"Faltering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... faltered; I could for a moment say no- thing; then came a revulsion. I asked myself, "What will this great audience think of us?'' How will our enemies, some of whom I see scattered about the audience, exult over this faltering at the outset! A feeling of shame came over me; but just at that moment I saw two or three strong men from different parts of the State, among them my old friend Mr. Sedgwick of Syracuse, in the audience, and Mr. Sage ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... But he had turned back to the desk and did not see Nancy's half-extended hand, or hear her faltering voice. Her hand dropped to her side, and, choking back a sob, she followed Senator Warren and Baker out ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... think that I had better go back to the school in Brussels. But nevertheless I went to work, and under the surveillance of my elder brother made a beautiful transcript of four or five pages of Gibbon. With a faltering heart I took these on the next day to the office. With my caligraphy I was contented, but was certain that I should come to the ground among the figures. But when I got to "The Grand," as we used to call our office in those days, ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... which exist even where there are no such disparities. The intolerance, the impatience, is not more characteristic of the husband where he is the elder than of the wife in the much fewer instances of her seniority. In the unions where two old people join their faltering destinies, the risks of unhappiness are, logically, doubled; and our friend holds it a grotesque folly to expect anything else of marriages in which two lovers, disappointed of each other in their youth, attempt ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... circulated to aid the Insurgent cause was by no means limited to such matters. Every time their troops made a stand they were promptly defeated and driven back, but their faltering courage was bolstered up by glorious tidings of wonderful, but wholly imaginary, victories won elsewhere. It was often reported that many times more Americans had fallen in some insignificant skirmish than ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... killed," was all Sanguszko heard him say. Sanguszko only saved his general's life by gripping him by the arm and forcing him within the turnpike of a village hard by, where the shattered Polish ranks had taken refuge. This was, however, but a momentary faltering of Kosciuszko's soul. On the morrow of the battle he was once more sending his country summonses to a renewed courage and calling up a ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... disorder that pervaded this magnificent but severely furnished chamber, which was only lighted by the lamp which M. Bourigeau, the concierge, carried. A sudden dread seized her; she shuddered, and in a faltering voice she added: "Why are you all here? Speak, tell ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... anything but good, His few brief years in holiest labors spent, Earth lost too soon the treasure heaven had lent. Kindest of teachers, studious to divine Some hint of promise in my earliest line, These faint and faltering words thou canst not hear Throb from a heart that holds thy memory dear. As to the traveller's eye the varied plain Shows through the window of the flying train, A mingled landscape, rather felt than seen, A gravelly ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the utmost exertion, yet in a faltering voice, that she was able, after an ineffectual effort, to utter ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... he said, with a voice faltering with emotion, "do you recollect the morning, when, on our return from school, we found our young holiday joy changed into heart-breaking and mourning by the sight of ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... strangled cry that was torn from the flyer's throat—the name of this girl who was going to the doom she had failed to avoid. Her life, she had said, was hers to keep only if she willed, but her plans had failed, and she went faltering and stumbling after ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... party were seen entering the square; but they were a body of the royal guards with a magistrate at their head. He boldly approached the mob, and, halting the soldiers at no great distance from them, began to read the Riot Act. He finished it without faltering, the mob continuing as before their work of destruction. "Men," he shouted, "I have warned you. I am going to give the order to the troops to fire if you do not desist. Once again I warn you—your blood be on your ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... presence, peace and joy and power; O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour, Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight! Keep Thou my child ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy
... his body grow tense in a familiar way. For a moment the prospect frightened her. She felt, vaguely, that she was playing with that which was infinitely delicate—which might break in her very hands, and leave her desolate. "You know, dear," she continued, faltering, "we used to be very rich. But we're not, any more." It was a poor lie—she realized that: and was half ashamed. "We're very poor, now," she went on, hurriedly. "A man broke into the bank and stole all your mother's gold and diamonds and ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... faltering voice, and saw those quivering lips and tear-filled eyes, I forgot everything else in the world. I felt so ill and miserable that I would gladly have run away rather than bid her farewell. I felt, too, that when she was ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... irresistibly persuaded to regard as the contriver of that ill of which I had been forewarned. This persuasion did not extenuate my fears or my danger. Why then did I again approach the closet and withdraw the bolt? My resolution was instantly conceived, and executed without faltering. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... as you organize. Stand with your party. See that that improves the working class, especially this year when the forces will clash as they have never clashed before. Take your place in the ranks. Help to inspire the weak and strengthen the faltering. Then, when we vote together we will develop the supreme power of the one class that can bring peace in the world. We will transfer the title deeds of the railroads, of the telegraphs, the mines and ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... and especially with those who were taught to do it with pleasure, never faltering nor complaining, simply accomplishing their daily task in a systematic manner ...
— Plain Facts • G. A. Bauman
... dark, how dismal, how dreary. Descending some thirty feet down rather rude steps of stone, you are fairly under the arch of this "nether world"—before you, in looking outwards, is seen a small stream of water falling from the face of the crowning rock, with a wild faltering sound, upon the ruins below, and disappearing in a deep pit,—behind you, ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... modest signal, and he was unannounced. My sister colored to the very temples on seeing the young pastor, and her hands trembled in the vain endeavor to fold Lord Treherne's letter, which at length she impatiently crushed together. I heard a half-smothered hysterical sob, as, with a faltering voice, she bade our guest "Good-evening." Ah! when the heart is aching and throbbing with agony, concealed and suppressed, it requires heroic self-command to descend to the commonplaces of this workaday world; but women early learn to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... starting difficult even in daylight. Purely by instinct and his recollection of the aspect of things the night before, he had to clear telegraph wires and a railway bridge, neither of which he could possibly see at that hour. His engine, too, was faltering, and it was obvious to those who witnessed his start that its note was far ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... Pantheon. I offer up to you, therefore, my favorite idea. For your dear sake, my Pantheon shall become a ruin. Let this be a proof of the strong love I bear you, Jordan. I will not contend with the priests in my church, but I will pursue them without faltering into their own; and I say to you, this will be a long and stiff-necked war, which will last while my life endures. I will not have my people blinded and stupefied by priests. I will suffer no other king in Prussia. I alone will be king. These proud priests ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... growth. She frequented the churches early in the mornings, and one fine day presented herself in the vestry of one of them. Upon her knees, but with unbent head and eyes fixed steadily to the grille, she rehearsed her tale from the beginning, neither faltering nor losing countenance. What followed upon that was not communicated to her protectress, nor do I care to pry. I imagine that she had always said her prayers, but that now she was ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... Sumner would not have dallied with a man of Bassett's ilk. He had believed when he left college that Sumner's teaching and example would be a buckler and shield to him all the days of his life; and here he was, faltering before a man to whom the great teacher would have given scarce a moment's contemptuous thought. He could even hear the professor's voice as he ironically pronounced upon sordid little despots of Bassett's ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... which were slightly inflamed, yet they seemed to serve their purpose better than her half-dulled ear, for, after a swift glance at Ledscha, she stammered in her faltering speech: "What has happened? Nothing good, certainly. It is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... faltering accents, "I—I have not the right to ask you, and I stand already so deeply in your debt. Not a doubt of it, but it will have inconvenienced you to have journeyed thus far to inform me of the flight of my grooms. Yet if you could—" She paused, ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... Maryland, however, by his great speech, of April 5th, in the Senate, did much to clear the tangle in the minds of some faltering Union statesmen ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... and shot Mern through with a stare from hard gray eyes. There was no longer any of the faltering uncertainty that he had displayed. Grim determination ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... fire had divided. Two guns pounded away at Taylor's feint, while two shelled the main column. The latter was struck repeatedly; more than twenty men dropped silent or groaning out of the hurrying files; but the survivors pushed on without faltering and without even caring for the wounded. At last a broad belt of green branches rose between the regiments and the ridge; and the rebel gunners, unable to see their foe, dropped suddenly ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest
... of the institution where he was nurtured seemed standing by his side in weeds of mourning, with a countenance of sorrow. With suffused eyes, and faltering voice, he broke into an unpremeditated strain of emotion, so strong and so deep, that all who heard him were borne along with it. Heart answered to heart as he spoke, and, when he ceased, the silence and tears of the impassive bench, as well as ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... "When Sakra had gone to his proper place, Vibhatsu together with his brothers and Krishna, paid homage unto the son of Dharma. Then smelling the crown of the head of that Pandava, who was thus paying homage, (Yudhishthira) in accents faltering on account of you, addressed Arjuna, saying 'O Arjuna, how didst thou pass this period in heaven? And how has thou obtained the weapons, and how also hast thou gratified the lord of the celestials? And, O Pandava, has thou adequately secured the weapons? Have the lord of the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... more good-bye! and bless thee! My faltering lips caress thee. When shall I feel thy hand again Go kindly o'er my hair? Let the dear arms that fold me One last sweet moment hold me: In life or death our love shall be No weaker ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... intolerably. His intelligence might be twentieth century or beyond. It might acquiesce in, or even enthusiastically advocate, a relation between men and women that hadn't existed, anyway since the beginning of the Christian Era; it might accept without faltering, all the corollaries pendent to that relation. But his actuating instincts, his psychical reflexes, stretched their roots away back to the Middle Ages. Under the dominance of those instincts, a man lost caste—became an object of contemptuous derision, if he couldn't keep ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... by all the working words, By all the tears and sighs that lovers know, Or what or thoughts or faltering tongue affords, I crave for mine in ripping up my woe. Sweet Rosalynde, my love (would God, my love) My life (would God, my life) aye, pity me! Thy lips are kind, and humble like the dove, And but with beauty, pity will not be. Look on mine eyes, made red with rueful tears, From whence the ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, That it should flow, and overflow, than creep 150 Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, Dammed like the dull canal with locks and chains, And moving, as a sick man in his sleep, Three paces, and then faltering:—better be Where the extinguished Spartans still are free, In their proud charnel of Thermopylae, Than stagnate in our marsh,—or o'er the deep Fly, and one current to the ocean add, One spirit to the souls our fathers ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... woman, who moved with faltering feet, and always kept one hand upon the iron fence enclosing the small yard, as a support. Each step was taken slowly, and with trepidation, and I wished for the moment that I was beside her, to lend her my arm. Some errand of mercy or dire necessity called ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... Winged with that shaft, from Love An angel flew, cried, "Love, nay Burn! Who dies, Hath but Love's plumes whereby to soar above! Lo, I am He who from thine earliest years Toward, heaven-born Beauty raised thy faltering eyes. Beauty alone lifts ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Americans and their own partisans abated much of the esteem they had borne them. They were more than half disposed to pronounce the Colonists unworthy to defend that liberty which they gloried in with so much complacency. But it deserves to be noted here especially that there was no sign of faltering on the part of the people, no disposition to submit to the invading force. The success of the enemy did but nerve our fathers to more vigorous resolves to maintain the cause of liberty ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... make any answer such as I desired, such as I strove to make, my mother spoke again, and by her tone, which had grown faltering and tearful—as was her wont in the old days when she ruled my father—she riveted anew the fetters I was endeavouring with all the strength of my poor young ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... White and faltering, the girl came up to the wall whence the beautiful lady had just been removed, and leant her head against it. She raised her hand to her eyes. "Good-bye," said the inner sense—"Good-bye!" And the strange link which from ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... suffragists can render their country and through it the whole world at this time, is to teach it that there is no sex in love of individual liberty and to stand without faltering by their demand for justice and equality of political rights ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... the hours Snatch, as they pass, the linden flow'rs; And children leap to pluck a spray Bent earthward, and then run away. Park-keeper! catch me those grave thieves About whose frocks the fragrant leaves, Sticking and fluttering here and there, No false nor faltering witness bear. ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... immovable. At last, breaking silence with a faltering voice: "O generous lady! pardon a stranger, an unfortunate man, for presuming to ask thee by what surprising adventure I here find the name of Zadig traced ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... Baron, in a faltering tone, as he observed the sudden change in Edward's voice and countenance; "can the blooming, vigorous ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... And as in faltering tone and slow, The last few names were said, Across the field some missing horse Toiled up with weary tread, It caught the sergeant's eye, and quick Bay ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... ivory inlaid with gold, together with a sword in a jewelled sheath, were placed in an upright position against the head of the sarcophagus, from whence all the spectral and mysterious light seemed to emerge. With thickly beating heart and faltering pulses Gervase still advanced, gazing half entranced, half terrified at the extraordinary and sumptuous splendor surrounding him, muttering almost unconsciously as ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... at the piano, broke into spirited strains. The first faltering steps in the social career of Gunner Moran and ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... I see," he said musingly, "Abby and Ben have taken the little one home. It must be Edith is dead. She was such a puny thing." Then turning his face to the woman who was guiding his faltering footsteps, he asked: ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... habit caught against the velvet of his coat. She threw back her white neck, swelling with a sigh, and faltering, in tears, with a long shudder and hiding her face, she ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... Superintendent, was, "are you going to teach me to see?" How well he performed this task, how wisely he guided my childish feet, how carefully he developed my eager mind, stimulated my ambition, and renewed my faltering courage, I did not realize until I was called upon to face life, with its trials and opportunities. And here, where his work is so well known, I wish to pay my tribute of love and gratitude to Dr. Warring Wilkinson. He was my great-hearted, ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... paper in his hand, was walking up and down in an agitated manner, struggling to suppress his feelings—his usually unmoved countenance being one moment flushed and the next perfectly pale. He came forward as I entered, and, in a faltering voice, requested a private conversation with me. The path by which he requested me to follow him led to an open spot in the garden, where the sun was shining. I sat down. A long silence ensued, which even ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... very well as an exhibition of spirit on Mother Carey's part, but it had been a very hard week. Gilbert was sulky; Peter had had a touch of tonsillitis; Nancy was faltering at the dishwashing and wishing she were a boy; Julia was a perfect barnacle; Kathleen had an aching tooth, and there being no dentist in the village, Was applying Popham remedies,—clove-chewing, roasted raisins, and disfiguring bread poultices; Bill ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... oh! if you should happen to be dry, for such is the nature of sorrow, take this shilling, and spend it in the sugared ale, or the wind-expelling dram: with sweet reluctance he put forth his milk-white hand, cold with clammy sweat, and with a faltering voice, feebly thanked me. Oh! I shall never forget my emotions when he drove from me, and the chaise lessened in my view; now it whirled sublime along the mountain's edge; now, I scarcely saw the head of George nodding in the vale. Thus, on the summit of a craggy ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... entrance. His wife and his brother-in-law, with whom he had appointed this place of meeting, had just appeared there and were looking in every direction. Rudolf glanced once more at the kneeling supplicant, then with a slow, noiseless, faltering step he left the circle of flowers. He passed down the wide avenue as though walking in a dream. When he had nearly reached the gate he stopped and turned for the last time. The western sky was steeped in the glow of sunset. ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... prevent Rogers and Rockefeller from unloading. I bought and bought to steady the market when no one else apparently would buy; and when I found others whom I could induce to venture, I had them relieve those who were faltering and who must sell. When Mr. Rogers took me to task, I invented all manner of excuses to account for my tardiness in creating a market on which he could unload his holdings. He listened impatiently and incredulously, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... afternoons on horseback riding high above the camps, and now some small part of his love of the upper air came back to lead him towards his grave. With face turned to the solitudes of the snows, with ever-faltering steps, he commenced ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... in bloom, and all the invitation of spring was in the air. That he saw all the glorious prospect reflected in her mobile face I do not doubt—all the nobility and tenderness of it. If I knew the faltering talk in that hour of growing confidence and expectation, I would not repeat it. Henderson lunched at the Forsythe's, and after lunch he had some talk with Miss Forsythe. It must have been of an exciting nature to her, for, immediately after, that good woman came over in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... and Morris had told her all, the kind and gentle wife who was so good to him, who understood and could even smile as he explained, in faltering, shame-heavy words. And he had sworn for her sake and his children's sake, that he would put away this awful traffic, and ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... of a common, but to her fatal, humanity, I rested the butt of my rifle and reloaded. With a faltering hand I again ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... as strong and stern, To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn!— Whose icy wing flapped o'er the faltering foe, Till fell a hero with each flake of snow; How did thy numbing beak and silent fang, Pierce, till hosts perished with a single pang! 190 In vain shall Seine look up along his banks For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks! In vain shall France ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... and saw women, some with cheap shawls about their heads, some with the costliest of fur cloaks, ascending the ship's side. And such joy as the first sight of our ship may have given them had disappeared from their faces, and there were tears and signs of faltering as the women were helped up the ladders or hoisted aboard in swings. For lack of room to put them, several of the Titanic's boats, after ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... again, in that impoverished home of his boyhood to which he had been summoned from his studies abroad. As he urged his laboring horse forward, in the eagerness and anxiety of his love for Sibyl Andres, he lived again that hour when his dying mother told her faltering story of his father's dishonor; when he knew, for the first time, her life of devotion to him, and learned of her sacrifice—even unto poverty—that he might, unhampered, be fitted for his life work; and when, receiving his inheritance, he had made his solemn ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... God forbid a fate so dread — ALONE to travel down The dreary road we all must tread, With faltering steps and whitening head, The ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... though very popular, are, I think, not so good as his more personal poems. I suppose no narrative of what others have done or felt or suffered can move one like a flash from 'that little infinite, faltering, eternal flame that one calls oneself.' Even in my bare prose translation, this poem will, I think, be found to have as distinct a quality as that of Villon or ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... mortal blow for Andrew, who assumed that the stranger could carry so large a sum about him for no other purpose than to purchase possession of the beloved object. With a faltering tongue he replied, "That is a good lump of money; you have only to discover yourself, and go to work: the girl is no fool, and will see what a good thing it will be for her to ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... occasion, and Jefferson Briley felt that he was in for something more than he had bargained. He hurried the faltering sorrel horse, and began to talk of the weather. It certainly did look like snow, and he was tired of bumping over ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... his friend Poll Sweedlepipe (M.C.) 'came in at the door with a lunge, to get as much sound out of the bell as possible,' while Bob Sawyer gives a pull as if he would bring it up by the roots. Mr. Clennam pulls the rope with a hasty jerk, and Mr. Watkins Tottle with a faltering jerk, while Tom Pinch gives a gentle pull. And how angry Mr. Mantalini is with Newman ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... direction, as if presuming she would be pleased to direct me. Something, I told her, I had to say, by the advice of Mrs. Delany, which I begged her permission to communicate. She assented in silence, but with a look of the utmost softness, and yet mixed with strong surprise. I felt my voice faltering, and I was with difficulty able to go on,-so new to me was it to beg to be heard, who, hitherto, have always been begged to speak. There is no absolutely accounting for the forcible emotions which every totally new situation and new effort will excite in ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... (She quick replied); thy sister, brother, these."— "O! 'tis too much (he said); too soon to part, Ere well we meet! But this new flood of day O'erpowers me, and I feel a death-like damp Chill all my frame, and stop my faltering tongue." Now Lydia, so they call'd his gentle friend, Who, with averted eye, but in her soul Had felt the lancing steel, her aid applied, "And stay, dear youth (she said), or with thee take Thy Lydia, thine alike in life or death!" At Lydia's name, at Lydia's well known voice, He strove ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... Consols, or at least hesitated to advance on them. The moment this was reported in the City and telegraphed to the country, it made the panic indefinitely worse. In fact, to make large advances in this faltering way is to incur the evil of making them without obtaining the advantage. What is wanted and what is necessary to stop a panic is to diffuse the impression, that though money may be dear, still money is to be had. If people could be really convinced ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... tell lost tales of savage wars; And you have known the desert sands, The camp beneath the silver stars, The rush at dawn of Arab bands, The fruitless toil, the hopeless dream, The fainting feet, the faltering breath, While Gordon by the ancient stream ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... pool reply, Faltering an answer far and sweet, Three swans as white as mountain snow Swim mantling ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... could I say or do now? But strangely and suddenly, under the influence of this thought, my anger died away. I saw with his eyes and felt with his heart; I saw how he stood, and I knew that I had brought him to that pass. Was it strange that he fired at me without faltering, although I might be ten times a king? It seemed to me almost just that he should kill me. Varvilliers would not give him a revolver. Did Varvilliers also suspect? I think his fear was rather of our extreme rage against one another. It occurred to me that I would not aim at my opponent. ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... winced at my mistake, which I attenuated as I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it to her; then, faltering in the act and folding it up once more, I put it back in my pocket. "Is he ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... shall know it where I am. No mounded earth can keep my spirit down when John Poindexter feels his doom. I shall be conscious of his anguish and shall rejoice; and when in the depths of darkness to which I go he comes faltering along my way—— ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... solemn responsibility, was at great cost bringing all her influence to bear upon the young girl whom her son loved. She drearily said to herself, after many days, that her influence was weak, that it accomplished nothing. The strength of it pushed Susannah, who stood faltering at the parting of the ways, and the impetus of that push was felt in her rapid and unsteady step for many and ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... lock'd the furious parsons stand; Each grasps the whip with unrelenting might— The whip, the cause and guerdon of the fight— But either warrior spends his strength in vain, And panting draws his lengthen'd breath with pain, Till now the Dean, with throat extended wide, And faltering shout, for speedy succour cried [40]To them who in yon grateful cell repose, Where Greenland odours feast the stranger's nose— "Scouts, porters, shoe-blacks, whatsoe'er your trade, All, all, attend, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... bailiffs was kindly supporting the faltering steps of the released prisoner, in taking him from the dock, and while the crowd in the court-room were pouring out of the front doors, the presiding judge, Baron Stairs, came down to the place where the young Duke of Hereward still sat. He had known the duke's ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... minute we could have had the illusion that he had stolen away, unheard, on the thick mats. But I don't think that either of us was deceived. The voice returned, stammering words without connection, pausing and faltering, till suddenly steadied it soared into impassioned entreaty, sank to low, harsh tones, voluble, lofty sometimes and sometimes abject. When it paused it left us looking profoundly ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... song, sudden, loud, sweet, yet faltering, as if half ashamed? Is it the willow wren or the garden warbler? The two birds, though very remotely allied to each other, are so alike in voice, that it is often difficult to distinguish them, unless we attend carefully to the expression. For the garden warbler, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... joyful. The thought of Piers was still with her continually. She had heard so little of him—merely that he had followed his grandfather to the grave supported by the old family solicitor from Wardenhurst, Lennox Tudor, and a miscellaneous throng of neighbours; that he had borne himself without faltering, and had gone back to his solitude with no visible sign of suffering. Only indirectly had she heard this, and she ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... take leave of the poor schoolmaster, and wander forth once more. With a trembling and reluctant hand, the child held out to their kind host the money which the lady had given her at the races for her flowers, faltering in her thanks, and blushing as she offered it. But he bade her put it up, and kissing her cheek, wished her good fortune and happiness, adding, "If you ever pass this way again, you will not forget the ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... with his hideous feelings against James. But as the long hours slipped away he slowly calmed. His hatred remained for the man, but he kept it out of his silent struggle with himself. In spite of his first heated decision he was torn by a guiding instinct that left him faltering. He realized that his hatred of the man, and nothing else, was really responsible for his negative attitude. And this was surely wrong. What he must really consider was the welfare of Vada, and—Jessie. The whole thing was so difficult, so utterly ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... his, gazing out of the open window, ever and anon swallowing a great lump that came in his throat. Meantime the sun dropped slowly to the west, till all the sky was ablaze with a red glory. Then Robin Hood, in a weak, faltering voice, bade Little John raise him that he might look out once more upon the woodlands; so the yeoman lifted him in his arms, as he bade, and Robin Hood's head lay on his friend's shoulder. Long he gazed, with a wide, lingering look, while the ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... her advice about—accepting Lord Everscourt!" she said, faltering; and there was a moment's ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... pass this test, the second comes when the bridegroom's eyes are uncovered. They are then to converse with each other, and they must not for a moment relax the talk. Neither has any knowledge of the time that this test must continue. There must be no faltering, or hesitancy. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... strength and power of man have sunk to the lowest ebb, when his mind is overwhelmed by the dark waters of despair. She, like the tender ivy plant bent yet unbroken by the storms of life, not only upholds her own hopeful courage, but clings around the tempest-fallen oak, to speak hope to his faltering spirit, and shelter him from the returning blast of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Graeco-Roman world of whose exterior life we know so much. Not to have read it is not to know the deepest mind of the ancients. Two things in it are prevailingly prominent: first, a noble nature; secondly, an extreme civilization, already faltering, turned to decline, expecting its fall. On every page lies the shadow of impending doom; on every page shines forth the great, heroic soul equal to every fate. The work—if work it can be called—is entirely aphoristic, with no apparent plan; in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... his head, turned over the violin, turned it back again, raised it up in the air, lowered it, held it straight out, shook it, put it to his ear, set it down, and picked it up again with a rapidity of movement peculiar to these agile creatures. He seemed to question the dumb wood with faltering sagacity and in his gestures there was something marvelous as well as infantile. At last he undertook with grotesque gestures to place the violin under his chin, while in one hand he held the neck; but like a spoiled child he soon wearied ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... commencement of a better period of public taste and feeling, as marked not only in Art, but in letters, the study of Nature became more manifest in the English school. In different directions, and with different degrees of success, many artists, but generally with more or less faltering, broke away from the old system. Wilkie, Etty, Constable, Collins, and others, often painted simple and sincere pictures, pictures that showed careful study and real love of Nature. All these artists may be seen to advantage ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... of a flock fired into toward nightfall, they came straggling on with faltering steps, many of them without bag or baggage, beast or barrow, all asking shelter or burial, and forcing a fresh repartition of the already divided rations of their friends. It was plain now that every energy must be taxed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... laughter—that faltering, ingenuous reason of hers—and Barbara hastened to explain that the phrase was a relic of her own childhood, which she had once coined in extenuation of conduct to which her mother had objected. She still employed it, she explained, in particularly ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... Alice, faltering. "Think what I, the cause of all, should feel when your father frowns, your mother weeps, your noble friends stand aloof, and you—even you—shall have made the painful discovery that you have incurred the resentment of all to satisfy a boyish passion. Farewell, then, Julian; but ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... a cry through the camp, with its word upon rousing word; There was never a faltering foot in the ranks of those that heard. Lads from the Hampshire hills and the rich Connecticut vales, Sons of the old Bay Colony, from its shores and its inland dales; Swiftly they fell in line; no fear could their valor chill; Ah, ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... thing," continued Titmouse, in a faltering tone, and with a depressed look—"That was what I wanted to know myself; for they said I'd better go back!! So I said, 'Gents,' said I, 'I'll be—— if I'll go back to the shop any more;' and I snapped my fingers at ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... out upon the river we saw a low-laden vessel, all sail spread to the soft, faltering breeze, coming slowly up stream on the last of the tide. How she fitted into the old-time setting! She was one of Colonel Byrd's freighting ships just in from overseas. After a tempestuous voyage, ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... lost poet he had "gone with the wind." Now it was for him to be true in his fashion. A man may falter for weeks and weeks, consciously, subconsciously, even in his dreams, till there comes that moment when the only thing impossible is to go on faltering. The black cap, the little driven grey man looking up at it with a sort of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the least intelligence of what had become of our brave young men. This contributed, not a little, to increase our uneasiness, and to sadden our thoughts, for we felt in our hearts that they would never return. Our forebodings proved too well founded," said my grandmother, with faltering voice, "we have never ascertained their fate. We knew, however, that the war was still progressing, and that the French were losing ground every day. The English directed all their efforts against Canada, ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... intently. "Strange thing they don't break!" But they didn't. There was no waiting, no coaxing; it was drive and devilry all through. He brought his sheep along at a terrific rate, never missing a turn, never faltering, never running out. And the crowd applauded, for the crowd loves a dashing display. While little M'Adam, hopping agilely about, his face ablaze with excitement, handled dog and sheep with a masterly precision that compelled the ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... a faltering voice, as from his cheerful bearing I anticipated unfavorable tidings; "what is the character of ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the danger that lay before them, but there was no sign of faltering upon their faces. Rather, there was an eagerness for instant action that was not ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... could not raise ten thousand dollars. Only ten, and he was sure of a fortune. Without it he was a beggar. Mr. Bolton had already Small's notes for a large amount in his safe, labeled "doubtful;" he had helped him again and again, and always with the same result. But Mr. Small spoke with a faltering voice of his family, his daughter in school, his wife ignorant of his calamity, and drew such a picture of their agony, that Mr. Bolton put by his own more pressing necessity, and devoted the day to scraping together, here and there, ten thousand dollars for this brazen beggar, who ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... her voice in a minute. "What! and will you shake them in for me?" she asked, in what, for a defiant girl, was a faltering way; though, for a timid girl, it would have seemed ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... another hoary man, and said, In faltering accents, to that weeping train: 'Why mourn ye that our aged friend is dead? Ye are not sad ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... pip-pip-pip in expostulation as it stood forlorn among the fields: then stealing forward again and stealthily making pace, gathering speed, till it had got up a regular spurt: then suddenly the brakes came on with a jerk, more faltering to a halt, more whistling and pip-pip-pipping, as the engine stood jingling with impatience: after which another creak and splash, and another choking off. So on till they landed in Prato station: and there they sat. A fellow passenger told them, there was ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence |
