"Hesitation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shall then be in a position to indicate the true rank of the sun amid the countless hosts of heaven. But whatever may be the importance of the sun, viewed merely as one of the bodies which teem through space, there can be no hesitation in asserting how immeasurably his influence on the earth surpasses that of all other bodies in the universe together. It was therefore natural—indeed inevitable—that our first examination of the orbs of heaven should be directed to that mighty ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... cypress and pine rails is, without hesitation, appropriated to feed the fires of the bivouac; and the chilled, soaked soldiers gather around them to get ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... steamers and refused to return. I thought this was hard, as it was my money that had helped him from the time he left Arequipa until he secured employment. My money was almost gone, but I had gone to the Amaras market and bought what edibles I needed, and without hesitation had started alone to return to Arequipa, over those fearful heights and dread solitudes of the Cordilleras, ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... One Saturday night our fine policeman was airing himself on this platform, colouring a handsome new meerschaum for Mr. Swarbrick. It was a windy night and a sudden gust blew his tall hat into the river, and after it unfortunately dropped the meerschaum. Hat and pipe both! Without a moment's hesitation in plunged the policeman to the rescue; but the river was deep and he an indifferent swimmer. The night was dark and he was not brought to land till life had nearly left him. He recovered, but lost his sight and became blind for the rest of his ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... old-fashioned dignity about the way Blue Bonnet acknowledged her error. It appealed to Miss North. She was so frank, so evidently sincere, that almost without an instant's hesitation Miss North replied: ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... Raynes, angrily. "Share and share alike. We were all in it; and I say if you shoot them, shoot us, too;" and he stepped back, the others after a momentary hesitation following his example. ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... young friend's anxiety and thoughtfulness was, no doubt, a trifling one to all but herself; the cause of her hesitation, however, was honourable; the opinions, feelings, and motives under which she eventually acted, were ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... they went they demanded still more money—ten thousand pieces of eight—as a ransom for the town, which otherwise should be given to the flames. There was some hesitation on the part of the Spaniards, some disposition to haggle, but there was no hesitation on the part of l'Olonoise. The torch WAS set to the town as he had promised, whereupon the money was promptly paid, and the pirates were piteously begged to help quench the spreading flames. This they were ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... say, the more numerous public composed of those persons unable to think for themselves, and in consequence, led by others, styling themselves philanthropists, but appearing to have very jesuitical ideas with regard to truth. This I have no hesitation in asserting, that if philanthropy had not been found to have been so very profitable, it never would have had so many votaries: true philanthropy, like charity, begins at home. Observe how the papers teem with the misery of the lower classes in England, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... translation does not perhaps enjoy a very high literary status in England, but we have no hesitation in numbering the present version of Ibsen, so far as it has gone (Vols. I. and II.), among the very best achievements, in that ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... rare, soft green," said Mr. Procter. He went on slowly but without hesitation. "The color of poetry. That color belongs in one who lies on the grass and gazes at the sky—and dreams; dreams to waken men's souls with the beauty of his music—a poet, a maker of songs, to uplift, to keep man's eyes ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... had noted her hesitation, and glancing at the metre saw instantly that the measure of a drinking-song he knew well would fit the words. This fell out better than he had hoped, and with the thought, "I will jostle her out of her dignity now," he began singing without any ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... in a dilemma; however, he made up his mind not to show any hesitation, and said, "What are you talking about? There is no O Koyo here; and I never saw such a person ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... individual who has recently committed some crime, properly selected stimulus words will lead him to recall the scene of the crime, and thus to make responses that betray him, unless he checks them and so arouses suspicion by his hesitation. Another use of the test is for unearthing a person's emotional "complexes", which of course possess a high intensity value. If the subject shows hesitation and embarrassment in responding to words referring to money, ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... then, wretched Dick—are you willing, false friend—that this glory should belong to another? Must I then be untrue to my past history; recoil before obstacles that are not serious; requite with cowardly hesitation what both the English Government and the Royal Society of London have ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... new hazard;" and he was obliged to keep himself and his proposals as much within doors as he could. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 391-396, and Appendix to same vol., 509, 510; Burnet's Hamiltons, 378; and Hallam, II. 187-8, and Notes.] To the Queen at Paris her husband's continued hesitation on the Episcopacy question seemed positively fatuous. Her letters, as well as Jermyn's and Colepepper's, had not ceased to urge bold concession on that question, and a paction with the Scots for Presbytery. Now, accordingly, ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... was broken. I heard that Blanche was free, and, with mingled haste and hesitation, I prepared to seek her. The ideal should be tested, I said to myself, by the actual, and if proved a deceit, then was all faith a mockery, all promise and premonition a glittering lie. As soon as winds and waves could carry me, I was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... king's hesitation, perhaps, only accelerated the breach, which their characters made inevitable sooner or later. Both framed by nature to give laws, not to receive them, they could not long have co-operated in an enterprise, which eminently demanded mutual submission and sacrifices. Wallenstein was NOTHING ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... laughing. So, after a moment's hesitation, Tessie brought out the worst of it. "And French. I'd like to learn to ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... the reader. A portion of that awkwardness is felt which hangs upon the introduction of songs in our modern comic operas; and to prevent which the judicious Metastasio (as to whose exquisite taste there can be no hesitation, whatever doubts may be entertained as to his poetic genius) uniformly placed the aria at the end of the scene, at the same time that he almost always raises and impassions the style of the recitative immediately preceding. Even in real life, the difference is great and evident ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to Mr. Bovyer uncertainly, and, after a moment hesitation, said: "I have a bit of my work here for you; but it is so little worth. I am ashamed to offer it." I handed him the folded leaves, tied with ribbons, of Longfellow's "Reapers and the Angels," which I had ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... with a peculiar hesitation, as though her joy had brought her from far away. Heavily, softly, she weighs on the arms of her partners, and the warmth rises from her bare bosom and dispels the cold of the terrible winter. It is as though she were on fire! Who could fail ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Fire-Shine was a notable fisherman and Prince Fire-Subside was a hunter. And Prince Fire-Subside said unto his elder brother, Let us exchange our occupations and try our luck. And after some hesitation on the part of the elder brother the exchange was made. But Prince Fire-Subside was not successful and lost the fish-hook in the sea. Then Prince Fire-Shine proposed to his younger brother to exchange back the implements which they had used. But the ...
— Japan • David Murray
... floating on the surface; but was every instant being borne further away towards the white-topped waves which rose outside the bay. At that instant a lad was seen to run along the top of the rocks till he neared the end, when, without a moment's hesitation, he sprung off into the water, and swam boldly towards the little girl. She had not from the first struggled, and she lay perfectly quiet, while he grasped her dress with one hand and struck out with the ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... amongst hogs, if they be appointed, go woolward, whip themselves, build hospitals, abbeys, &c., go to the East or West Indies, kill a king, or run upon a sword point: they perform all, without any muttering or hesitation, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... have absolute certainty, and no one but myself can have absolute certainty as to the statement which I make as to the facts which I saw with my own eyes. Historical evidence may range through every degree, from the barest likelihood to that undoubted moral certainty on which every man acts without hesitation in practical affairs. But it cannot get beyond this last standard. If, then, we are ever to use words like race, family, or even nation, to denote groups of mankind marked off by any kind of historical, as distinguished from physical, characteristics, ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... no hesitation as to the propriety of the proceeding. Of course I felt that if it had been mere money-making, a clergyman ought to have had nothing to do with it; but I felt now, on the other hand, that if any man was bound to pay his debts, a clergyman was; in fact, that ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... round into Holborn, sir," the boy replied, with some slight hesitation. He was very well aware that George had secrets from his brother, and that it was not judicious to be too free in his communications to the elder gentleman. But the black eyes and white teeth of the stockbroker seemed very awful to ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... Bonnivet opened to the cardinal his master's desire of recovering Tournay; and Wolsey immediately, without hesitation, engaged to effect his purpose. He took an opportunity of representing to the king and council, that Tournay lay so remote from Calais, that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, in case of war, to keep the communication open between these two places; that as it was situated on the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... there would, perhaps, have been room for hesitation had no support to this induction been afforded by the figured monuments; for the inhabitants of the province of Mossoul have deserted the traditions of their ancestors in more than one particular. They have ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... highlands, the opposite shores were so distant as to appear indistinct in the uncertainty of the light. About ten o'clock our pilots halted, apparently to confer about the course; and, after a little hesitation, pulled directly across an open expansion of the river, where the waves were somewhat rough for a canoe, the wind blowing very fresh. Much to our surprise, a few minutes afterwards we ran aground. Backing off our boat, we made repeated trials at various places to cross what appeared ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... gateway. On each side was a great stone pillar, supporting a gate of massive bronze. The gates were open. Without an instant's hesitation she led the way within, and as she did so placed her left hand on her heart. The throng seemed to waver a moment, and then as the six barefoot and white-gowned figures moved swiftly up the driveway into the park, it flowed in silently between ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... her the loveliest person I've ever seen," I answered after a moment's hesitation. There couldn't be any harm in telling her how much I admired ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... one reached it by way of the committee-room, which was a considerable distance to the right, it had to be mounted, not without an effort, by means of the chairs in the press inclosure. After some hesitation I made a dash for one of these chairs, and the next minute I was within three or four feet from Matilda, but with an excited crowd between us. Everybody wanted to shake hands with the heroes. The jam and scramble were so great ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... His hesitation quickly came to an end, and placing the box on the ground, he found a sharp stone, and began pounding it with quick, hard blows. Strong as the box was, it could not long withstand such treatment, and soon it fell apart, broken at the hinges. With a low cry of surprise, Juan gazed at the glittering ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... question with hesitation, as I knew there might be some peculiar history connected with ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... and refusing to anchor, the captain adopted the most prudent and safe course; for we had long before discovered that decision is absolutely necessary with these people. The least hesitation on our part would have fortified their courage to attack; but they are so much awed by our superior arms, and I may safely add the superior courage of our men, that they never will, however much they may threaten, be the first to come to blows, provided there is no vacillation or ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... bearing up before the wind, with an intention of forming their line, going large, and joining their separated ships, or else of getting off without an engagement. To prevent either of these schemes, he disobeyed the signal without a moment's hesitation: and ordered his ship to be wore. This at once brought him into action with the SANTISSIMA TRINIDAD, one hundred and thirty-six; the SAN JOSEPH, one hundred and twelve; the SALVADOR DEL MUNDO, one hundred and twelve; ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... my mother," she replied, and without a moment's hesitation she started for home as fast as her feet could carry her. She had entirely forgotten her anger toward Lucia, or her mother's reproof. All she could think of was the news this sailor, evidently a member of the Polly's crew, had told her, believing that ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... state the precise language used, but I have no hesitation in saying that your account of that conversation. as given in your letter to General Grant under date of the 31st ultimo. substantially and in all important particulars accords with my ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... certain moulds of the body; and taking such characteristics as are common to all of one class, and neglecting such as are peculiar to individuals, he carves a statue. So permanent are the physical facts he relies upon that, centuries after, when the statue is dug up, men say without hesitation—here is the Greek runner, there the wrestler. The habit of each in life produces a bodily form which if it exists implies that habit; the reality here results from the operation of physical laws ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... the thin sensitive nose thinner, the satisfied mouth more satisfied and conscious, the weak chin fatally weaker. And he was married, too! Mdme. Dubois—that must be his wife! How strange it was! Cecilia's brain was in a frightful state of doubt and fever and hesitation. It was necessary for her to explain her presence there, however, for she could not but resent the opening speech of the prisoner Dubois. She was growing very tired of standing, moreover, but she would have died rather than have demanded a chair. At length the turnkey observed ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... There was no hesitation in Rat's voice. "I like this particular space-time continuum very much. I don't care at all to wind up seventeen dimensions north of here with ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... been her suffering at the loss of Arthur Stuart from her life, she had found it possible to understand his hesitation to make her his wife. With his fine sense of family pride, and his reverence for the estate of matrimony, his belief in heredity, it seemed quite natural to her that he should be shocked at the knowledge of the conditions under which she was born; and the thought that her ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... while softly a popular air, lively in itself, with a cadence so plaintive that it might have been a penitential psalm. No romantic school-girl opening the cage to her pet starling ever displayed more hesitation and reluctance than Mr. Fitchett setting that grim ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... so alone, and yet sharing so much of social happiness in the bright and stirring world, that whatever had appeared rough by day now became smooth of its own accord. All the three friends could no longer see the slightest cause for hesitation in regard to Bertalda's taking ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... too much alkali. A test sample of glass. Speculation as to the inhabitants of the island. Their knowledge of the presence of savages. Mysterious occurrences while on the island. Determining to make further explorations for their own safety. The guns they had made. The hesitation about the trip inland. The hope for another ship. Discussing the probability of meeting the savages. Questions to be decided in building their boat. Possibilities of an island near them. Reasons for that view. A year from the time they sailed from New York. The spring. Planting a ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... discovering that Three-fingered Hoover had a little romance all of his own. Maybe some of the other boys told her about it. At any rate, Mary was charmed, and without hesitation she commanded Hoover to confess all. How the big, awkward fellow ever got through with it I for my part can't imagine, but tell her he did—yes, he fairly unbosomed his secret, and Mary was still more delighted and laughed and declared that it was the loveliest ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... Bliss, Charge d'Affaires, in the absence of Ambassador Sharp. I had a very interesting talk with Captain Sayles. His first question came out quickly and rather abruptly. "What most impressed you on your trip?" I replied, without hesitation: "The spirit of France and the morale of the French soldier and the French people. All France is thinking and working and trying to do what they can to help save France." Captain Sayles said it was a tradition that when events required it, ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... This hesitation and fear disappeared among the Gauls, after their country was annexed to the Empire; disappeared or was weakened among all the other peoples of the Danube and Rhine regions, and even in Germany, when they ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... that man, who is dining alone at the table in the corner, out of your house, a respectable individual will not be able to sit down in it."—"How is that, Sir?"—"Because that is the executioner of R——." The host, after some hesitation, at length went and spoke to the stranger, who calmly answered him: "By whom have I been recognised?"—"By that gentleman," said the landlord, pointing out the former. "Indeed, he ought to know me, for it is not two years since I whipped and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... but Hunter and Joyce from the block-house, had time to fire. The four shots came in rather a scattering volley; but they did the business: one of the enemy actually fell, and the rest, without hesitation, turned and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... warn thee against the same on account of the vast charges thou must stand at. We Englishmen cannot find it in our hearts to murder a man without much difficulty, hesitation, and delay. We have little or no invention for pains and penalties; it is only our acutest lawyers who have wit enough to frame them. Therefore it behooveth your tragedy-man to provide a rich assortment of them, in order to strike the ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... to the den and without hesitation approached the farther wall and took from its pegs Will Morrison's fine hunting rifle. In the stock was a hollow chamber for cartridges, for the rifle was of the type known as a "repeater." Sliding back the steel plate that hid this cavity, Sarah drew from it a folded paper of ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... shiny they were on the surface, she instinctively stopped; she had not a moment's hesitation. The saucepans, dishes, forks, spoons which she lacked were all here; she could have a whole array of kitchen utensils; she had only to make her choice. With a bound she was across the road; quickly picking out four cans she ran back ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... of facts concerning which our fathers never had any hesitation, because they had faith. Nowadays, the truths which are above the material sight have been so roughly handled that they are much diminished for us. And if the goodness of God had not allowed some rays of the mysteries which He reserves for Himself ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... also slightly blown and heated, but he himself, and I watched his features well, looked calm, composed, and tranquil. How anxiously did I scrutinize that face; with what a throbbing heart did I canvass every gesture, hoping to find some passing trait of doubt, of difficulty, or of hesitation; but none was there. Unlike one who looked upon the harrowing spectacle of the battle-field, whose all was depending on the game before him; gambling with one throw his last his only stake, and that the empire of the world. Yet, could I ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... much obliged to you," she began, and then paused a second. A curious hesitance came upon her, though she knew that under ordinary circumstances such hesitation would have been totally out of place. She had occupied the man's time for an hour or more, he was of the working class, and one must not be guilty of the error of imagining that a man who has work ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... momentary hesitation on Mrs. Packard's part, then she silently acquiesced and we both passed on. In another instant we were receiving the greetings and apologies of the gentlemen. If Mr. Steele had expected that his employer's wife would offer him her ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... greatly. Seeing him in these pleasant domestic circumstances, at the head of his table, with abundant evidences of comfort and refinement and modest luxury about him, any one would have said, without hesitation, that Dr. Mark Ransford was undeniably one of the fortunate ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... face overrun with rain-water, and with his nose acting like a shoot from a roof; but certainly the impression produced on me by M. Sadi Carnot was that his features were wooden, and that he was but a very ordinary man—intellectually. I pass this opinion with hesitation. When dried possibly the sparks of genius may be discovered and may flare up; they were all but extinguished in the downpour when I ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... what one had not had! Yet one was not at a gangster's hang-out. Suddenly there was a scuffling, yells were heard and tables were upset. It was Pere Colombe who was turning the party out without the least hesitation, and in the twinkling of an eye. On the other side of the door they blackguarded him and called him a scoundrel. It still rained and blew icy cold. Gervaise lost Coupeau, found him and then lost him again. She wished ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... summoned to appear in person at Tisidium[182], to await the consul's commands, he began again to change his mind, dreading, from a consciousness of guilt, the punishment due to his crimes. Having spent several days in hesitation, sometimes, from disgust at his ill success, believing any thing better than war, and sometimes considering with himself how grievous would be the fall from sovereignty to slavery, he at last determined, notwithstanding that he had lost ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... was long since life had offered him anything for the enjoyment of which he would have taken the trouble to undergo any annoyance whatsoever. Life seemed to him such a very trivial matter that he felt no hesitation in abandoning it, and he only put off the doing so for a few minutes now, out of curiosity to understand more fully the motives of ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... when Christianity was the purest, there were no Christian soldiers. In the third century, when it became less pure, there is frequent mention of such soldiers. And in the fourth, when its corruption was fixed, Christians entered upon the profession of arms with as little hesitation, as they entered upon ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... after many years of hesitation, the English as well as the Dutch thought it their good right to invade the Indies and America and avenge the ills which their Protestant brethren had suffered at the hands of the Spaniards. The English had been among the earliest successors ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... general that the French troops of the marshal were near Piktupohnen, and brought orders that York should march to that place, where Macdonald would await him, and that the French and Prussian forces should then be united. Henceforth further hesitation was out of the question. The messengers, both of the Russian General Diebitsch and the French Marshal Macdonald, were at his headquarters, and insisted that he should make up his mind as to the course to be pursued by his corps. York either ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... effectually or permanently even its own business. And so, also, freedom can not produce its best effects, and often breaks down altogether, unless means can be found of combining it with trained and skilled administration. There could not be a moment's hesitation between representative government, among a people in any degree ripe for it, and the most perfect imaginable bureaucracy. But it is, at the same time, one of the most important ends of political institutions, to attain as many of the qualities of the one as are consistent with ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... though the Joy, who was probably imagining herself hitched in one of the stalls, declared that she liked that best of anything. As for the Hope—clear of conscience and worn with the riot of the day—she had plunged without a moment's hesitation into the blessed business of sleep. It engaged us all, at length, and we must have become adapted by morning, for when we were all awake and lay in the dim light, listening to the quiet music of the continuing ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... have seen our Him['e]gimi-Sama, it were better that you make no decision. Perhaps you will feel no hesitation after you have seen her. Deign now to come with me, that I may present ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... and without hesitation I walked sharply back, Gyp running before me as he would not have done had ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... next car behind, I met the porter who had come in just before the stop. He looked worried, and after a moment's hesitation, he spoke ...
— Crossroads of Destiny • Henry Beam Piper
... to think of it, what sort of a life is it that I am now leading? It is even a long, long time since I was loved by a noble woman such as you are. I understand, of course, your hesitation, or rather, your refusal. Deuce take it, of course it needs a bit of courage—with such a disreputable fellow as I am, too ... although, perhaps, things are not quite so bad. Ah, if I could only find a human soul, a kind, womanly soul!"—He emphasized the "womanly soul"—"Yes, ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... the heat of the sun. They tried also to show us, that when the tortuguillo is carried in a bag to a distance from the shore, and placed in such a manner that its tail is turned to the river, it takes without hesitation the shortest way to the water. I confess, that this experiment, of which Father Gumilla speaks, does not always succeed equally well: yet in general it does appear that at great distances from the shore, and even in an island, these little animals feel with extreme delicacy in what direction ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... of a war of religion, the first which the pope was especially invited to bless, and the Catholic powers, as such, to assist. The features of it, on a narrow scale, were identical with those of the later risings. Fostered by the hesitation of the home authorities, it commenced in bravado and murder; it vanished before the first blows of substantial resistance. Yet the suppression of the insurrection was attended by the usual Irish fatality: mistake and incompleteness followed the proceedings from the beginning ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... the sibilant voice, "that unpleasant measures were necessary, but hesitation would have been fatal. I trust, Dr. Petrie, that you ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... service in the field, converted all their attention to the proceedings in parliament; where they imagined their interest was much stronger than it appeared to be upon trial. They took the oaths without hesitation, and hoped, by the assistance of their new allies, to embroil the government in such a manner that the majority of the people would declare for a restoration. But the views of these new cemented parties were altogether incompatible, and their principles diametrically opposite. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... in trials that tracings of a genuine signature invariably show hesitation and painting. This is not always the fact. Tracings proven and subsequently admitted to have been such have shown an apparent absence of all constraint, and a careful examination of the result ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... its long ears waving nervously, and paused for a second to look back with a frightened air. It had realized that some enemy was on its trail, but what that enemy was, it did not know. After this moment of perilous hesitation, it went leaping forward across the open, leaving a vivid track in the soft surface snow. The little animal's discreet alarm, however, was dangerously corrupted by its curiosity; and at the lower edge ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... Domestic paused, and hesitated for a short space; but as he became aware that the moment was one in which the Emperor could not be trifled with, (for Alexius Comnenus was at times dangerous,) he answered thus, but not without hesitation. "Imperial master and lord, none better knows that such an answer cannot be hastily made, if it is at the same time to be correct in its results. The number of the imperial host betwixt this city and the western frontier of the empire, deducting those absent on furlough, cannot be counted ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... re-assail a heart that has been for a long time under the influence of the world and those base principles by which it is actuated. In fact, this close, nervous, and penurious old man felt, when about to perform this generous action, all that alarm and hesitation which a virtuous man would feel when on the eve of committing a crime. He was about to make an inroad upon his own system—going to change the settled habits of his whole life, and, for a moment, he entertained thoughts of altering his purpose. Then he began to think that this visit ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... "I don't understand your hesitation. If you go on being an ordinary deacon, who is only obliged to hold a service on holidays, and on the other days can rest from work, you will be exactly the same as you are now in ten years' time, and will have gained nothing but a beard ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was beginning to be flushed with a pale green. There was a robin on the lawn, and a blackbird singing in the pine. "Go not, happy day," she said, with tears in her eyes. She took up the brief letter and read it again. Was he really hers, "truly"? And she answered the letter, swiftly and with no hesitation, but with a throbbing heart. It was a civil acknowledgment; that was all. Henderson might have lead it aloud in the Exchange. But what color, what charming turns of expression, what of herself, had the girl put into ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Mosaic covenant. The epistle is everywhere marked by hostility to Judaism, of which the writer has but imperfect knowledge. The book was regarded as Holy Scripture by Clement of Alexandria and by Origen, though with some hesitation. The position taken by the author was undoubtedly extreme, and not followed generally by the Church. It was, however, merely pushing to excess a conviction already prevalent in the Church, that ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... So, without a moment's hesitation, she sat down and wrote only a line, knowing that it would be all-sufficient. It was her first love-tryst. Yet if it had been her twentieth she ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... assist him in clearing his kingdom of robbers and wild beasts. This being done, Arthur sent three of his knights to Leodogran, to beg the hand of his daughter Guenever in marriage. To this Leodogran, after some little hesitation, agreed, and sir Lancelot was sent to escort ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... him never reached land alive. Well says the writer of this true story, "words would be wasted in saying more of the perfect humanity, and noble self-forgetfulness of a man, who gave up his best chance of life without hesitation, 'for one of the least of these little ones' who stood helpless by his side, when man and boy were in the immediate presence of death. That captain unlashing his life-belt, with two miles of white water between himself and the shore, to tie it upon the little boy ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... of not repeating things to the prejudice of others without some good reason for so doing; Malcolm therefore, seated thus alone with her in the dead of the night, and bound to her by the bond of a common well doing, had no hesitation in unfolding to her all his adventures of the evening. She sat with her big hands in her lap, making no remark, not even an exclamation, while he went on with the tale of the garret; but her listening eyes grew—not larger—darker and fiercer as he spoke; ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Indians was, to some extent, supplied by the accurate memories of their old men; they were able to repeat speeches of four or five hours' duration, and delivered many years before, without error or even hesitation, and to hand them down from generation to generation with equal accuracy, their recollection being only assisted by small pieces of wood corresponding to the different subjects of discourse. On great and solemn occasions, belts ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... forward all arrangements for an advance on the morrow. We also sent round messengers to all the villagers to come in and make their submission, on pain of having their villages burned; and seeing that we now had the upper hand, at any rate in their valley, the inhabitants came in without much hesitation, and also brought in a certain amount of supplies; consequently by night we had sufficient local coolies to carry all our baggage, supplies, ammunition, and, most important of all, the two guns. About noon on this day, Raja ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... repeating Josette's assurance that their wishes would be granted. It would be necessary, he added, to reflect long before selecting the one desire of the soul which was to be put above all others. But Nevill had no hesitation. He wished instantly, and tucked the tiny parcel away in the pocket nearest ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... length and rose to take his leave, whereupon Sir Beverley very abruptly, and to his grandson's surprise and gratification, invited him to dine with them that night. Piers at once seconded the invitation, and Crowther without haste or hesitation accepted it. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... come again what shall I bring you?' said Mr. Smith, in most reckless fashion, to the Egyptian Queen. 'Well,' said she, without a moment's hesitation, 'if there is one thing more than another that I do want, it's a silk handkercher for my head—a real Bandana.' The request was characteristic. Of the tales we heard one or two were curious, one positively laughable, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... quiet habits, was a very different matter from a similar trip taken in this day of railroads and steamboats. To Fliedner it seemed a very important matter; and so it was in its results, which reached far beyond the little congregation he served. With great hesitation he began at Elberfeld, a town near at hand. A pastor of the city, to encourage him, accompanied him to friends, and on parting gave him a friendly suggestion that, in addition to trust in God, such work required "patience, impudence, and a ready tongue." Before starting on the longer ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... and his faith; and Angelico, the monk, the saint, who shuts and bolts his monastery doors and sprinkles holy water in the face of the antique, the two extremes, are both exceptions. The innumerable artists of the Renaissance remained in hesitation; tried to court both the antique and the modern, to unite the pagan and the Christian—some, like Ghirlandajo, in cold indifference to all but mere form, encrusting marble bacchanals into the walls of the Virgin's paternal house, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... clerk! Emma, my love, I believe I may have no hesitation in saying something has ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... why should a lady who has taught thirty schools be considered less suitable for the office of school committee than the undersigned, who has taught but two, or scores of men who never taught school at all? Slowly and with hesitation over the ice of prejudice comes that unreasonable reason—"O, 'cause." But regardless of pants or crinoline, the question remains unanswered and unanswerable. It is not deemed improper for the ladies of Hiram to go with their husbands ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the man who had tempted him to crime, Lygon had a new sense of boldness, a sudden feeling of reprisal, a rushing desire to put the screw upon him. At sight of this millionaire with the pile of notes before him there vanished the sickening hesitation of the afternoon, of the journey with Dupont. The look of the robust, healthy financier was like acid in a wound; it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sooner, and not have examined it, I should have had no hesitation in asserting, most confidently, that we had seen a rock," ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... head. There was hesitation in her manner, and the man was quick to make the most of it. She wanted to stay, wanted to skip a train and let this competent guide show her Chicago. But somewhere, deep in her consciousness, a bell of warning was beginning to ring. Some uneasy prescience ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... always an amusing writer, and whose works, notwithstanding his appetite for the wonderful, do not merit the total oblivion into which they have fallen, is very angry with Jerome Cardan, an author not generally given to scepticism, for the hesitation he displays on the ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... our Virginian plantation. Besides, the house, such as it is, is not Harry's. He is welcome there, Heaven knows; more welcome, perhaps, than I, to whom the property comes in natural reversion; but, as I told him, I doubt how his wife would—would like our colony," George said, with a blush, and a hesitation in his sentence. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... round in hesitation, and saw the bulwarks lined with swarthy faces—the faces of men that as lately as yesterday would have turned pale under his frown, faces that were ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... had taken the astronomy into her hands again the door opened, as if under protest of some kind, and Morris stood on the threshold, looking at her with hesitation in his attitude. ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... notes. Those who attended the meeting will never forget this moment of the bugle call. The signal as it broke forth filled the air with sorrowness and grief, as if it called the whole world to bow before those who, loving their neighbors, without hesitation gave their lives away for ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... moment's hesitation he advanced to the water's edge and plunged into the stream. The water was icy cold, and Hal's breath was taken away by the suddenness ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... hesitation the Chinese government had at last resolved to permit the construction of railways with foreign capital. An influential official named Sheng Hsuan-hwai was appointed director-general of railways, and empowered to enter into negotiations with foreign capitalists for that purpose. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... easy to give in the compass of a few pages an intelligent view of the main currents of history. The sketch here introduced—not without hesitation—is an endeavor to state the Socialist concept of the course of social evolution in a brief outline and to indicate the principal economic causes which have ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... ardent against their divine original. The Supreme Being might, undoubtedly, have accompanied his revelations to man by such a succession of miracles, and of such a nature, as would have produced universal overpowering conviction and have put an end at once to all hesitation and discussion. But weak as our reason is to comprehend the plans of the great Creator, it is yet sufficiently strong to see the most striking objections to such a revelation. From the little we know ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... silently. It flashed across his mind that it might be necessary under certain circumstances to tell the whole truth. George was greatly moved. He seemed to divine the reason of Alec's hesitation. ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... Margari that the young lady was wandering in her mind, so to humour her, he promised to do whatever she asked him without hesitation. ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... and was lying down when Helen entered, and she made not the slightest objection to anything the latter proposed. Straightway she fell under as complete subjection to her as she had done to Hale. Without a moment's hesitation she drew off her rudely fashioned dress and stood before Helen with the utmost simplicity—her beautiful arms and throat bare and her hair falling about them with the rich gold of a cloud at an autumn sunset. Dressed, she could hardly breathe, but when she looked at herself in the ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... do that," answered Percy without any hesitation. "But I want to go into the navy. I am better fitted for a sailor than I am for ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... Northwest," he replied after a little hesitation—"if I live. Of course the chances are I'll turn up my toes somewhere on the trail. A man is liable to make a miss-lick somewhere, but that's all in the game. A man had better die on the trail than in ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... his march against the Turks, who had chosen an advantageous post at Widen, and seemed ambitious of retrieving the honour they had lost in the two former engagements. The Germans attacked their lines without hesitation; and though the Musselmen fought with incredible fury, they were a third time defeated with great slaughter. This defeat was attended with the loss of Widen, which being surrendered to the victor, he distributed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... minute had he been gone when there came a gentle knock at the door. It was raining heavily, and, being a stranger to the city, not dreaming that in any crowded town such a state of things could exist as really did in this, the young man, without hesitation, admitted the person knocking. He has declared since—but, perhaps, confounding the feelings gained from better knowledge with the feelings of the moment—that from the moment he drew the bolt he had ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... another brave when she finds me gone," he answered, laughing at the idea. I did not enter into the previous domestic events which had led to this separation, but I presume they were of a nature similar to those which are not altogether unknown in more civilized society, and I make no hesitation in offering to our legislators the example of my friend the Cree as tending to simplify the solution, or rather the dissolution, of that knotty point, the separation of couples who, for reasons best known to ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... from the captive as if in some manner they might be defiled by proximity. One of the civilians made an emphatic statement, got creakily to his feet, and walked always as if he would have nothing more to do with this matter. After a second or two of hesitation his fellow followed ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... and Hind examined this question, all the known facts have been again reviewed by Mr. W. T. Lynn, who pronounces, but with some hesitation, in favour of the eclipse of October 2, 480 B.C., as the one associated with the battle of Salamis. He does this by refusing to see in the above quotations from Herodotus any allusion to a solar eclipse at all, but invites us to consider a later statement in Herodotus[46] as relating ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... or you are lost!" cried their unseen friend, and without hesitation the Wizard drew the buggy down the bank and out upon the broad river, for Dorothy was still seated in it with Eureka in her arms. They did not sink at all, owing to the virtues of the strange plant they had used, and when the buggy ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... deceive even the obtuse perceptions of so undeserving a body as the author describes said committee. On the other hand, it would have been more prudent for the writer to have said less on this topic, as such hesitation in accepting his services might induce the reader to think that the Poles were not so anxious for external aid as he seemed to fancy. We also know that not only at present in Poland, but in former ages, and in our own days, in the happiest of countries, there can be no revolution, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had been conscious of him. She had betrayed uneasiness, a sense of danger, when she had found herself alone with him. He recalled her first tentative flight, her hesitation. He would have liked to have kept her there with him a little longer, to have talked to her about his League, to have tested by a few shrewd ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... revelation, and invested in a Body divinely commissioned to teach all men, authoritatively and infallibly, all its sacred and immutable truths—truths which we are consequently bound in conscience to receive without hesitation. ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... the climber must depend for other assistance on the natural irregularities of the rock, which provided here and there an insecure foothold. The girl, however, sprang down the dangerous path, without the slightest hesitation, though her skilful balance and dexterity of hand and foot showed that her security was ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall |
