"Hesitant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... If I were weak enough to write you any more letters they would become as tedious as the life I lead. Anyway, have I not had the best part of you, in that hesitant letter of yours which shook me out of my lethargy for an instant? Like yourself, monsieur, I know, alas! that nothing happens, and that our only certain joys are those we dream of. So, in spite of my feverish desire to know you, I fear that you ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... her father's hesitant suggestion, and even while she did it a wave of dread swept over her. The dead man was the same criminal "Slim" Jim Collins whom the cattleman had threatened in order to protect the Millikan girl. The facts that the man had been struck down by a chair and that her friend ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... on the Acropolis, Mary, a new Pallas to guard the Parthenon." His imagination leapt from vista to vista of the future, each opening to new delights. Mary's followed, lured, dazzled, a little hesitant. Her own visions, unformulated though they were, seemed of somewhat different stuff, but she saw he could not conceive them other than his, and yielded ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... never dared let talk about such things, because I knew they'd take advantage of it. Why, all the time, with them, I've a feeling that we're cheating and lying to each other, playing a game like at a masquerade ball." She paused for a moment, hesitant and debating, then went on in a queer low voice. "I haven't been asleep. I've seen... and heard. I've had my chances, when I was that tired of the laundry I'd have done almost anything. I could have got those fancy shirtwaists... an' all the rest... ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... John Hobson's remark that "if practical workers for social and industrial reforms continue to ignore principles ... they will have to pay the price which short-sighted empiricism always pays; with slow, hesitant, and staggering steps, with innumerable false starts and backslidings, they will move in the dark along an unseen track toward an unseen goal." The political theorists laid some claim to lighting up both the track and the goal, and so I turned to ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... She stood hesitant for a moment, with both hands pressed against the door at her back, and her brow drawn in a deep furrow, then she threw her chin upward and shook her head with that resolute gesture which meant, with her, shaking off at least the outward seeming ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... as an instance of the sub-law of intensity? An animal, or man, who sees success coming as he is making the reaction that leads directly to success, throws himself unreservedly into this reaction, in contrast with his somewhat hesitant and exploratory behavior up to that time. The dammed-up energy of the reaction-tendency finds a complete outlet into the successful reaction, and therefore the successful reaction is more intensely exercised than the unsuccessful. ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... do," was the somewhat hesitant answer. "And that's the mysterious part of it. Only I know I came mighty near passing out and I don't ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... countenance, stammered, hesitated, and miserably plunged into a sight translation. Rosalie never had the slightest luck at sight translations; even after two hours of patient work with a dictionary, she was still extremely hesitant as to meanings. Now, she blindly forged ahead,—amid a profound hush—attributing to the Pious AEneas a most amazing set of actions. She finished; and the slaughter commenced. Miss Lord spent three minutes in obliterating Rosalie; then passed ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... makes more strangely fair Each shining street, each steeple where it stands, Something like Spring is blowing down the air, Touching the Town with light, transforming hands. Half-shy and hesitant, a Something stays One trembling instant where the sun is sweet,— A quickening presence on these winter ways, Haunting and swift—and gone on ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... conversation was triangular. Cecilia fired most of the shots; she was a bouncing, rattling beauty, chockful of confidence and high spirits, except when asked to do the one thing she could do—sing! Then she became—quite genuinely—a nervous, hesitant, pale little thing. However, the suppliant hostess bore her off, and presently her rich contralto notes passed through the garden, adding to its passion and mystery, and through the open French windows, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the first week in March. The weather began to assume a new aspect. During the winter months it had not snowed, for the moisture had all been squeezed from the air, leaving it crisp, brilliant, sparkling. Now the sun, long hesitant, at last began to swing up the sky. Far south the warmer airs of spring were awakening the Kansas fields. Here in the barren country the steel sky melted to a haze. During the day, when the sun was up, the surface of the snow even softened a little, and a very perceptible warmth allowed them ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... said in a hesitant tone, "it's a shame to think I'm nobody but just Nate, when they've made such a fuss! Be we goin' to git married, or ain't we? I s'pose we ought to, if I'm goin' to look after you and the babbies, and it seems as if 'twould sorter pay 'em for their trouble if we'd let 'em know it, or something. Folks ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... hesitant. "I am sincerely sorry for the lady," he said. "But of course I have my duty to my journal. I had intended to wire a full column, and take a picture of the scene of the attack by the Druids' Tower." He took up his camera from the seat beside him, as ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... cross the creek, the strange creek whose stepping-stones he did not know. Shivering, hesitant, he stripped off his shoes and stockings and dabbled the edge of the water with reluctant toes, to see if ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... His wrinkled, dried lips were struggling as if with indecision. A veiled, a thinly veiled conflict of emotions apparently was taking place behind that ancient gray mask. "What—what for?" was the final outcome in a hesitant half-whisper. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... her hands. But she did not leave. She stood, still hesitant, looking up at him. He motioned to his chair, the only one in ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... to Aimee but the girl shook her head helplessly and hesitant and dashed, for all their young confidence, they wavered a moment hand in hand in the dark, fearful of what a rash move might bring upon them. And in the beating stillness Ryder became conscious ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... up the stoop and rang the bell. A servant opened the door, showed him into the dimly lighted parlor, and went up the stairs with his name. He heard her footsteps, light, hesitant. She appeared before him, pale and sick ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... had prevented him up to now—Maisie with her laughter, her breezy arguments, her short views of life, her contempt for sentiment, her sledge-hammer motto, with which she shattered the past, "I never dig up my dead." She had made him hesitant about reopening the subject. Her sister was the most beautiful woman in England. A man never knows to what boundaries a woman's jealousy spreads. He feared lest, if he persisted, she might impute to him less lofty motives ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... granite and lava, of rugged chasms and august ancient trees. She filled the air with fragrances, lightly shaken; she scattered bright fragile flowers to brighten the earth and clear bird-notes to sparkle through the air. Hesitant always in the seeming, she came with that shy step of hers to the feet of glooming precipices; under crests where the snow clung on she played at indifference, loitering with a new flower, knowing that little by little the thaw would answer her ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... was facile princeps, and only those who were privileged to sit under him can form a conception of his delivery. Clear, deliberate, never hesitant nor unduly emphatic, never repetitional, always logical, his every word told. Great, however, as were his class lectures, his working-men's were greater. Huxley was a firm believer in the "distillatio per ascensum" ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... Newton would have boasted of having "bummed" his way to Faribault. His hesitant speech was a proof of the embarrassment his new respectability sometimes ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... into Maggie's excited, imploring eyes, it had been borne in upon her carefully judging and painfully hesitant mind that there was better than a fifty per cent chance that Larry was right in his estimate of Maggie; that Maggie's inclination toward criminal adventure, her supreme self-confidence, all her bravado, were but the superficial though strong tendencies ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... cropping up in connection with the acceptance of the message of salvation in Jesus Christ, but as, on the one hand, I am free to admit that many a man may be putting a true trust in Christ which is joined with a very hesitant grasp of some of the things which, to me, are the very essence and heart of the Gospel; so, on the other side, I would have you remember that there is necessarily a moral quality in our attitude to all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... of the importance of a sense of humor would be unavailing if it were not that what cramps so many men isn't that they are by nature humorless but that they are hesitant to exercise what humor they possess. Within the military profession, it is as unwise as to let the muscles go soft and to spare the mind the strain of original thinking. Great humor has always been in the military tradition. The need of it is ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... that's not all. Out of a clear sky charges were preferred against me. Outrageous charges in which that woman figured." Up to this point Gray had spoken smoothly, rapidly, but now his tone changed, his words became hesitant, jerky. "I was amazed! Joke, I called it at first. Sort of a blanket indictment, it was, charging me with inefficiency, negligence, exceeding my authority, dishonesty—and things even worse. Those were some of the least serious, the least—nasty. It was all too absurd! ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... in a voice more and more hesitant, "you must excuse me, but it is a long time since I have ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... unrest, disillusionment, the abandonment of ideals, opportunism, and a tragic concentration on the life of the moment, which alone seems sure. The future promises so little that even the most hopeful pause on its threshold, hesitant, and scarce daring ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... arrival, and the swift rumor that he would serve as pilot for the train over the dangerous portion of the route ahead, spread an instantaneous feeling of relief throughout the hesitant encampment at this, the last touch with civilization east of the destination. He paused briefly at one or another wagon after he had made his own animals comfortable, laughing and jesting in his own independent way, en ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... singular performance and carried the tale away for future laughter. The thought drove the sheriff mad. He swung savagely into the saddle and drove his horse at a dead run among the perilous going of that gorge. When he reached the plain he paused, hesitant between a bulldog desire to follow the trail single-handed into the mountains and run down the pair, and a knowledge that he who retreats has an added power that would make such a pursuit ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... which the above impressions were printing themselves upon Dick's consciousness, a few of the people confronting him had turned, and, in a half-hearted, hesitant way, were drifting back toward the entrance of the deck-house, although the greater part of them seemed disposed to follow the burly man's example and remain where they were until authoritatively assured that all was well with ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... became hesitant but after a little she suggested, "Come on down hyar under thet old walnuck tree. Seems like I kin ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... With a hesitant manner he recited the discovery of the queer light in the deserted house, its unaccountable disappearances their failure ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... to feel that Agrarianism is not half so bad as painted and then—the broadening out into the People's party. The farmers are not notorious for sheer cunning; neither for stupidity. They are naturally hesitant about being as radical in office as they were on the stump. As an economic group they are no different from the old Free Trade Liberals, except that they seek to govern as a class on behalf of that particular group. Meanwhile the nation more or less opposed to farmerism is disintegrating itself ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... man's voice grew hesitant. "Would you consider taking me in as a side partner? I'm lonesome where ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... myself I do not accept "The Inn Album" as the first hesitant swing of the tide. I seem to hear the resilient undertone all through the long slow poise of "The Ring and the Book." Where then is the full splendour and rush of the tide, where its culminating ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... dropped the doll unceremoniously and sought her friend's cheeks. Looking up with big eyes into the face drawn close to her own, she replied in a strangely slow, hesitant manner. "In course I remembers ye, Smiles. Yo' air the nurse what lives with ... with thet thar doctor man ... in the big city, whar air monkeys thet ... clumb sticks an' ... an' doll babies what close thar eyes ... an' say ... an' say ... My head ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... belong to that school of thought which is hesitant about altering the fundamental law. I think our tax problems, the tendency of wealth to seek nontaxable investment, and the menacing increase of public debt, Federal, State and municipal-all justify a proposal to change the Constitution so as to end the issue ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the hesitant point of view relative to the advantage of Yorick's excess of universal sympathy. In "Will auch 'n Genie werden" the poet steps out more unmistakably as an adversary of the movement and as a skeptical observer of the exercise of ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... in his own tongue, the velvet brogue appealing. Lakla turned, contemplated O'Keefe, hesitant, unquestionably longingly, irresistibly like a child making up her mind whether she dared or dared not take a delectable something ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... represented by a total of thirty delegates. By this time we learn that a total of eight hundred acres had been secured in Canada, that two thousand Negroes had gone thither, but that considerable hostility had been manifested on the part of the Canadians. Hesitant, the convention appointed an agent to investigate the situation. It expressed itself as strongly opposed to any national aid to the American Colonization Society and urged the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia—all of which activity, it is well to remember, was a ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... can!" Matilda had already started for the door. She paused, hesitant, with the knob in her hand. "But you, ma'am," she faltered, "can you ever forgive me for the way I ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... believe whatever might be uttered with such preface, Heliodora smiled and bade the speaker continue. Again Marcian's head drooped; again his words became hesitant, vague. But their purpose at length grew unmistakable; unhappy that he was, he himself loved Veranilda, and the vehemence of his passion overcame his loyalty in friendship; never whilst he lived should Basil wed the Gothic maiden. This revelation ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... a flash he acted. His grip on my throat loosened. His arm, swinging backward, warded off Elza's trembling, hesitant blow. The metal block, intended for his head, was knocked from her hand; it fell clattering to the floor. And reaching over, Tarrano gripped the vehicle's control lever, wrenched it bodily from its fastenings! Control of the vehicle was ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... wishing he was back in Peru arguing with hesitant South Americans over the relative values of American and Soviet complex commodities—and ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... little girl stood hesitant; then the sight of Brida, white and scared on her pillow, roused her to quick thought. If she could only smuggle Popover down into Dr Dudley's office before she was discovered! Instinct told her that "High Price" would never tolerate a kitten in the ward. ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... dance a jig, so he preferred to stay at home. But the rest of Old Chester said that although she was so quiet and kept herself to herself so much, Mrs. Richie was a ladylike person; a little shy, perhaps—or perhaps only properly hesitant to push her way into society; at any rate it was but kind ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... teens and early twenties stand, usually hesitant, on the threshold of life. They are bursting with energy, eager, hopeful, anxious to enter the stream of adult activity. Inexperienced, they under-estimate the difficulties, taking up any line of activity that promises quick results. They are impressionable ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... man could conduct himself properly in a drawing-room or at a table, were his mind harking back at every moment to the instructions contained in some volume on etiquette. He who must justify every act by reflection is condemned to the jerkiest and most hesitant of moral lives. Perceptional moral intuition must stand our friend, if there is to be a flow of conduct ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... on, "I knew that the man was not telling the truth. He was too hesitant to be convincing. So I began to promise him money. At every offer he looked past my shoulder and then repeated his denials. The last time he raised his eyes I had an intuition that something was going on behind me. ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... how much he cared—must care, to have striven so hard to hide and fight it down—she was shaken with a shy, quivering ecstasy, a hesitant sweetness of need and longing that pulsed through every nerve of her. The thought of the morrow almost frightened her. He would come to-morrow—come to tell her all that he had left unsaid, to claim that promise of surrender which a woman both loves ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... of the cool breath of night. Toward morning he stopped at a sand-wash where three or four dusty cottonwoods relieved the vegetation of mesquite, palo verde, and cacti. Among the rocks a spring rose hesitant to the surface and struggled faintly for life against the palpitating heat and thirsty ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... in his essay on the "Child-God in Art" (344), is hesitant to give to many mythologies any real child-worship or artistic concept of the child as god. Not even Rama and Krishna, or the Greek Eros, who had a sanctuary at Thespiae in Boeotia, are beautiful, sweet, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... him into his carriage. Major Buford was dead. He had almost died in prison, Mrs. Dean said, and Chad choked and could say nothing. Once, Dan began a series of eager questions about the house and farm, and the servants and the neighbors, but his mother's answers were hesitant and he stopped short. She, too, asked but few questions, and the three were quiet while the train rolled on with little more speed than Chad and Dixie had made on that long ago night-ride to save Dan and Rebel Jerry. About that ride Chad had kept Harry's lips and his own closed, for ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... to dissect, something with an interior both interesting to explore and fascinating to talk about. Claire listened with a radiant display of interest, but she had her doubts as to whether any amount of money would make it worth while to undergo this sort of thing for life. She was still in this hesitant frame of mind when she entered Reigelheimer's Restaurant, and it perturbed her that she could not come to some definite decision on Mr Pickering, for those subtle signs which every woman can recognize and interpret told her that the latter, having paved the way by talking ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... of Energy, had long since declared war against the genius of the American people, who believed in God and the art of leisure. Hamilton believed in God and a cabinet of zealous ministers. He was already a thorn in the side of estimable but hesitant patriots, and in times to come his unremitting and remorseless energy was to be a subject of reproach by associates and enemies alike. Even Jefferson, that idol of the present as of the past democracy, had timidly ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... year hence. For, in these things of three stages, two may be tolerable, the first clouding of the water with the wine's red fire, or the final resolution of the two into one humane consistence: the intermediate course is, like all times of process, brumous and hesitant. After a dinner in the white piazza, shrinking slowly to blue under the keen young moon's eye, watched over jealously by the frowning bulk of Brunelleschi's globe—after a dinner of pasta con brodo, veal cutlets, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... was coming over the speaker, hesitant and apologetic, using the common tongue of the Galactic Confederation. "How soon can you come?" the voice was asking clearly, still with the sound of great reticence. "There is ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... Clerk of Newgate. As he left the prison in the grey air of morning upon some errand of mercy or revenge, he appeared the least fearsome of mortals, while an awkward limp upon his left toe deepened the impression of timidity. So abstract was his manner, so hesitant his gait, that he would hug the wall as he went, nervously stroking its grimy surface with his long, twittering fingers. But Ralph, as justice and the Jug knew too well, was neither fool nor coward. His character belied his outward seeming. A large soul had crept into the case of his wizened ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... "No," said Sholto, hesitant in spite of himself, "but I thought—that is I desired—saw you my sister Magdalen pass this way? I have somewhat ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... Maison." It expressed the essential France hidden by the glare of the Third Republic. The music of Cesar Franck is the music of the people driven into themselves by the conditions of modern life. It is the music of the fine ones who stand hesitant on the threshold of the world, and have incessantly to struggle for the power to act, for faith and hope. It is the music of those who in the midst of millions feel themselves forsaken and alone and powerless, and in whose obscure and laborious existence Franck ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... Broken, hesitant chords set some lost song to singing in her heart. The break in her lover's voice is like another, long ago. Summer days and summer fields, silver streams, and clouds of apple blossoms set against the turquoise sky, bring back the Mays of childhood ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... haven't been able to get a general view yet. I can't so suddenly find my way again. I feel, naturally, the importance, the seriousness of the conditions here at home and that makes me feel hesitant. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... and glowing like ancient ivory. I honestly confess to you that in all my wanderings—and they have been frequent and many—I never saw such an enchanting picture or two more exquisite faces. One peered forth with hesitant bravery; the other—she who held the candle—with cold, ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... take sufficiently into consideration these difficulties, when he threatened Alexander with war, unless he fell in with his wishes; although, when he learned of the losses and reverses suffered in Spain and Portugal, he seemed hesitant to engage in a conflict the outcome ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... shoulders from its pin at her throat, enveloped Delia in her giant arms. And the others came pushing forward, on their faces the smiles which, however they had faltered in the passage seeking a precedent, I make bold to guess bodied forth the gentle, hesitant spirit which ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... peasant and by the deferential curiosity of the two children who stood planted before him, could not recall his name. The worthy fellow guessed this slip of memory from Jaime's hesitant glance. Truly did he not recognize him? Pep Arabi, from Iviza! Even this did not tell much, because on that little island there were but six or seven surnames, and Arabi was borne by a fourth part of the inhabitants. He would explain more ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to let the telegraphing wait while he went to say good morning to her was strong, but he resisted it and hastened the more for the hesitant thought. Nevertheless, when he reached the telegraph office he found Mr. Somerville Darrah and his secretary there ahead of him, and he observed that the explosive gentleman who presided over the destinies of the Colorado and Grand River appeared ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... 1996, the Estonia-Russia technical border agreement was initialed but both states have been hesitant to sign and ratify it, with Russia asserting that Estonia needs to better assimilate Russian-speakers and Estonian groups pressing for realignment of the boundary based more closely on the 1920 Tartu ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... say?" Gilder questioned. There was something pitiful in the distress of this man, usually so strong and so certain of his course. Now, he was hesitant in his movements, and his mellow voice came more weakly than its wont. There was a pathetic pleading in the dulled eyes with which he ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... preoccupied with her back hair and prepared mutinously to ignore anything remotely resembling a belated customer whose demands might busy her beyond the closing hour, and the other had a merry eye and a receptive smile for the hesitant little man with the funny clothes and the quaint pink face of embarrassment. In most abject consternation, P. Sybarite ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... like linen and towels and soap. The day would have made countless insinuations to a normal man. To some, it said golf; to others, a motor trip out to where a plethora of such bounties as it suggested might be available; and to others less fortunate—why, there was the "Ferry" just opening to hesitant crowds, with its band stand, its scenic railway, its forty-five minutes of vaudeville that was anything but mentally exhausting. It was an eloquent morning. But Joe turned a ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... little delay, I contrived to open this gate and, leading my horse, began to cross the meadow, glancing this way and that, often pausing unsure, fearful that my memory was at fault. In this hesitant manner I proceeded until I was dimly aware that the ground sloped down before me into a place of shadows thick with dense-growing ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... Farnham that she was sensible beyond her years, and withal strong and straightforward in honesty of purpose. None the less, she was a woman. And when she saw what was before her, conscience turned traitor and fled away to give place to an uprush of hesitant doubts born of the sharp trial of ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... four consulted again. They were still hesitant. The shame of letting this youth take from them their companion without a fight was like a burr under a saddle-blanket to a bronco. But after all, the Ranger stood for law. If they killed him, other Rangers would come to ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... a little, in the swinish lifting of the wide-flaring nostrils, in the humid glowing 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 ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... now his first reaction to Baker. He had never seen his kind before and could not believe that such existed. He supposed Baker felt similarly about him, and, out of the strange contradiction of their worlds, they formed a hesitant friendship. For himself, Fenwick supposed that it was based on a kind of fascination in associating with one who walked so blindly, who was so profoundly incapable of understanding ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... crop, followed by Peru and Bolivia; potential pure cocaine production of 645 metric tons in 2004 marked the lowest level of Andean cocaine production in the past 10 years; Colombia conducts aggressive coca eradication campaign, but both Peruvian and Bolivian Governments are hesitant to eradicate coca in key growing areas; 376 metric tons of export-quality cocaine are documented to have been seized in 2003, and 26 metric tons disrupted (jettisoned or destroyed); consumption of export ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... two days later Herr Weigand returned—a little more faded, a little more hesitant, but altogether, by no means unhappy. He was invited into her father's office for a long discussion. The result was that the two lovers fell into each others' arms while her father, trembling with impotent rage, hurled at them the fragments ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... keep it from drowning his voice! There is a soft lisp in his speech which might fool strangers who do not know about the steel of his nerves and the keenness of his eye. He sat in a roomy office with a clean desk, toyed with a paper knife and made quick, sure, accurate decisions in a low hesitant voice that never backed track nor weakened before a disagreeable situation. He is the man who more than anyone else has laid out the spending of the major part of the first one hundred millions gathered in America by the Red Cross drive last summer. He held his ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... at his lips for a space, as if hesitant to break the silence. "Have you ever heard ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... nothing to get excited about," said the ever-doubtful, ever-hesitant Jimmie. "It's only ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... sorry most of all that—" He halted diffidently, his great hands hanging loose at his side, his broad shoulders drooping wearily. He was not glib of speech, at best, and this second blow was hard to bear. A full half minute he stood so, hesitant, searching for words; then heavily, clumsily, he turned, started for the door. "I really must be ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... a little raised and the notes before him made plain by a narrow light-well, which in the Holden of those days opened over the teacher's head to a sky-light in the roof. Gray's utterance was rather hesitant. He would catch for his word often, reiterating meanwhile the article, "the-a, the-a, the-a," his gaze meanwhile fixed upon the sky-light, and a nervously gyrating forefinger raised high and brightly illuminated. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... deny," she presently confessed in a hesitant voice, "that if we had not had each other to rely upon for firmness we might perhaps have been deluded by some of these young scapegraces. They were truly quite appealing at times. There ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... were the cogitations that he did not hear the light, hesitant footstep. But he felt in every vein and fiber the appealing touch on ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... these two facts, the dark earth, the sunlit, sunlike church, lie at the basis of all our missionary work. If once we begin to doubt about them, if once we begin to think that men have got a good deal of light already, and can do very well without much more, or if we at all are hesitant about our possession of the light, and the certitudes and the joys that are in it, then good-bye to our missionary zeal. We shall soon begin to ask the question, 'To what purpose is this waste?'—though the lips that first asked it, by the bye, did not much recommend it—and shall ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... she stammered, incredulously, finding hesitant words at last, "Do you mean you're a—a spy? That you came to our house—that you ate our bread—with the idea of learning secrets that might injure us? That you—? Oh!" she burst forth in swift revulsion, "I didn't know any one could ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... by the cot watching the faintly flickering life that, bereft of conscious will, fought for existence with each deep-drawn breath. About two in the morning Pete's breathing seemed to stop. Doris felt the hesitant throb of the pulse and, rising, stepped to the hall and telephoned ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... such a study is that of the tremendous complexity of human fate, influenced as it is by heredity, environment and the personal equation, and not without melioristic hope, if we but live up to our best. The tone is grave, but not hopeless. The quiet, hesitant movement helps the sense of this slow sureness in the ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... enough among men who are strong and able in other activities. Mr. Taft was a great judge but wrecked his administration as President by inability to make up his mind. Senator Kellogg was a brilliantly successful lawyer; but in public life he is so hesitant that Minnesota politicians speak of him as "Nervous Nelly," and even Mr. Taft, during the Treaty fight, rebuked him to his face for ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... time, he assumes the authoritative tone which becomes him, and quietly takes the position of superiority to the king whom he has made. I Samuel xi. 15 seems to imply that he took no part in the rejoicings. It was 'Saul and all the men of Israel' who were so glad. He was still hesitant as to the issue, and obeyed the divine command with clearer insight into its purpose than the shouting crowd and the proud young king had. There is something very pathetic in the contrast he draws between Saul and himself. 'The king walketh before ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was no rush. Instead, there came hesitant foot-falls. The door of the cabin slid slowly aside. A girl appeared in the opening, ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... to thank you, miss," spoke a hesitant voice. "You saved me from that 'guy' this after-noon, but I'm awful sorry you ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... He paused a moment and shuddered. Had he lost his senses through the suffering the week had brought him? He shook himself and turned to his horse again. No silly vision should drag him across a snowdrift on such a night. He was going home to Tessibel. In hesitant quandary, he still stood staring west to the rail fence. Then, something impelled him to do the very thing he ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... has an auditory image of it before the actual tones begin, and if he feels that when he begins to beat time the chorus will sing as he has heard them in imagination, then the expected result is almost certain to follow. But if he is uncertain or hesitant upon any of these points, he will as surely fail to get a ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... for it, father," she said, hesitant. "And so is Aunt Janet—poor Aunt Janet. She's so anxious about you, and she's ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... other, and their glance did not mean high appreciation of the speaker's intellectual powers. There was a lack of practicalness in such faith in another man as expressed itself in the wistful, hesitant voice. ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... toys overwhelmed little Martha. She stood just inside of the door with her eyes wide, glancing back and forth. She took one slow step forward, then another. Then she quickened. She moved through the room looking, then putting out a slow, hesitant hand to touch very gently. Tense, as if she were waiting for the warning not to touch, Martha finally caressed the ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Instead, there came hesitant foot-falls whose sound made Calhoun start. The door of the cabin slid slowly aside. A girl appeared in the opening, ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... vantage-point on the couch I watched the progress of that meal. Ross, muddled, glowering, disappointed; Etienne, eternally blandishing, attentive, ogling; Miss Adams, nervous, picking at her food, hesitant about answering questions, almost hysterical; now and then the solid, flitting shadow of the cook, passing behind their backs like a ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... footlocker looking for boots when she heard a hesitant step behind her. She whirled and saw a small, stooped, white-haired man, naked except for trunks like the ones she was wearing. The wrinkled skin on his wasted chest was burned brown by the hot glare of the sun. Thick-lensed glasses hung from a ...
— The Guardians • Irving Cox
... said truthfully that she can neither leap a creek nor surmount some such obstacle as a monster tree trunk with a close approach to the ease and grace of this mother who came bounding through the forest. There was nothing unknowing or hesitant about her movements. She ran swiftly and leaped lightly when occasion came. She was lithe as the panther and as careless of where her brown ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... Browning, we too seem to breathe with this woman's panting breath, our hearts to beat with the very pain and rage of hers, and every pause she comes to in her speech is our pause, so intense is the evocation, so unerring the expression of an impulse which, whether or no it be atrophied in our more hesitant and civilised consciousness, is at ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... again. He was bare-headed, dressed in dark trousers and a loose, short-sleeved blouse. His neck and muscular forearms gleamed bronze in the sunlight. "You like what we do here?" he asked in his deep, hesitant manner. ...
— The Invaders • Benjamin Ferris
... regard to red-deer pies and wine White as the Milky Way. Such secrets, Bame, Were not good for the general; but a few Discreet and righteous palms, your own, my friend, And mine,—what think you?" With a hesitant glance Of well-nigh child-like cunning, screwing his eyes, Bame laughed a little huskily and looked round At that grave ring of anxious faces, all Holding their breath and thrilling his blunt nerves With their stage-practice. "And no risk?" breathed ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Astro walked away, and after a hesitant look at Tom, the guard followed the two cadets. Tom boarded the slidewalk heading back toward the Academy. So far, so good. He knew where his unit mates were, but up ahead, in the gleaming Tower of Galileo, was his second target, Captain Strong. His skipper ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... implore forgiveness for her sin of vanity and beg Tudie's intercession with Arthur. She had nearly steeled herself to this glorious contrition when she heard a warning squeal from the front gate, a slow step on the front walk, and hesitant ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... to condemn the digression in which Theobald advertised his ability to emend Greek texts. Theobald himself was hesitant about including it lest he be indicted for pedantry, but was encouraged to do so by Warburton, who later scoffed at what he had originally admired. This much may be said in Theobald's behalf. Such a digression would not have ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald
... be waiting for something, and presently it was evident that the attention of the two women was centered on the figure of a funny little man whose troubled eyes peered out from behind a huge pair of shell-rimmed glasses as he stood beside the goddess, hesitant, his hand stretched out to loose the bandage from ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... her in her daily life. She tried her Lord, to prove if his promises were indeed true, and she clung to them to the very last. No one knew her need. No one knew what she was praying for. The stranger did not know anything of her. She had asked money of no one but the Lord. Hesitant ever, she dared not name any amount of the Lord, but that ever present Spirit of God guided her heart, made her fix the amount, and then touched the heart of the stranger and fixed the amount also in his mind, and then, by his own guidance saved the letter from being ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... and Father Time went to the window for a moment and beckoned into the darkened street. Then I heard footsteps, clumsy and hesitant they seemed, upon the stairs. And in a moment a figure stood framed in the doorway—the figure of Father Christmas. He stood shuffling his feet, a timid, apologetic ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... hesitant days of early May, Rome was very beautiful—I have never known her so beautiful! The Pincian, in spite of its afternoon parade, had the sad air of forced retirement of some well-to-do family. The Piazza di Spagna basked in its wonted flood of sunshine with a curious Sabbatical calm. A stray ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... gloom. Never before had he had such feelings to such a degree. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that never before had the enigma of the universe occurred to him. The side gates clicked as he stood hesitant under the shelter of the wall, and a figure emerged from his domain. It was Bellfield, the new chauffeur, going across to his home in the little square in front of the church. Bellfield touched his cap with an eager and willing ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... answer; I don't know," avowed Rupert, troubled and hesitant. "I was sent out to report ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... church, that thou shouldst so lightly be appalled: go we now, and see who it is that has given thee this childish fright." So, with a blaze of torches, the abbot, attended by his monks, entered the church, and espied this wondrous costly bed whereon the knight slept, and while, hesitant and fearful, daring not to approach the bed, they scanned the rare and splendid jewels, it befell that, the efficacy of the potion being exhausted, Messer Torello awoke and heaved a great sigh. Whereat the monks and the abbot quaking and crying out:—"Lord, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... quidem quae faciunt qua' sobrii, hesitant, revocant se interdum, usque quae videntur, imbecillius ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... simply had to be settled quickly. But Maulbow was also strained and impatient, and if his impatience could be increased a little more, he might start telling the things that really mattered, the things Gefty had to know. Gefty asked slowly, as if hesitant to commit himself, "Why ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz
... the French speech, or so much of it as the clumsy tongue of me could master, and I had always held it in hearty English scorn. Yet now I was eager enough to speak it with her, and to take as my very own the little cry of joy wherewith she welcomed my hesitant mouthing ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... saddle and led his horse to one side. They were not so badly matched, he reflected. Cathbarr's head was bared, while he had steel cap and jack; but for some reason he felt hesitant at thought of killing ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... shadows, in which the eyes endeavored to find lurking, unseen things that watched the conduct and the destinies of men. But my eyes and ears returned again each time to their vain attention to the entrance of that room, as if the stillness and the gloom bade me listen and look, while I stood there hesitant. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... for—for you, Eunice," Christopher went on, in a hurried, hesitant way, keeping his eyes riveted doggedly on his plate. "Victoria doesn't exactly like—well, she thinks it's better for young married folks to begin life by themselves, and I guess she's about right. You wouldn't find it comfortable, anyhow, having to step back to second ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... about my writing-case," said the corporal, in low and hesitant voice. "I kept mother's letters and some pictures and things I valued in it. It went with me up to the Big Horn camp all right, but when we started on the campaign and cut loose from the wagons I had to turn it over to Sergeant Haney. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... entered first, followed by the potato baron, with Parker bringing up the rear. Mrs. Parker's handsome face was suffused with confusion, and, from the hesitant manner in which she entered, Farrel realized she was ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... to Rachel Ansell, the fair eighteen-year-old type-writer and daughter of Moses Ansell, a well-known Chicago Hebrew. Life's sweetest blessings on the pair! The marriage will take place in the Fall." Esther dried her eyes and determined to be present at the ceremony. It is so grateful to the hesitant soul to be presented with a landmark. There was nothing to be gained now by arriving before the marriage; nay, her arrival just in time for it would clench the festivities. Meantime she attached herself to Hannah's charitable leading-strings, alternately attracted to ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... of this discovery, the peculiar position of the dead man, the loneliness of that deserted field in which he lay, shocked West and, for a moment left him strangely hesitant. Who was the man? What could have led up to the pitiful tragedy? Yet he advanced step by step nearer to the hideous object in the path. The man had been shot directly behind the right ear, killed instantly, no doubt, as the deadly bullet crashed through the brain. West lifted the arm which concealed ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... that for your gipsy eyes, my dear," he said. Loveday stood hesitant. Even she, who had just begged of Miss Letitia, felt shame at taking a coin in charity. Yet she did so, for before her eyes she saw, not a silver sixpence, but the beginning of a length of white satin ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... children to a father. There were elders as well as deacons in the church now, and when he presided at their meetings and looked over the group, his own spiritual children now taking their places as leaders in the church, his heart just melted. True, they were a bit hesitant about going ahead, and always consulted him before making plans, but that was only natural and right. After all, they had only a few years' experience in the church and couldn't be expected to know how best to govern ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... proper place at the head of those who worked to make the preferential vote an effective instrumentality. Frankly, though I did not give expression to my doubts, I was profoundly and deeply disappointed at the apparently hesitant, uncertain attitude of the Governor-elect. Feeling certain that popular opinion would be with him in case he decided to lead in this struggle, I was convinced that the delay in announcing his attitude toward the Smith-Nugent "defi" was dampening the ardour and enthusiasm of ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... was slow and hesitant. It spoke volumes for Miss Stone's state of mind. Hours of Greek history were in it, and long rows of tombs and temples—the Parthenon of gods and goddesses, with a few outlying scores of heroes and understudies. "The—Greek," ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... facing each other, directly under the chandelier in the middle of the spacious room. He thought she had chosen that place to avoid all danger of being overheard in any direction. He saw, too, that she was hesitant, half-regretting having brought him there. He read her doubts, saw how pain and anxiety mingled in ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay |
