"Quavering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... meanness! But that is our prison-cell In the jail of weary London. Therein for us must dwell The hope of the world that shall be, that rose a glimmering spark As the last thin flame of our pleasure sank quavering ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... already seen the effect of the tanks on the Germans. The batch of prisoners who had been turned over to me seemed dazed. One who spoke English said in a quavering voice: ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... rabbits, cricking of ferrets, humming of wasps, mioling of tigers, bruzzing of bears, sussing of kitlings, clamouring of scarfs, whimpering of fulmarts, booing of buffaloes, warbling of nightingales, quavering of mavises, drintling of turkeys, coniating of storks, frantling of peacocks, clattering of magpies, murmuring of stock-doves, crouting of cormorants, cigling of locusts, charming of beagles, guarring of puppies, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... His voice, quavering with fury, awakened the others also out of their sleep; and after he had shortly and severely rebuked them for their laziness, he commissioned Epagathos to give the prefect, Macrinus, immediate orders not to allow the ship on which Heron and Philip were, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... or two of fair hair escaping at the side of her face. The features were calm and resigned, but when the pain of the death agony seized upon her the thin lips parted and deep lines of suffering appeared about the mouth; She seemed to struggle as best she could, but the low, quavering cry would not be stifled—lower and more trembling each time it ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... to thank Mist Jenkyns for many little kindnesses, which I did not know until then that she had rendered. He had suddenly become like an old man; his deep bass voice had a quavering in it, his eyes looked dim, and the lines on his face were deep. He did not—could not—speak cheerfully of his daughter's state, but he talked with manly, pious resignation, and not much. Twice over he said, "What ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... We had emerged from the shady walk into the moonlit path leading down to the pier. The two sentinels were just discernible ahead, and the footsteps of the two behind followed us close. There was no other sound in the stillness but his honour's quavering voice, and nothing stirring but the leaves of the trees and the waves of the lough as they ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... waiter until the latter, with a disconcerting "Voila! Voila!" darted off to attend to a customer, and then strolled through the Porte Notre Dame onto the Quai Sadi-Carnot. There a familiar sound met his ears—the roll of a drum followed by an incantation in a quavering, high-pitched voice. It was the Town Crier, with whom, as with a brother artist, he had picked acquaintance the ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... and strolled to the door. The hansom was disappearing round the corner. "That's all right," he repeated in more quavering tones as he returned to the drawing-room and saw that it was littered with sweet-peas. Their colour got on his nerves—magenta, crimson; magenta, crimson. He tried to pick them up, and they escaped. He trod them underfoot, and they multiplied and danced ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... even they, were in the country where such adventures had taken place—and perhaps some day would be met with by themselves. And at night, when they lay out on their swags under the cool sky, which looked so much farther away than it did in cities, and heard the high quavering hunting-call of the dingo, their thoughts would go, not towards the scenes where they had spent their boyhood, but onwards into ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... then, but walk up to his old desk, look round him with a queer smile as if there was a tear in his eye, and begin in a quavering, mild voice, "My dear companions and ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... was, and on what shore he lay Driven by the wind; if manfolk there abode, or nought but deer, (For waste it seemed), and tidings true back to his folk to bear. So in that hollow bight of groves beneath the cavern cleft, 310 All hidden by the leafy trees and quavering shades, he left His ships: and he himself afoot went with Achates lone, Shaking in hand two slender spears with broad-beat iron done. But as he reached the thicket's midst his mother stood before, Who virgin face, and virgin arms, and virgin habit ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... these agonizing cries, Pille-Miche saw that the fire did not yet scorch the skin; he drew the sticks cleverly together so as to make a slight flame. On this d'Orgemont called out in a quavering voice: "My friends, unbind me! How much do you want? A hundred crowns—a thousand crowns—ten thousand crowns—a hundred thousand crowns—I offer you ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... this lay quavering was the plain chant, given more or less badly, as it was moreover given, but yet given, when there was no special ceremony ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... characteristic, not only of the old life, but of the very constitution of built nature in that part, and singularly well qualified to add horror to horror, when the wind pipes around the tall lands, and hoots adown arched passages, and the far-spread wilderness of city lamps keeps quavering and flaring ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her elbow praises his eyes—shade of hazel nut, she calls them. And Gammer, peering to find the cause of interruption and spying him, pushes a stool out from under her feet and curving a yellow, shaking finger, beckons and points him to it. But while doing so, she does not stay her quavering and garrulous recital. He has come, then, in time to hear ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... it all!" cried Sir Anthony, in a quavering voice, "he died like a man and there's ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... "Hoss? Hoss?" said the quavering voice from these near shadows. "Hoss? 'Deed I don' know all erbout a boss! 'Deed I don't." There ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... bent over him, vainly endeavoring to recall to his memory the scenes we had shared together: and how frequently, with an aching heart, have I gazed on his vacant and lustreless eye, while he has amused himself in clapping his hands and singing with a quavering voice a verse of a psalm." Alas! such are the consequences of long residences in America, and of old age even in uncles! Well, the point of this morality is, that the uncle one day in the morning of life vowed that he would catch his two nephews and tie them together, ay, ...
— George Cruikshank • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gods have heard my prayers, as gods will hear the dutiful, And brought old age upon you, though you still affect the beautiful. You sport among the boys, and drink and chatter on quite aimlessly; And in your cups with quavering voice you torment ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... an aged woman, obeyed with tottering steps, and, reaching the massive portal, undid the guichet, or lattice, and asked with a quavering voice: ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... for her lamb, and moved off slowly. Others rose, stood a moment as though to get the sleep out of their eyes, and followed her example. Ewes bleated for their lambs, lambs for their mothers, until quavering calls in many keys made a din to awaken any sleeper, while the whole mass of dingy, rounded woolly backs started moving ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... naturally went more or less crazy. I took that Jap by the throat and asked him what had happened. He did not know, he said. He had left us to sleep, and rest, sorry for us, and trying to cook us a good meal when we wakened. He was in a shaking fright, trembling and quavering, and I eased up. What was the use of anger and suspicion in the face of this horrible threat of death while you slept? We hove the two bodies overboard, and made a stagger at the pump; but we could not lessen the water in the hold, and at last I gave up, cleared away a boat, ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... Prissy, whose musical talent was one of her special fortes, tuned her voice, a little cracked and quavering, and sang, with a vigorous accent on each ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... each other, and then at us on the platform, to see whence came this interruption, not set down in the bills. Firmly and irrepressibly the quavering voices sang on, verse after verse; others of the colored people joined in; some whites on the platform began, but I motioned them to silence. I never saw anything so electric; it made all other words cheap; it seemed the choked voice of a race at last unloosed. Nothing could be ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... saw the Spanish flag floating over the roof of the alcalde's office, while the hollow beating of a drum, the bucolic quavering of a flute, and the snapping of castanets, reached ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... panted, the passengers gazed absently at the men exchanging the bags of mail. All at once a sound of singing was heard in the distance. It was a woman's voice, old and quavering, and the song was a weird, almost unearthly, chant or dirge in a minor key. Slowly the singer approached the station, and reaching it, mounted the steps of the platform and seated herself on a bench, keeping on, without pause, her monotonous singing. The woman was a Mexican, very poorly ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... opening door Cinderella wheeled and, with a quavering little cry of "Marjorie!" ran forward ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... "Goramercy!" said a quavering voice. It was the speech of the old Negro track-walker, taking two days to get to his dying daughter because he could not afford the railroad ticket that would have brought him to her in two hours. ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... stifled both," said the quavering voice of the sacristan from behind us. "How may we get out of this place till men come and raise the ruin that will cover us? And who knows we are here ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... Simon was headed for another part of the woods, for his quavering cry grew fainter and fainter. So Dickie promptly forgot his fright and scampered on again faster than before, to make up ...
— The Tale of Dickie Deer Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... face is in the sand you do not see much. What you hear is not encouraging—the distant boom of a gun, a few seconds' silence, then a long quavering whistle in the air, like the cry of a banshee, growing every moment nearer and louder, and finally the deafening report somewhere near you. You never know where a shell is going to burst, although you hear it long before it arrives; you can only sit tight and hope that it will go where the other ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... conceivable reason, and manifest desire to stand upon his hind legs, I conceived to be a thorough-bred; and, hanging grimly to the bridle, now in the air, now on terra firma, alternately coaxing and cursing, was my friend the Semi-quavering Ostler. He caught sight of me just as a particularly vicious jerk swung ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... finally, "I believe I love you well enough, Margaret, to hope that you get the man who will make you happiest. I don't know," he went on rather gloomily, "that I'm exactly calculated to make anybody happy, but," he concluded, with a quavering smile, "I'd like to try." They shook hands like the two very old ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... head above the roof, she uttered a loud quavering cry—the cry of welcome of the Afghan women. The firing without instantly ceased. Again raising the cry, she stepped out on to the roof; and shouted that the English did not want to keep the women, and that ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... blustery winter day, a strange telephone call was received at the laboratory where he had previously worked. It was from old Thomas, out there in the DeBost mansion, and his quavering voice asked for Frank Rowley, the genial young engineer whose work had been most closely associated ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... punctuated by occasional bursts of song, not always of a churchly nature, and emphasized by gestures which were more forceful than devout. In this game Mrs. Brenton often joined him, lending her thin soprano voice to help out his quavering childish notes, and doing her conscientious best, the while, to keep the songs attuned to the key of proper piety. To be sure, she did insist upon bringing her sewing into church and, on one occasion, she patched her young son's trousers into a hideous pucker, by reason ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... receiving me, sir." A quavering old voice sounded from the doorway a moment later, and Blaine turned in his chair to face the aged, erect, black-clad figure ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... broke the silence of the house. A querulous, high-pitched voice, quavering with the palsy of extreme age. The sound of it was no new thing for Christian Vellacott. To-night his lips gave a little twist of pain as he heard it. The door of the room on the ground floor was open, and he could hear the words ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... came out of slumberland, but he opened only one eye. The bird was trilling and quavering in the most wonderful way, telling him as he understood it, to go back whence he had come, and he went at once. Then came Paul, not more than half awakened, and the music of the song lulled him. He did not have time to ask himself any question before he had returned to sleep, ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was too strong for you!" she said, in a quavering voice; "I ought not to have let you take a full draught! Go and sleep now, and when you wake ask me what you please.—I ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... cottage Naab did not speak once; the transformation which had begun with the appearance of his drunken son had reached a climax of gloomy silence after the clash with Holderness. Naab went directly to the Bishop, and presently the quavering voice of the ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... defeat that man has ever known. And out of that sea of mutilated flesh it rises like low, trembling speech, halting and inarticulate and broken. It has no high, compelling accent, no eloquence. And yet, it has but to lift its poor and quavering tones, and the splendor of the world is blotted out, and the great, glowing firmament is made a sorrowful gray, and, in a single instant, we have knowledge of the stern and holy truth, know the terrible floor upon which we tread, know what man has ever suffered, and what our own existences ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... at our feet and piling on the blankets and rugs. All through the night we could hear the passers-by shouting and singing along the Hebron road. There was one unknown traveller whose high-pitched, quavering Arab song rose far away, and grew louder as he approached, and passed us in a whirlwind of lugubrious music, and tapered slowly off into distance and silence—a chant ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... of it than break his promise!" The crowd gave way as the broken man they had seen a few days before so jovial and healthful was brought up in a chair to the poll, and said, with his tremulous quavering voice, "I 'm a ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... full of tobacco smoke when Abel entered, and as he paused, in order to distinguish the row of silhouettes nodding against the ruddy square of the fireplace, Adam Doolittle's quavering voice floated to him from a seat in the warmest corner. The old man was now turning ninety, and he had had, on the whole, a fortunate life, though he would have indignantly repudiated the idea. He was a fair type of the rustic of the past generation—slow ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... great timber-ceiled dining-hall on the ground floor, whose high windows opened out upon the sun-porch and the sea, the hostess always presided, an elderly spinster with white hair, colorless eyes, delicately pink cheeks, and a quavering, chirping voice, who always tried to group her red hands to advantage on the white table-cloth. A short-necked old gentleman with ice-gray sailor's beard and dark-blue face was there, a fish-dealer from the capital, who understood German. He seemed to be wholly stopped up as to nose, and inclined ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... the mesa dwellers' burial ground!" exclaimed Ralph in a quavering voice, as, clinging to Jack's arm, he ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... held the ewe as before, and when he judged the lamb held a sufficiency, he hauled her away toward prison, pulling her unceremoniously out of the lamb's mouth. And then the lamb, instead of following, stood braced on the spot as if unable to comprehend that such a thing was possible. It let out a quavering complaint, a melting infant cry, at which the man stopped and turned his head, and, seeing it standing there and looking ahead in a wooden sort of way, he returned to get it, marching the ewe ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... in her breath for an instant, like a creature in pain; then, with her quavering voice, touched with a vibration of anguish, she said; "Oh, how can I ask you to give up? I will give up—I ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... you?" he went on, taking her white face between his two hands. "Don't you understand, Meleese? Jean and I have fought—he is bound hand and foot up there in the cabin—and I am waiting for you—for you—" He pressed her face against him, her lips so close that he could feel their quavering breath. "I have come to fight for you—if you won't go," he whispered tensely. "I don't know why your people have tried to kill me, I don't know why they want to kill me, and it makes no difference to me now. I want you. I've wanted you since that ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... carried—uproariously. Then poor old Richards got up, and his wife rose and stood at his side. Her head was bent down, so that none might see that she was crying. Her husband gave her his arm, and so supporting her, he began to speak in a quavering voice: ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... breast for a moment; then straightening himself, he passed his hand across his eyes and answered in a deep, quavering voice: ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... wafted to his ears through the forest behind. It began like the gentle, mellow lowing of a cow at evening, swelled into a quavering, appealing crescendo cadence, and gradually died away. Almost as the last note ceased another commenced at the same low pitch, with only the rest of a heart-beat between the two, and surged forth into a plaintive yet tempestuous ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... cut with deft fingers, and with a strange condescension of manner in one so proud. My heart beat like a bird's, both quick and little; and on a sudden BLUENOSE raised his dripping hands, and in a quavering kind of voice ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... seemed to move him to make an effort towards relieving it. He took a key from his pocket and unlocking a side of the garde manger, drew forth a small flask of whisky. Fanny had closed her eyes and was not aware of his action, till she heard him at her elbow saying in his feeble quavering voice:— ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... shortcoming was the lack of the lovely young servitors Murphy had envisioned. He took it upon himself to repair this lack, and in a shady wine-house behind the palace, called the Barangipan, he made the acquaintance of a girl-musician named Soek Panjoebang. He found her enticing tones of quavering sweetness from the gamelan, an instrument well-loved in Old Bali. Soek Panjoebang had the delicate features and transparent skin of Sumatra, the supple long limbs of Arabia and in a pair of wide and golden eyes a heritage from somewhere in Celtic Europe. Murphy ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... literature. Mature men, who study fiction with a critical spirit and a cool head, admit that the only passages in English romance that they can never read again without faltering, without a dim eye and a quavering voice, are these scenes of pain and sorrow in Vanity Fair. The death of old Sedley, nursed by his daughter, is a typical piece—perfect in simplicity, ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... Scotch song. Thinking this rather a strange method of composing the nervous system of a delirious patient, she stood and listened. Up, far up, into the loftiest regions of sound, went Aunt Patty's cracked and quavering voice, and then it came down with a heavy, precipitous fall into a loud grumble and tumble below. She repeated again and again, in a ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... burst out Mr. Hand, his voice quavering and shrill with anger. "But as for you, William," he continued more quietly, "what you've done for my Toddles I never can forget. You sha'n't have no cause to say I'm ungrateful to one that's ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the country, and that is the Union and the War party. Here and there a coward may waver and be frightened at the prospect of a Democratic opposition raising its head successfully to withstand the great onward movement, but his quavering voice will be unheard in the great cry for battle. We have accepted this war with all its fearful risks, and we will abide by it. We will be true to our principle of a united country, we will be true to our word to crush rebellion, and we will be true to our brave soldiers ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... wicked gander." She pointed out with her knitting-needle a sleek white fellow, who flirted his tail and turned an eye, quavering as if he ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... cried Gascoyne, in a quavering whisper, and for a moment Myles felt the chill of goose-flesh creep up and down his spine. But the next moment ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... lessons to a mute audience of grazing cattle, sombre pines, nodding plumes of golden-rod, and shivering white asters, belated and overtaken by wintry blasts. Alone with nature, she warbled as unrestrainedly as the birds who listened to her quavering crescendos; and more than once she had become so absorbed in this forest practising, that twinkling stars peeped down at her through the fringy canopy ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... of year, Miss Lydia," she said, sinking into a chair with a long, quavering sigh. "One drops from thirty and sometimes forty dollars a week to twenty or less; and it's so hard on one's feet, being on them in hot weather. I assure you mine ache like the toothache. And expenses ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... passion, fear, betraying him. He was pressed; he became incoherent; and then from the jolting litter came a groan. In the instant hubbub and the gathering of the crowd as to a natural signal, the clear-eyed quavering Chancellor heard the catch of the clock before it strikes the hour of doom; and for ten seconds he forgot himself. This shall atone for many sins. He plucked a bearer by the sleeve. 'Bid the Princess flee. All is lost,' he whispered. ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... counted the notes in the call. One, two, three, four—and a flood of relief swept over him. It was MacDonald. They had used that signal in their hunting, when they had wished to locate each other without frightening game. Always there were three notes in the big gray owl's quavering cry. The fourth was human. He put his hands to his mouth and sent back an answer, emphasizing the fourth note. The light breeze had died down for a moment, and Aldous heard the old mountaineer's reply as it floated faintly back to him through the forest. Continuing to hold his pistol, ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... distance; until the eyes ached and the soul cried out in wonder at it all. Always there were the same deep nights, with the lonely stars so far away in the velvet purple darkness; the soft breathing of the desert; the pungent smell of greasewood and salt-bush; the weird, quavering call of the ground owl; or the wild coyote chorus, as if the long lost spirits of long ago savage races cried out a dreadful warning to ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... has just returned from a concert of fashionable music, where he 'tried to faint, that he might be carried out, but didn't know how to do it,' and was compelled to sit with compressed lips, and listen to 'sounds from flat shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction,' for two long hours. When he gets home, however, he 'feeds fat his grudge' against modern musical affectations. Let us condense a few of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... is the matter with sister?" ejaculated Miss Jerusha, going to the window just in time to see the fat boy tumble off the post as the tall lad came to the rescue, while the cripple went hopping across the street in answer to a kindly quavering voice ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... a pitying contempt for everything that is characteristically English, and for the unfortunate English who are imbued with the prejudices of their native land. He gives a practical expression to his scorn by quavering in a reedy voice, the feeble chansonnettes of an inferior French composer, and by issuing a volume of poems in which the laws of English Grammar are trampled under foot, and the restrictions of English metre are defied. In ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... Chiltern's better judgment. It's not the kind of thing that men do. I care less about it than most men, but even I object to such a proposition when it is made so openly. No doubt I am old." This assertion Mr. Maule made in a weak, quavering voice, which showed that had his intention been that way turned in his youth, he might probably have earned ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... answered with a stiff salute and a quavering voice, "I'm Private Harry Fisher and this is Private Jediah ...
— Sonny • Rick Raphael
... in rather a quavering voice, "you may be perfectly sure that our valued guest has no sympathy with any of the barbarous religions you allude to, but is a most loyal member of the Church of England; and that when he said he ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... "H-h-here!" came a quavering voice, as the other pushed himself forward, so that none of them would believe he might be at fault, as he was not particularly desirous of a ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... ghostly beliefs of the hour and the place, there creeps upon me a nameless, tingling sense of being haunted. But no! these gracious, silent, waving, weaving shapes are not of the Shadowy Folk, for whose coming the white fires were kindled: a strain of song, full of sweet, clear quavering, like the call of a bird, gushes from some girlish mouth, and fifty ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... like warm Summer nights When stars shine in the quiet river. And against the lights Blundering insects knock, And the 'Rathaus' clock Booms twice, through the shrill sounds Of flutes and horns in the lamplit grounds. Pressed against him in the mazy wavering Of a country dance, with her short breath quavering She leans upon the beating, throbbing Music. Laughing, sobbing, Feet gliding after sliding feet; His—hers— The ballroom blurs— She feels the air Lifting her hair, And the lapping of water on the stone stair. ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... the weather has another revulsion of feeling. In the morning it is hysterical, laughing and crying by turns. We come down-stairs booted and spurred for the ascent, and make directly for the barometer in the doorway. Alas, it tells but a quavering and uncertain tale, itself evidently undecided, and holding out to others neither discouragement nor hope. An hour brings no change. The guide looks sagely toward the clouds, as who should know all weather ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... afraid, for I know I should fall heavy!" said the Goat-father, in a quavering voice; but he did as he was told, and shutting his eyes firmly, he slipped from the window-sill and fell with a heavy flop into the arms waiting to ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... 'there couldn't be more ado if a'd been guilty of murder, an' yet a say again, as a said afore, a'm noane ashamed o' my doings. Here, Sylvie, lass, tak' thy mother off me, for a cannot do it mysel', it like sets me off.' His voice was quavering as he said this. But he cheered up a little and said, 'Now, good-by, oud wench' (kissing her), 'and keep a good heart, and let me see thee lookin' lusty and strong when a come back. Good-by, my ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the westward. Suddenly both halted in their tracks and glanced into each other's faces. From far behind them, seemingly from the crest of the hill they had left, sounded a cry: "Y-i-i-e-e-o-o-o!" Long-drawn, thin, quavering, it cut the keen air with startling distinctness. Then, as abruptly as it had started, it ceased, and the two stood staring. Swiftly Connie's glance sought the bald crest of the hill that showed distinctly above the topmost ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... roared Leroux, but in a quavering voice that did not sound like his own. "Get out of the way or I'll smash ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... he rattles in breathless, quavering rage. His voice is low, with sudden sonorities, like a trumpet that one tries to blow too softly. "By God, let me go, I tell you! Do you think I'm going to stop here? Allons, let me be, or I'll jump ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... many minutes. Then, at last, his eyes dropped again to the crushed paper, and a quavering sigh escaped him. He half rose from his seat, but fell back in it again. Then a sudden spasm seized him, and flinging himself round he reached out his slight, tanned arms upon the dirty table, and, his head dropping upon them, he moaned out ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... room. Her depression was noted and audibly commented upon by Mrs. Pearson, her next-door neighbor and arch-enemy. In fact, the whole corridor was alive with the news of her defeat. At the lunch-table it was the sole topic of conversation, and in the library old Colonel Rockwell—in the pauses of a quavering rendition of "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep"—bet Mr. Patterson three of the cigars his nephew always sent him on Fridays that Mrs. Walker, being a woman of spirit, would not yield even though ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... on Sundays, this extraordinary company gathered bare-headed to the poop for a religious service which it would be colourless to call frantic. It began decorously enough with a quavering exposition of some portion of Holy Writ by Captain Colenso. But by and by (and especially at the evening office) his listeners kindled and opened on him with a skirmishing fire of "Amens." Then, worked by degrees to an ecstasy, they broke into cries of thanksgiving and mutual encouragement; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the shadow, bent far over, slowly twisting his thin, corded hands, the fingers tightly interlocked. It was a long time before he spoke, and his interlocutor had to urge him again before he answered, in his gentle, quavering voice. ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... time. Her words are wise, he thought to himself, and he overlooked her, guessing her to have shrunken to less than her original size; she seemed but a handful of bones and yellow skin, but when she looked up in his face her eyes were alive, and from under a small bony forehead they pleaded, and with quavering voice she said: let him go, dear Master, for if the Pharisees seek him here and find him, he will hang again on the cross. Thou wouldst have me tell him, Esora, that rumours are about that he did not die on the cross and that a search may be ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... Captain Eben held an open hymn book back in one hand and beat time with the other. He wore brass-bowed spectacles well down toward the tip of his nose. Swinging a heavy, stubby finger and singing in a high, quavering voice of no particular register, he ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... task for today—(voice quavering, he saved it from the upper registers). Our task for today is to get at the aggregate pattern. And I assure you, gentlemen, we are going to do that! Now. ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... exceedingly that there should be no sign of the smith's shop. "Poor foolish Jock Gordon!" ejaculated Angus, quickening his trot into a canter; "what does he know about carrying sheep's heads to the smithy?" Jock laboured hard to keep up with his guide; quavering and semi-quavering, as his breath served—for Jock always began to sing, when in solitary places, after nightfall, as a protection against ghosts. At length the daylight died entirely away, and he could only ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... him in a quavering voice. "Mr. Wilding! Mr. Wilding!" for the light beating upon his face and figure from the open door had revealed him. The form came swiftly forward, its steps pattering down the walk, another slenderer figure surged in its place upon the threshold, hovered there an instant, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... to you, child?' she asked, almost fiercely, and sat up straight in her chair. Her voice, although feeble and quavering, was determined in tone. She pushed me back from her and sought the face I was ashamed to show. 'What have they done to you, my boy?' she repeated, ere I could conquer my sobs sufficiently ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... Then a man's quavering old voice came to her through the winding trail of the arroya. It was lifted tunefully insistent in an old-time song ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... me she has spoken the truth," he said, in a quavering voice. Then, with concentrated horror, "But if so—O God, what have I done?—What ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... now was to bid farewell forever to the shores of a land where war is permitted to eventuate with such abruptness and with so little consideration for visiting noncombatants. To those about me I made no secret of my desire in this regard, speaking with such intensity as to produce a quavering of the voice. ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... dissolved in mortification over his blunders. The Fiddling Boss obediently got down his fiddle from the smoky corner beside the fireplace and played a weird old tune or two, and then they sang. First the men, with hoarse, quavering approach and final roar of wild sweetness; then Margaret and the Boy in duet, and finally Margaret alone, with a few bashful chords on the fiddle, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... nose, either from cologne inhalings or sunburn, grew suddenly scarlet. However she still regarded the far-off horizons and repeated the last stanza of her hymn, which stanza, sung with much quavering and sighing was a statement to the effect that Mrs. Tinneray would "cling to the old rugged cross." Suddenly, however, she remarked to the surrounding ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... gone: the office-boy had gone: in another minute Pratt would have gone, too: he was only looking round before locking up for the night. Then these things came—combined in the person of an old man, Antony Bartle, who opened the door, pushed in a queer, wrinkled face, and asked in a quavering voice if ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... this jolly Absolon So wooeth her, that him is woebegone. He waketh all the night, and all the day, To comb his lockes broad, and make him gay. He wooeth her *by means and by brocage*, *by presents and by agents* And swore he woulde be her owen page. He singeth brokking* as a nightingale. *quavering He sent her piment , mead, and spiced ale, And wafers* piping hot out of the glede**: *cakes **coals And, for she was of town, he proffer'd meed. For some folk will be wonnen for richess, And some for strokes, and some with gentiless. Sometimes, to show his lightness and mast'ry, He playeth ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... nasal key; from time to time, when the inattentive spirits are not listening, it is accompanied by a clapping of dry palms, or by harsh sounds from a kind of wooden clapper made of two discs of mandragora root. It is an uninterrupted stream of prayer; its flow never ceases, and the quavering continues without stopping, like the bleating of a ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... early childhood, she did as Tamar said. And the old woman assisted her to undress, and so she lay down with a sigh in her bed. And Tamar, her round spectacles by this time on her nose, sitting at the little table by her pillow, read, in a solemn and somewhat quavering voice, such comfortable passages as came ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... hiding, flying whene'er they slumber, High on the crags we pause, over the moon-gulfs; Black clouds fall and leave us up in the moon-depths Where wind flaps our hair and cloaks like fin-webs, Ay, and our sleeves that toss with our arms and the cadence Of quavering crying among the threatening echoes. Then we spread our cloaks and leap down the rock-stairs, Sweeping the heaths with our skirts, greying the dew-bloom, Until we feel a pool on the wide dew stretches Stilled ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... dramatically, and cast languishing glances at the unresponsive backs of the congregation, blinking over her notes as though invisible footlights dazzled her eyes. It was not easy to find the sentiment sung in the midst of the quavering notes, so the poor worshipers below could scarcely offer "amens" in their hearts; but they might perhaps consider thankfully that some sort of noise, "joyful" or otherwise, had been made unto the Lord by ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... an open window of the cottage. The leaf tinkled. It had fallen upon the pages of a volume from which a man was reading by a lamp. At that moment the clock of the Capuchins tolled out a doleful TWO; it was answered by the numerous bells of Paris. Solemn, querulous, sepulchral, quavering, silvery, close at hand, or modulated into a dim echo by the distance, the voice of the inexorable hours vibrated over the capital, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... some, my dear?' she added, looking at me. I gave a delighted assent, and she had gathered two lovely carnations, when we heard a quavering voice from under the ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... very pleasant for him to follow them—people would tease him and ask him troublesome questions. But where was the dance, and had they gone to it after all? He rose and went swiftly down the creek. At the mouth of it a light shone through the darkness, and from it a quavering hymn trembled on the still air. A moment later Jason stood on the threshold of an open door and an old couple at the fireplace lifted ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... have brought home a gentle-faced hind, likewise cruelly slain. And Kathchen's mother has whisked inside, and here are the tall schoppen on the table; and speedily the long, low room is filled with the tobacco-smoke. What! another song, you thirsty old Keinitz, with the quavering voice? But there is a lusty chorus to that too; and a great clinking of glasses; and the Englishman laughs and does his part too, and he has called for six more schoppen of red.... But hush, now! Have we come out from the din ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... that he will live, young master," the old woman said in a quavering, high-pitched voice. "'Tis hard to kill an Armstrong. They have ever been a hardy race and, save the lad's father, have ever been prone to the giving and taking of blows. I watched by his grandfather's bed, when he was in as sore a strait as this; but he came round, and was none the worse ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... never will. But do you want proof of the power of grace to quicken mind, as well as to convert soul? Come with me up the stairs into dear old R.W.'s darksome room, and in the course of our talk you shall hear his quavering voice saying things, quite humbly and naturally, about the glory of his Saviour, and the way of salvation, and the joy and peace of his heart in God, which are not only loving ascriptions but clear and sound divinity. It is ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... ominous, lifted his voice in a long, mournful howl which made mothers put out their hands to their babes. In answer a coyote in the grass raised a high, quavering cry, wild and desolate, the voice of ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... habit of practising continually. All day and all night during Walker's absences (and these occurred all night and all day), you might hear—the whole street might hear—the voice of the lady at No. 23, gurgling, and shaking, and quavering, as ladies do when they practise. The street did not approve of the continuance of the noise; but neighbours are difficult to please, and what would Morgiana have had to do if she had ceased to sing? It would be hard to lock a blackbird in a cage and prevent ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... little while." The final word trailed out into a long, tremulous wail, showing how near she was to the breaking point in her wonderful effort at self-control. The men looked away hastily. They heard her draw two or three deep, quavering breaths; they could almost feel the tension that she was exercising ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Mr. Grey walked over to the cabin to administer a rebuke to Maum Winnie. As he drew near the gate the quavering voice of the old woman was heard singing jerkily, and with a pause ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... the diddling drone of Piqueur's quavering voice. In the clear sweetness of the May morning above the twittering of the birds it raised itself, the quaint measures delighting her ears. Even in Piqueur's thin falsetto the old melody sang itself—tender, graceful, spirited, ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... my first introduction to college music and I often bore a quavering tenor as we shouted it out in our freshman enthusiasm. The ridicule, however, was only on the surface; we thoroughly liked and respected the genial poet and it was a great sorrow to us that he resigned during our course, although his successor was ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... recommended to me on his deathbed; poor father, his eyes were closed, and his head stretched back on the pillow. I was sitting beside his bed, my hand in his, when I felt it feebly pressed. His eyes half opened, and I saw him smile. Then he said in a weak, slow, and the quavering voice of an old man who is dying: 'The Pomard at the farther end—on the left—you know, my boy—only for friends.' He pressed my hand again, and, as if exhausted, closed his eyes, though I could see by the imperceptible motion of his lips that he was still smiling inwardly. Come ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... Epouseuses du Berry, will hardly require to be told how hopeless was the effect of it when sung by a voice which, owing to recent and unabated vexation, was continually on the verge of tears. Nothing, perhaps, is more thoroughly tragic than a really lively melody intoned by a voice quavering with emotion, and even Sir Joseph, who did not understand a word of the song, was deeply grateful when it was ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... my young Midas here Will never learn to bow (The dancing-masters do not teach That gracious reverence now); With voices quavering just a bit, They play their old parts through, They talk of folk who used to woo, Of hearts that broke in 'fifty-two— Now ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... "organizers" came on the platform together, and the audience applauded generously. Evan sat down while Henty, his face aflame, announced in quavering voice: ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... the Grand Turk, that keeled over five minutes after she was launched?" said the quavering voice of Miss Ruey; "there was jist such a company of thoughtless young creatures aboard as there ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he said in a quavering voice, "forty years, man and boy, have I served your Majesty, and your Majesty's late lamented father, and never have I heard such a ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... "Three Merry Mowers," but David was not to be put down so easily, and showed himself capable of a copious crescendo, which was rendering it doubtful whether the rose would not predominate over the mowers, when old Kester, with an entirely unmoved and immovable aspect, suddenly set up a quavering treble—as if he had been an alarum, and the time was come for him to ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... and baffle reform, In the sacred name of law; And over the quavering voice of Hem Is the ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... its rush and roar, waved his hat to it and cried: 'After me!' like a captain to his company, and started off at a gallop, it would have obeyed and followed him. 'After me the Deluge!' should be the rallying cry of the monarchy for the renewal of its youth, not the quavering note of its dotage. That is the motto I am going to put on the title-page of ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... life—portentous, insufferable hours when, as she sat under the softly swaying vine-leaves of the trellis with Miss Birdseye and tried, in order to still her nerves, to read something aloud to her guest, the sound of her own quavering voice made her think more of that baleful day at Cambridge than even of the fact that at that very moment Verena was "off" with Mr. Ransom—had gone to take the little daily walk with him to which it had been arranged that their enjoyment of each other's society should ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... on a high note, and goes quavering irregularly downwards, with infinite twirls, shakes, and prolonged notes, these being sung to the exclamation "Ay!" Minor keys enter a good deal into this kind of performance, and the most remarkable part of it is that the singer, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... Ted Slavin was what first drew their attention; and it seemed to come from around the next corner. Then followed a quavering voice, ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... came down steadily, and the wind swept by in gusts. It was the Banshee's hour, and two or three times, as they were dropping off, that fearful, quavering human wail, "like a woman in distress," came from the woods to set their hearts a-jumping, not Caleb and Sam ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... little angel is dead!" he murmured in a thin, quavering voice. "Dead! Ay, that is a pity, a pity! But MY master is not dead—no, no! I am not such an old ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... bell, notwithstanding the quavering of its old, cracked voice, had very soon resumed its authority; and the man who guided the whole establishment denied himself the slightest recreation. Sober as an apprentice, he left three-fourths of his salary with Planus for the Chebes' ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... upon the roaring billows. From some melodious swain came a freakish fiddling, which leaped and danced like mad, now here, now there, like an audible will-o'-the-wisp. A dolorous whistle chimed harmonies, and with regular sibilation came to time, quavering out the chromatic moments of this nasal hour. High over all floated a faint whisper,—a song-cloud rising from the dream-mist of a peaceful breast,—a revelation timidly exhaled to the disembodied spirits of the air. Its hazy lullaby ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... blankets from the farmwife's stores, laid herself down upon the floor beside us, after commending herself and us to the God she loved and trusted, raised her head and spoke to us once more in her sweet, hopeful, quavering old tones: ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... see his dying father? What confounded nonsense. Give me the thing here;" and he snatched the telegram from Derrick and read it in a quavering, ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... it was," replied Lenore, with quavering voice. Her strength began to leave her now. Her arms that had held him so firmly began ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... window, quavering sounds rose. The words were French, Canadian French, scarce distinguishable to an ear trained only in the Old World. It was an old man singing, the air perhaps that of some old chanson of his own country, sung by villagers ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... grievous minor into the profound stillness, the peace, of the valley, of the garment of stars drawn from wall to wall. There was something animal-like in its long-drawn, quavering note—like the baying of a dog out of the midst of his troubled darkness at the remote, silver serenity, the disturbing, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... failed, of course, and the picture that came disgusted her and was unutterably contemptible and weak and full of cowardice. The face of Paul Griggs came in its place a moment later, and she heard in her ears the deep, stern voice, quavering with strength rather than with weakness, and she could feel the arms she loved about her, pressing her almost to pain, able to press her to death ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... figure that went flying to Tergou was truly weird-like and terrible: so old and wizened the face; so white and reverend the streaming hair; so baleful the eye; so fierce the fury which shook the bent frame that went spurring like mad; while the quavering voice yelled, "I'll make their hearts ache. I'll make their hearts ache. I'll make their hearts ache. I'll make their hearts ache. All ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... olives and garlic which they had brought with them, smoking a peculiarly strong and villainous tobacco, and torturing native musical instruments of various kinds. At night a young Turk sang plaintive, quavering laments to the accompaniment of a sort of guitar, some of the others occasionally joining in the mournful chorus. I found my chief recreation, when it grew too dark to read, in watching an Orthodox priest, ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... behind the coffin, they were chanting a dirge, and Peter Ilitsch's long-drawn, quavering notes ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... take the flag? Can he find it? What does he want with it? What did you do with the flag, Alice?" he whined, in his peculiar, quavering voice. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... poverty, the old man tottered away with his stick in one hand, stretched far out to support his stooping frame, and carried in the other the caps of the two forsaken urchins, saying, as he went, in a quavering, croaking voice, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... called in a husky, quavering voice, choking for breath. "Cripes, Harry—where in hell ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... perception at the same time, on the observer's part, that this element gained from her, in a manner, for effect and harmony, as much as it gave—her whole attitude had, to his imagination, meanings that hung about it, waiting upon her, hovering, dropping and quavering forth again, like vague faint snatches, mere ghosts of sound, of old-fashioned melancholy music. It was positively well for him, he had his times of reflecting, that he couldn't put it off on Kate and Mrs. ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... have been an hour and a half after his companions and he had parted, when Deerslayer was aroused by a sound that filled him equally with concern and surprise. The quavering call of a loon arose from the opposite side of the lake, evidently at no great distance from its outlet. There was no mistaking the note of this bird, which is so familiar to all who know the sounds of the American lakes. Shrill, tremulous, loud, and sufficiently prolonged, it seems the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... people's friend!" again shouted Caius Crispus; and Bassus took the word, and repeated it in the shrill quavering accents of old age—"All those who love the people vote for the people's friend—vote for the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... when, with a sudden movement, his hat entered the diligence through the small window, while he clung with his other arm to the footboard, between the wheels splashing mud. His voice, feeble at first and quavering, grew sharp; it resounded in the night like the indistinct moan of a vague distress; and through the ringing of the bells, the murmur of the trees, and the rumbling of the empty vehicle, it had a far-off sound that disturbed ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... describe her behavior fully, for the sake of others," Agathemer resumed. "When she sights a victim she flattens herself out on the ground and gives her long, quavering squall. If the victim remains stationary she crawls toward it very slowly, almost imperceptibly, moving one paw only at a time. If it runs about she ceases her advance and pivots around until it is again stationary ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... easily a tune that is sung. But by placing my hand on another's throat and cheek, I enjoy the changes of the voice. I know when it is low or high, clear or muffled, sad or cheery. The thin, quavering sensation of an old voice differs in my touch from the sensation of a young voice. A Southerner's drawl is quite unlike the Yankee twang. Sometimes the flow and ebb of a voice is so enchanting that my fingers quiver with exquisite pleasure, even if ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... ask you and Fred and Charley," she said in a quavering voice. "That 's what I called you in for—to ask you ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... dragged him into the boat, to sit upon the bottom, gasping, spitting, and rubbing the ooze from his eyes. But it was a good two minutes before he was sufficiently recovered to look round angrily, and in a highly-pitched quavering ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... Butler dully. Through the quavering fingers that he swept suddenly across his brow ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... nationalities which visit Manhattan! French cooks, Italian, German, Spanish, English, Swedish—cooks of all races minister to their appetites. Whenever a panful of scraps is thrown out from the galley, a flock of gulls may be seen fluttering over their fluent table d'hote. Their shrill, quavering cries of joy and expectancy sound as if the machinery of their emotions were worked by rusty pulleys; their sharp eyes glisten, and their great wings flap and whirl together in a confusion of white and gray. It is said that they ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... but mine." Dixie was trying to divest her brave voice of a certain quavering. "Folks say I've got a long head on me—you amongst 'em—but if any God-forsaken female on this round globe ever made a bigger fool of herself than I did that whack I'd like to shake hands with her. I shall see myself setting in that wagon in my new togs waiting ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... nothing better to do than to get into the bath which had been intended for the Marquis, sup and go to bed: so into the bath she went. The bath was close to the postern on the other side of which hapless Rinaldo had ensconced himself, and, thus the mournful and quavering music which Rinaldo made as he shuddered in the cold, and which seemed rather to proceed from a stork's beak than from the mouth of a human being, was audible to the lady in the bath. She therefore called her maid, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... response. I only felt the shoulder heave, as with a long-drawn quavering sigh, then heard the regular though labored breathing of a weary man ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley |
