"Half-hearted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... troubled. I could see but the one way before me; to profit by an excellent bed, to try to sleep soon, to be stirring early, and to hope for some renewed occasion in the morning. To have said so much and yet to say no more, to go out into the world upon so half-hearted a parting, was more than I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... resented his boyhood of continual fear. During recent years, when fear had gradually diminished and finally disappeared, he was somewhat troubled to find that the natural affection, which a son should have for his father, had vanished with it. He had, on several occasions, made half-hearted attempts at a better understanding, but these attempts had unfortunately fallen on inopportune moments, when the old man was not particularly gracious toward the world in general, and latterly there had been silence between the two. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... was resistance to the levying of taxes; this, however, did not take very long to suppress, nor was any one of importance involved in it. Still the hostilities with France were carried on in a very half-hearted fashion; being confined to defensive operations in Brittany which were supposed to be no violation of the peace recently prolonged to ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... zest would Borrow have undertaken to translate Moll Flanders and Captain Singleton into the languages of Hafiz and Omar! But the Bible Society was ready to his hand, and Borrow did nothing by halves. A good hater and a staunch friend, he was loyal to the Bible Society in no half-hearted way, and not the most pronounced quarrel with forces obviously quite out of tune with his nature led to any real slackening of that loyalty. In the end a portion of his property went to swell the Bible ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... to escape was but half-hearted. I could not resign myself thus to lose all chance of following up this mystery. My instincts as a police official revolted. I had but to reach out my hand in order to seize this man who had been outlawed! Should ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... the soldiers were shoeless and left bloody footprints on the snow-covered line of march. All were but half-hearted at this time and many utterly discouraged. Washington wrote most apprehensively concerning the situation to the Congress. Paine, in the meantime (himself a soldier, with General Greene's army on ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... strong and great and true. I think, as a rule, my girls are happy, and as a rule they turn out well. The great motto of life here, Hester, is earnestness. We are earnest in our work, we are earnest in our play. A half-hearted girl has no chance at Lavender House. In play-time, laugh with the merriest, my child; in school-hours, study with the most studious. Do ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... modesty, and his preparations for carrying the war again into Virginia were followed with high hopes for his success. The officers of the army, however, did not share the popular confidence in their new chief and some of those highest in authority gave him only a half-hearted support. ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... a little half-hearted opposition, but finally, as I knew he would, consented. I had gained my point: I was free ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... the outbreak of the war no further steps were taken either to arrange for contribution or to establish a Canadian navy, though the naval college at Halifax was continued, and the training cruisers were maintained in a half-hearted way. ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... Catholic Ireland against revolutionary France. There was, for instance, the mission of Lord Fitzwilliam in 1795—a Whig mission extorted from Pitt against his will, due to a Parliamentary complication, and backed from London with but half-hearted support. That famous mission which sent through Ireland such a strange, sad thrill of hope, soon closed in mist and darkness. Lord Fitzwilliam went to Ireland, as many Englishmen have gone since, with the intention of doing justice. He was ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... McFarquhar, from reprinting the letters in Edinburgh. Whether the executors believed Mrs. Stanhope's story, or saw no reason to object to the publication of the letters, I do not know, but it is clear that the opposition was a half-hearted one. ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... the sands of Dee. It leaves the upper blue clear and the head of Orion, but dims the flicker of Sirius and shortens the steady ray of the evening star. The people scattered about are not mining people, but half-hearted agriculturists, and very poor. Their cottages are rather cabins; not a tiled roof is in the country, but the slates have taken some beauty with time, having dips and dimples, and grass upon their edges. The walls are all thickly whitewashed, which is a pleasure ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... well as his words, commended. And as soon as he began to smack his rosy lips, which nature had fitted up on purpose, over a rasher, or a cut of gammon, or a keg of best Aylesbury, or a fine red herring, no customer having a penny in his pocket might struggle hard enough to keep it there. For the half-hearted policy of fingering one's money, and asking a price theoretically, would recoil upon the constitution of the strongest man, unless he could detach from all cooperation the congenial researches of his eyes and nose. When the weather was cool and the air full of appetite, and ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... smile in a half-hearted fashion. For some moments his patience remained. Then, as Kate still waited for him to speak, his eyes abruptly lit with the ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... 1: St. Valentine's: The First Day of Spring: Midsummer Day: Proposal Day, September 17: Followed by Mourner's Morn (a half-hearted holiday) for the other ...
— Cupid's Almanac and Guide to Hearticulture for This Year and Next • John Cecil Clay
... Miss Leigh in the invitations, and she was still the "paying guest" at the little Kensington house,—a guest who was never tired of doing kindly and helpful deeds for the benefit of the sweet old woman who was her hostess. Once or twice Miss Leigh had made a faint half-hearted protest against her constant ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... tackles his job in a half-hearted manner, using such ponderous polysyllables as "international" and "acquisition." Now Mr. Punch, always ready to lend a hand in a good cause, has instructed one of his young men to rewrite two of The Chronicle reviews in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... It was hard to see the wounded withering in the increasing heat—the dead were better off. We reached the heights overlooking Haditha to find that the garrison was in full retreat. Most of it had left the night before. Those remaining opened fire upon us, but in a half-hearted way, that was not calculated to inflict much loss. Many of the inhabitants of the town lived in burrows in the hillsides. Some of these caves had been filled with ammunition. The enemy had fired all their dumps, and rocks were flying about. We endeavored ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... anti-British faction, a party which spread fast-growing shoots from out the then Government's very heart and root. The Government's half-hearted supporters were not anti-British, but they were not readers of the Daily Gazette; they were not, in short, whole-hearted Government supporters. They were Whigs, as the saying went. My party, the readers of the Gazette, ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... a half-hearted attempt, and managed to grasp the ledge, but her hold was so feeble that Tom dared not withdraw his support He was powerless to act, and they would both drown ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... mizzen-chains, there was apparently no means of reaching the deck. They ceased rowing in each of these places, but there were a couple of defenders ready at each halt, and they made no further attempt, but lay on their oars in a half-hearted way, as if waiting for an ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... at the bare suggestion of such a thing drew her into a half-hearted defense of the project. Numbers of the girls she knew down here who had been doing war work were going enthusiastically into things like that—or at least were announcing an invincible determination to do so. Only they ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... their old homes in France. Some of them did this. Robert Giffard, who held the seigneury of Beauport just below Quebec, was a notable example. The great majority of the seigneurs, however, made only half-hearted attempts in this direction, and their efforts went for little or nothing. What they did was to meet, on arrival at Quebec, the shiploads of settlers sent out by the royal officers. There they gathered about the incoming vessel, ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... of the inflamed eyes. A nausea of disgust swept over her. She fought it down. Then, with hypocrisy that amazed herself, she met his ardent stare boldly, though with a pretense of timidity. She spoke with a hesitant, remonstrant voice, as if in half-hearted protest, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... the man with a diploma has learned to use the tools of life skilfully; has learned how to focus his faculties so that he can bring the whole man to his task, and not a part of himself. Low ideals, slipshod work, aimless, systemless, half-hearted endeavors, should have ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... a peculiarity in a certain type of speaking, which, while not strictly a mannerism, is detrimental to the highest effect. It manifests itself in physical weakness. The speaker is uniformly tired, and his speaking has a half-hearted tone. The lifelessness in voice and manner communicates itself to the audience, and prevents all possibility of deep and enduring impression. Joseph Parker said that when Sunday came he felt like a racehorse, and could hardly wait for the time to come for him to ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... vigil is an excellent lesson, since one has no choice but to look hard at those objects which we usually pass with such half-hearted interest. Through my little peep hole I employed the hours in studying every specimen, from the huge mummy-case which leaned against the wall to those very jewels which had brought us there, gleaming ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lined up in the village street in full marching order, awaiting the command to move, several half-hearted attempts at jocularity died cold. One irrepressible made a futile attempt at frivolity by announcing that he had Cherokee blood in his veins and was so tough he could "spit battleships." This attempted jocularity drew ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... was not puzzled as to direction. Within two hours his long, tireless stride brought him out into a clearing in the valley where his own logging-camp stood. He went directly to the log-landing, where in a listless and half-hearted manner the loading crew were piling logs ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... Yasmini would have none of that plan. First and last the great outstanding difference between her and the ordinary run of conspirators, Western or Eastern, was unwillingness to sacrifice faithful friends even in a pinch—although she could be ruthlessness itself toward half-hearted ones. Both those habits grew on ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... said the ruffian. With his sabre, and paying no heed to the helpless woman's lamentations or to the half-hearted remonstrances of his comrades, he killed the poor widow's cow; then going to the little patch of garden, he tore up and threw into the burn all ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... Bob. "I will give my life to it. Everybody hates war in the abstract, but no one seems to throw himself heart and soul into a great peace crusade. Even the Peace Society is half-hearted. The cause of Peace hasn't been voiced of late years. That's it," and Bob rose to his feet excitedly; "I see my work, Nancy. Neither your father nor any one else shall say that I'm unpractical, or that I sit still and do nothing. Think of ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... 'Either you go to sleep, or I'll call father!' But no obstacle is so difficult that depravity cannot twist around it and even while he threatened 'I'll call father,' I slipped into his bed and took my pleasure in spite of his half-hearted resistance. Nor was he displeased with my improper conduct for, although he complained for a while, that he had been cheated and made a laughing-stock, and that his companions, to whom he had bragged of his wealthy friend, had made sport of him. 'But you'll see that I'll not be ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Yesterday we moved out to meet and escort Ridley in with the convoy from Pretoria. About a couple of miles out we heard guns, and I thought probably we should have a bit of scrapping, but we did not beyond some half-hearted sniping. To my surprise and delight Ridley brought mails, my portion being eleven letters. Some had the home post mark of May 25th, and the others August 7th. I must leave off for a space here, as I have to carve an epitaph for the poor fellow who died a few days ago. ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... the only appropriate site, and approved by another Act of the Legislature. Jefferson lost no time in attempting to secure land for the colony, but his efforts met with no success. After a discouraging repulse from Sierra Leone, and the failure of several half-hearted attempts to obtain a footing elsewhere, the whole matter was allowed to sink into abeyance. For years a pall of secrecy concealed the scheme from ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson
... more and more from personal opinions, character, and abilities, to considerations of doctrinal points. The churches found more and more in common, while worldly interests left the masses with only a half-hearted concern ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... to disappointment. The methodical, remorseless advance of powerful forces filled the tribesmen with alarm. They made a half-hearted attempt to capture the Panjkora bridge, and finding themselves forestalled, fell again to discussing terms. In this scene of indecision the political officers employed all their arts. And then suddenly the whole huge combination, which had been raised in our path, collapsed as an ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... of Mrs Desmond," was the verdict of grateful subalterns, who found these tea-drinkings a vast improvement on stale home papers, and half-hearted gambling at the Club. There was always music. Honor, besides playing magnificently, could be safely relied upon for impromptu accompaniments. The Chicken, and an irrepressible Irishman of the Sikhs, who gloried in the name of O'Flanagan, were ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... lover; so called from Philander, the Dutch knight mentioned above, who was wooed by Gabrina. To "philander" is to hang about a woman in a half-hearted way; to toy. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... reasons, chivalry must have facts. You have vowed your love and loyalty a hundred times, and still, when a great crisis confronts me, you question, you grow angry, you complain, because my reasons are unknown to you. Because I am lonely, because I feel the need of even your half-hearted loyalty, I shall tell you why, why. Do you know what terror is? No. Well, it was blind terror which made me run. I counted not the consequences; my one thought was of instant flight. I shall tell you why I am lonely, why the world, bright to you, is dark. I am ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... which our army rests to such an extent that I feel that our Army will never be the same again. Many officers will resign to join Ulster, and there will be such a host of retired officers in the Ulster ranks that men who would stand by the Government no matter what it did, will be worse than half-hearted in all they do. No army could stand such a strain ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... relapsed into his nervous brooding in the little chair, suddenly roused himself: "He's a funny fellow, Swithin," he said, but in a half-hearted way. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It may seem a small matter, but it is not. That it is not is readily seen from this fact, that when the perpetual virginity of our Blessed Mother is denied then also the Incarnation of her Son is denied or is held only in a half-hearted way. The Church stresses such facts, not only because they are facts, but because by their character they form a hedge about the truth of the Incarnation of our Lord. And we who are Catholic Christians must feel an obligation to hold fast this fact. We ought ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... shoulder to Frimley,' said David at last. They had made a half-hearted inspection of the stock in the home fields, and were now passing through the gate on to the moor. 'I must see Margaret Dawson again before I ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... attacked—but it was a half-hearted attack, for Mirans were becoming distinctly skittish about fifteen-foot UV beams. Two badly blistered ships—and the Mirans retreated to Jupiter. But Mira held Phobos and Deimos. In two weeks, they had set up cannon there, and proved themselves accurate ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... not be known.' To a man who loves righteousness and his fellow men, it must always be painful to be misunderstood; and misunderstanding is specially inevitable where he acts upon principles beyond the recognition of those around him, who, being but half-hearted Christians, count themselves the law-givers of righteousness, and charge him with the very things it is the aim of his life to destroy. The Lord himself was accused of being a drunkard and a keeper of bad company—and perhaps ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... made the old chief jump down half a dozen steps at once. "I ordered you to go full speed ahead and I mean to go full speed ahead whether the boilers burst, or the propeller races, or the screw shaft carries away; for I won't abandon a ship in distress for all the engineers and half-hearted mollicoddles in the world!" ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... and the fish part company in the air, and you have to sit down muttering "curses not loud but deep," till an application to the flask soothes your wounded spirit, and invigorates you for fresh effort. A beautiful sight it is to see a sea-trout rise. No half-hearted attempt is his, but a determined rush for the fly, and down again like thought, leaving you the tiniest part of a moment to strike, and hardly time to admire his beautiful silvery coat. If you have been fortunate enough to get the steel into him, you will have time to admire him when ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... literature is an index to its mind. If the nation has its freedom to win, from its literature may we learn if it is passionately in earnest in the fight, or if it is half-hearted, or if it cares not at all. Whatever state prevails, passionate men can pour their passion through literature to the nation's soul and make it burn and move and fight. For this reason it is of transcendent importance to the Cause. Literature is the Shrine of Freedom, its fortress, its banner, ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... had ever looked really scared in his life. His face simply refused to wear so foreign an expression. Therefore, when the spotlight finally revealed him, Casey blinked against it with a half-hearted grin, as if he had been caught at something foolish. The light remained upon him, and Smiling Lou got out of the car and came back to ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... Spurgeon should have weight here. He said: "If a man is to be a soul-winner, there must be in him intensity of emotion as well as sincerity of heart. You may repeat the most affectionate exhortations in such a half-hearted manner that no one will be moved either by love or fear. I believe that for soul-winning there is more in this matter of earnestness than in ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... occasionally utter what their looks invariably express. We read their thoughts by the light of their smiles. Not to see and hear these men is not to know them, and criticism without personal knowledge is in their case mutilation. Those who did know them listen in despair to the half-hearted praise and clumsy disparagement of critical strangers, and are apt to exclaim, as did the younger Pitt, when some extraneous person was expressing wonder at the enormous reputation of Fox, 'Ah! you have never been under the wand ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... immediate and enthusiastic action the dullest troops, and inspire with courage the most stupid men. He would sit up all night, if necessary, after riding thirty or forty leagues, to attend to correspondence, dispatches and details. What a lesson his career affords to the shiftless and half-hearted! ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... to help its votaries in the hour of peril; the victory of the Voizins was attributed to the superiority of their Gods rather than to deficiency in courage on the part of their foes: this theory, which was not unpalatable to those who had been half-hearted in defence of their homes, was also utilized by the more sober spirits as an argument wherewith to restrain the more ardent from attempting to renew the struggle under similar conditions. The observances of ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... the biggest thief and reiver in the country-side. To trust a note to him! But I'll give the benefit of my opinions to Lady Whitecross when we two forgather. Let her look to herself! I have no patience with half-hearted carlines, that complies on the Lord's day morning with the kirk, and comes taigling the same night to the conventicle. The one or the other! is what I say: hell or heaven- -Haddie's abominations or the pure word of God dreeping from the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... too lipsticky, like the red-paint job on its rind, and the Gouda seemed only half-hearted. Both too obviously ready-made for commerce with nothing individual or custom-made about them, rolled or bounced over from Holland ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... fight them to the bitter end. Denmark was a small nation, and moreover was left utterly unsupported by the European powers who had guaranteed her integrity. Bavaria was frightened, and will be frightened again when her hot fit gives way to her cold fit. France was divided and half-hearted under a tinsel emperor. It is Germany's misfortune that on these three special cases she based a general doctrine of war. A very little knowledge of human nature—a knowledge so alien to her that she calls it psychology and assigns it to ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... rebellion against natural selection and his defiance of Nature's pre-human dispositions, that he must either go on and acquire firmer control of the conditions, or perish miserably by the vengeance certain to fall on the half-hearted meddler in great affairs. We may indeed compare civilized man to a successful rebel against Nature, who, by every step forward, renders himself liable to greater and greater penalties, and so cannot afford ...
— Progress and History • Various
... that the worship of God was soon to begin. Several of the other smacks also flew Bethel-flags. These belonged to the whole-hearted ones who had fairly and boldly come out on the Lord's side. Others drew near, although they did not fly the flag. Some of these belonged to the half-hearted, who wanted medicines or books, and were rather indifferent about the meeting, though willing enough, perhaps, to ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... another voice, pretty close behind his ear. Young John, now he had learnt that wrens can talk, had no difficulty in recognising this other voice: it was the half-hearted note of the titlark. He turned over on his side and peered into the shadow of the Main-Stone; but in vain, for the titlark is a hesitating, unhappy little soul that never quite dares to make up its mind. It used to be the friend of a race ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... October, 1565, the Queen marched an army of eighteen thousand men against them from Edinburgh; their forces dispersed in face of superior numbers, and Murray, on seeking shelter in England, was received with contumely by Elizabeth, whose half-hearted help had failed to support his enterprise, and whose intercession for his return found at first no favor ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... men dining, and in course of time the two were left alone. The Colonel passed the cigars and touched the port wine decanter, which, however, he only offered in a half-hearted way. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... No merely half-hearted effort to meet its problems as other American communities have met theirs can be accepted as final. Hawaii shall never become a territory in which a governing class of rich planters exists by means ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... jocular, but the red mustaches drooped, and the half-hearted cut he gave to start the white mare on her homeward journey showed that he was not in his ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... said, hastily, ashamed of the half-hearted way in which I had given my promise. "The instant we are out of this place I will take steps to grant your request, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... presbyteries and conferences for the Negro, and the Y.M.C.A., with the same narrow spirit, is refusing colored men seats in its councils, while Northern Protestants are either neutral in this matter of caste or only half-hearted in crying down upon the sin of it; the Catholics alone have accepted in a full and liberal sense the command, "preach my gospel to every creature," and have extended fellowship to all, regardless of race, color or condition. It matters not ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various
... "Fact is, Balderstone, I'm glad of it. She's too snippy for me, and I'm afraid I should have quarrelled with you about her in a half-hearted, unconvincing manner." ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... at hand. He had feared that some such mischief would arise. Seeing that two other soldiers were running to the aid of their fallen comrade, he suddenly gave the signal for the revolt of the slaves. It was premature. Taken by surprise, the half-hearted among the conspirators paid no attention to it, while the timid stood more or less bewildered. Only a few of the resolute and reckless obeyed the call, but these furnished full employment for their ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... swinging his loop menacingly. When the dog, with a last hysterical yelp, suddenly flattened its body and wriggled under a corner of the shed, Pink turned and rode after the others, who had passed the corral and were heading for the upper and of a small patch of green stuff that looked like a half-hearted attempt at a vegetable garden. As he passed the shed an Indian in dirty overalls and gingham shirt craned his neck around the doorway and watched him malevolently; but Pink, sighting the green patch and remembering their dire need of water, was kicking his horse into a trot ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... Washington finished his schooling. In later life he was always very sorry that he had not been sent to college at this time. Within a year he began the study of law, but he went at his work in such a half-hearted way that although he passed his examination in 1806, he was really very ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... thoughtfully risen early, clumsily tiptoeing about to get breakfast. Neighbours had furnished the customary donations of cake, pie, and doughnuts, which gave Luke the opportunity of spreading the breakfast table with these kingly viands and doing justice to them in no half-hearted fashion. ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... first place, the converted teacher believes what he teaches. There is no half-hearted attitude toward the subject in hand. To him it is both true and vital. He teaches with a positiveness and an assurance which grip pupils. What a difference between the speech in which a speaker merely makes certain observations—sets forth certain specified facts—and the speech in which ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... restore him to his owner. At any rate, before we retired to rest he prevailed on himself to eat some supper which I prepared for him, pausing every now and then in his meal to lift his infantile face to mine and wag his tail in a half-hearted manner, as though he said, "You see I am doing my best to trust you, though you are a medical student!" Poor innocent beast! Well indeed for him that he had not chanced to stop at the door of my neighbor ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... has just been won is the victory of the Radicals. Gladstone and the Caucus have triumphed all along the line, and it is the strong, definite, decided policy which has commended itself, and not the halting, half-hearted, armchair business.... The country feels it, and we should be mad to efface ourselves and disappoint the expectations of all ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... the mother-instinct in her, and even at six a woman-child can be a mother—theoretically, went out towards the huge, lonely, sad, silent young man. She insisted on friendship with him; insisted shamelessly, with the natural inclination of innocence which rises high above shame. Even the half-hearted protests of the mother, who loved to see the child happy, did not deter her; after the second occasion of Pearl's seeking him, as she persisted, Harold could but remonstrate with the mother in turn; the ease of the gentle lady and the happiness of her child were more ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... Women with hair and chins like Mary's may be angels most of the time, but, when they take off their wings for a bit, they aren't half-hearted ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... other notions as to the future and get down to business and learn this trade. Now make up your mind; go at your work with the feeling that you are determined to succeed. If you go at your work in a half-hearted way you are certain ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... subjects are in very bad taste, young man," said Aunt Caroline. But her rebuke was half-hearted. She looked uneasy. "John," she added with sudden suspicion, "you don't suppose they could have known we ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... understand why I should be turned out of a home that suited me so well, yet it was apparent to every one that I could not remain under these conditions. We still had music every now and then, but it was in a half-hearted and absent-minded fashion. To make matters worse, we had a national vocal festival inflicted upon us, during which I was obliged to face all kinds of demands; matters did not always pass off without unpleasantness, as amongst others I had to decline to see Franz ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... garden tobacco. I emphasize this here at starting, lest any one should think that I was in any way responsible for the manner in which our experiment was conducted. If fault there was, it lies at Pettigrew's door. I remember distinctly asking him—not in a half-hearted way, but boldly—to produce his tobacco. I did this at an early hour of the proceedings, immediately after I had lighted a second cigar. The reason I took that cigar will be obvious to every gentleman who smokes. Had I declined ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... early days of the struggle in 1914 he contented himself with what amounted to little more than a demonstration designed to hold as many British troops in Egypt as possible was due primarily to considerations of larger strategy. Undoubtedly, by his incursion into the Sinai Peninsula and his half-hearted attempt with a hopelessly small force to cross the Suez Canal, he learned many lessons invaluable in any future and more ambitious campaign. Considered as a diversion the early advance upon the Suez was a success: ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... thoroughly sympathized with me in my ambition to go to Hampton unless it was my mother, and she was troubled with a grave fear that I was starting out on a "wild-goose chase." At any rate, I got only a half-hearted consent from her that I might start. The small amount of money that I had earned had been consumed by my stepfather and the remainder of the family, with the exception of a very few dollars, and so I had very little with which to buy ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... declared tartly. I was by no means satisfied with so half-hearted a vindication; nor did I care to owe my immunity to a patronizing lie on Mr. Van Blarcom's part. "You have accused me of spying. Do you think I'll let it go at that? I insist that you have my baggage brought up here and that you search ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... very thorough presentation of the claims of the ecclesiastical power the partisans of secular authority had only a half-hearted doctrine to oppose. Ever since the days of Pope Gelasius I (492-6), the Church herself had accepted the view of a strict dualism in the organisation of society and, therefore, of the theoretical equality between ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... miracles. I am a poor sinner,— striving to do well, but alas!—for ever striving in vain. The days of noble living are past,—and we are all too much fallen in the ways of error to deserve that our Lord should bless the too often half-hearted and grudging labour of his so-called servants. Come here, ma mignonne!" he continued, calling Babette, who approached him with a curious air of half-timid boldness—"Thou art but a very little girl," he said, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... lasting twenty-six years, eventually broke down. Durham's fear of French disloyalty proved to be as groundless as his ideal of complete anglicization was futile. It was neither necessary, sensible, nor possible to extinguish French sentiment, and human nature triumphed over this half-hearted effort to apply in dilution the medicine of Fitzgibbonism to the Colonies. Little harm was done, because the introduction of responsible government, far transcending the Union in importance, worked irresistibly for good. Parties did not run ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... field, as it is still called—which twenty years since was a wide waste of land, but is now divided by new fences, very grievous to half-blown horses. Sir John Purefoy got a nasty fall over some stiff timber, and here many a half-hearted rider turned to the right into the lane. Hampton and his Lordship, and Battersby, with Fred Botsey and Larry, took it all as it came, but through it all not one of them could give Larry a lead. Then there was manoeuvring into a wood and out of it again, and that ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... to go any farther into the direct examination of Mrs. Elsie Morton, nor into the half-hearted efforts of Smilk's disgusted lawyer to shake her in cross-examination. Nor is it necessary to introduce here the testimony of Mrs. Jennie Finchley, who succeeded her on the stand. It appears that Jennie was married in 1914 when Smilk was out for ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... of a rustic in holy orders; in the dogmatism, defensive or aggressive, of scholastic youth; in fruitless efforts to understand the new views of which he was one day to be the chief representative; or in half-hearted hesitation whether, after having so far understood them, he could part with all things for their sake. Which of these positions he held, or how far he may have passed from one to another, we may never be able to ascertain. But there is one too clear indication that ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... brains to use a Mexican or Central American port for the dark purposes of the piratical expedition. Ample funds, resolute men, and an unprotected enemy would have been positive factors of success. Money, they had in abundance. Madness and folly seem to have ruled the half-hearted conspirators of California. An ALABAMA or two on the Pacific would have been most destructive scourges of the sea. The last days of opportunity glide by. The prosaic records of the Federal Court in California tell of the evanescent ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... little show of life stirred now and then in the seeming corpse of the drama. A few players met furtively, assembled a select audience, and gave a clandestine performance, more or less complete, in some obscure quarter. Secret Royalists and but half-hearted Puritans abounded, and these did not scruple to abet a breach of the law, and to be entertained now and then in ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... away. The wind rose, drying his yellow hair and blowing it about his face. His clothing, too, began to dry, but he was unconscious of it. The dusky sky served him well. There were but few stars, and the moon was only half-hearted. Nevertheless, he kept well in the thickets, although he veered back toward the Ohio, and now and then he saw its broad surface turned from yellow to silver in the faint moonlight. He saw, also, two or three dark spots near the shore, moving slowly, and he knew that they were Indian ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... afternoon were half-hearted and perfunctory. There was nothing more to be learned. But he had seen in his mind some vague outline of what they must meet. He saw a something, mammoth, huge, that could grasp and hold an ocean freighter—against whose great body he had seen the waves ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... Edinburgh sunshine I do not mean, of course, any such burning, whole-souled, ardent warmth of beam as one finds in countries where they make a specialty of climate. It is, generally speaking, a half-hearted, uncertain ray, as pale and as transitory as a martyr's smile; but its faintest gleam, or its most puerile attempt to gleam, is admired and recorded by its well-disciplined constituency. Not only that, but at the first ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... indicated a flight of stairs. At the top of these I was confronted by a glass door, beyond which, entrenched behind a desk, sat a cynical-looking youth. A smaller boy in the background talked into a telephone. Both were giggling. On seeing me the slightly larger of the two advanced with a half-hearted attempt at solemnity, though unable to resist a Parthian shaft at his companion, who was seized on the instant with ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... down, grasped the calf by the forelegs and drew the forlorn little animal up before him on the saddle. As it stretched out quietly across his thighs, following a half-hearted struggle to escape, Kay saw Don Mike give the orphan his left index ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... mother was doubtful as to her daughter-in-law's project and even Musai was but half-hearted. Yet he went to work diligently. With beam, and wattle, and thatch, floor of mats and window of latticed paper, with walls made tight because well daubed with clay, he built the room apart. There alone, day by day, secluded from all, ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... only those who had made some sort of occupation for themselves had anything to interest themselves actively in. Sometimes they played chess, draughts, or cards, but they did so, as Godfrey observed, in a half-hearted manner, with the exception, indeed, of one of the professors, who was by far the strongest chess-player of the party, and who passed all his time in inventing problems which, when complete, he carefully noted down in a book, ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... strait they went, and the Barbarians seemed springing to meet them. From the mainland a tumult of voices was rising, the myriads around Xerxes encouraging their comrades by sea to play the man. No indecisive, half-hearted battle should this be, as at Artemisium. Persian and Hellene knew that. The keen Phoenicians, who had chafed at being kept from action so long, sent their line of ships sweeping over the waves with furious strokes. The grudges, the commercial rivalries ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... now, as the story that the Sioux had probably surrounded the sorrel troop went like wild fire through the garrison, even the sick in hospital begged to be allowed to go, and one poor lad, frantic through fever and enforced confinement, broke from the hold of the half-hearted attendant; tore over to "K" Troop barracks, demanding his "kit" of Sergeant Schreiber, and, finding the quarters deserted, the men all gone to stables, dared to burst into that magnate's own room in search of his arms and clothing, and thereby roused a heavily sleeping ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... number of the foremost. But their shouts were feeble and half-hearted, and were quickly drowned in a rising murmur of discontent and ill-humour, which, mingled with cries of "Is that all? Is there no more? Down with the Huguenots!" rose from all parts. Presently these cries became ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... first of all in Milaness, the war of invasion and conquest which had been engaged in by Charles VIII. and Louis XII.; and the league of all the states of Italy save Venice and Genoa, with the pope for their half-hearted patron, and the Swiss for their fighting men, were collecting their ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to refuse to come with us (which would have spoiled everything), until Scanlon took a hand in the fray and let his imagination run riot about the law, which, as he was the official representative of it and wore a pewter star on his breast, soon settled To'oto'o's half-hearted objections. If anything else were wanted, it was the arrival at this juncture of Seumanutafa at the head of a dozen retainers, who added the finishing stroke to the little resistance To'oto'o had left. Then we all started off for the Southern Cross Bakery, and, as we walked slowly and ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... Dora in person, and found the affianced bride looking very pale, and by no means happy. Dora hastened to explain that the engagement would be a long one, possibly two years at least—and they laughed at her. The girl had given her consent grudgingly, in half-hearted fashion, with the stipulation that she might possibly withdraw from it. Her father coaxed it out of her. But, when people came around and talked of the wedding, and abused her for treating poor Ormsby shabbily by insisting on an engagement ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... of course, is the feint—a feint being a false attack, or rather a move as if to attack in a line which you threaten, but in which you do not intend to attack. All feints should be strongly pronounced or clearly shown. A half-hearted feint is worse than useless; it is dangerous. If you have a foeman worthy of your steel facing you, he will detect the fraud at once, and use the time wasted by you over a feeble feint to put ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... this abode of the dead. "How many unfinished lives," he thought, "have ended beneath these sods! Unimproved talents here are buried in the ground. Unattained ambitions, and those who died before their time; those who tried, in a half-hearted way, to improve their opportunities, and accomplished something, and those who neglected them, and did still less—all are together here, the just with the unjust, though it be for the last time. The grave ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor |
