed as to the correctness of this number, and the highest possible number of inhabitants, taking into account the available space, has been reckoned at 250,000. Apart from the uncertainty of such calculations, especially as to a commercial city with houses of six stories, we must remember that the numbering is doubtless to be understood in a political, not in an urban, sense, just like the numbers in the Roman ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... deficient in things concerning God. A sign of this is that philosophers in their researches, by natural investigation, into human affairs, have fallen into many errors, and have disagreed among themselves. And consequently, in order that men might have knowledge of God, free of doubt and uncertainty, it was necessary for Divine matters to be delivered to them by way of faith, being told to them, as it were, by God Himself ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the slightest uncertainty about the re-election of Mr. Lincoln. The only question is, by what popular and what electoral majority. God grant that both may be so decisive as to turn every hope of rebellion ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... of mortal fear such as I shall never forget. The shrieks of the drivers to encourage the horses, the loud cries of Ave Maria! the uncertainty as to whether our heavy carriage could be dragged across, the horses struggling and splashing in the boiling torrent, and the horrible fate that awaited us should one of them fall or falter!... The Senora ——- and I shut our eyes and held each other's hands, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... done a mighty thing. He won't stay till he gets home to his seat in the country, to produce this wonderful deed: he'll call up the landlord of the first inn on the road; and after a suitable preface upon mortality and the uncertainty of life, will tell him that he should not delay in making his will; and Here, Sir, will he say, is my will, which I have just made, with the assistance of one of the ablest lawyers in the kingdom; and he will read it to him. He believes he has made this will; ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... assuming specific sums from each state. Under this modification of the principle, the extraordinary contributions of particular states during the war, and their exertions since the peace, might be regarded; and the objections to the measure, drawn from the uncertainty of the sum to be assumed, would be removed. But these alterations produced no change of sentiment; and the bill was sent up to the senate with a provision for those creditors only whose certificates of debt purported to ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... money. It was at the same time enacted, that all bills drawn upon or negotiated at Amsterdam, of the value of 600 guilders and upwards, should be paid in bank money, which at once took away all uncertainty in the value of those bills. Every merchant, in consequence of this regulation, was obliged to keep an account with the bank, in order to pay his foreign bills of exchange, which necessarily occasioned a ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... encreased, without any Satisfaction afforded to them. In these, the vain Pursuit of Knowledge shall, perhaps, add to their Infelicity, and bewilder them into Labyrinths of Error, Darkness, Distraction and Uncertainty of every thing but their own evil State. Milton has thus represented the fallen Angels reasoning together in a kind of Respite from their Torments, and creating to themselves a new Disquiet amidst their very Amusements; ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... attractive things, making its purchases of articles useful or decorative with a freedom from anxiety in its enjoyment which does not mark the mood of the ordinary shopper. In the everyday purchaser one is accustomed to take for granted, as a factor in his expenditure, a certain deliberation and uncertainty; to the travelling American in Europe, shopping appears to be part of the holiday which is being made the most of. Surely, all the neat, smart young persons who buy frocks and blouses, hats and coats, hosiery and chains, cannot be the ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of the stupendous news. The shock of hearing her most unsuspected condition had indeed stricken her insensible, but it was the surprise of it more than the dismay. Now she viewed the circumstance with uncertainty, not knowing the attitude "Mister Jan" would adopt toward it. She argued with herself long hours, and peace brooded over her at the end; for, as his cherished utterances passed in review before her memory, the sense and sum of them seemed to promise well. He would be very ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... general, and statesman,—was the son of Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, of Godalming, in the County of Surrey, Great Britain, by Eleanor, his wife, daughter of Richard Wall, Esq. of Rogane, in Ireland.[1] There has been, hitherto, great uncertainty with respect to the year, the month, and the day of his nativity; I have, however, what I deem good authority for deciding it to have been the twenty-first day of December, one ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... But when we got out to sea, we were exposed to the mercy of the waves and winds, and tossed about, sometimes on one side, and sometimes on another, and spent that night and the following day under the most painful uncertainty as to our fate; but next morning we had the good fortune to be thrown upon an island, where we landed with much joy. We found excellent fruit, which afforded us great ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... of Barry Cornwall's was given up, a long negotiation between Miss Mitford and the management of Covent Garden came to a conclusion by her withdrawal of her play of "Inez de Castro," a tragedy founded upon one of the most romantic and picturesque incidents in the Spanish chronicle. After much uncertainty and many difficulties, the project of bringing it out was abandoned. I remember thinking I could do nothing with the part of the heroine, whose corpse is produced in the last act, seated on the throne and receiving the homage of the subjects of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... effective against some men than others who are not so good. It is the uncertainty of match tennis that is its greatest charm. Two men may meet for tennis during a season, and be so closely matched that each man will win two matches and the score seem almost one-sided each time. It is a case of getting the ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... the rider worked his feet faster, and swiftly sped away along the dry and dusty road. He was a tall young gentleman, whose form was well set off and shown by the tight-fitting bicycle costume. He rode well and with perfect command—the track left in the dust was straight, there was no wobbling or uncertainty. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... at my feet. As often as I looked at it, I seemed to see Nat's pictures dancing on the surface. I had given five dollars for the box; I trembled to think what a sum that was for us to spend on an uncertainty; but I had small doubt. At noon I ran home; I ate little dinner—Nat would not touch a mouthful. 'You must see the pansies and ferns done ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... faced already, that they were living in the shadow of a great disaster, and that Campbell's fate was in doubt, one must feel that in a way they had the hardest time of all in the Expedition. They had to sit down, as it were, and wait in uncertainty for the winter to pass, then go out in search to ascertain the fate of their leader, ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... despite, his being's law, Bade through the deep recesses of our breast The unregarded River of our Life, Pursue with indiscernible flow its way; And that we should not see The buried stream, and seem to be Eddying about in blind uncertainty, Though ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... lay me" would not do for the poor creature who had been lying down many days and might never rise again; "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" was more appropriate, but there was that uncertainty about it being a prayer at all. "Our Father"—Ah! He caught at ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... a moment's uncertainty that it was indeed she. Couldn't shelter himself, even for an instant, behind Jimmy Wallace's theory ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... between the death of Lord Sydenham and the arrival of his successor, Sir Charles Bagot, was marked by much uncertainty in political matters. In September, 1842, Dr. Ryerson wrote to his friend, Mr. John P. Roblin, the Liberal M.P.P. for Prince Edward county, on the apparently threatening aspect of affairs. Mr. Roblin, in his reply, dated Kingston, September ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... to my room, wondering where I could have been so late. I said I was tired, and begged them to leave me alone. Then I locked my door, and a solitary hour of anguish passed. The fever of uncertainty would not let me weep; I suffered without much sign, but in such a degree as I ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... There was a sergeant in charge of us "number fours," and he was as cool as any fellow I ever saw. The sergeant was a nice man, but he was no musician. He was an Irishman, also, and when any bugle-call and when any bugle-call sounded he had to ask some one what it was. There was a great deal of uncertainty about bugle-calls, I noticed, among officers ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... of terror took her strength as he spoke. Uncertainty was always hard for her to bear, but in this vital matter she felt that she could not ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... Carrara, and wildly supposed this to have been dug from Italian quarries. The beauty of the poplars, the coolness exhaled from the dew-besprent bricks, the commodiousness of the seat which these steps afforded, and the uncertainty into which I was plunged respecting my future conduct, all combined to make me pause. I sat down on the lower ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... effort to reach the interpretation: it is the voice of M. Dastre! There is, then, a certain space of time, more or less long, in which we can correctly assert that we are not aware of what we are thinking; we are in the presence of a thought in the same state of uncertainty as in that of an external, unknown, and novel object. The labour of classification and of interpretation cast upon us is of the same order; and, when this labour is effected incorrectly, it may end in an illusion. Therefore illusions of thought are quite as ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... IN MUSIC.—So much uncertainty and diversity of opinion exists among music lovers of every grade concerning the presence of Form in musical composition, and the necessity of its presence there, that a few general principles are submitted at the outset of our studies, as a guide to individual ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... months and months ago, but were now freshened up and given their olden pith by the joyousness of the occasion. We revived and talked over old schemes gotten up in the earlier days of prison life, of what "we would do when we got out," but almost forgotten since, in the general uncertainty of ever getting out. We exchanged addresses, and promised faithfully to write to each other and tell how we found everything ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... hardness &c. adj.; impracticability &c. (impossibility) 471; tough work, hard work, uphill work; hard task, Herculean task, Augean task[obs3]; task of Sisyphus, Sisyphean labor, tough job, teaser, rasper[obs3], dead lift. dilemma, embarrassment; deadlock; perplexity &c. (uncertainty) 475; intricacy; entanglement, complexity &c. 59; cross fire; awkwardness, delicacy, ticklish card to play, knot, Gordian knot, dignus vindice nodus[Lat], net, meshes, maze; coil &c. (convolution) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... recognized a woman's headdress. And he disputed the point with himself; it might well have been Sabine's hair, only the neck did not seem sufficiently slim. At that hour of the night he had lost the power of recognition and of action. In this terrible agony of uncertainty his inside caused him such acute suffering that he pressed against the door in order to calm himself, shivering like a man in rags, as he did so. Then seeing that despite everything he could not turn his eyes away from the window, his anger changed into a fit of moralizing. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... you can! I don't think any one can," Arthur exclaimed unsteadily. He had been prepared for a lecture, for good advice, for a little contempt even; but his brother's attitude was unexpected, and it almost unnerved him. "It is the uncertainty of it all that is so tormenting," he went on. "Sometimes she is so kind, and sweet, and thoughtful, that I could almost worship her. And then, without any cause, she will suddenly become cold, and hard, ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "Uncertainty? Then what certainty could I ever have? Every hour spent at a distance from you will be full of hideous misgivings. Remember that every one will be doing the utmost to ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... on the mountain summit. By reason of the expected approach of a force around the right, breastworks were hastily thrown up and two pieces of artillery put in position to repel an attack from that direction. Pegram, in his uncertainty, concluded that Rosecrans might take a still wider circuit around his right and thus pass over the mountain by a pathway or road leading into the turnpike one and a half miles from Beverly; and to guard against this he ordered Col. Wm. C. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... his Dedication, the uncertainty of the orthography prevailing at the time he writes, and yet we find him spelling words several different ways, even within the compass of a single sentence, without being able to lay the blame upon the printers; thus we find him writing ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume
... a schooner at Green Bay, in which to take passage for Detroit, made it always a matter of uncertainty what length of time would be necessary for a journey across the lakes and back—so that it was not until the last of August that he again reached his home. Great was his surprise to find us so nicely moved and settled; and under his active supervision the evils ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... adrift, when for some distance he dropped like a stone. The folds of his apparatus, however, opening suddenly, his fall became instantly checked. The remainder of his descent, though leisurely, occupying, in fact, some twelve minutes, appeared to the spectators to be attended with uncertainty, owing to a swinging motion set up in the car to which he was clinging. But the fact remains that he reached the earth with only slight ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... No, I credit thee; go in, And prithee dress thy Eyes in all their Charms; For this uncertainty disturbs me more, Than if I ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... Christ, that the first Christians should have been so influenced in their measures and particular actions, as they could not but have been by a particular foreknowledge of the express and precise time at which Jerusalem was to be destroyed. To reconcile them to this uncertainty, our Lord first teaches them to consider this destruction the close of one great epoch, or [Greek: aion], as the type of the final close of the whole world of time, that is, of all temporal things; and then reasons with them thus:—"Wonder not that I should leave you ignorant ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... feverish under the protracted suspense. I was haunted by the apprehension of Sturk's recovering his consciousness and speech, in which case I should have been reduced to my present rueful situation; and I was resolved to end that cursed uncertainty. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... considered leeches might not be bad, but there was rather too much uncertainty about their mode of action. That was a sort of thing more in Cusack's and the Welchers' line than ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... his court. Being arrived, Bocchus, who, like the rest of his countrymen, did not pride himself on sincerity, and was for ever projecting new designs, debated within himself, whether it would not be his interest to deliver up Sylla to Jugurtha. He was a long time fluctuating in this uncertainty, and conflicting with a contrariety of sentiments: and the sudden changes which displayed themselves in his countenance, in his air, and in his whole person, showed evidently how strongly his mind was affected. At length, returning ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... still, as I have said, all I have to do in my present uncertainty, is, to brighten up my faculties, by filing off the rust they have contracted by the town smoke, a long imprisonment in my close attendance to so little purpose on my fair perverse; and to brace up, if I can, the relaxed fibres of my mind, which have been twitched and convulsed ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... from the habit of borrowing. So often I borrow trouble and cannot use it, when the peace that I possess is all that I need. Help me, that I may not miss the glory of to-day, by anticipating the uncertainty of to-morrow; but may I discern my place and have ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... surgeon rapidly took one step after another. Then he was sent for something, and the head nurse, her chief duties performed, drew herself upright for a breath, and her keen, little black eyes noticed an involuntary tremble, a pause, an uncertainty at a critical moment in the doctor's tense arm. A wilful current of thought had disturbed his action. The sharp head nurse wondered if Dr. Sommers had had any wine that evening, but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... iii. 527) and Lagarde have rightly correlated the Hebrew hallel with the Arabic ahalla (to call out, labbaika, see, for example Abulf. i. p. 180). But there is no uncertainty as to the derivation of ahalla ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... emblematical of the plenty which might always crown the bridal couple. Nowadays the bridal wreath is almost entirely composed of orange-blossom, on a background of maiden-hair fern, with a sprig of stephanotis interspersed here and there. Much uncertainty exists as to why this plant was selected, the popular reason being that it was adopted as an emblem of fruitfulness. According to a correspondent of Notes and Queries, the practice may be traced to the Saracens, by whom the orange-blossom ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... enough to strike, his sword was already in his hand. The first man fell dead; the second turned and fled, with a deep flesh wound in his shoulder; the third followed without striking a blow; and Sir Raymond rode on unhurt, meditating upon the uncertainty of the times. When he rejoined his wife and friend, he found them dismounted and sitting side by side on a fallen tree, talking low and earnestly, while the footmen and falconers were gathered together in a little ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... its foundations, yet we should choose that our educational work should be like the second rather than the first, even though it has reached "the ugly stage," though it has its disappointments and troubles before it, with its daily risks and the uncertainty of ultimate success. But it is a truer work, and a better introduction to the ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... Boy stared in uncertainty. Then he saw the lynx gather his muscles for the final, fatal rush. Without a whisper or a warning to the astonished Jabe, he whipped up his rifle, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... subsistence. Civilized man leaves the coarsest forms of slaughter to a professional class, and, if he kills at all, elevates his pastime to the rank of sport by the refining element of skill and the excitement of uncertainty and personal risk. But civilized man is still only too prone to prey upon his fellows, though hardly in the brutal manner of his ancestors. He preys upon inferior intelligence, upon weakness of character, upon the greed and upon the gambling instinct of ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... striking feature of a medieval village was its self- sufficiency. The inhabitants tried to produce at home everything they required, in order to avoid the uncertainty and expense of trade. The land gave them their food; the forest provided them with wood for houses and furniture. They made their own clothes of flax, wool, and leather. Their meal and flour were ground at the village mill, and at the village smithy their farm implements were manufactured. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... boarding-house. She found herself so unable to perceive its merits that it was almost a relief to see nothing of Miss Howe either; Hilda had gone to rehearsal, to the "dance-house," the servant said, eyeing the unusual landau. Alicia rolled back into streets with Christian names distressed by an uncertainty as to whether her visit had been a disappointment or an escape. By the next day, however, she was well pulled together in favour of the former conclusion—she could nearly always persuade herself of such things in time—and wrote a frank, sweet little note in her picturesque hand—she ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... by means of these pieces and diverse wheels, have been able to regulate the movement with absolute precision! Have I not subjected time to exact laws, and can I not dispose of it like a despot? Before a sublime genius had arranged these wandering hours regularly, in what vast uncertainty was human destiny plunged? At what certain moment could the acts of life be connected with each other? But you, man or devil, whatever you may be, have never considered the magnificence of my art, which calls every science to its aid! No, no! I, Master ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... leap and colour of pointed flames. He rose, opened his desk, drew papers out of pigeon-holes and laid them in order upon the wood, then pushed before it his accustomed chair. He did not take the latter; instead, after standing a moment with an indescribable air of weary uncertainty, he turned, went back to the firelit hearth, sat down, and, bending forward, hid his ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... after that day, to repair to the coast of Spain, about the heighth of the rock [of Lisbon?], some twenty or thirty leagues off shore. This being advisedly considered, and having regard to the shortness of time occasioned by our long delay at this place, and the uncertainty of favourable weather for us, it was generally concluded, as the best and surest way to meet my lord, to bear up for the heighth of the rock, without making any stay upon the coast, and thence to make directly for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... the Macquarie. A hot wind. Talambe of the Bogan Tribe. Tombs of Milmeridien. Another bullock fails. Natives troublesome. Successful chase of four kangaroos. Natives of the Bogan come up. Water scarce. Two red-painted natives. Uncertainty of Mr. Cunningham's fate. Mr. Larmer overtakes the party. Result of his survey. Send off a courier to Sydney. Marks of Mr. Dixon. Tandogo Creek and magnificent pine forest. Hervey's range in sight. Improved appearance of the country. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... utters the name of a man but twice a day, there is perhaps some uncertainty about her feelings toward him—but ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... he (Captain Burton) sometimes omits passages which he considers(!) tautological and thereby deprives his version of the merit of completeness (e.g. vol. v. p. 327). It is needless to remark that this uncertainty about the text destroys the scholarly value of the translation" (p. 180). The scribe characteristically forgets to add that I have invariably noted these excised passages which are always the merest repetitions, damnable iterations of a twice-, and sometimes a thrice-told ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... climbed an ascent into the woods, swinging sharply to the right. There was no uncertainty as to the direction of the tracks in the snow. If they veered for a few yards, it was only to miss a tree or to circle down timber. Whoever he might be, the man who had taken Jessie prisoner knew exactly where ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... ill, he was obliged to quit his work, and for a month I did not see him, though only a short square separated us. He was slowly yielding to an insidious disease, some said; and I had to bear the pain of this uncertainty, as well as the secret agony of my ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... and looked out over the bay. A dying gleam of sunset broke through a cloud and fell across her hair. For a moment she seemed the spirit of the shore personified—all its mystery, all its uncertainty, all its elusive charm. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... give me any details regarding the extremely attractive girl who had died upon his mistress's bed held me gripped in uncertainty. The mystery was even more puzzling now that I had started ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... to know what to do with Roy: how to treat him; how to bring him up. He may improve as he grows older. Perhaps to his unfortunate infirmity may be ascribed his uncertainty and his variability of temper and disposition. It is possible that he cannot hear even when he wants to hear. It is not impossible that he is making-believe all the time. One great, good thing can be said for Roy: he is never really cross; he never snaps; ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... We rowed with all our might, and got out of the reach of the giants. When we got to sea, however, we were exposed to the mercy of the waves and the winds, tossed about sometimes on one side and sometimes on another, and spent that night and the following day under a cruel uncertainty as to our fate; but next morning we had the good luck to be thrown upon an island, where we landed with much joy. We found excellent fruit there that gave us great relief, so that we pretty well recovered our strength. In the evening we fell asleep on the bank of the sea, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... of the hotel; and we joined our friends at the other end of the room. Not long afterwards I took my leave. My spirits were depressed; a dark cloud of uncertainty seemed to hang over the future. Even the prospect of returning to Frankfort, the next day, became repellent to me. I was almost inclined to hope that my aunt might (as Mr. Keller had ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... subject; but he defined his own part in advance by saying: "My reason makes me a disbeliever in many things; but the impressions of my childhood and the inspirations of my early youth have flung me back into uncertainty." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... doorway of the hotel, made an inquiry of the porter, and was directed to Cornelia's sheltered seat. She saw him cast a glance over her neat, walking costume, as he approached, and naughtily determined to prolong his uncertainty. On her own side, she honestly admired his appearance; compared him to his advantage with the other men in the hall, and was proud to welcome him as her friend. Her little, white face was sparkling with animation, as she held out her ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... was monotonous enough, uneventful enough, but singularly tranquil. The spring this year had brought not so much a quickening of life as a soothing sense of relief, relaxation, and a lazy contentment of mind. For the first time in years, Ivan felt absolutely at ease on the subject of money: knew no uncertainty as to future raiment, and food and shelter. True, the acquisition of wealth had brought him a loss of companionship: one never openly proclaimed, but perhaps, for that reason, the more keenly felt. In June, at the end of the year's work, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... case pains me at heart; and with all my levity, both the good folks most sometimes partake of that pain; nor will it be over, as long as you are in a state of uncertainty; and especially as I was not able to prevail for that protection for you which would have prevented the unhappy step, the necessity for which we both, with so ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... on the City of Buffalo. He dreamt that he was being chased around the deck by a couple of young ladies, one a very pronounced blonde, and the other an equally pronounced brunette, and he suffered a great deal because of the uncertainty as to which of the two pursuers he desired the most to avoid. It seemed to him that at last he was cornered, and the fiendish young ladies began literally, as the slang phrase is, to mop the deck with him. He felt himself being slowly pushed back and forward ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... among them with words and smiles of thanks were received with such charming manners that the giver—for the first moment faintly embarrassed—was soon set at her ease. When it came to the promoter and leader of the serenade, Aurora felt no more uncertainty. Money had so often gone from her hand to his. She with generous ease, as if passing a box of candy to children, tendered him some three or four times as much as ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... gained experience of the uncertainty which attended the favour of royalty, for, after a few days, "La Grande Mademoiselle" grew tired of her new toy, and sent him to the kitchen, where he became a cook's boy. Here, in the intervals of his work, surrounded by ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... the thought remained unspoken, and Enid, after spending the evening in vexed and anxious uncertainty, went to bed; and then, as soon as she felt that she was absolutely safe in her solitude, discussed the whole matter over again with herself, and wound the discussion up with a good hearty cry, after ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... practise, amid the bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound and true in poetical art, I seemed to myself to find the only sure guidance, the only solid footing, among the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they wanted in Art, and we do not. It is this uncertainty which is disheartening, and not hostile criticism. How often have I felt this when reading words of disparagement or of cavil: that it is the uncertainty as to what is really to be aimed at which makes our difficulty, not the dissatisfaction of the critic, who ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... style, and the like, the learned now dispute only about the truth of the game. But, however the company is altered, all have shown a great respect for Mr. Betterton: and the very gaming part of this house have been so much touched with a sense of the uncertainty of human affairs (which alter with themselves every moment) that in this gentleman, they pitied Mark Antony of Rome, Hamlet of Denmark, Mithridates of Pontus, Theodosius of Greece, and Henry the Eighth ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... with a horrible conflict of doubts. By contrast with her he rode disgracefully. Had he not better get off at once and pretend something was wrong with his treadle? Yet even the end of getting off was an uncertainty. That last occasion on Putney Heath! On the other hand, what would happen if he kept on? To go very slow seemed the abnegation of his manhood. To crawl after a mere schoolgirl! Besides, she was not riding very fast. On the other hand, to thrust ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... the foreigners will be molested, nevertheless it is impossible to tell just what to expect. It is certain, however, that the Consul will order all of us to Foochow if news of the situation reaches there. Owing to the uncertainty, I think you had better come in to Yen-ping so as to be ready for ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... cases variously compounded. This is the source of the difficulty which occurs in the reading of the external characters of mountains; and this is one of the causes of irregularity in the form of mountains, by which there is always some degree of uncertainty in our judgment ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... in particular; or, indeed, very little of any similar collections, frequent as they are in Scotland and throughout all Scandinavia. Stone coffins, no doubt, have been discovered in them, and human bones; but, beyond this, all is surmise and uncertainty. Often, when yet a boy, and engaged in fishing in the King's Burn, have we mounted these pyramids, and felt that we were standing on holy ground. "Oh," thought we, "that some courteous cairn would blab it out what 'tis they are!" But the cairns were silent; and hence the necessity we are ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... to see the white face and clenched hands of Randolph Schuyler's widow. She was holding herself together, and trying to get a gleam of hope from uncertainty. ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... Indian blanket. In the campaign of 1758 he wrote to his superior officer "that were I left to pursue my own Inclinations, I would not only order the Men to adopt the Indian dress, but cause the Officers to do it also, and be at the first to set the example myself. Nothing but the uncertainty of its taking with the General causes me to hesitate a moment at leaving my Regimentals at this place, and proceeding as light as any Indian in the Woods. 'T is an unbecoming dress, I confess, for an officer; but convenience, rather than shew, I think should be consulted." And ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... the case with the toad-flax, which is nearly sterile with its own pollen. But even in these cases the visits of insects bringing pollen [26] from other plants, must be carefully excluded. A special lecture will be devoted to this very interesting source of impurity and of uncertainty in ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... estates confiscated and assigned to time-serving officials, and endless abuses arising from the corruption of the courts, the judges being appointed by the very persons who were presently to invoke the law to their own profit. The tribal system was submerged, and the time of uncertainty was taken advantage of to introduce unlimited abuses, to assign to adventurers a fat share of other men's goods, to create a class legally owning the land, and entitled, in virtue of that ownership, to a share of the cattle and crops which they had ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... quick protest, "I wouldn't miss one moment of the excitement, one pain, one pang! I love it! It would simply break my heart not to share every chance, hazard, danger of this expedition—every atom of hope, excitement, despair, uncertainty—and the ultimate success—the unsurpassable thrill of exultation in the final instant ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... identify as the late crimson-lake. She would have to be pleasant with Diva, for much as that perfidious woman might enjoy telling her where this furtive bridge-party had taken place, she might enjoy even more torturing her with uncertainty. Diva could, if put to it, give no answer whatever to a direct question, but, skilfully changing the subject, talk about something ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... tail of his fiery little horse. On he came at a gallop almost up to the troops and then began to circle around them, calling and singing and throwing his crimson sword into the air, catching it by the hilt as it fell. Twice he rode completely around the soldiers, who stood in uncertainty, not knowing what to make of his performance, and expressly forbidden to shoot at him. Then paying no further heed to them he rode back towards the Crows. It appears that he had told them that he would ride twice around the hostile force, and by his incantations would call down rain from heaven, ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... heard Moonface telling anew for her the story of the flight in the wood, while her father, Hilltop, and her two strapping brothers listened with interest, but with no degree of excitement, she felt again the wild alarm and horror and uncertainty which had affected her when first she fled from what was to her so dreadful. She crept away from the cave door near which the others sat enjoying the balmy midsummer afternoon, beckoning to one of her brothers to follow her, as the big fellow did unquestioningly, ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... seated round the contents of our wallets, John and I, at all events, feeling in much better spirits than we had been in the morning; even the recluse threw off some of his reserve. We took the opportunity of telling him of our anxiety about our parents, and of the uncertainty we felt whether they had passed down the river. He in return asked us further questions, and seemed interested in ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... concerning his merits—for no notice is the worst notice—constitutes one of the "horns of his dilemma"; while their possibly invidious comments upon his want of them constitute another and equally formidable "horn." Between these, and the uncertainty as to whether he will not in a little time be cut by one-half of his acquaintances and only indulgently tolerated by the other half, his experience is apt to be very peculiar, and certainly not altogether agreeable. Never, therefore, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... inflation, unemployment, and budget deficits rising sharply. The fall of the socialist government in 1989 and the inability of the conservative opposition to muster a clear majority have led to business uncertainty and the continued prospects for lackluster economic performance. Once the political situation is sorted out, Greece will have to face the challenges posed by the steadily increasing integration of ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... me, was her first love; but whist had engaged her maturer esteem. The former, she said, was showy and specious, and likely to allure young persons. The uncertainty and quick shifting of partners—a thing which the constancy of whist abhors;—the dazzling supremacy and regal investiture of Spadille—absurd, as she justly observed, in the pure aristocracy of whist, where his crown and garter give him no proper power above ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... with a countenance of gloom, uncertainty, and deep anxiety, through the room, and after a little ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... to see the other side. And on Orde the responsibility, uncertainty, and vexation had borne most heavily, for the success of the undertaking was in his hands. With a few quick leaps he had gained the ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... nature of his method will be apparent from an examination of the above items; but in pursuing it he leaves all uncertainty behind and, trusting nothing to theory, he acquires absolute knowledge. Whatever may be the mental processes by which he arrives at the starting-point of any specific line of research, the final results almost ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... stipulated time has come, and our hidden romance is at an end. Had I taken this resolution a year ago, it would have saved me many vain hopes, and you, perhaps, a little uncertainty. Forgive me, first, if you can, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... order to furnish an opportunity to the natives of trading with us. They sometimes came on board, while we were five leagues from the shore. But, whether from a fear of losing their goods in the sea, or from the uncertainty of a market, they never brought much with them. The principal article procured was salt, which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... King give way to so great extravagancies, which do all tend to the making him less than he is, and so will, every day more and more: and by this means every creature is divided against the other, that there never was so great an uncertainty in England, of what would, be the event of things, as at this day; nobody being at ease, or safe. Being full of his discourse, and glad of the rencontre, I to White Hall; and there got into the theater-room, and there heard both the vocall and instrumentall ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... this uncertainty it was clearly perceived that, if Jackson was not again a candidate, a contest between Van Buren and Calhoun for the Presidency was unavoidable. Calhoun's chance of success was preeminent, for he would unite in his favor all the votes and influence of the South,—Van Buren not ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... it is the end of years of miserable uncertainty—of a semi-deception I could not escape—and of a moral loneliness I cannot describe. I must have often puzzled you and many others of my friends. Well, you have the key now. I can and will speak freely ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Wintermuth, pondering in silence for nearly a fortnight, left his Vice-President stretched on the rack of uncertainty without a glance in his direction. To all the tentative efforts O'Connor made to reopen the subject, his chief returned a curt refusal. There was nothing to do but to wait, and O'Connor, with ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... man of Sibnow (Orang Kaya), when I asked him why he did not collect the produce of the country, replied, that the inhabitants were few, and unless an English merchant was settled at Kuching to buy the things, it was no use collecting them. The uncertainty of sale, as well as the very small prices to be obtained from trading Malays, prevents these people using the advantages of their country, and as yet they seemed to consider it impossible that vessels would come for ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... how serious none could foretell, especially in New York where the crowded calendars retard speedy decisions. The experience of the elevated railroad corporations in building their lines had shown the uncertainty of depending upon legal precedents. It was not, at that time, supposed that the abutting property owners would have any legal ground for complaint against the elevated structures, but the courts ...
— The New York Subway - Its Construction and Equipment • Anonymous
... caused the greatest uncertainty in regard to the date of Sextus is that Claudius Galen in his works mentions several Sceptics who were also physicians of the Empirical School,[1] and often speaks of Herodotus, supposed to be identical ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... let the men, whenever possible, instruct the class. Announce that any man may be called upon to take charge, and the uncertainty will keep everyone studying. This plan will also give the men valuable practice in teaching others. Their periods of instruction, of course, must be limited, and unsatisfactory parts of their work reviewed ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... rowed with all our might, and got out of the reach of the giants. But when we got out to sea, we were exposed to the mercy of the waves and winds, and tossed about, sometimes on one side, and sometimes on another, and spent that night and the following day under the most painful uncertainty as to our fate; but next morning we had the good fortune to be thrown upon an island, where we landed with much joy. We found excellent fruit, which afforded us great ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Elsmere," he said, as he perceived Catharine's uncertainty. "Stay and help us, if ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that were we desirous to reduce an industrious people to the lowest stage of wretchedness compatible with industry, we would remove them to some barren district, and there throw them on the resources of this fishery exclusively. The employments of the herring fisher have all the uncertainty of the ventures of the gambler. He has first to lay down, if we may so speak, a considerable stake, for his drift of nets and his boat involve a very considerable outlay of capital; and if successful, and if in general the fishery be not successful, the take ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... lingered on the porch in strange uncertainty. Harry Cresswell would soon be coming downstairs. Did she want him to find her? She liked him frankly, undisguisedly; but from the love she knew to be so near her heart she recoiled in perturbation. He wooed her—whether consciously or not, she was always uncertain—with ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... beauty—the fascination of these "fairy missals," in which, it has been finely said, "the thrilling music of the verse, and the gentle bedazzlement of the lines and colours so intermingle, that the mind hangs in a pleasant uncertainty as to whether it is a picture that is singing, or a song which has newly budded and blossomed into colour and form." The accompanying woodcut, after one of the illustrations to the "Songs of Innocence," gives some indication of the general composition, but it can convey no hint of the gorgeous ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... of it straightway opens wide the door to hope and love; and such persons are, as we fancy they always will be, the nucleus of a Church. Their particular phase of doubt, of philosophic uncertainty, has been the secret of millions of good Christians, multitudes of worthy priests. They knit themselves to believers, in various degrees, of all ages. As against the purely negative action of the scientific spirit, the high-pitched ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... learn, as you phrase it, "all about vampyrs, if there ever were such things." I will not delay satisfying your curiosity, wondering only how my friend, your late tutor, Mr H., should have left you in a state of uncertainty upon a point on which, in my time, schoolboys many years your juniors had fully made up ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... for the individual whom their host had so frequently called 'the damned parson' to speak. The tension was relieved by the sudden quiet entrance of a young woman carrying a roll of music. Seeing the group of persons in the chancel, she paused in evident uncertainty. Walden glanced at her, and his composed face all at once lighted up with that kindly smile which in such moments made ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... too, in the eye todes the foot o' the class, where I'd occasionally set; an', tell the truth, it was the strongest reason for study thet I had—thess to get on to the side of her certain eye. Th' ain't anything much mo' tantalizin' to a person than uncertainty in sech matters. ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... brought to light by modern industry demanded a hearing, produced various theories and an extensive literature on the subject—a literature that spoke with a tongue of fire of the awful existence of the oppressed millions, their trials, their tribulations, the uncertainty, the dangers surrounding them; it spoke of the terrible results of their conditions, of the lives crippled, of the hopes marred; a literature that demanded to know why it is that those who toil are condemned to want and poverty, while those who never produced were living in affluence ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... a delightful uncertainty about our journey, for everything we saw was new to us, and we were able to enjoy to the fullest extent the magnificent mountain and loch scenery in the Highlands of Scotland, with which we were greatly impressed. It was ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... contradictory meanings to a root. Thus n, like the Latin in, signifies "penetration," "motion towards," or simply "remaining in a place," or, again, "permanence." M, like the Latin ab or ex, indicates "motion from." R expresses "uncertainty" or "incompleteness," and is employed to convert a statement into a question, or a relative pronoun into one of inquiry. G, like the Greek a or anti, generally signifies "opposition" or "negation;" ca is, as aforesaid, intensitive, and is employed, for example, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... fickleness, this disposition to shift about from one occupation to another, seems to be peculiar to American life, so much so that, when a young man meets a friend whom he has not seen for some time, the commonest question to ask is, "What are you doing now?" showing the improbability or uncertainty that he is doing to-day what he was ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... post when Joe took over. Now he made a swooping dart through the air of the cabin. The midget showed no signs of the fumbling uncertainty the others had displayed—but he'd been a member of a midget acrobatic team before he went to work at the Shed. He brought himself to a stop precisely at a hand-hold, grinning triumphantly at the nearly ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... if the seeds of disease were to vanish, if some large fortune were left him, if his temper sweetened, and his mind became vigorous, should not we be excused, considering what he had been and what he now was, if we, for a moment, forgot the uncertainty of the future; if we thought that a promise so changed, was almost equivalent to performance? And may not this same excuse be urged for some over-fondness of confidence for their well-doing whom we see so near to the kingdom of God, when we consider how utter is the misery, how hopeless ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... and I whiled away some hours reading it, but time began to hang heavily upon us and we daily longed for the appearance of the rest of the party so that we might push out on the great red flood that moved irresistibly down into the maw of Marble Canyon, and end the uncertainty that lay before us. August the first came and still no message. Fennemore now felt so sick that Jack took him to Lee's with rations in order that he might have vegetables with his meals with the hope ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... In this uncertainty the canoe was brought to a stop, and our voyageurs remained listening. The noise made by the water was not very distant, and sounded like the roaring of "rapids," or the rush of a "fall." It was evidently one or ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... going on. The two bodies differed somewhat in this way—that the peers had the right of summons to the former, when the judges might be called in to their assistance; whereas there were ex officio members of the Council who were not peers, and considerable uncertainty prevailed as to the right of peers as peers to attend the Council. The customary powers of the Council arose from the need of a court too powerful and independent to be in danger of being intimidated or bribed by influence or wealth, able to penalise gross miscarriage of justice fraudulently procured, ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... seventy-eight days. This limit is often varied from. Cases have occurred in which a much longer time has been required, and numberless cases have occurred in which human beings have been born several weeks before the expiration of the usual time, as stated. There is some uncertainty respecting the exact length of the period of gestation, which grows out of the difficulty of determining, in many cases, the exact time when ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... calculation has claims to approximate accuracy, that the process of change and development may not have been sufficiently rapid to have occurred within that period. His objection to the Classification argument is, however, more plausible. The uncertainty of opinion among Naturalists as to which are species and which varieties, is one of Mr. Darwin's very strong arguments that these two names cannot belong to things quite distinct in nature and origin. The Reviewer says that this argument ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... away the gold and silver. How many instances I can look back upon, of lords of the exchange and magnates of trade, who carved their names, as they thought, in imperishable marble on the doors of their warehouses, and then became bankrupt and fugitive, and were lost sight of. We all know the uncertainty ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... probably aware, herself. Law is a wonderful thing, and most wonderful is he who can tell what it is to-day, or is likely to be to-morrow. The law of testamentary devises, in particular, has more than the usual uncertainty, the great interest that is taken by the community in the large estates of certain individuals who are placed without the ordinary social categories by the magnitude of their fortunes, preventing anything from becoming absolutely settled, ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... liberalization in late 1991. The ethnically fractured opposition failed to dislodge KANU from power in elections in 1992 and 1997, which were marred by violence and fraud, but are viewed as having generally reflected the will of the Kenyan people. The country faces a period of political uncertainty because MOI is constitutionally required to step down at the next elections that have to ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... such that scarcely any aggression could be without a pretext, either in old laws or in recent practice. All rights were in a state of utter uncertainty; and the Europeans who took part in the disputes of the natives confounded the confusion, by applying to Asiatic politics the public law of the West, and analogies drawn from the feudal system. If it ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... long time, down the languid current of reminiscence; she seemed to sit passive, letting him push his way back through the overgrown channels of the past. At length she reminded him that they must bring their explorations to an end. He rose to leave, and stood looking at her with the same uncertainty in his heart. He was tired of her already—he was always tired of her—yet he was not sure that he wanted her ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... tables for the survey of educational work is as great as that of finding tables for medical work, and for the same reasons. There is the same separateness, the same diversity of immediate aim, the same alteration of character, the same uncertainty of policy. ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... it isn't fair. I don't feel honest to keep Phil in uncertainty, when I don't think—no, I really don't think I'm going ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... under their feet. Long they could not go on as now, and he was ready to do whatever was required of him, only he wished God would make it plain. The part of discipline he liked least—a part of which doubtless we do not yet at all understand the good or necessity—was uncertainty of duty, the uncertainty of what it was God's will he should do. But on the other hand, perhaps the cause of that uncertainty was the lack of perfect readiness; perhaps all that was wanted to make duty plain was ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... as soon as our arrangements are finally made. Some difficulties have occurred in settling matters with my father, owing to certain prepossessions which you can easily conceive his adopting. One main article was the uncertainty of her provision, which has been in part removed by the safe arrival of her remittances for this year, with assurances of their being regular and even larger in future, her brother's situation being extremely lucrative. Another objection was her ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... came out wiping his mouth. He was fresh from the breakfast table, but not on his way to the mill, since it was still too early. He gave Stoddard a surly nod as he passed through the gate and on down the street, in the direction of the Inn. Himes, in a turmoil of stupid uncertainty, once or twice made as though to detain him. His slow wits refused him any available counsel. Dazedly he fumbled for something convincing to say. Then on a sudden inspiration, he once more laid hold of the bridle and began to speak volubly in a ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... difficulties, in actual want and would not ask assistance from sheer pride. The thought was maddening and for days Stafford, distraught, unable to attend to his affairs, remained in the house, hoping, half expecting, she would return until the uncertainty and continual disappointment nearly drove him insane. He could not eat; he could not sleep. His ears still rang with her reproaches, her stinging words of bitter denunciation. At night he would wake up suddenly in a cold sweat imagining he saw her standing at the ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... union six children were born in the eight years of Mrs. Field's wedded life, only two of whom, Eugene, the second, and Roswell, survived babyhood. There is some uncertainty as to the exact date and location of Eugene's birth. When his father was married he took his bride home to a house on Collins Street, which, under Time's transmuting and ironical fingers, has since become a noisy boiler-shop. There their first child was born. Subsequently ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... perplexed his family, leaving them uncertain as to his movements, and at a loss how to act. At one time he talked of remaining a year at Bermuda, and wrote to his wife to come out with George and rejoin him there; but the very same letter shows his irresolution and uncertainty, for he leaves her coming to the decision of herself and friends. As to his own movements, he says, "Six weeks will determine me what to resolve on. Forbes advises the south of France, or else Barbadoes." The very next ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... summons implied, but he had no alternative but to change his clothes with all haste and to present himself at Court, while dowager lady Chia and the inmates of the whole household were, in their hearts, a prey to such perplexity and uncertainty that they incessantly despatched messengers on flying steeds to go ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... individual who could go on as well if they were to retire. The present House of Commons it is found impossible to manage, but it is believed that in the event of a dissolution another would be much worse; in short, all is chaos, confusion, and uncertainty, and the only thing in which all parties agree is that things are very bad, ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... Mancel arose only from a sort of epicurism in his predominant vice, but yet this was too doubtful a circumstance to be the ground-work of any plan of action. A man of acknowledged generosity and good-nature, however vicious, might do a noble action without having any criminal design. In this uncertainty of mind he knew not what to advise her, and was unwilling to excite such fears in the breasts of these two young friends, as might be groundless; but yet would entirely destroy their peace, therefore, he only told Miss Melvyn in general terms, that Mr Hintman's character was such, as rendered ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... future against the present, the uncertainty of all things future is a leading element; and that uncertainty is of very different degrees. "All circumstances," therefore, "increasing the probability of the provision we make for futurity being enjoyed by ourselves or others, tend" justly and reasonably "to give strength ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... and the causes which were assigned for it, Henry preoccupied the ground of the conflict; he entrenched himself in the "debatable land" of legal uncertainty; and until his position had been pronounced untenable by the general voice of Christendom, any sentence which the pope could issue would have but a doubtful validity. It was, perhaps, but a slight advantage; and the niceties of technical fencing might soon resolve themselves ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... low in the conservatory, soft perfumes from the many flowers fill the air. From beyond—somewhere—(there is a delicious drowsy uncertainty about the where)—comes the sound of music, soft, rhymical, and sweet. Perhaps it is from one of the rooms outside—dimly seen through the green foliage—where the lights are more brilliant, and forms are moving. But just in here there is no music ...
— A Little Rebel - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... day following the 18th Brumaire, in the uncertainty of parties, in face of a constitution audaciously violated, and a government mainly provisional, the nation was more excited than apprehensive or disquieted. It had caught a glimpse of that natural power and that free ascendancy ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... were suspended by the finest thread between heaven and earth, for there is nothing very solid under our feet and only a sea of ether over our heads. This description is wholly inadequate to interpret the sensation or the uncertainty. Can you imagine what it would be like? I cannot exactly say I feel "fear"; perhaps I cannot define fear; but a heaven-sent optimism buoys me up. In our journeys 'round, having previously experienced cold plunges in the dark, the fascination ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... shows that in most cases defeat is due to disorganization through panic. It is said that in daylight the moral is to the physical as three is to one. That being the case, it is hard to say what the ratio is at night, when a general atmosphere of mystery, uncertainty and fear of surprise envelops the operations, and, of necessity affects the nerves of the men. The vital importance, therefore, of accustoming troops as much as we can in peace to the conditions that will obtain in night fighting, cannot be overestimated. The following outline shows the subjects ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... companions the expedition proved to be full of excitement, for, apart from the novelty of the situation, and uncertainty as to what lay before them or was expected of them, the extreme darkness of the night, and the quick silent stealthy motion of the almost invisible hunters, filled their minds with—if we may ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... enthusiasm. He lived to know, and to rebuild his knowledge in a shape as durable and as magnificent as a Greek temple. He was content for years and years to lie unseen, unheard of, while younger men rose past him into rapid reputation. No unworthy impatience to be famous, no sense of the uncertainty of life, no weariness or terror at the length or breadth of his self-imposed task, could induce him at any moment of weakness to give way to haste or discouragement in the persistent regular collection and digestion of his material or in the harmonious execution of every part of ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... answered the stranger: "not at all, it may be. There is a pleasant dimness and uncertainty in my mode of being. I am taken off my feet, as it were, and float in air, with a faint delight in my sensations. The grossness, the roughness, the too great angularity of the actual, is removed from me. It is a state that ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... softness of the mud, occasioned by its admixture with water, as I proceeded there was every probability that still further west, water would be found upon the surface. Beyond these few facts, all was uncertainty and conjecture in this region of magic. Turning away from the lake, I retraced my steps towards the depot, and halted at dark after a stage of nearly forty miles. Here was neither grass nor water, and again I was obliged to tie up the unfortunate ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... imagine," I hastened to add, "that to men like Charles the First this uncertainty as to the safety of Cromwell ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... I thought him deceived, and attributed his suspicions to jealousy: but still, Fidel I knew was missing—and to hear he was your darling companion—was it possible to quit England in a state of such uncertainty? to be harassed in distant climates with conjectures I might then never satisfy? No; I told my friends I must visit Biddulph before I left the kingdom, and promising to return to them in three or four days, I hastily set out for Suffolk, and rested not till I ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... that he so well remembered in Holland. Here all was wild and varied; and all was on a scale of grandeur that inspired him with a feeling of awe and solemnity, heightened, no doubt, by the fearful uncertainty of his fate, and the thought that, perhaps, this was the last time that he should look upon these glorious hills, and ancient forests, and wide rushing rivers—the handiworks, and the visible teachers of God's ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... have consulted what was most for the honour and ease of every one of my family, if I have peculiarly consulted the possible delicacy of your situation, and have sacrificed every favourite passion of my heart to it, think what my present feelings are, in the uncertainty of the extent of those sacrifices which you may still think yourself obliged to make. The thought, my dearest brother, distracts me; I hint it to you, but I shall not feel a moment's happiness till I see you. ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... slaves, old and young, little ones and all, are suffering from exposure and uncertainty as to their future condition. Driven away by their master, with threats of violence if they return, and with no decided welcome or reception from us, what is to be their lot? Considerations of humanity ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... she ran to the door and looked out. There was nothing moving to be seen anywhere. Just the white moonlight here, the black patches of shadow there, the sombre wall of the forest land a few yards away. Her nausea of dread, her uncertainty, had passed. With never a glance behind her she ran down toward the barn. She knew that she would be afraid to go into the black maw of the silent building for her horse and yet she knew that she must, that she must mount and ride.... ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... an apparent want of uniformity in the texture of the paper, which causes the solution to penetrate portions the moment it is laid on the solution. Undoubtedly, when it does succeed, it is superior to Whatman's, but this is not enough to compensate for its extreme uncertainty. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... a sudden and unexpected denouement, a terribly dramatic end to our troubles if we could but clear up the horrible uncertainty remaining. ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... few who were not in uncertainty respecting the immediate future, and conspicuous among that ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... the assembling of the Democratic convention, in Denver, there was some uncertainty as to who would control it. Governor Folk, of Missouri, had been much in the public eye through his war on graft and on account of his successful administration of the gubernatorial office. Judge Gray, of Delaware, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... girl's face, a turmoil of busy thought was in her brain, but there was no uncertainty in the voice ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... probably perished in the same manner. But where the region of historical certainty ends, that of romantic tradition commences. The Portuguese, to whom the memory of their warlike sovereign was deservedly dear, grasped at the feeble hope which the uncertainty of his fate afforded, and long, with vain fondness, expected the return of Sebastian, to free them from the yoke of Spain. This mysterious termination of a hero's career, as it gave rise to various political intrigues, (for several persons assumed ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... unmeaning, to be even worth denial. And yet the positive school announce solemnly that they will not deny it. Now why is this? It is true that they cannot prove its non-existence; but this is no reason for professing a solemn uncertainty as to its existence. We cannot prove that each time a cab drives down Regent Street a stick of barley-sugar is not created in Sirius. But we do not proclaim, to the world our eternal ignorance as to whether or no this is so. Why then should ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... for it revealed to him what mighty issues of joy and grief hung upon the almost visionary thin thread of one little life. It is ghastly to be so idiotically dependent. Yet who, at some time, is not? And those who are independent lose, by their power, their possible Paradise. But such a time of uncertainty as that which Julian must now endure is a great penalty to pay for even the greatest joy, when the joy is past. He had his trance of the mind. He was hypnotized by his ignorance whether Valentine were alive or dead. And so he sat motionless, making the tour of an eternity of suffering, of wonder, ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... purely, so naturally, with all the supreme faith of the good woman, enamoured, who can yield herself up without blame to the man who loves her, that it hardly even occurred to Alan's mind to wonder at her self-surrender. Yet he drew back all the same in a sudden little crisis of doubt and uncertainty. He scarcely realized what she meant. "Then, dearest," he cried tentatively, "how ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... new home; and among them she wanted to put that green velvet pocket-book, gold embroidered, in some absolutely safe place, where it would not be seen by prying eyes or fall into dangerous hands. She did not intend to destroy its contents. She knew enough of the uncertainty of life to hold by all sorts of anchorages; and though things looked safe and sweet enough now, they might drift into the shallows again, and she wished her little Fina's future to be assured by one or other of those charged with it—if the stepfather failed, then to fall back on the father. Wherefore ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... good faith, that Nolan has two widowed sisters residing in that neighborhood. A correspondent of the Philadelphia Despatch believed "the article untrue, as the United States corvette 'Levant' was lost at sea nearly three years since, between San Francisco and San Juan." I may remark that this uncertainty as to the place of her loss rather adds to the probability of her turning up after three years in Lat. 2 deg. 11' S., Long. 131 deg. W. A writer in the New Orleans Picayune, in a careful historical paper, explained at length that I had been mistaken ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... long war which Bacon commenced against the idols of traditional or scholastic science. We see how the idola tribus, the idola specus, the idola fori, and the idola theatri, are destroyed by his iconoclastic philosophy. After all these are destroyed, there remains nothing but uncertainty and doubt; and it is in this state of nudity, approaching very nearly to the tabula rasa of Locke, that the human mind should approach the new temple of nature. Here lies the radical difference between Bacon and Des Cartes, between Realism ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... and relief, the black horse sprang forward over the snow so swiftly that it seemed as if it was flying rather than running, but this probably was due to the uncertainty and the illusion of the moonlight, and vanished into thin ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... come to her with—"Shall I tell you something?—You are going to marry a man of science!"—she would have smiled serenely at Fate's amusing mistake and responded—"My good friend, it is quite true that great uncertainty attends this subject. So much to be expected is the unexpected, that I am quite willing to admit I may marry the hurdy-gurdy man who plays beneath my window. I know life well enough to appreciate ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... son, you must speak to her now; your father gives his approval. So make up your mind. I tell you to do it, and, if need be, I shall order you to do it, for you can't rest in this uncertainty." ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... analysis has wrecked itself on the visible rocks of a false accuracy, and it is therefore not only out of caution but also out of mere common sense that we should eschew the arbitrary, even at the risk of vagueness and an 'unscientific' admission of uncertainty. For the only great and annihilating danger of writing on versification is dogmatism. Our theorists, both old and new, are first tempted and then possessed with their theories—all else becoming wrong and intolerable. In the following pages I have perhaps erred in a too frequent insistence on ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... and asked politely how Miss Leavitt had spent her holiday. This gave the girl with red hair time to control the temper which accompanied it. But if, in that brief interval of uncertainty, she had burst out with the fierce insult which burned her tongue, never again could she have ventured to claim friendship with Winifred Child. And if she had lost her right to claim it, all the future might have been ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
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