|
|
|
More "Wavering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... terrors had, His blighted prospects did not make him sad. To leave his wife and babes he was resigned, And this while all deemed him of unsound mind. The tempter, true, his faith and feelings tried, But his suggestions met "God will provide." This simple text was strong enough to stay Each wavering thought that rose from ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... by every movement, that she regarded him as an unlicked bear. With hatred he watched her worn but still "piquant," sneering, Parisian face, her white cuffs, her silken apron, and light cap. He sent her away, at last, and after long wavering (Varvara Pavlovna still did not return) he made up his mind to betake himself to the Kalitins',—not to Marya Dmitrievna—(not, on any account, would he have entered her drawing-room, that drawing-room where his wife was), but to Marfa Timofeevna; he remembered ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... not have told whether her "Meredith Barrett" at the bottom of the page was as firmly penned as ever. To him it was now wavering from one misty letter to the next. Slowly he made a business of folding the sheet into a neat square of paper which he could fit into the safe pocket under his belt. A crack was forming in the shell he had started to grow on the night he first rode out of Red Springs, and he now feared ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... elderly man in a gray coat, threading his wavering way through the noisy buffet of the streets of the city where Athalia had elected to dwell. He found her in a gaudy hotel, full of the glare of pushing, hurrying life. He sat down at her bedside, a little breathless, and looked at her with ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... evening, but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. Isidore's. He was tired: the languid summer air thus early in the year would shake any man's nerve. But the head nurse understood well that such a wavering of will or muscle must not occur again, or the hairbreadth ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... both pain. Yet in some pain there is pleasure; or, to be without it, is a worse kind of suffering. Helen was conscious of the inconsistency in her mind, and sighed, and endeavoured to be reasonable. And, to do her justice, there was not the slightest wavering as to the main point. She thought that the general might, perhaps, have some relenting towards her. Hope would come into her mind, though she tried to keep it out; she had nothing to expect, she repeatedly said to herself, except that either Cecilia would send, or the general ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... the Christian army upon Loxa threw the wavering Boabdil el Chico into one of his usual dilemmas, and he was greatly perplexed between his oath of allegiance to the Spanish sovereigns and his sense of duty to his subjects. His doubts were determined by the sight of the enemy glittering ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... be seen that this classification has no stable foundation. It furnishes no ultimate standard of right. The mean is a wavering line. It differs under different circumstances and relations, and in different times and places. That mean which is sufficient for one individual is insufficient for another. The virtue of a man, of a slave, and of a child, is respectively different. There ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... David up to Hebron with one single purpose in their hearts. They had no sidelong glances to their own self-interest, they had no wavering loyalty, they had no trembling fears, so we may take their spirit as expressing generally the deepest requirements for prosperity ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... through which I pushed towards a sound of tumbling waters. I stood at last upon the rocks above a torrent that went thundering down the mighty gorge which it had cloven itself between the hills. Thence I looked down a long, wavering valley over which the rays of the evening sun were slanting, and hazily in the distance I could see the russet city of Fornovo which I had earlier passed that day. This torrent was the Bagnanza, and it effectively barred all passage. So I went up, along its bed, scrambling over lichened rocks ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." The Christian must offer (2) also his continual testimony. He must "hold fast the confession of his faith without wavering." "By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifices of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name." And, finally (3), the Christian priest must offer the sacrifice of a holy life. ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark
... emerged from the concealment of the first clump of shrubbery, Middleton saw that he was a tall, thin person, in a dark dress; and this was the chief observation that the distance enabled him to make, as the figure kept slowly onward, in a somewhat wavering line, and plunged into the second clump of shrubbery. From that, too, he emerged; and soon appeared to be a thin elderly figure, of a dark man with gray hair, bent, as it seemed to Middleton, with infirmity, for his figure still stooped even in the intervals when he did not appear ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... moodily at the moon-painted pool where the trout, deceived by the brightness into thinking it was day, started widening ripple-rings here and there, where they flicked the surface with slaty noses; and the wavering rings were gold-tipped until they slid into the shadows and were lost. Dade watched three rings start in the center ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... in a hundred years my lips are opened, my voice echoes mournfully across the desert earth, and no one hears. And you, poor lights of the marsh, you do not hear me. You are engendered at sunset in the putrid mud, and flit wavering about the lake till dawn, unconscious, unreasoning, unwarmed by the breath of life. Satan, father of eternal matter, trembling lest the spark of life should glow in you, has ordered an unceasing movement of the atoms that compose you, and so you shift and change ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... say, his flesh; (21)and having a great priest over the house of God; (22)Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having had our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience; and having had our body washed with pure water, (23)let us hold fast the profession of the hope without wavering, for he is faithful who promised; (24)and let us consider one another, to incite to love and to good works; (25)not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the custom of some, but exhorting, and so much the more as ye ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... smile, A wavering purpose altered, Goaded a hand the crime to do At which before ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... in front moves pretty fast, in a silent swinging trot; the tops of the reeds or grass sway very gently, with a wavering, side to side motion. A pig rushes boldly through, and a deer will cause the grass to rock violently to and fro. A buffalo or rhinoceros is known at once by the crashing of the dry stalks, as his huge frame plunges along; but ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... attitude with regard to Italy, at first a desire for agreement, and then absolute rejection of all compromises, a refusal to grant any concession, so long as Rome should not be evacuated. This, indeed, seemed to be Sanguinetti's definite position; he made a show of disliking the wavering sway of Leo XIII, and of retaining a fervent admiration for Pius IX, the great, heroic pope of the days of resistance, whose goodness of heart had proved no impediment to unshakable firmness. And all this was equivalent ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... and slaves at heart Who, knowing thee what thou art, Abhor thee, seeing what none save here may see, Strong freedom, taintless truth, Supreme in ageless youth, Howled all their hate and hope aloud at thee While yet the wavering wind of strife Bore hard against her sail whose freight is ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... before Mrs. Blyth's wavering health permitted her husband to open the sittings of his evening drawing-academy ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... word spoken: and yet if once they be resolved, obstinate, hard to be reconciled. If they abhor, dislike, or distaste, once settled, though to the better by odds, by no counsel, or persuasion, to be removed. Yet in most things wavering, irresolute, unable to deliberate, through fear, faciunt, et mox facti poenitent (Areteus) avari, et paulo post prodigi. Now prodigal, and then covetous, they do, and by-and-by repent them of that ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... through the promises of the Gospel there are all these—"Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these we might be partakers of the Divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). O therefore "let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for He is faithful that promised" (Heb 10:23). "In hope of eternal life," how so? because "God, that cannot lie, promised it before the world ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... lacked interest in the trade union movement. As a matter of fact, both are true. An explanation of this attitude at the same time brings out another barrier opposed by the North to the free access of negroes to trades. Considerable wavering has characterized the attitude of the trade unions toward negro labor. The complexity of their organization makes it difficult to place any responsibility directly for their shortcomings. The fact remains, however, that despite the declaration of the constitution of the federated ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... of the bed, watching her mother's face intently. Naomi appeared to sleep. The candle burned long, and the wick was crowned by a little cap of fiery red that seemed to watch Eunice like some impish goblin. The wavering light cast grotesque shadows of Sarah Spencer's head on the wall. The thin curtains at the window wavered to and fro, as if shaken ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... intensity of electric search lights. A village appeared on the bank and he concluded to stop. Pulling in shore, he was bewildered to find only the mud bank. This discovery startled him into a realization that something was wrong with his brain. The mind was wavering between the hallucinations of a fever, and lucidity. Vagaries occasioned by a high temperature, would suddenly vanish as the struggling mind briefly asserted itself. As he resumed paddling, some swaying willows became three ladies attired in the Grecian bend costume, ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... love of God a mere wavering thing, perhaps known only at critical times; or was it not rather His vital breath and native air? "I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me where I am"; and "the only-begotten Son is in the ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris
... lips, as Cumae's cavern close, The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin, The rigid front, almost morose, But for the patient hope within, Declare a life whose course hath been Unsullied still, though still severe, Which, through the wavering days of sin, Kept itself icy chaste ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... false. Furthermore, the notion that it might have been true that nothing existed is a perfectly clear notion. The nature of dialectic is entirely corrupted when sincerity is lost. No intent can be self-contradictory, since it fixes its own object, but a man may easily contradict himself by wavering between one intent ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... general officers and of several regiments to repel them. The army of the Elector, entirely unsupported, and taken in flank by the English, wavered in its turn. All the valour of the Bavarians, all the prodigies of the Elector, were unable to remedy the effects of this wavering. Thus was seen, at one and the same time, the army of Tallard beaten and thrown into the utmost disorder; that of the Elector sustaining itself with great intrepidity, but already in retreat; and that of Marsin charging and gaining ground upon Prince Eugene. It was not until Marsin learnt of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... got better, and was able to see and speak with my people, there came to me several in trouble of different kinds, and the light was sullen and wavering; one, whose name I will not tell you, came to me with a sin upon his mind, and the vapour was all dark and stained; and so it has been till now; and these last weeks it has been even stranger; because by a kind of practice I have been led to infer what the thoughts in the mind of each person are, ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the British sailors were, they could advance no farther under so terrible a fire. Two of the barges were shot to pieces, leaving their crews struggling in the water. A ceaseless hail of grape and canister spread death and wounds broadcast among the enemy; and, after wavering a moment, they turned and fled to their ships. Cochrane, seeing his plan for taking the American positions by assault thus frustrated, redoubled the fury of his fire; hoping that, when daybreak made visible the distant shore, nothing but a heap of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... granddaughter, Eliza Wahrendorff. I am sure you will agree with me, dear boys, that your grandfather was right, but how seldom do we see an exhibition of such firm integrity among men, (even among brothers), of whom the poet truthfully says, "If self the wavering balance shake, ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... news came from persons passing along the road, and for a time things seemed to be mending. The police were getting the upper hand; the Mayor had made a plucky speech to the crowd in the market-place, with good results; the rioters were wavering; and the soldiers had been stopped by telephone. Then following hard on the last rumour came a sudden rush of worse news. A policeman had been killed—two injured—the rioters had gained a footing in the market-hall, and driven out ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... whole tendency of his nature changes. Instead of being assertive and rather insentient, he becomes wavering and sensitive. He begins to have as many feelings—nay, more than a woman. His heroism is all in altruistic endurance. He worships pity and tenderness and weakness, even in himself. In short, he takes on very largely the original role of woman. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... and blue. Canyon wrens and vireos sang as they nested. The air was clear, cool, and salty from the near-by sea. Myriad leaf shadows danced on the black roadbed, level as a barn floor, and across it trailed the wavering image of hawk and vulture, gull and white sea swallow. Linda studied the canyon with intent eyes, but bruised flesh pleaded, so reluctantly she arose, shouldered her belongings, and slowly followed the road out to the car line that passed through Lilac Valley, still carefully bearing ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... I averted my face and blushed so furiously that the walls of the cave were illuminated with a wavering crimson like the light of a great conflagration! Thinking that the capital city was ablaze, Juptka-Getch ran from the cave's mouth, crying, "Fire, fire!" and I saw him ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... without much re-writing, I said, and remembering my oath never to attempt the re-writing of an old book again, I fell back on the exclusion of A Drama in Muslin as the only way out of the dilemma. A wavering resolution was precipitated by recollection of some disgraceful pages, but a moment after I was thinking that the omission of the book would create a hiatus. A Drama in Muslin, I reflected, is a link between two styles; and a book that has achieved any notoriety cannot ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... action should under no circumstance be deferred. When all the votes of the provinces unanimously recommending the enthronement shall have reached Peking, the Government will, of course, ostensibly assume a wavering and compromising attitude, so as to give due regard to international relations. The people, on the other hand, should show their firm determination to proceed with the matter at all costs, so as to let the foreign powers know that our people are of ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... or defeat, in office or out, he was true to his own self and to his ideals. His early struggles, his firmness of purpose, his determination that knew no shadow of wavering, his exalted aims, and the success that ultimately crowned his efforts have given him high place among statesmen, and will be a continuing inspiration to the ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... of time; the fissile results of the frost; the wavering line of ripple-marks of Seas that shall ebb no more; growth of lichen; an army of ants in full march; a passion-flower trailing from a crevice, its purple blooms lying upon the gray stone near where it is stamped with ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... instead of abandoning the interior of the country I will hold what we have already taken, and fortify and enlarge our boundaries." No other military document has so nearly that ring as Marshal Foch's immortal Marne despatch (written only a few weeks later): "My centre is broken, my right wing is wavering, the situation is favorable and I am about ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... his shoulders, as only an Italian can, pushed open the door, and entered the chamber. The spear-shaped flames of two tall candles but half lit the room, making a circle of wavering light. Beyond all was in uncertain gloom, through which one could dimly see the old tapestry and massive furniture of ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... winds of delight, may they beat With their palpitant wings at the hearts of the Young, And in bosoms of Age find as warm a retreat!— Yet sweetest of all of the musical throng, Though least of the numbers that upward aspire, Is the one rising now into wavering song, As I sit in the silence and gaze ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... windows were covered tight with shutters and heavy screens before the doors. The waiter put a candle in a saucer before your plate and you ate your food in this wavering light. There was not the usual temptation to linger in the piazza after dinner, for the cafes were all sealed against a betraying gleam of light and the Venetian public had taken to heart the posted advice to stay within doors and draw their wooden shutters. ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... setting sun By twos and threes, in wavering rows, As twilight shadows dimly close, The crows fly ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... a low tone of voice as the boat glided nearer and nearer to where the shark was swimming slowly and wavering to and fro, and in my excitement I drew back, raising the lance high, and just as the monster was about to dash off in a fresh direction I threw myself forward, driving the point of the lance right into the soft ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... straight Of clouds condensed a sable car. With charm and spell she blessed it there, From all the fiends of upper air; Then round him cast the shadowy shroud, And tied his steed behind the cloud; And pressed his hand as she bade him fly Far to the verge of the northern sky, For by its wane and wavering light There was a star ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... floor, while in the front room upstairs a fire was evidently burning in an open grate, the rest of the house being in darkness. Presently a man's figure, tall and well formed, could be seen pacing up and down the room, appearing, vanishing, and reappearing in the wavering firelight. For nearly an hour he continued his perambulation, his hands clasped behind him as though absorbed in deep thought. At last, arousing himself from his revery, the man looked at his watch and vanished, reappearing ten minutes later at the front door, in the usual fur coat and cap, ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... solemnly declared on his deathbed that his master had sworn when once on the throne of England to banish all John's enemies.(199) Just when matters seemed to be approaching a crisis and the barons were wavering in their allegiance, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... foremost chiefs hallooing out that the white men were running, and to come on and scalp them. They were led by Dragging Canoe himself, and were formed very curiously, their centre being cone-shaped, while their wings were curved outward; apparently they believed the white line to be wavering and hoped to break through its middle at the same time that they outflanked it, trusting to a single furious onset instead of to their usual tactics.[35] The result showed their folly. The frontiersmen on the right and left scattered out still farther, so that their line could not be ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... thoroughly in earnest, Curly said no more, but stood there with his eyes fixed straight forward. The only time Glen spoke was whenever she detected his look wavering in the slightest degree. Then she called him sharply to attention, and warned him to be mindful of what ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... greatest of deaths far away from here, and because of another woman. It seems that, as I lay in the dark of this cave, I saw you, Umslopogaas, a great man, gaunt and grey, stricken to the death, and the axe Groan-maker wavering aloft, and many a man dead upon a white and shimmering way, and about you the fair faces of white women; and you had a hole in your forehead, husband, on the ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... face, and slightly wavering voice appealed to all that was tender and loving in his cold undemonstrative nature, and he was strongly tempted to take her in his arms, and tell her the truth, which every day he found it ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... affectation. The concluding cadenza, that twirling line, reads plainly "Frederic Chopin." Op. 15 shows a higher degree of independence and poetic power than Op. 9. The third (in G minor) of these nocturnes is the finest of the three. The words languido e rubato describe well the wavering pensiveness of the first portion of the nocturne, which finds its expression in the indecision of the melodic progressions, harmonies, and modulations. The second section is marked religiose, and may be characterised as a ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... he returned glibly. Then his pinched face shaded. "If I can git back before she comes down," he hesitated, wavering between kindness and fear. "I guess I can," he decided, ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... by this proof of American strength, his wavering mind was irritated by the apprehension of some sudden outbreak of English arrogance; for the Ambassador wrote that Whigs and Tories might yet unite in a war against France in order to put an end to the troubles in the Colonies,—and no Frenchman had forgotten ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... intrigue, he did not fear that a few fugitive princes, destitute of credit, and some thousand aristocratic emigres, would impose laws or conditions on a nation whose first struggle for liberty had shaken the throne, the nobility, and the clergy. Neither did he think that the disunited and wavering powers of Europe would venture to declare war against a nation that proclaimed peace so long as we did not attack them. But should the European cabinets be sufficiently mad to attempt this new crusade against human reason, then Robespierre fully believed they would be defeated, for he ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... too?" she asked, wondering whether the act of walking would tend to steady her wavering fancies, and to stop that horrible tendency to light-headedness which bothered ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... of cresset protected by a wire globe, was suspended from the roof by a string. It shed a faint and wavering light, creating weird shadows in that far-stretching space, too vast for ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... spirit burn, and for a little while she and he stood by the table while the cold blue flames curled out of the saucer, wavering and spurting, until the spirit was consumed and the ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... brother, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, was intercepted by Bonaparte. I translated the letter, which proved to him that Francis II. was acquainted with his project. He likewise saw with pleasure the assurances which the Emperor gave his brother of his love of peace, as well as the wavering of the imperial resolves, and the incertitude respecting the fate of the Italian princes, which the Emperor easily perceived to depend on Bonaparte. The Emperor's letter was ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... a close approach. There was the prelude of a few shots, which hurt one or two of Lambert's troopers; but the orders were that the general fire should be reserved till the musketeers should see the pikemen already within push of the enemy. Then it was not necessary. Lambert's men had been wavering all the while; his troopers now turned the noses of their pistols downwards; one troop came off entire to Ingoldsby; the rest broke up and fled. But Lambert himself was Ingoldsby's mark. Dashing up to him, pistol in hand, he claimed him as his prisoner. There was ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... It descended, its banners wavering in the winds of prayer; it hung above the Gates, the flowers of all splendours, Heaven's very rose, hung like an opal on the boundless breast of ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... the leader: Like shaft from the bow Each mad horse is hurled On the wavering foe. A thousand bright sabres Are gleaming in air; A thousand dark horses Are dashed on ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of the mountain tops all crimson and purple with the sunset; and there were bright tongues of fiery cloud burning and quivering about them; and the river, brighter than all, fell, in a wavering column of pure gold, from precipice to precipice, with the double arch of a broad purple rainbow stretched across it, flushing and fading alternately in the wreaths ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... drawn in—and I was glad. I luxuriated in my gladness, lying there in my room under the wavering, uncertain light of two candles, hearing the church bells clanging and echoing mysteriously beyond the wall. I lay there with a consciousness of being on the very verge of some adventure, with the assurance, too, that I was to be of use once ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... they are close upon one another; it is hard to say as they come speeding back from the flagstaff which will reach the columns first. There are new faces among the foremost—eager, glowing faces, unnoticed before. Katrinka is there, and Hilda, but Gretel and Rychie are in the rear. Gretel is wavering, but when Rychie passes her, she starts forward afresh. Now they are nearly beside Katrinka. Hilda is still in advance, she is almost "home." She has not faltered since that bugle note sent her flying; like an arrow still she is speeding toward the goal. Cheer after cheer ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... arduis servare mentem." The girls smiled at this, confident of their powers. The students at Hurst prided themselves on their Latin, and could have stood a much severer test without wavering. The seniors did not trouble to write their answers, but waited complacently until the time came when they should have an opportunity of airing their proficiency. It never came, however, for Tom chose to disappoint expectations by reading ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and replenished the fire with resinous pine logs, and for a while the flames leaped high, filling the woods with strange shadows and ghostly, wavering spots of light. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... caprices of fortune. The Duke of Brunswick's language to me, as we saw the Tricolor waving on the walls of Longwy, the first fortress which lay in our road, was—"Sir, your court must not be deceived. We shall probably take the town, and defeat its wavering army; but up to this moment, we have not been joined by a single peasant. The population are against us. This is not a German war; it is more like yours in America. I have but one hundred and twenty thousand men against twenty-five millions." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... with a sword. After Sankara had destroyed the Buddhists in India, it is said that he journeyed to Nepaul, where he had some difference of opinion with the Grand Lama. To prove his supernatural powers, he soared into the air. But as he mounted up the Grand Lama, perceiving his shadow swaying and wavering on the ground, struck his knife into it and down fell Sankara and broke ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... close together, meditative and silent, their eyes roaming idly over the courtyard. The big bonfire burned brightly, and a wavering splash of light lay on the dark earth at their feet, while the lazy smoke wreathed itself slowly in gleaming coils amongst the black boughs of the trees. They could see Lakamba, who had returned to his place, sitting hunched up ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... soul seemed to shudder and his reason cried out that the thing could never be.... Yet in his heart of hearts still he loved her, still desired her with all his strength and will; in his heart there was no wavering. Whatever Rutton had been, whatever his daughter might be, he loved her. And more, the honour of the Ambers was in pledge, holding him steadfast to his purpose to seek her out in India or wherever she might be and to bear her away from the unnamed danger that threatened ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... conduct of the next, he has not failed." His mind went over this several times.... And presently he felt himself sailing through space toward one bright star. For eternities he had sailed—dominant, deathless—often wavering in the zones of attraction of other worlds, but never really losing that primal impetus for his own light of the universe.... And so while she read, Bedient drifted afar, sailing on and ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... careful and dexterous, ever thinking of some fresh expedient to help the camp life; tough as steel on the traces, never wavering from start ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... thus spoke the carriage, making a sudden turn, showed them through the left window the village at some distance, still widely beaconed by the fire, which, having reached a store-house wherein spirits were deposited, now rose high into the air, a wavering column of brilliant light. They had not long time to admire this spectacle, for another turn of the road carried them into a close lane between plantations, through which the chaise proceeded in nearly total darkness, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Frenchmen pulled rapidly on, expecting to make an easy prize of the "Vestal." Their look of consternation was very great when they first perceived the painted canvas which concealed the corvette's guns. Pearce had carefully watched for the first sign of their wavering, and now ordered the three boats to make chase. The Frenchmen, taken by surprise, made but a slight show of resistance, and in ten minutes the whole party found themselves prisoners on the deck of the corvette. The "Vestal" was now towed up towards the brig, which opened ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... without a following, but the ranks of his old allies gradually began to show signs of wavering. His panic about the Jacobins within the gates slowly spread. His old faith, about which he had once talked so much, in the ancient rustic, manly, home-bred sense of the English people, he dismissed as if it had been ...
— Burke • John Morley
... are hard to please. Then without tropes, my Lord, An overmuch severeness, I repeat, When faith is wavering makes the waverer pass Into more settled hatred of the doctrines Of those who rule, which hatred by and by Involves the ruler (thus there springs to light That Centaur of a monstrous Commonweal, The traitor-heretic) then tho' some may quail, Yet others are that dare the ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... of admiration. By appealing constantly, when we praise, to the judgment of the pupils themselves, we shall at once teach them the habit of re-judging flattery, and substitute, by insensible degrees, patient, steady confidence in themselves, for the wavering, weak, impatience of vanity. In proportion as any one's confidence in himself increases, his anxiety for the applause of others diminishes: people are very seldom vain of any accomplishments in which they obviously excel, but they frequently ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... wavering expressively on the threshold as if in rebuke of such offhand acquiescence; then her retreating steps sounded down the passage, and Mary, pushing away her papers, crossed the hall, and went to the library door. It was still closed, and she wavered in her turn, disliking to disturb ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... steer the course that events took now. The rails of the main line beside us brightened in wavering parallels as the headlight grew down upon us, and in this same moment the shootings at the corrals chorused in a wild, hilarious threat. The burden of the coming engine heavily throbbed in the air and along the steel, and met and mixed with the hard, light beating of hoofs. The sounds ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... northwards from it, in which stood the new bare buildings of the Calliope. Outside the theatre itself there was a dense mass of carriages and human beings, only kept in order by the active vigilance of the police, and wavering to and fro with kaleidoscopic rapidity. The line of carriages seemed interminable, and, after those who emerged from them had run the gauntlet of the dripping, curious, good-tempered multitude outside, they had to face the sterner ordeal of the struggling well-dressed ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it was she who said: "But—" and paused uncertainly. I could see she was wavering, and I massed my horse, foot, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... blew up, and a wonderful strong light lighted the town, the river, and the camp. As it fell the dog bayed again, a long, sharp, wavering cry. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... remember—a weird and unearthly bit of living—that war-ruined church, strewn with straw, the wounded wrapped like mummies in dark blankets, their white bandages making high spots in the wavering, irregular lights of lanterns and pocket flashes moving about. I sat on the pavement by his side, hand in hand. A big crucifix hung above, and the Christ seemed to be ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... above my power. I would have liked to possess very much; that I might make him the owner of it all. And instead, I was going to give him as poor a wife as ever he could have picked up in the farm-houses of the North. Yes, I cared. I found I cared much. And though there was not, of course, any wavering of my judgment as to what was right, I found that to do the right would cost me something; more than I could have thought possible; and to tell Mr. Thorold of it all, was the same as doing it. I walked down a good many ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... tree-music will you see or hear in the strictly alpine portion of the forests. The burly Juniper whose girth sometimes more than equals its height, is about as rigid as the rocks on which it grows. The slender lash-like sprays of the Dwarf Pine stream out in wavering ripples, but the tallest and slenderest are far too unyielding to wave even in the heaviest gales. They only shake in quick, short vibrations. The Hemlock Spruce, however, and the Mountain Pine, and some of the tallest thickets of the Two-leaved species, bow in storms with considerable scope and ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... weighty authority, however, of Sainte-Beuve, at first thrown into the scale that at length would sink, was thence withdrawn, and at last, if not resolutely cast upon the opposite side of the balance, was left wavering in a kind of equipoise between the one and the other. But our preliminary sketch has already passed the limit within which our choice of authors for representation ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... no wavering or weakness apparent to the girl who marched beside him, and she wondered at the physical endurance of the man. But when at last they came to a clear pool of water, half hidden by overhanging rocks and long masses of depending mosses, in the midst of a natural grotto ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... down in writing before her and asked her if any of them were wrong; to this she replied: "yes:" "Which?" asked I—she said: "2." (the second) "What should it be?" I queried; she rapped "n." "How many of these letters belong to the first word?" I continued. "2." "And to the second?" She gave a wavering six—(though it may have been five). So the words purported to be "ne deresf." I could make nothing of it and asked her again—"What is deresf?" to which she gave the explanation: "ein tir." (tier animal) "An ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... dark and starless; the breeze, though slight and wavering over the sands, was penetrating and cold. The feet of Mrs. Armine sank down at each step into the deep and yielding sands as she went on into the blackness of the immeasurable desert. And as she gazed before her at the hollow blackness and felt the immensity of the unpeopled ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... behold, and, careless of himself, mindful only of his country, he exultingly exclaimed, "Oh, what a glorious morning!" And then, amid the flashing hills, the ringing woods, the flaming roads, he smote with terror the haughty British column, and sent it shrinking, bleeding, wavering, and reeling through the streets of ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... seat, fixed the corner of the slate well into his ribs, humped his back, and commenced another wavering line. ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... It is better, with all one's sins upon one's head, to deem oneself in the hands of Fate, than to think—with our fierce passions and weak repentances; with our resolves so loud, so vain, so ludicrously, despicably weak and frail; with our dim, wavering, wretched conceits about virtue, and our irresistible propensity to wrong,—that we are the workers of our future sorrow or happiness. If we depend on our strength, what is it against mighty circumstance? If we look to ourselves, what ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... couldn't have heard anything to warrant your theory, Mr. Hastings. I merely made fun of her wavering after she'd once said she'd confront Berne Webster again with ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... What they learned during those eight years of sitting still and not whispering had nothing to do with the books in their desks or the lore in their teachers' brains. The great impression stamped upon the wax of their minds, which became iron in after years, was democracy—a crude, distorted, wavering image of democracy, like every image an ideal in this imperfect world, but in its essence a reflection of the ideal of their country. No European could have conceived how literally it was true that the birth or wealth or social position of a child made no difference ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... she guided Baldy, while Buck strode beside, never wavering from the easy, powerful stride that was the ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... soil is soft as marl, with tints splashed on it of pale green and rose and orange, and a faint scent in it of sulphur. They break away into wild chasms, where rivulets begin; and here the narrow watercourses made for us plain going. The turf beneath our feet was starred with cyclamens and wavering anemones. At last we reached the chestnut woods, and so by winding paths descended on the village. Giuseppe told me, as we walked, that in a short time he would be obliged to join the army. He contemplated this duty with a dim and undefined ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... cattleman, tentatively; "him I speaks of former?" My gray old campanero was measuring out what he called his "forty drops," and, since this ceremony necessitated keeping one eye on his glass, while he endeavored to keep the other eye on me, the contradictory effort resulted in a wavering and uncertain expression, not at all in harmony with his usual positive air. By way of helping conversation, I confessed to a clear remembrance of the "Polish artist person," and wound up by urging him to give the ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... promise you blue-grass training, suh. That has to begin with a foal." He hoped Rennie would credit his wavering to a modest appraisal ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... clothes, and now came forth dressed out in skins, in strips of white cloth, with feathers, shells and various ornaments. They carried white wands to represent spears, and they sang their tribal lion song. A soloist delivered the main argument in a high wavering minor and was followed by a deep rumbling emphatic chorus of repetition, strongly accented so that the sheer rhythm of ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... eyebrows dark under her gold, very dark against her white; sorrowful, transparent, lucid eyes. A little girl with a straight white face. A little, slender girl in a straight white frock. She stood by Anthony's chair, spinning out the time, smiling at him with her childish wavering mouth, a smile that would not spread, that never went higher than the tip of her white nose, that left her lucid, transparent ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... Sedgwick. Slowly, in perfect order, the veterans of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania were falling back, contesting every inch of the way. One position was surrendered only to take another. There was no wavering, no falling out of ranks, except of those who were shot down. The next morning, one passing over the ground where those heroes fought, could see where they successively stood and breasted the storm by the dead men who lay in line where they had fallen. ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... since the early morning when her father and Diana, with the engineer and Stanley, rode away, after escorting her to the Mission Station and leaving her there to await their return. It was as though the very abruptness of Carew's departure had crystallised all her wavering, uncertain thoughts, and told her bluntly what he was to her. Before she had been half dreaming; ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... soldier who is called upon to fight her battles. But other objects of no less importance are in view, viz., to open the eyes of the misguided Boer people to the wicked artifices by which it has been seduced from friendly relations with England into an unjustifiable war, to deter the still wavering portion from joining the ranks of sedition, and, lastly, the grounds for palliation being recognised, to pave the way to an early termination of the war by adjustments which could restore mutual goodwill and respect between the contending ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... his presence, turned a wavering face to her friend; and Alice, before the other could speak, rose up, and went out, ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... possible. Briefly, he produced a caricature, modeled upon no existing work of modern art, but corresponding to the lineaments of that Desired of the Nation which pedants had prophesied. Unity of action celestial machinery, races in conflict, contrasted heroes, the wavering chance of war, episodes, bards, heroines, and love subordinated to the martial motive—all these features of the epic he viewed through the distorting ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... such as these that always called Molly back, if she had been ever so unconsciously wavering in her allegiance to Cynthia. She had been wishing downstairs that Cynthia would be less reserved, and not have so many secrets; but now it seemed almost like treason to have wanted her to be anything but what she was. Never had any one more than Cynthia ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... is but a memory, and its vividness cannot be made clear to another mind, any more than the vivid emotions of a dream. One must have seen his innate splendour, one must have known him before—looked at him then. The wavering gloom of the little cabin; the breathless stillness outside, through which only the lapping of water against the schooner's sides could be heard; Hollis's pale face, with steady dark eyes; the energetic head of Jackson held up between two big palms, and with the long yellow hair of his ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... and those writ large and deep, on the face of Warren Rodney; and, in default of an expression of deeper significance, the wavering lines of instability produced a curiously ambiguous effect of a fine head modelled by a 'prentice hand; a lady's copy of the Belvidere, attempted in the ardors of the first lessons, might ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... being stationed on the confines of the Lower Province, would be always immediately and essentially useful in checking any seditious disposition, which the wavering sentiments of a large population in the Montreal district might at any time manifest. In the event of invasion, or other emergency, this force could be easily and expeditiously transported ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... moment their letters arrive." It will be seen how much was at stake for Nelson personally in the issue of these weeks. Happy the man who, like him, has in such a case the clear light of duty to keep his steps from wavering! ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... rightful owner for his property, rents, and profits. In due season courts will be established to execute the laws, the confiscation act included, when we will be relieved of this duty and trust. Until that time, every opportunity should be given to the wavering and disloyal to return to their allegiance to the Constitution of their birth or adoption. ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... him with the little hybrid. One more, and offered with such simplicity! . . . "Lack of religion and good habits!" Then with sudden modesty, he doubted the woman's veracity. Why must it necessarily be his? . . . But his wavering was ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... left Lisconnel on a fine autumn morning, when the air was so still that the flashing and twinkling of the many dewdrops seemed to make quite a stir in it. The sky was as clear as any one of them, and in the golden light the wavering columns of blue smoke rose with curves softly transparent. He started with a buoyant step, as well he might, since he was setting out on the enterprise into which he had put all the spirit of his youth. He felt some regret at parting from his Lisconnel friends, but his ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... Hamlet. Tourneur, writing independently of Shakespeare, introduces, among all sorts of horrors, a Christian ghost who forbids blood vengeance and commands submission to Providence. Ben Jonson, in his additions to the old Spanish Tragedy, gives fine imaginative interpretation of the wavering moods of meditation, irony, and frenzy with which Kyd had dealt only crudely. The later development of this type proceeded without much regard to Shakespeare's Hamlet, but rather in the direction started ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... his typewriter money. There was no escape. He chanced to be at the Echo offices that day with copy for the next issue of his paper and was still rebelliously wavering over the loss of his typewriter when the door of Mr. Carter's private room opened and the great man himself appeared, ushering out a visitor. Glancing about on his return from the elevator his eye fell ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... these hopes: she was willing to believe in promises which she was convinced were made with entire sincerity; and when her affections had been wrought to this point, when her resolution was once determined, she never afterwards tormented the man to whom she was attached, with wavering doubts and scruples. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... of weak-bodied, large-winged insects, with an irregular wavering flight, and which, when resting on foliage, often expand the wings, which the species of the other sections rarely or never do. They are the most conspicuous ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... yet, consider, what was the object of the Government in their imposition? merely to get rid of "Popery?" No; it had the further object of gaining the "Papists." What then was the best way to induce reluctant or wavering minds, and these, I supposed, were the majority, to give in their adhesion to the new symbol? how had the Arians drawn up their Creeds? was it not on the principle of using vague ambiguous language, which to the subscribers would seem to bear a Catholic ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... his woman was running a band of sheep very close to the border of Tim Sullivan's lease. All afternoon Mackenzie had heard the plaint of lambs; they had lifted their wavering chorus all during Joan's lesson, giving her great concern that Carlson designed attempting a trespass on her ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... devolved upon Colonel Elzey.) and Beauregard, with ready judgment, dispatched his staff officers to order a general advance. The broken remnants of Bee, Hampton, and Evans advanced upon Jackson's right, and victory, long wavering, crowned the standards of the South. The Federals were driven past the guns, now finally abandoned, past the Henry House, and down the slope. McDowell made one desperate endeavour to stay the rout. Howard's ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... yards away a slender, upright object turned in a wide circle and moved slowly northward. To the south a cluster of smoke spirals appeared above the horizon, growing gradually more distinct. The party in one of the cutters raised a wavering cheer. ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... of that firm to his credit. He was, however, acquitted by a majority of three only. The greatest exertions were made to screen him. Lord Stanhope, the son of the Earl of Chesterfield, went round to the wavering members, using all the eloquence he was possessed of to induce them either to vote for the acquittal or to absent themselves from the house. Many weak-headed country-gentlemen were led astray by his persuasions, and the result was as already stated. The acquittal caused the greatest ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... of the "Foul Anchor."—Honest Joe stood with a perfectly composed look, and with a face that might readily have been trusted to confront a far more imposing tribunal, awaiting the result of his testimony on the seemingly wavering ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... held up high a flaming torch, and the watcher at the window saw that the shadowy crowd which had managed to force its way into the Park hung together, like bees swarming, on the farther lawn through which flowed the Serpentine. With the gleaming of the yellow, wavering light there had fallen a sudden hush and silence, and Mr. Tapster wondered uneasily what those people were doing there, and what it was they were pressing forward ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... hope or wish is to expire, Here's POWELL'S [101] pistol ready for your life, And, kinder still, two PAGETS for your wife: [xlix] Fit consummation of an earthly race 680 Begun in folly, ended in disgrace, While none but menials o'er the bed of death, Wash thy red wounds, or watch thy wavering breath; Traduced by liars, and forgot by all, The mangled victim of a drunken brawl, To live like CLODIUS, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... what manner of creature it was which gripped the satchel's handle and whose eyes pulsed back greenish flares into the torch's dim glow. But it was an animal of some kind;—distorted and formless in the wavering finger of blunted light; but still an ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... neighbors stumbling over the stony roads at twilight, when the day's work was done, to hear the daily paper read at the farmhouse on The Corners, eager to know the worst or the best every night. Hugh used to hold the candle, while Mark read in a slow, understanding voice about the marching, fighting, wavering, conquering of those days, now less remembered than the Iliad, when we warmed our hearts at the blaze of war. At every new local name, "Stop!" the old farmer used to say: "let's see where that is. Get the map.—Hugh, hold the light.—There 'tis, by that grease-spot—not the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... equal opportunity to study her. It was a doubtful satisfaction. He could rarely meet Dolly's eyes, while yet he saw how coolly they perused him, how calmly they studied him as an abstract thing. He wanted to see a little shyness, a little consciousness, a little wavering, in those clear, wise orbs; but no! Dolly sat at her work and did it as unconcernedly as if she were five years old, to all appearance; with as quiet, calm poise of manner and simplicity of dignity as if she had been fifty. But how pretty she was! Those eyes of hers were such ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... smiling, and wavering between the confidence the personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his own habit of ridiculing the Masonic beliefs—"I am afraid I am very far from understanding—how am I to put it?—I am afraid ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... judgment of the synod, must prepare themselves for an immediate exile, annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposition; which, from seventeen, was almost instantly reduced to two, protesting bishops. Eusebius of Caesarea yielded a reluctant and ambiguous consent to the Homoousion; [80] and the wavering conduct of the Nicomedian Eusebius served only to delay, about three months, his disgrace and exile. [81] The impious Arius was banished into one of the remote provinces of Illyricum; his person and disciples were branded by law with the odious name of Porphyrians; his writings were condemned ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... fireflies pulsed within the meadow-mist Their halos, wavering thistledowns of light; The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst, Laughed; and the echoes, huddling in affright, Like Odin's hounds, fled baying ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... I'll get you others if there's a shop open in the city," I said. Then, as she hesitated, wavering between doubt and surprise, I left the room, descended the steps with a rush, and picking up my hat, hurried in search of a belated florist who had not closed. At the corner a man, going out to dine, paused to fasten ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... affection was of that passive, tenacious kind which tacitly accepts all the faults of the beloved. He was always ready to sympathize with Ellen, and once or twice expostulated with Joanna—but his loyalty showed no signs of wavering. ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... at her side, her clothes touched his, and he could have flung his arms around her. But it was the move next after that which seemed obscure. He wondered what her reply would be; and, moving the lantern a little, she read the hesitation in his eyes—the wavering between desire for vengeance, a soldierly regard for sex, and mistrust of her apparent helplessness. And, being ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... insidious flattery, that was most soothing to her temper. Full, as he pretended, of the infant purposes of virtue, he besought his captive in the most importunate manner, to remain with him for a time, to confirm his wavering rectitude, to instruct him in duty, and thus to gain one human being to the standard of integrity, and to render so extensive possessions subservient to the happiness of mankind. All this he expressed with that ardour, which is congenial to the simplicity of truth; and with ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... the bleachers, whose chorus work had equalled, in some respects, that on the stage. A soft light began to illumine the painted heavens, and a three-hundred-candle-power Luna, the pride and joy of Connor's heart, rose in wavering majesty. The house was quiet now, listening to Smith's solo to Lillian in the moonlit garden. The music swept softly on to the close of the song. As Jack took a deep breath for his tender love-note, the ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... She kept on. The wavering gleam came from behind a thicket—an open fire, she saw at length. Beyond the fire she heard a horse sneeze. Within a few yards of the thicket through which wavered the yellow gleam she halted, smitten with a sudden panic. This endured but a few seconds. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... have seen, at evening, one or other of them, not both together. His imagination will therefore waver; and, with the imagination of future evenings, he will associate first one, then the other—that is, he will imagine them in the future, neither of them as certain, but both as contingent. This wavering of the imagination will be the same, if the imagination be concerned with things which we thus contemplate, standing in relation to time past or time present: consequently, we may imagine things as contingent, whether they be referred to time ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... to see Glenn working on his own farm must result in her talking to him about his work; and in a way not quite clear she regretted the necessity for it. To disapprove of Glenn! She received faint intimations of wavering, of uncertainty, of vague doubt. But these were cried down by the dominant and habitable voice of ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... back, bore with them their officers. The narrowness of the pass forced the mob into solid formation, and the rear-rank delivered some sort of a wavering volley. The Ghazis drew off, for they did not know what reserves the gorge might hide. Moreover, it was never wise to chase white men too far. They returned as wolves return to cover, satisfied with the ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... women have fantastic constitutions, Inconstant in their wishes, always wavering, And never fixed. Was it not boldly done, Ev'n at first sight, to trust the thing I loved (A tempting treasure, too,) with youth so fierce And vigorous as thine? but ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... shrinking whisper. She threw out her hands appealingly. "Roger, can't we leave the past behind? We've each a good deal"—her thoughts flew back to that dreadful episode in the improvised studio—"a good deal to forgive. Let us put the past quite away—on the top shelf"—with a wavering little laugh—"and leave it there. I've told you I'm willing to be your wife. Let's start afresh from that. I'll marry you as ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... not get beyond the spirit of bondage and do not succeed in attaining an immutable and incorruptible nature. Those, however, who are born from within by the immortal and incorruptible Seed of God are "changed from their wavering unstable power" into an inward likeness to God, into a love that binds man's spirit into union with God's Spirit, into "steadfast and unmoveable delight in goodness" and "fixed and unshaken ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... see, first the farms of the low-lying land, the treetops and pointed silos just showing above the dike, then the hillside, with the wavering white line of the road, then that strange, shabby dwelling of yellow stone almost hidden in its cluster of trees. Above it showed Cousin Jasper's house, very big and red, set upon the slope almost at the top of the ridge. On the other side of the stream there were fewer dwellings, ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... the tapestry, where you would have two peacocks to play with;" for just at that moment the moon, passing from under a cloud, lighted up one side of the tapestry, which, as Jeanne said, represented a garden with various curious occupants. And as the wavering brightness caught the grotesque figures in turn, it really seemed to the little girl as if they moved. Half pleased, half startled at the fancy, she ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... by a slight retrospection be able to discover, that his mind has suffered many revolutions; that the same things have in the several parts of his life been condemned and approved, pursued and shunned: and that on many occasions, even when his practice has been steady, his mind has been wavering, and he has persisted in a scheme of action, rather because he feared the censure of inconstancy, than because he was always pleased with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... sacred ceremony of the marriage. Jeanne listened in half affright. All their lives long, in sickness and health, in misfortune, they must never cease to love, never allow any wavering fancies, but go on to ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Mrs. Snarle had retired, the lovers sat in the little room, which was only lighted by a pleasant fire in the grate. Wavering fingers of flame drew grotesque pictures on the papered walls; then a thin puff of smoke would break the enchantment, and the fire-light tracery fled into ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... hands tremble as he laid them on his shoulder, and as he looked into his eyes a tinge of greyness seemed to steal underneath the sun-bronze of his skin. In the clear depths of the lad's hazel eyes he saw a faint, nickering, wavering light, which gave a yellow tinge ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... sky is aglow with colors untold, With a triumph of crimson and opal and gold, And wavering curtains woven of fire Are hung o'er the portals of Day's desire. The sun goes to rest in his western halls And over ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... so still, I freeze with fear she be dead, O then I creep out and cry to death, and pray pray to heaven, and burn much incense, and then creep back and bend close over Miss Sterling to bear if any little wavering breath come from lips or not, for it seem to me she ...
— Seven Maids of Far Cathay • Bing Ding, Ed.
... wife who, reverencing her womanhood, protested against its excesses. For five years past—ever since her marriage—her husband's career had been one long, unending dissipation. At last, broken down by a life he had not the moral courage to resist, he had succumbed and taken to his bed; thence, wavering between life and death, like a burnt-out candle flickering in its socket, he had been carried ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... from it. Perhaps the knowledge that such an attempt must have failed, and hindered him from making it. The reflection that he might as well die where he stood, as be licked up by the flames in the act of fleeing from them, had bound him to the spot, wavering and undecided! ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... window. Cloud after cloud of smoke ran wavering behind the exile. He was smoking like one ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... handle of the bell, when we were again in darkness. After ringing this feeble bell we presently heard doors open, and little footsteps approaching nigh. The door was opened by a girl of about Honora's size, holding an ill-set-up, wavering candle in her hand, the light of which fell full upon her face and figure: her face was remarkably intelligent: dark sparkling eyes, dark hair, curled in the most fashionable long cork-screw ringlets over her eyes and cheeks. ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... and he heard them and laid his hands on them, and absolved them as if he had been in a snug sacristy, instead of a perishing ship. Gerard got nearer and nearer to him, by the instinct that takes the wavering to the side of the impregnable. And in truth, the courage of heroes facing fleshly odds might have paled by the side of that gigantic friar, and his still more gigantic composure. Thus, even here, two were found who maintained the dignity ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... the sufferer's groan, And is that child of wrath his own? O mortal, wavering in thy trust, Lift thy pale forehead from the dust The mists that cloud thy darkened eyes Fade ere they reach the o'erarching skies! When the blind heralds of despair Would bid thee doubt a Father's care, Look up from earth, and ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... studied him, he had full and equal opportunity to study her. It was a doubtful satisfaction. He could rarely meet Dolly's eyes, while yet he saw how coolly they perused him, how calmly they studied him as an abstract thing. He wanted to see a little shyness, a little consciousness, a little wavering, in those clear, wise orbs; but no! Dolly sat at her work and did it as unconcernedly as if she were five years old, to all appearance; with as quiet, calm poise of manner and simplicity of dignity as if she had ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... spikes, pointed lances, maces, bright arrows, and many a discus of the form of the sun, saw him over head. And the king of birds, attacked them on all sides with showers of various weapons and fought exceedingly hard without wavering for a moment. And the son of Vinata, of great prowess blazing in the sky, attacked the gods on all sides with his wings and breast. And blood began to flow copiously from the bodies of the gods mangled by the talons and the beak ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... about the pine-knot fire, and the women and children by and by lying down to slumber, in soldier fashion, with their feet to the brands, under the pines and the stars, while the gray-coats stood guard in the wavering fire-light; but Mary lying broad awake staring at the great constellation of the Scorpion, and thinking now of him she sought, and now remorsefully of that other scout, that poor boy whom the spy had shot far away yonder to the north and eastward. Now she rose and journeyed again. Rare hours ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... back at her, that this was in no manner the first time a baffled woman had told him that she would kill herself. He had always accepted his kinship with her, but even in her trouble it was part of her consciousness that he now lumped her with a mixed group of female figures, a little wavering and dim, who were associated in his memory with 'scenes,' with importunities and bothers. It is apt to be the disadvantage of women, on occasions of measuring their strength with men, that they may perceive that the man has a larger experience and that they themselves are a part ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... and, as I am young and powerful, and by Diana, I swear I will slay thee! Seest thou this dagger with its glinting jewelled hilt? I draw it. See its quivering blade, and beware! Be careful; I am indifferent to all—desperate! We are alone. No wavering will I have. Fulfil quickly my behest, and once more remember: betray Nika, and like a sleuth-hound I will track thee, and ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... perhaps seem very hard labor to hunt about by a dusky light upon a desolate mountain-side, but when the snow is falling fast, when the light is only a small circle, wavering yellowish on the white, when around is a wilderness of loose stones and yawning clefts, when the air is ice and the hour is past midnight, the task is not a light one for a man; and Findelkind was a child, like that Findelkind ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... This led to a fresh debate about the journey; but they were all unwilling to turn back. Only a few miles separated them from Domo d'Ossola, and they were assured that, if no fresh snow should fall, they would be able to start on the following morning. This last assurance once more confirmed their wavering resolution, and they concluded to wait ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... by galloping wind Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight. The shining of the sun upon the water Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals In a long wavering irregular flight. ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... not introducing them into the garden? So after much wavering, he picked out only several volumes of those whose style was more refined, and took them in, and threw them over the top of his bed for him to peruse when no one was present; while those coarse and very indecent ones, he concealed in a bundle in the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... devotion. Gregory was left on the outskirts of the group and his attention was attracted by the face of little Mrs. Harding, who, all unnoticed and unseated, gazed upon Madame Okraska with the intent liquid eye of a pious dog; the wavering, uncertain smile that played upon her lips was like the humble thudding of the dog's tail. Gregory remembered her face now as one of those, rapt and hypnotized, that he had seen on the platform the night before. In the ovation that Madame Okraska had received at the ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... sat looking at him fixedly. As he now leaned back in his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes upon her in his turn, perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, when she was impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pent-up confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he must have overleaped at a bound the artificial barriers ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... close to the rail, wavering, irresolute. It is no lingering love of life which causes her to hesitate. Nor yet fear of death, even in the horrid form, she cannot fail to see before her, spring she but ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... resigned, And this while all deemed him of unsound mind. The tempter, true, his faith and feelings tried, But his suggestions met "God will provide." This simple text was strong enough to stay Each wavering thought that ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... shall say but little, as his character is far too common to need a comment; we can only say that his wanderings are not gratuitous, nor is he wavering and indecisive only because the author chooses to make him so. Every feature in his character is formed by education, and it is to this first source that we are constantly referred for a just and sufficient ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the thick of machine-gun fire and shrapnel, where Lieutenant Mackinson, Joe, Frank Hoskins and two or three others were laying a new line of communication, the wavering, swaying target was watched from time to time, and speculations made as to how long it could remain without being punctured by a bullet, thus forcing its two occupants to resort to their parachutes to make ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... fever. "Aim! Fire!" But the bouches sales make another rush at us. Driven on by their infuriated officers, they again reach our wire network. Our Captain commands, "Fire at will." Then, "Fire at repetition, fire until the magazine is exhausted." Just as the Germans, in wavering, hesitating groups, presenting vague outlines, try to cut our networks they tumble over like marionettes. Already some of our men, intoxicated with fury, stand ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... was a gainer of the 250,000l. which lay in the hands of that firm to his credit. He was, however, acquitted by a majority of three only. The greatest exertions were made to screen him. Lord Stanhope, the son of the Earl of Chesterfield, went round to the wavering members, using all the eloquence he was possessed of to induce them either to vote for the acquittal, or to absent themselves from the House. Many weak-headed country gentlemen were led astray by his persuasions, and the result was as already stated. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... consequences of the inactivity to which a long truce might reduce them. The risk was now incurred, however; and to display even more than his wonted splendour and liberality, seemed the best way of reconciling the wavering affections ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... begin with, I am shy of giving one of my deepest reasons because it is hard to put it without offence, and I am sure it is the wrong method to offend the wavering Anglo-Catholic. But I believe one of my strongest motives was mixed up with the idea of honour. I feel there is something mean about not making complete confession and restitution after a historic error and slander. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... straight-grained. What simplifies life is to have a single, specific direction in which to grow, a straight-grained, definite intention, the possibility of a straightforward life. The scattered, divergent, wavering life,—what is this but what we call the dissipating career? It abandons self-concentration and steadiness; it dissipates its energy. It does not mean to begin wrong, but because it has no fixity of direction it becomes, as we say, dissipated. And what is it, once ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... within the house presented a striking contrast to that without. In a great open fireplace the flames of the beech logs were wavering up the chimney. Seated in the radiance of their light, on a low stool, was a young boy with his elbows upon his knees and his cheeks in the palms of his hands. His mother sat by his side stroking his hair and gazing at him in fond, brooding love. The father was ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... themselves along behind a waggon, white-faced men with uneasy smiles on top of the waggons. A little farther back those who are trying to catch up: these are tragic figures, breaking into breathless little runs, but with a fine wavering attempt at striding out, as though they might be connecting files, when they march through a town or past an ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... policy in the long run; but somehow the run here seems so very long, and a short-cut opens such allurements to impatient desire. It requires a firm calm insight, or a noble habit of thought, to steady the wavering mind, and direct it away from delusive short-cuts: to make belief practice, and forego immediate triumph. Many of those who unhesitatingly admit Sincerity to be one great condition of success in Literature find it difficult, and often impossible, to resist the temptation of an insincerity ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... passes beyond our reach." Yet he who wrote these noble words was not only a flatterer to his imperial pupil, but is charged with having deliberately encouraged him in a foolish passion for a freedwoman named Acte, into which Nero fell. It was of course his duty to recall the wavering affections of the youthful Emperor to his betrothed Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, to whom he had been bound by every tie of honour and affection, and his union with whom gave some shadow of greater legitimacy to his practical usurpation. But princes rarely ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... charged home with the first of those wild, high rebel yells that rang throughout the war. The stricken and astounded Federal front caved in, turned round, and fled. At the same instant the last of the Shenandoahs—Kirby Smith's brigade, detrained just in the nick of time—charged the wavering flank. Then, like the first quiver of an avalanche, a tremor shook the whole massed Federals one moment on that fatal hill: the next, like a loosened cliff, they began ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... herein Himself, hindering her from yielding to this deceitful man, after a manner to be admired, and very thwarting to the designs of him and his associates. As long as I was with her she still seemed wavering and fearful; but oh, the infinite goodness of God, to preserve without our aid what without His we should inevitably lose! I was no sooner separated from her, ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... I addressed to her a deep courtsey; she replied with a nod, which, though slight, was still more than I deserved from her. The first steps she took in the parlor after she had seen me were stamped with hesitation and a sort of wavering; it was like the action of a partridge lightly hit on the wing and somewhat stunned by the shot. Would she go to the piano, to the window, to the right or to the left, or opposite? It was clear that she ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... young, yet looking closely it might be seen that her first youth was over. She was perhaps in her middle thirties. Her hair beneath the simple blue chip hat, had gray strands. There was a hesitating quality about her, as though she had never done so daring a thing as reach a decision; a wavering, indefinite figure, with a wistfulness, a soft appeal, quite charming. That she had never come in contact with realities showed in the wide innocence of the childlike eyes; the sometime trembling of the lips as when a thought as now engendered by the Procter home and ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... striking out with his fore-feet in such manner as quite to make up to his rider for the disadvantage of his low stature. The cavalier's horse recoiled in terror, rearing also, but snorting and backing and wavering, so that, in his endeavours to avoid the fury of Beelzebub, which was frightful to see, for with ears laid back and gleaming teeth he looked more like a beast of prey, he would but for the crowd behind him have fallen ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... gentle murmur came From the clear, bright heart of the wavering flame, Like the faltering ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... over there, Father Malloy, Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave, Not here with us on the hill— Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins. You were so human, Father Malloy, Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us, Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality. You were like a traveler ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... trial and condemnation of Louis XVI., the defection of Dumourier and its consequences, had doubtless roused the mind of the fervent but unsuccessful orator to the highest efforts which the decline of power, and the consciousness of wavering fortunes, and the menace of utter ruin, patriotism, honour, and love of life, could call forth. At last came the day, fraught with horrors, when the clamours of a despotic and inexorable mob, claimed of ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... might have been true that nothing existed is a perfectly clear notion. The nature of dialectic is entirely corrupted when sincerity is lost. No intent can be self-contradictory, since it fixes its own object, but a man may easily contradict himself by wavering between ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... a zealous care the mental food that is offered for the nourishment of the people in the rural districts, where it exercises the greatest influence. Agnosticism is a word practically unknown in the vocabulary of the French Canadian habitant, who is quite ready to adhere without wavering to the old belief which his forefathers professed. Whilst the French Canadians doubtless lose little by refusing to listen to the teachings which would destroy all old-established and venerable institutions, and lead them into an unknown country of useless speculation, ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... of the plain, straight path in which we ought to walk. We have the same metaphor in our own language. We talk about things being right and wrong, by which we mean, in the one case, parallel with the rigid law of duty, and in the other case, 'wrung,' or wavering, crooked and divergent from it. There is a standard as well as a Judge, and we have not only to think of evil as being rebellion against God and separation from Him, and as, for ourselves, issuing in fatal missing of the mark, but also ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... false and wavering to and fro, The brightsome flower of beauty fades away, Reason retires, and Pleasure brings in Woe, And Wisdom yieldeth place to black decay. Counsel, and fame, and friendship are condemned, And bashful shame, and gods ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... placed her on a couch, and while they applied restoratives, they bathed the wound, and tried to staunch the blood. She gave signs at length of life; but hers was no ordinary faint, and for hours did she continue in that state, wavering on the verge of death. As Ada herself, fevered and weary, sat by the side of her friend, she felt almost equally overcome with alarm and anxiety for the fate of her lover. What could have become of him? Had Paolo proved treacherous, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... notice to the Congress that he should, on an appointed day, move for a Declaration of Independence. This was accordingly done, but the consideration of the question was postponed until the 1st of July—so timid, so wavering, so unwilling to break the maternal connection were ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... most of them colored, rested their forearms upon the upper rail of the Parchers' picket fence, offering to William's view a silhouette like that of a crowd at a fire. Beyond the fence, bright forms went skimming, shimmering, wavering over a white platform, while high overhead the young moon sprayed a thinner light down through the maple leaves, to where processions of rosy globes hung floating in the blue night. The mild breeze trembled to the silver ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... on July 10. Jefferson complained of the weakness and wavering of this Congress, the majority of which shifted with the breeze of "panic or prowess." This was, however, a very narrow view; for at this session the House fairly represented the prevailing sentiment of the country, which ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... and the Kiddy in an innocent vanity was looking over her left shoulder and admiring her mouse-coloured tail. Of a sudden she caught sight of Nina's eyes in the glass regarding her sombrely. She turned and put up her face to Nina's, and paused, wavering. She closed her eyes and felt Nina's arms about her neck, and Nina's hands touching her hair with a subtle, quick caress, charged with confession. Laura's nerves divined it. She opened her eyes and ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... from Reason. SURTOUT, MON AMI, POINT DE ZELE. He talks about the Scylla of Atheism and the Charybdis of Christianity—a state of mind which, by the way, is not conducive to bold navigation. He was always wavering between the two in an attitude of suburban defiance, reconciling what is irreconcilable by extracting funny analogies all round for the edification of "nice people" like himself. Oh, very English! He did not lack candour or intelligence. Nor do ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... open. Outside it was dark, pitch-dark. But evidently the man entering had no fear of being seen. He threw down a bundle of dry fagots, and set fire to them. The blaze, leaping up, casting wavering gleams to where Judith stood, showed her plainly the twisted, ugly face of Quinnion, his red-rimmed eyes peering at her, ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... on a fine autumn morning, when the air was so still that the flashing and twinkling of the many dewdrops seemed to make quite a stir in it. The sky was as clear as any one of them, and in the golden light the wavering columns of blue smoke rose with curves softly transparent. He started with a buoyant step, as well he might, since he was setting out on the enterprise into which he had put all the spirit of his youth. He felt some regret at parting from his Lisconnel friends, but his plans ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... Wavering Tlascala decided for Cortes and he was received with generous, royal and munificent hospitality, which accorded him everything he asked. Messengers were despatched to Hispaniola for reinforcements and every preparation made for the renewal of the campaign. During the fall, troops, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... train the children. If the parents are orderly and firm, instead of wavering, the children almost intuitively fall into line. Teach them to obey and they will later be able ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... always provide for all possible events. No, Gentlemen, it is the order of Providence, in mercy to mankind, that wickedness should be defeated by its own folly. When the mind is in disorder the course is not straight and even, but irregular and wavering, it is detected by its obliquity: it is by the winding of the course that you discover you are in the path of the serpent "Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat," is a maxim which comes down to us sanctioned by the experience of all ages; and no man who has not slept for the ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... the tricks of memory, of an old Sabbath-school book I used to have which had a picture of Samuel ordaining Saul as king of Israel. I think I had forgotten my own peril and was enthralled by the majesty of the place—the wavering torches, the dropping wall of green water, above all, the figures of Laputa and the Keeper of the Snake, who seemed to have stepped out of an ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... himself to obey the orders of government, every where, and against every person, without limitation or restriction.—Count Mansfeld, now "factotum at Brussels," had taken the oath with great fervor. So had Aerachot, Berlaymont, Meghem, and, after a little wavering, Egmont. Orange spurned the proposition. He had taken oaths enough which he had never broken, nor intended now to break: He was ready still to do every thing conducive to the real interest of the monarch. Who dared do more was no true servant to the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... last even he fell out of range. The Indian pony, apparently tireless, shot on like an arrow driven into the teeth of the wind, sending up behind a cloud of dust that stretched backward toward the baffled pursuers, a long wavering ribbon like a clew left to guide the band into the mysterious depths of the Great ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... and looked down at the waves, now hardly a hundred feet below, their foaming hiss quite audible. From those waves, red light reflected as the sun sank, illuminated the Frenchman's lean, brown features and flung up wavering patches of illumination against the pilot-house ceiling of burnished metal, through the tilted windows that ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... reform of the House of Commons was the only effectual means of doing this, and Pitt brought forward a bill founded on his father's plans for that purpose. But though a more liberal section of the Whigs, with Charles Fox at their head, were wavering round to a wish for reform, the great bulk of the party could not nerve themselves to the sacrifice of property and influence which such a reform would involve. Rockingham remained hostile to reform, and Burke, whose influence still told much upon Rockingham, was ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... and proved the utter misery of such as cleave thereto, and finally made an end with prayer. And therewith he prayed for the prince, that he might hold fast the profession of the Catholick Faith without turning and without wavering, and keep his life blameless and his conversation pure, and so ending with prayer again ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... white streams of sea-birds coming toward the island. My glass showed them to be boobies. An instant later thousands of rabihorcados took wing as if impelled by a common motive. Manuel ran ahead in his excitement, turning to shout to me, and then to point toward the wavering, swelling, white streams. I hurried after him, to that end of the island where we had landed, and I found the colony of boobies in a state of great perturbation. All were squawking, flapping wings, and waddling frantically about. Here was fear such ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... yet I was certain I had seen it on some previous occasion. Seated at a window, however, was a lady who soon absorbed my whole weak and wavering attention. My first thought was: "How very pretty she is!" Then, "What is she looking at so steadfastly from the window?" After a moment I mentally laughed at my stupidity. "She's looking at the sunset. What else should she be looking at? Can I have slept ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... begged them not to mention the subject to me till my mind was quite made up about it. They respected my wish, and said no more; but they lent me books to read which assisted in strengthening my wavering resolution. Among these books was the Life of Madame de Montmorenci, who, after the shocking death of her husband, entered the Order of St. Mary. The great example of this lady made me reflect seriously, ...
— A Fair Penitent • Wilkie Collins
... hillside ruddy brown, I shall see the haymakers, While the noonday scarcely stirs, Brown of neck and booted gray, Tossing up the rustling hay, While the hay-racks bend and rock, As they take each scented cock, Jolting over dip and rise; And the wavering butterflies O'er the spaces brown and bare Light ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... shelter under the lee of the weather bulwarks, for the wind seemed to be made of pen-knives and needles! The sturdy Gull straining and plunging wildly at her huge cables, trembled as our third gun thundered forth its summons, but the rocket struck the rigging and made a low, wavering flight. Another was therefore sent up, but it had scarcely cut its bright line across the sky when we observed the answering signal—a rocket ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... painted in handsome black letters across the back, failed to give us a thrill of pleasure. At last it became too utterly miserable to be borne. The sight of the deck-steward bringing round cups of half-cold beef-tea with grease spots floating on the top proved the last straw, so, with a graceful, wavering flight like a woodcock, we zigzagged to our bunks, where we have ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... came back upon him with renewed force. For years he had looked at all earthly good through the medium of a philosophy which taught him that it, without exception, contained within itself the seeds of bitterness, and was altogether worthless and impermanent; but now to his wavering faith the sweet delights of home and love, the charms of wealth and power, began to show themselves in a different light, and glow again with attractive colours. He doubted, and agonized in his doubt; but as the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... not have come for years, the fool, if he had only obeyed," said Cleek; then lapsed into silence and stood staring at a dust of white flour on the red-tiled floor and at a thin wavering line that broke the even surface ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... But there was a wavering note in the word, as though she had begun to doubt. He was silent a ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... had for some time been supported by the counsels of his queen, Annabella, a daughter of the noble house of Drummond, gifted with a depth of sagacity and firmness of mind which exercised some restraint over the levities of a son who respected her, and sustained on many occasions the wavering resolution of her royal husband. But after her death the imbecile sovereign resembled nothing so much as a vessel drifted from her anchors, and tossed about amidst contending currents. Abstractedly considered, Robert might be said to doat upon his son, to entertain respect and awe for ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the Surrey shore a blue light—vaporous, mysterious—flicked translucent tongues against the night's curtain. It was a weird, elusive flame, leaping, wavering, magically changing from blue to a yellowed violet, ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... increase—my love grows cold, And Hope within me dies: Even Faith itself is wavering now; Oh, how shall ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... at his pipe for a few minutes before replying. Hugh waited, watching the slender boy stretched out in a big chair before the fire, his ankles crossed, his face gentle and boyish in the ruddy, flickering light. The shadows, heavy and wavering, played magic with the room; ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... I pressed her to this assignation, She spoke like one in doubt what she should do; She demurred much upon the decency of it, And somewhat too she seemed to urge, of her Engagement to the prince: In short, sir, I perceived her wavering, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... up a dark flowing tide of memory. Lane shut his eyes, and saw the tide flow by with its conflict and horror. The feel of his gun, and the recall of what it had meant to him in terrible hours, drove away a wavering of will, and a still voice that tried to pierce his consciousness. It fixed his sinister intention. He threw the gun on the bed, and rising ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... are realized, and that with the least labour, it is to this branch of industry that settlers generally direct their attention; indeed until plenty of stock is introduced into a new colony its success is wavering and uncertain, and its inhabitants are generally compelled to undergo a degree of poverty and privation which contrasts strangely with the affluence of the people occupying the more settled countries. ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... must be absolutely steady, and there must be no wavering, no tremolo, no uncertainty. ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... it arose that the prosecution of Mr. Hastings, even after the accession of the Minister, excited but a slight and wavering interest; and, without some extraordinary appeal to the sympathies of the House and the country—some startling touch to the chord of public feeling—it was questionable whether the inquiry would not end as abortively ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... of remorse, how little he had been in her mind during the past two months while he lay struggling for life. She felt that she had done him a wrong, and, scarcely understanding herself, gave way to a flood of tears over the wavering lines, every word of which bore evidence of the ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... outdoor warning devices, the Attack Warning Signal is a 3- to 5-minute wavering sound, or a series of short ...
— In Time Of Emergency - A Citizen's Handbook On Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) • Department of Defense
... believe they were satisfied with, and grateful for, the measure. He added, in conclusion:—"We do not think that there is any violation of conscientious scruples involved in our proposition. We believe that it is perfectly compatible to hold steadfast the profession of our faith without wavering, and at the same time to improve the education, and to elevate the character of those who, do what you will—pass this measure or refuse it—must be the spiritual guides and religious instructors of millions of your fellow-countrymen." Sir Robert Inglis met the motion for leave to bring in this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the sword slung o'er us But by a single hair, and that still wavering, To be blown down by his imperious breath Which spared ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... was so unexpected that my knees almost gave way. The people were still standing, wavering, looking uncertainly toward us. I raised my voice again, and if it sounded unnatural my hearers probably thought it was because I was ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... wave of red and brass broke through the gaps in the rail fence, and the sunlight rippled along a wavering line of British bayonets. They crept nearer, nearer, until Jabez could see the grim ferocity, the bared teeth, the staring ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... as if he also were ashamed, came within reach of the wavering hands, and crouched low, to be looked over with ten slender ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... up the lights, flung a dressing-gown about her shoulders and opened the door. Ralston was in the passage, behind him she saw lights strangely wavering and other faces. These too wavered strangely. From very far away, she ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... silent among the inhabitants of this last imperial residence; but, nevertheless, the Emperor personally seemed to me more calm since he had come to a definite conclusion than at the time he was wavering in painful indecision. He spoke sometimes in my presence of the Empress and his son, but not as often as might have been expected. But one thing which struck me deeply was, that never a single time did a a word escape his lips which could recall the act of desperation of the night of the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... these (three), or their possession is the better for those that desire happiness, should be settled by thee after careful thought. And thou shouldst then, O king, unhesitatingly act either for acquiring them, or abandoning them all. For he who liveth wavering between the two doubtingly, leadeth a wretched life. It is well known that thy behaviour is ever regulated by virtue. Knowing this thy friends counsel thee to act. Gift, sacrifice, respect for the wise, study of the Vedas, and honesty, these, O king, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... that was so it couldn't be the hand of Katherine. At least he had proved that Robinson and Rawlins had been wrong about her. That sense of victory stripped him of his paralyzing fear. It loosed the tight band about his throat. He called. He could prove the immaterial nature of the repulsive hand wavering from ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... A great wavering sigh escaped her, a sigh that ended in a sob, plaintive, wailing, sad. But still her eyes ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... me no doctors; I hate doctors! But I'll go to bed—since—since you wish it; but no doctors! Not for the world!' As he spoke, he shrank coweringly backwards, out of the room; his wavering, unquiet eyes fixed upon mine as long as we remained within view of each other: a moment afterwards, I heard him dart into his chamber, and bolt ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... to the parlor with inherited self-possession; and there, through the wavering light of a tallow dip, the bandmaster saw a young girl in black rising from a chair by the center table; and he brought his spurred heels together and bowed ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... to her feet, thinking of nothing but his wavering, slipping life till she saw his breath return, his eyes refill with light. Then the horror of what was yet to come—the answer which must be given to the how she saw trembling on his lips, caused her to sink again upon her knees in an unconscious ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... Prahasta, suddenly advancing up to Vibhishana and uttering a loud yell, struck him with his mace. But though struck with that mace of terrible force, the mighty-armed Vibhishana of great wisdom, without wavering in the least, stood still as the mountains of Himavat. Then Vibhishana, taking up a huge and mighty javelin furnished with a hundred bells, inspired it with mantras and hurled it at the head of his adversary. And by the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the sound of voices—a woman's raised voice, and dad's. It was evidently a row. Sally ran to the door, and they listened to what was passing. Down the half-lighted stairway they could just discern two figures, faintly outlined in the wavering flutter of gas. Obviously dad was drunk, for he was haranguing a rather hysterical Mrs. Clancy, who stood at the foot of the stairs and shouted after him. She said that he was drunk, that he ought not to ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... growing in size and radiance until the whole flood is illumined. There is an exquisite hush of a moment. The sun has risen and kindled its reflection in the gold. The music describes better than words the spreading of tremulous light down through the deep. Through the wavering ripples of water and light cuts the bright call of the gold, the call to wake up and behold. Again and again it rings, regularly a golden voice. The Rhine-daughters have quickly forgotten their victim. They begin their blissful circumswimming of their idol, with a song in ecstatic celebration of ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... because at a time when you were wavering between detestable principles and the impulses of a generous heart I saw that you were inclining towards justice and honesty. And I love you now, because I see that you are triumphing over these vile principles, and that your evil inspirations are followed by tears of honest regret. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... had contributed one iota toward the destruction of any soul except their own.... Then Lana came into our tent and stood looking down at me where I lay; and dimly through my lashes I could perceive the shadow of Boyd behind her on the tent wall, wavering, gigantic, towering to the ridge-pole as he set the camp-torch in its socket on the flooring." She passed her slim hand across her eyes. "It was like an unreal scene—a fevered vision of two phantoms in the smoky, lurid lustre of the torch. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... see you, sir," he said; and made room for the entrance of Dick Bellamy, holding by the arm, and both supporting and guiding the wavering ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... again met each other alive. For the unparalleled insult of a bribe offered to Judge Lynch—who, whether bigoted, weak, or narrow, was at least incorruptible—firmly fixed in the mind of that mythical personage any wavering determination of Tennessee's fate; and at the break of day he was marched, closely guarded, to meet it at the top of ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... imagination: on the other hand, he who is oppressed by the evils around him so as to stand gaping at them in horror, has a feeble will and a want of practical power, and allows his fancy to come in, like too much wavering light upon his work, so that he does not see to go on with it. A man of sagacity, while he apprehends a great deal of the evil around him, resolves what part of it he will be blind to for the present, in order to deal best with ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... walked through the hall with heavy steps, then becomes composed and speaks in a more unconcerned manner). Will you take off your things, Hella? (rises, wavering). I don't know, I ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... the silence alone answered him. The studio was as he had seen it last, save for those fantastic shadows which the candle's wavering flame wreathed in the dim corners and along the pictured walls. There, on its half-draped pedestal, the Roman senator stood, dead white against the purple background, and there, close to the foot of it, the great ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the confidence the personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his own habit of ridiculing the Masonic beliefs—"I am afraid I am very far from understanding—how am I to put it?—I am afraid my way of looking at the world is so opposed ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... forth with the bleachers, whose chorus work had equalled, in some respects, that on the stage. A soft light began to illumine the painted heavens, and a three-hundred-candle-power Luna, the pride and joy of Connor's heart, rose in wavering majesty. The house was quiet now, listening to Smith's solo to Lillian in the moonlit garden. The music swept softly on to the close of the song. As Jack took a deep breath for his tender love-note, the note that was to ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... time to note that an irregular oval was traced in its center, with a crooked, wavering cross at one end. Then as he bent closer to the light a twig snapped treacherously behind him and a crushing blow upon ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... I not Ottilia Decked with my gift? did I not hear.——Shame! shame! Go, go, Estella, see him! say, and firmly, We meet no more! say, that the veil is rent! Say, that I know him wavering, vain, ungrateful, Flattering and false! and having said this, add, False as he is, he's ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... Woman! Of what mysterious particles could nature have formed so strange a being—made up, as it were, of contradictions, and yet deriving from that very inconsistency its principal attraction. Uncertain and wavering, but amiable in that very weakness. When impelled by affection or smarting under highly excited feelings of injury, thou art capable of the most noble enthusiasm, or the darkest exhibitions of passion. Man, proudly arrogating to himself a despotic sway over the higher walks ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... his Father than Homan. In the midst of the strife, he had done what he could for what he thought was right. All his influence had been used with the wavering ones, and many were those who owed him a debt of gratitude. But his greatest reward was in the peace which dwelt within him and the joy with which he was greeted by ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... hour of the poll was a period of unremitting labour for both parties; it was generally estimated that not more than a dozen votes separated the candidates, and every effort was made to bring up obstinately wavering electors. It was with a feeling of relaxation and relief that every one heard the clocks strike the hour for the close of the poll. Exclamations broke out from the tired workers, and corks flew ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... the difficulties that affect us all in the way of keeping a firm hold on, or firm standing in (for the two metaphors coalesce) the gospel, which is the true grace of God, are those that arise from two causes working in combination. One is our own poor weak hearts, wavering wills, strong passions, unbridled desires, forgetful minds; and the other is all that army and babel of seductions and inducements, in occupations legitimate and necessary, in enjoyments which are in themselves pure ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... that you would think they might hold themselves up there in the air, or rest on the silver river mist, if there were no walls under them. As I look at the castle through the mist it seems half clear and solid and firm, and half wavering and dim, mysterious and magical, like ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... been made to cast suspicion on our friend's character from these very writings. A large number of men are even yet in error regarding him, since they fancy that the man of many sides must be indifferent, and the versatile man must be wavering; it is forgotten that character is concerned simply and solely with the practical. Only in that which a man does and continues to do, and in that to which he is constant, does he reveal his character, and in this sense there has been no more steadfast man, no man constantly more true ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... daylight" of Fitzgerald's fine phrase as being not inapplicable to the atmosphere of MacDowell's writing. He has few reservations, and he shows small liking for recondite effects of harmonic colour, for the wavering melodic line—which is far from implying that he is ever merely obvious or banal: that he never is. His clarity, his directness, find issue in an order of expression at once lucid and distinguished, at once spontaneous and expressive. It is ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... pretty, fluttering thing, Must we no longer live together? And dost thou prune thy trembling wing, To take thy flight thou know'st not whither? Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly Lies all neglected, all forgot; And pensive, wavering, melancholy, Thou dread'st and hop'st thou ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the means employed, the rebellion was disorganized for a while, but the Spanish authorities had not the tact to follow up this coup by temperate and conciliatory measures towards their wavering quondam foes. Persons who had been implicated in the rebellion were re-arrested on trivial trumped-up charges and imprisoned, whilst others were openly treated as seditious suspects. The priests started a furious campaign ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... these he hazards his speeches in the House. He has also a knowledge of mankind, and of the composition of the House. He takes a thrust which he cannot parry on his shield—is 'all tranquillity and smiles' under a volley of abuse, sees when to pay a compliment to a wavering antagonist, soothes the melting mood of his hearers, or gets up a speech full of indignation, and knows how to bestow his attentions on that great public body, whether he wheedles or bullies, so as to bring it to compliance. With a long reach of undefined ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... be. Who but himself could undergo that great trial, and hardship, and self-denial, and firm purpose, never wavering, never sinking for a moment, keeping his grasp on life like one who holds up by main force a sinking and drowning friend?—how could a woman do it! He must then give up the thought. There was a choice,—friendship, and the love of woman,—the long ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... France there was no swordsman fit to meet, even with a rapier, the foil of Aubyn Auberley. Neither was it any slur upon his loyalty or courage that he was now going westward from the world of camps and war. It was important to secure the wavering De Wichehalse, the leading man of all the coast, from Mine-head down to Hartland; so that, with the full consent of all the king's advisers, Lord Auberley left court and camp to press his own suit peacefully. What a difference he found it to be here in mid-September, far away from any knowledge ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... across the chamber, moody and alone. The taper was nigh extinguished; the wasted billet grew pale, a few sparks starting up the chimney, as the wind roared in short and hasty gusts round the dwelling. The old family portraits seemed to flit from their dark panels, wavering with the tremulous motion of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... for a finite will not in harmony with itself? Whilst the only farther perplexity that the passage indicates, is the existence of those evil conditions by which the finite will, already so weak and wavering, is yet ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... every citadel by frosts upreared, Were lighted with wild splendors, as the troupes Of messengers rushed swiftly to and fro. The people of the Arctics knew their Queen Summoned her subjects to the Presence then By wavering tints which played beneath the Star, And the great speed with which the North-Lights flew. They hurried even to the Temperate Zone. A band of phantom spirits took wings and flew Far to the southern sky, a fluttering crowd. A warrior, yellow garbed, with fiery spear, Bestrode a ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... the place; the mutterings ceased as if tongues were stricken stiff. Rufe, with his head now enwrapped in crossed bandages, stared toward the great rock with a wavering expression in his smoldering eyes, an expression that hovered between reluctant submission, reawakened cupidity, and dawning hope. Dolores stood motionless, imperious in every line and feature, her heavy eyelashes veiling ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... little specks and squirmy things?" Emmy saw them. She followed their wavering motion in the glass as the stern forefinger pointed. "Those are little baby snakes," said Becky mysteriously. "The well is full of 'em. Sometimes you can see 'em, sometimes you can't, but they're always ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... willing to believe in promises which she was convinced were made with entire sincerity; and when her affections had been wrought to this point, when her resolution was once determined, she never afterwards tormented the man to whom she was attached, with wavering doubts ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... replied I, sitting alert with chattering teeth and shivering ague-stricken body. "Barrister-at Law.... Sit as close to me as you can, for warmth.... Hark! Is that a signal?" as a long high wavering note rose from the dry river-bed before us and wailed lugubriously upon the night, rising and falling ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... repeal of the duty on tea. Sir, I can give no security on this subject. But I will do all that I can, and all that can be fairly demanded. To the experience which the honorable gentleman reprobates in one instant and reverts to in the next, to that experience, without the least wavering or hesitation on my part, I steadily appeal: and would to God there was no other arbiter to decide on the vote with which the House ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it," said Murchison, between puffs of his pipe, as at the end of a day he and Hedin sat in the doorway of the trading room and watched the yellow flames from a hundred campfires stab the black darkness of the night, and send wavering shadows playing in grotesque patterns upon the walls of the tepees. The harsh din of the encampment all but drowned the factor's ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... as if to present his misery in embodied form, he produced a note-book and tried to concentrate his attention upon the items therein recorded. Line after line of wavering figures danced in impish glee before him, defying inspection. But at the foot of the column, like soldiers waiting to shoot a prisoner, stood four formidable units unquestionably ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... Prepare, ye Trojans! while a third we bring Select to Jove, the inviolable king. Let reverend Priam in the truce engage, And add the sanction of considerate age; His sons are faithless, headlong in debate, And youth itself an empty wavering state; Cool age advances, venerably wise, Turns on all hands its deep-discerning eyes; Sees what befell, and what may yet befall, Concludes from both, and ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... else on the stairs now, climbing with an extreme slowness. A bare arm reached through the trap, wavering for a moment uncertainly. Ugly bruises showed on the white flesh. Tolliver managed to reach the trap. He grasped the arm and drew into the light the dark hair and the chalky face of his wife. Her wide eyes ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... winked and did not open any more; and through the night a faint, far cry came drifting down the river-wind—a long, thin cry, like the wavering screech of an owl—a shrill, high, ugly sound; the lights began to wink, wink, wink, to dance, to shift, to gather into one red star. Out of the darkness came a wisp of something moving ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... Lloyd Fenneben's face, and his black eyes held a strange light. He stared vacantly at the landscape until he suddenly noted the slender wavering pillar ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... text. And notice how the reality of the surrender is emphasised by the closeness of the bond which, in the mysterious eternity, knits together the Father and the Son. As with Abraham, so in this lofty example, of which Abraham and Isaac were but as dim, wavering reflections in water, the Son is His own Son. It seems to me impossible, upon any fair interpretation of the words before us, to refrain from giving to that epithet here its very highest and most mysterious sense. It cannot be any ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... should have been glad to have had the comradeship of that gallant company had they not firmly insisted that fellowship depends upon identity of creed. They repudiated similarity of aim and social sympathy as tests which were much too loose and wavering as they did that vague socialism which for thousands has come to be a philosophy or rather religion embodying the hope of the world and the protection of ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... my visage rais'd: And thus the face denoting by the beard, I mark'd the secret sting her words convey'd. No sooner lifted I mine aspect up, Than downward sunk that vision I beheld Of goodly creatures vanish; and mine eyes Yet unassur'd and wavering, bent their light On Beatrice. Towards the animal, Who joins two natures in one form, she turn'd, And, even under shadow of her veil, And parted by the verdant rill, that flow'd Between, in loveliness appear'd as much Her former self ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... time he stands hesitating; in his mind a conflict of emotions—a struggle between filial affection and selfish desire. Thus wavering, a word would decide him to turn back for Godalming and home. But there is no one to speak that word, while the next wave of thought surging upward brings vividly before him the sea with all its wonders—a vision too bright, too fascinating, to be resisted by a ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... in name only," said Mrs. Rodney, beginning to sniffle. She looked up and smiled wanly through her tears. "You know what I mean. My grammar is terrible when I'm nervous." She pulled at her handkerchief for a wavering moment. "Do you think I'd better speak to Edith? We may be ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... reliquary force To heal and raise from death my heart. How tranquil and unsecular The precinct! Once, through yonder gate, I saw her go, and knew from far Her love-lit form and gentle state. Her dress had brush'd this wicket; here She turn'd her face, and laugh'd, with light Like moonbeams on a wavering mere. Weary beforehand of the night, I went; the blackbird, in the wood Talk'd by himself, and eastward grew In heaven the symbol of my mood, Where one ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... there in the clean-swept yard, now snapping her small fingers, now coaxing with soft noises in her round throat, her sparkling eyes fixed on the gaunt grey skeleton that stood on its four feet braced wide apart, wavering dizzily. ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... clenched her hands. Evidently, whatever her trouble, she had determined to bear it alone, but was now wavering. ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... two, a long cold wait for a rabbit that didn't come, or a miscalculation over the length of the snow tunnel where a partridge burrowed for the night. Generally, if you follow far enough, there is also a story of good hunting which leaves you wavering between congratulation over a successful stalk after nights of hungry, patient wandering, and pity for the little tragedy told so vividly by converging trails, a few red drops in the snow, a bit of fur blown about by the wind, or a feather clinging listlessly to the underbrush. ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
