"Hesitancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... visit. Still, for two days she hesitated to make her call, feeling a strange repugnance towards such a step. For this she could give herself no reasons. It was the doctor himself who inspired her with this hesitancy; one morning she met him, and shrunk from his notice as though she were a child. At this excess of timidity she was much annoyed. Her quiet, upright nature protested against the uneasiness which was taking possession of her. She decided, therefore, to go ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... they were but a few feet deep. It is curious how a little obstacle becomes a great obstruction when a misstep would land a man in the bottom of a deep chasm. Climbing the face of a cliff, a man will without hesitancy walk along a step or shelf but a few inches wide if the landing is but ten feet below, but if the foot of the cliff is a thousand feet down he will prefer to crawl along the shelf. At last our way is cut off by a fissure ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... creature's pose and manner. Still Job stood watching the soldiers, listening to the band until it had moved onward, past the spot where he was. Then his eyes fell on the hearse, and he took one eager step forward. Surely that was a familiar sight! The carriages came next, and by that time there was no hesitancy in his mind; for at length he recognized all the solemn import of the procession. It was a funeral, and in funerals Job had often borne a conspicuous part. The band was doubtless his call to duty; and should any one say that ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... Zwenken answered, with a strange kind of hesitancy in his voice. "He was never married so far as I know—at least, he never asked my consent to a marriage; and if he has left children I should not acknowledge them to be legitimate. In short, you now understand why I cannot ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... longer. I mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times that evening and during the better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be in Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had witnessed that day, but his tall friend ate his supper with a relish and seemed quite elated at the prospect of the voyage to shore. He filled a clay pipe after the meal and smoked meditatively awhile, then addressed the boy with a queer hesitancy. ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... in midwinter could not have been more starved. Without comment she offered them the remaining fried cakes, and between them they took it all. She offered the second helping of coffee, which they accepted without hesitancy. Filling their cups, she placed her empty coffeepot ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... the ways of every woman, even if she be completely mistress of herself.... Thus her flights of thought, like carrier-pigeons, never fail to reach their end, although at times they circle and hover as though troubled by some mysterious hesitancy or temptation to turn back ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... car two blocks away and arrived on foot at the pretty, three-storied, shingled Berkeley house. For an instant only, he was aware of an inward hesitancy, but the next moment he rang the bell. He knew that what he was doing was in direct violation of her wishes, and that he was setting her a difficult task to receive as a Sunday caller the multimillionaire and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... singular hesitancy in her answer to the abrupt question. Piers, preoccupied as he was, could not but remark Mrs. Hannaford's constraint, almost confusion. At once it struck him that Daniel had been borrowing money of her, and the thought aroused strong indignation. His own hundred and fifty pounds ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... young inventor understood. Mr. Swift was getting rather along in age, and his long years of brain work had made him nervous. He had a great fear of Morse and his gang, for they had made much trouble for him in the past. Tom appreciated his chum's hesitancy, and guessed that Ned had something to say that he did not want Mr. Swift ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... hesitancy on the part of the monkeys. They began leaping from rope to rope, swinging by their tails to facilitate their descent, until finally the whole troop leaped to the top of the cage and swung themselves down the bars to ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... awake to these omens. Broad streams of cattle undulated past our train going south, but west. "My poor Paris!" exclaimed a French lady. It was not for themselves these people were sorry. The common sort of people in the train were sorry for Paris, for all their unlucky fellows. The train moved with hesitancy for hours. During one long pause we listened to a cannonade. One burst of sound seemed very close. A young English girl, sitting in a corner with her infant, abruptly handed the child to her husband. She rummaged in a travelling case with the haste of incipient ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... some meals because it may supply too much food value or too much protein. However, if the fact that a high-protein food is to be served at the end of the meal is taken into account when the remainder of the meal is planned, there need be no hesitancy in serving cheese with pie. Of course, when cheese is to be included in the meal in this way, the portions of the protein foods served with the main course ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... he looked out into the garden every minute. Finally, after giving orders that no one else was to be admitted, he had his breakfast served in the summer-house at one corner of the garden. In the banker's office the conduct and hesitancy of the most knowing, the most clearsighted, the shrewdest of Paris ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... but to Hilary the glories of the day were as things non-existent. Even the groom at Fairview, who took his horse, glanced back at him with a peculiar expression as he stood for a moment on the steps with a hesitancy the man had never ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Brilliana went on, still with that curious hesitancy that sat so strangely upon her. "We have shared a siege. I have a ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... exciting conditions that then prevailed. The absentees, or at least abstentions from voting, were fifteen Republicans and five Democrats, more than one-third of the body. That very unusual absence or abstention from voting may well be attributed to the very proper hesitancy of Senators to commit themselves in advance, either way, on a proposition that was reasonably certain to lead to an impeachment of the President, then virtually pending and imminent in the House, and upon which the Senate was ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... with great hesitancy that I write to add to the burdens of one so busy and burdened as I presume you to be. But it is not for myself but for others that I write, and ...
— The Repair Of Casa Grande Ruin, Arizona, in 1891 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... at her side, who would have taken her in his tender guardianship whithersoever she might choose—now that there was no need for hesitancy in her wish—this child, who had never been beyond the Hudson, who had thought longingly of Catskill, and Trenton, and Niagara, and had seen them only in her dreams—felt, inexplicably, a contrary impulse, ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... woman should be on the lookout for gentleness and courage in man. If she finds those qualities—if she can only become aware they are there, her heart will relent in spite of her, and there will be no hesitancy in her final choice, nor regret in her ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... consistent in every detail, came trippingly and without the least hesitancy from her tongue. Andreuccio remembered that his father had indeed lived at Palermo; he knew by his own experience the ways of young folk, how prone they are to love; he saw her melt into tears, he felt her embraces and sisterly kisses; and he took all she said for gospel. ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... last the ceremony was done, and the Indian with his bare hands threw the earth over the hole in the mound. Still looking nervously from bush to bush, his hands began to move more slowly; then he paused, and sat by the mound, looking up with a hesitancy that recognized the need of an explanation ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... he returned and sat down I said nothing. There was a little thing I noted, however. His hands were trembling, and it was five minutes before he met my inquiring look. This I should not consider worth mentioning if I had not observed the same hesitancy follow the same disappearance up-stairs on the succeeding night. It was the only time in the day when he really left me, and, when he came back, he was not like himself for a good half hour or more. "I will not displease him with questions," ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... some doubts about the amount of labour she can yet perform; and, after much manifest hesitancy, she is knocked down to Romescos for the sum of two hundred and seventy dollars. "There! 'tain't a bad price for ye, nohow!" says the vender, laconically. "Get down, old woman." Rachel moves to the steps, and is received by Romescos, who, taking ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... yet it is not certain that the decision is—like the laws of the Medea and Persians—irrevocable. Something in the tone, or manner, or both combined, leaves room to hope for success in time to come. "The woman who deliberates, is lost," we are told: and is it not so? Do not many who say no with hesitancy, still retain the power and the disposition to deliberate? And is ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... he said, feeling free to take the chair near her. "It is so genuinely—beautiful." This time he felt no hesitancy in saying it. ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... hesitancy now. Rising, he leaned over the table and read the few words the other had spread out for his perusal. Then he slowly rose to his full height, as he answered, with some slight display ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... French, Natalie," she was saying to her companion in that language. "My maid need not understand all we talk about." Then she continued in evident answer to some previous question, "His name is Calvert Carter." There followed a delightful hesitancy, which sent a thrill through the invisible auditor, while in a tone intended to be judicious, Trusia completed her reply: "Yes, I think you would call him handsome. Anyway, he's a gentleman. Any ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... as a master of men, brushed this hesitancy aside, and with jovial tact. "A first-rate fellow," he insisted. "One of our best! Only pig-headed, as the best always are. And so, when I offer him a choice of two farms, each better than his present one, he must needs take it into his head that I'm doing him an injury. Such a man"—here ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... his mind broad awake to what she called the great issues and what he felt were vital ones. He went on over the bridge, and up the stairs of the old Choate Building to Alston's office, and, from some sudden hesitancy, tapped ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... you, and your noble associates, of my lasting gratitude, and feel no hesitancy in expressing the opinion that but for your great skill in treating me, I should have been in my grave. I state for the benefit of all those who may be similarly afflicted that if they will place themselves in your hands, you ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the colleges and universities of the country in recent years believed—sincerely, doggedly believed—that a college training was something that they must have. The question of whether or not they could afford it does not appear to have occasioned much hesitancy on their part. It is evident that they did not for one instant think that they could not afford to ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... were thus callously discussing the tragedy that had been enacted before their eyes, the miracle of the dawn was transforming night into day. In the tropics there is no hesitancy about sunrise. The splendid imagery of Genesis is literally exact. "Let there be light; and there was light . . . and God divided the light from the darkness." Long before the Andorinha had crept round the southern headland of the Macayo estuary ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... frequent association of sexual with religious excitement.[164] The appeal made during a religious revival to an unconverted person has psychologically some resemblance to the attempt of the male to overcome the hesitancy of the female. In each case the will has to be set aside, and strong suggestive means are used; and in both cases the appeal is not of the conflict type, but of an intimate, sympathetic, and pleading kind. In the effort to make a moral adjustment, it consequently ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... cross-examine the record, and by reference to the British accounts. The latter are impartial, as between the American parties; their only bias is to constitute a fair case for Barclay, by establishing the surrender of the American flagship and the hesitancy of the "Niagara" to enter into action. This would indicate victory so far, changed to defeat by the use Perry made of the vessel preserved to him intact by the over-caution of his second. Waiving motives, these claims are substantially correct, and constitute ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... is the place, have thou then no hesitancy in trusting the business to thy most loving friend, who would be ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... eyes fell upon the ledger. After a moment's hesitancy he remarked: "Never but in one instance have I seen as fine work. That was the writing of my own dear boy; those capitals are just ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... her hand gently and with some tremor as he said good-evening, and then he descended the brownstone steps aware that all debate and hesitancy were at an end. Come what might come, he knew himself to be irretrievably in love with Phillida Callender. This was what he had gained by abstaining from the sight of her ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... of a colored man, and Hesden had no apprehension or hesitancy in complying with the request. In fact, his position as a recognized friend of the colored race had made such appeals to his kindness and protection by no means unusual. He rose at once, and stepped out upon the porch. He was absent for a little ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... the assurance that she loved him and him alone. What these scenes cost Julia's own fine sense of delicacy and dignity, only Julia knew. They left her with a vague feeling of shame, a consciousness of compromise. For a day or two after such an episode a new hesitancy would mark her manner, a certain lack of confidence lend pathos to ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Pierce spoke his mind, albeit with some hesitancy. "That fellow is a gambler," said he, "and Kid Bridges is another. Bridges held my hand for a minute, the day I landed, and his little display of tenderness cost me one hundred and thirty-five dollars. Do you think you ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... body function, or to determine the domination or abeyance of an instinct. One such has been named the kinetic system because it comes into play in situations which demand prompt adaptation without hesitancy, and a consequent immediate transformation of static or stored energy into kinetic or active energy. According to this conception the brain, the adrenals, the liver, the thyroid and the muscles together constitute a machine very much like an automobile. The self-starter of the machine ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... to learn you could be out, Judge," she said, the least perceptible hesitancy in her voice. "Permit me to present Judge Cable, of the Supreme Court; Captain West, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... body in its blanket shroud and flung it into the hole. There was neither pause nor hesitancy in anything he did, only his eyes peered furtively about. As the first part of the burial was accomplished, a panic seized him and he shovelled the soil back as though his life depended on his speed. He packed the dry clay down with ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... not detected the movement, must mean that it was getting nearer and about to spring, so casting all hesitancy to the winds, I raised the gun to my shoulder, and then quite ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... to the man who measures up more nearly to the stature of a great poet than any other American—Edgar Allan Poe. Outside of America, there has never been any hesitancy in pronouncing Poe the first poet of his country; but, at home, it is only recently his real merit has come to ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... old hat with a pathetic, bewildered hesitancy, and he whispered to Mother, "My overcoat is gone—it's been stolen—my new overcoat. Now I can't go out and get ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... Mike Wild, and, after that notorious miser had enough recovered from the fear created by the presence to understand what it said to him, he realized that it was telling him of something that in life it had buried at the foot of the Old Elm. After much hesitancy Mike set forth with his ghostly guide, for he would have risked his soul for money, but on arriving at his destination he was startled to find himself alone. Nothing daunted, he set down his lantern and began to dig. Though he turned up many a rood of soil and sounded ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... that he was given abundant opportunity to examine the floor of the box, but not until after the dangerous nails had been clinched. His long continued avoidance of the experiment boxes and his still more persistent hesitancy in entering them, coupled with his almost ludicrous efforts to see beneath the floor through the holes cut for the staples on the doors, gave me the impression of superstitious fear of the unseen. As I watched ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... those of its neighbor, a rival company. It was near the end of the day, when I was almost back to camp, that I saw him coming along the road, with the peculiar swing to his shoulders and arms that, once acquired, never leaves the deep-water sailor; so I had no hesitancy in greeting him after the manner ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... "they shall be given only to citizens; and if he appoints to them his creatures or kinsmen, or those of the auditors or fiscal, or of their wives, the royal Audiencia shall check him without any reserve or hesitancy. The fiscal thereof shall oppose him, and take all possible measures to this end." This should be charged upon the consciences of all; and the government notary should be ordered to put upon all commissions of offices of justice or war, or of encomiendas of Indians, or of any other positions ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... look at some business suits," began Theodore, addressing the foremost of them, with a slight touch of hesitancy and embarrassment. It was ...
— Three People • Pansy
... over, the democracy which was making uncomfortable claims in England itself. The English trading classes resented the shortage of cotton and the high duties which the protectionist North was imposing. With the defeat of the Union forces at Bull Run the prudent hesitancy of aristocrat and merchant in expressing their views disappeared. The responsible statesmen of both countries, especially Lincoln and Lord John Russell, refused to be stampeded, but unfortunately the leading newspapers served them ill. The "Times", with its constant sneers ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... be afraid of the lion," said Meriem, noting his slight hesitancy. "There hasn't been a man eater around here for two years, Bwana says, and the game is so plentiful that there is no necessity to drive Numa to human flesh. Then, he has been so often hunted that he rather keeps out of ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... The ring grew smaller and smaller until in an open space the shadowy form of a tree loomed up before the advancing warriors. No escape was now possible for the singer, yet the song went on without hesitancy. The tree was now clearly visible. The song came to a close, and the echo died away in the distance. The men kept on toward the tree, with bows drawn and arrows strung. No form was seen running around inside the ring, seeking an opening for escape; but, lo! at the foot of the ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... to tell me what you think. I know you're a student. I want to talk about my case," pursued the preacher, with a curious hesitancy. "I want to ask ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... remarked Mr. Carson, and there was no hesitancy in his endearing tone. For of course he had known, all along, that Dave was not his son, though, as he had said, he so loved and ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... imagine a billiard ball which feels it moves others, but which does not feel that it is moved. What we call decision is an idea which decides us because it exercises more power over us than the others do; what we term deliberation is a hesitancy between two or three ideas which at the moment have equal force; what we name volition is an idea, and what we call will is our understanding applied to facts. We do not want to fight; we conceive ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... that he must leave the post—must leave her, and on so dangerous a mission. She was silent because she knew not what to say, yet knew that what he had said almost turned her cold with dread. He saw the hesitancy, and struck again: ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... watching them for a second and then clapping his hand to his pocket a smile spread slowly over his face. He followed the two stalwart officers for a few steps and paused irresolutely. Then, without further hesitancy, he walked rapidly to Spring Street and thence to the Hotel Aquidneck, where he entered the telephone booth. When he emerged he ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... Claude felt some hesitancy about presenting himself to these ladies. Perhaps they didn't like Americans; he was always afraid of meeting French people who didn't. It was the same way with most of the fellows in his battalion, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... have no hesitancy in saying that it is by far the best presentation of this very important subject that I have ever seen. It answers many important questions for which I have seen no answer elsewhere."—Prof. ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... her?" she asked with a hesitancy which might mean that she was in doubt whether to ask the question, or perhaps that she rather hoped her surmise ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... to tell one of my best stories in order to cheer Brandon, but in the midst of it, Mary, who, I had noticed, was restless and uneasy, full of blushes and hesitancy, and with a manner as new to her as the dawn of the first day was to the awakening world, abruptly asked Brandon to dance with her again. She had risen and was standing by her chair, ready ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... and caution with which the offices of sacred worship are approached are apparent. These are no signs of a hesitancy which is doubtful of its position. They indicate rather the strength of assurance which hesitates to touch the gift entrusted to it lest touching may end in tampering. In the same year in which these careful steps were taken, another convention, ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... Holland was ended in September 1649, in response to an urgent invitation from the studious young Queen Christina of Sweden, who wanted the now famous philosopher as an ornament to her court. After some hesitancy he sailed for Stockholm, where only five months ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... of the empire never showed any hesitancy in trying and even in overdoing the pleasures which all their subjects permitted themselves. Alas! A crown is such a weighty burden! The road of domination is strewn with so many briars that one would never be able to pass down it if he did not take care that they ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... we thought little of the matter; for, our side of the stream having played us false, we felt no hesitancy in transferring our affections to the other side. But we found that poor Gadabout took things much more seriously. She could not so lightly "off with the old love and on with the new." For her the affair had already gone too far; already, for the side ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... now we come to a sinister result of these methods of exploiting the wage-working girls and women. The subject is one that cannot be approached with other than considerable hesitancy, not because the facts are untrue, but because its statistical nature has not been officially investigated. Nevertheless, the facts are known; stern, inflexible facts. For true historical accuracy, as well as for ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... makes a very true remark about Renan, a propos of the volume of "Les Evangiles." He brings out the contradiction between the literary taste of the artist, which is delicate, individual, and true, and the opinions of the critic, which are borrowed, old-fashioned and wavering. This hesitancy of choice between the beautiful and the true, between poetry and prose, between art and learning, is, in fact, characteristic. Renan has a keen love for science, but he has a still keener love for good ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bald for years, and at the same time restores it to its natural color. The proprietors will mail to anyone who sends name and address, a free trial package of the remedy so that all may test it for themselves. As it is a pure vegetable product you need have no hesitancy in using it freely, as it cannot harm the most tender scalp. Write to-day to the Altenheim Medical Dispensary, 3156 Foso Building, Cincinnati, Ohio, enclosing a 2-cent stamp to cover postage, and they will forward the free ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... a good many years. Representing a neighboring State, as he did in the Senate, I became very intimate with him, and never had the slightest hesitancy in seeking his advice when I was in doubt concerning any ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... In other languages the change from one numeral to the next is so slight that one instinctively concludes that the savage is forming in his own mind another, to him new, numeral immediately from the last. In such cases the entire number system is scanty, and the creeping hesitancy with which progress is made is visible in the forms which the numerals are made to take. A single illustration or two of this must suffice; but the ones chosen are not isolated cases. The scale of the Macunis,[327] one of the numerous tribes ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... made, and its meaning, had it possessed any, might have been repeated pat. But it was evident that the boy was putting a devastating strain upon an unexuberant and tardy wit when he endeavoured to ascribe to it a literary rendering. His hesitancy and contradictions ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... the Socialist Party.—'The Socialists of the United States would have no hesitancy whatsoever in joining forces with the rest of their countrymen to repel the Bolsheviki who would try to invade our country and force a form of government upon our people which our people were not ready for, ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... his eyes and looked fixedly at him. This reference to an outbreak of fire I felt sure was made with a purpose. It certainly had the desired effect of removing from our host's manner the last signs of hesitancy. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... violence—for each dreaded that the other would turn the scale against it by invoking the aid of the servile class. Thus it was that the despised Tlahuicos actually held the balance of power. Yet of this fact, Tizoc declared—but I noticed that just here there was a curious hesitancy about his speech, as though he knew more than he was willing to disclose—the Tlahuicos were but dimly conscious; while they did know certainly that in the present state of affairs any attempt on their part to rise in mutiny ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... title of 'The Old Text of the sacred Ching, with Commentary and Discussions, by Lo Chung-fan of Nan-hai [7].' I knew the man many years ago. He was a fine scholar, and had taken the second degree, or that of Chu-zan. He applied to me in 1843 for Christian baptism, and, offended by my hesitancy, went and enrolled himself among the disciples of another missionary. He ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... enemies—Helen; Calchas, the prophet, who had commanded her sacrifice; Odysseus, who had devised the plot by which she was brought to Aulis (11. 16, 24); then Achilles, who had been the hero of her dreams; then, with fear and hesitancy, those for whom she cares most.—Observe, at 1. 553, how, on hearing of her father's murder, her first thought is pity for her mother. Her father is already in her mind "he that slew." But in every line of this dialogue there ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides
... have cleared himself, but his legs were somehow mixed up with the foot of the bed, and she occupied his attention too much. The hag raised the lead and rushed, and for the only time in my life I hit a woman. Without hesitancy or compunction, only revolted at the thought of such contact with such matter, I smashed her down. The Boss and Mick freed themselves together and embraced each other willingly. Twinetoes was playing skittles with the remaining dock rats. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... him immedialely as a romantic figure. He gave the effect of towering self-confidence erected on a slight foundation—just under the surface of each of his decisions she discerned a hesitancy that was in decided contrast to the ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... certain experience in the Bitter Creek country, Wyoming, the writer prides himself on being able to distinguish drinkable water from the salty or alkaline article almost as far as it can be seen, and a stream about which the least suspicion is entertained is invariably tasted with gingerly hesitancy to begin with. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... scruples vanished. He sat down with the rest to the sumptuous repast, and never after seemed to have any hesitancy in gratifying his appetite. ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Mizora, as you have no doubt observed, never to make domestic affairs a topic of conversation outside of the family, the only ones who would be interested in them; and this refinement has kept you from the solution of our social system. I have no hesitancy in gratifying your wish to comprehend it. The best way to do it is to let history lead up to it, if you ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... and walked to the other end of the garden. He had never meant to aspire to the Judean throne! He had simply written so determinedly to Costobarus, that the merchant of Ascalon would have no hesitancy in giving him two hundred talents! In these past days, she had learned enough that was blameworthy in this Philadelphus to make him more than despicable in her eyes. Again, as hourly since the last interview in the depression in the hills beyond the well, the fine bigness ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... process of reconstruction. Despite the early sentiment favorable to prompt ratification, that part of the Treaty which related to a League of Nations met a variety of opposing forces. Some of them were based on personal, political and partisan considerations, and some of them founded upon a sincere hesitancy about adventuring into new and untried fields of international effort. In the main, party lines were somewhat strictly drawn in the Senate, the Democrats favoring and the Republicans opposing ratification of the treaty ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... four principal scenes of the life of St. Peter, supplies the material for the dramatic development of the subject. The overture, beginning with an adagio movement in B-flat minor, gives expression to the vague yearnings of that time of doubt and hesitancy when the "oracles were dumb," and the dawning of a new era of stronger and diviner faith was matter of presentiment rather than of definite hope or expectation. Though the tonality is at first firmly established, yet as the movement becomes more agitated, the final tendency ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... place whereon thou standest is holy ground! This man and woman had gotten well beyond the first flush of youth; there was a joining of intellect and soul which approaches the ideal. I can not imagine anything so preposterous as a "proposal" passing between them; I can not conceive a condition of hesitancy and timidity leading up to a dam-bursting "avowal." They met, looked into each other's eyes, and each there read his fate: no coyness, no affectation, no fencing—they loved. Each at once felt a heart-rest in the other. Each had at last ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... Whatever hesitancy had kept Albert from talking to Katy about Smith Westcott was all gone now, and he went home to denounce him bitterly. One may be sure that the muddled remarks of Mr. Westcott about Katy—of which even he had ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... unassisted to the death chamber. As he| |entered he glanced about, seemingly surprised. His | |face had the expression of a person coming from | |darkness into sudden light, but there was no hint of| |hesitancy to meet death in the stride with which he | |approached the chair which had already claimed the | |lives of four others in payment for the Rosenthal | |murder. | | | |The doomed man held a black crucifix in his left | |hand. It was about ten inches long, and as he ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... slight form standing beneath, marked her hesitancy, and watched her slow progress down the terraces and into the park. This nocturnal enterprise on her part was rather perplexing, and he was in two minds whether or not to cross the room and consult with ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... experienced by the victims of the cocaine habit are illusions of sight and hearing, neuromuscular irritability, and localized anaesthesia. After a time insomnia supervenes, and the patient displays a curious hesitancy, and an inability to arrive at a decision on even the most ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... advanced are inconveniently various. Thus Verville finds the Nessus shirt a symbol of retribution, where Buelg, with rather wide divergence, would have it represent the dangerous gift of genius. Then it may be remembered that Dr. Codman says, without any hesitancy, of Mother Sereda: "This Mother Middle is the world generally (an obvious anagram of Erda es), and this Sereda rules not merely the middle of the working-days but the midst of everything. She is the factor of middleness, of ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... known what he was going to say when he began, and he did not know how he intended to end. He heard with a passionate sense of relief that the door behind them opened, and turned to find that Mrs. Latimer stood upon the threshold as if in hesitancy. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... troubling you, or what your need is, before you can get the half of it out, and he promptly says, "Leave that to me." Consequently, you easily drift into the habit of leaving everything to him. There is a certain embarrassment about applying to the average American hotel clerk, a certain hesitancy, a sense of insecurity against rebuff; but you feel no embarrassment in your intercourse with the portier; he receives your propositions with an enthusiasm which cheers, and plunges into their accomplishment ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... surroundings, and if he saw an acquaintance nod to him in token of recognition, and then, relapsing into the old posture, resume his way. At such times,—indeed, at any time,—while he did not repel, he took no pains to invite society. He was entertaining in conversation, although a certain hesitancy, from want of words and not from any organic defect, gave a broken style to his speech. For his study he selected a room in the topmost story of his house, farthest removed from the street, and was careful to have the floor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... the blanket which he had brought to cover Allan was a bag in which they had carried oats for their horses; this he found in the darkness, and stole after his victim. He overtook him standing at the door, in apparent hesitancy whether to enter the building. Without an instant's warning Harris threw the bag about his head, and with a quick twist of his powerful wrist had his prisoner securely gagged. Throwing him violently to the ground, he tied the ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... closed. In conclusion, Bismarck was authorized to publish the message if he saw fit. The Chancellor at once saw his opportunity. In the royal despatch, though the main incidents were clear enough, there was still a note of doubt, of hesitancy, which suggested a possibility of further negotiation. The excision of a few lines would alter, not indeed the general sense, but certainly the whole tone of the message. Bismarck, turning to Moltke, asked him if he were ready ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the minor concert and church singers are many who try conscientiously to obey the instructions of the "breath-control" teachers. Singers of this type can always be recognized by a curious impression of hesitancy, or even timidity, conveyed by their tones. They seem afraid to deliver their phrases with vigor and energy; they do not "let their voices out." Frequently their voices are of excellent quality, and their singing is polished and refined. ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... Unionists of St. Louis. The State convention had adjourned, and its members had gone home, having done but little to re-assure the loyalists. They had, indeed, passed an ordinance declaring that Missouri would adhere to the Union; but the majority of the members had betrayed such hesitancy and indecision, such a lack of stomach to grapple with the rude issues of the rebellion, that their action passed almost without moral effect. Their ordinance was treated with contempt by the secessionists, and nearly lost sight of by the people; so ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... tottering, and, with the exception of the Duke of Modena, the princelings of Italy snatched the plank of safety of a statute with the alacrity of drowning men. In this crisis Charles Albert thought of abdication. Besides the known causes of his hesitancy, there was one then unknown: the formal engagement, invented by Metternich and forced upon him by his uncle Charles Felix, to govern the country as he found it governed. He called the members of the royal ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... hesitancy in speaking the truth. You sought me. I am very candid—perhaps blunt. If my honesty does not suit you it is an easy matter to discontinue our intercourse. The ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... must be said of Kuprin's style. He is by no means a purist; his pages bristle with neologisms and foreign—or, rather, outlandish—words; nor has he any hesitancy in adapting and Russianizing such words. He coins words; he is, at times, actually Borrowesque, and not only does he resort to colloquialisms and slang, but to dialect, cant, and even actual argot. Therein is his glory—and, perhaps, his weakness. Therefore, an attempt has been ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... object, dreading no consequences, and if disaster followed she comforted herself with the feeling that she had acted according to her best light. She was a faithful disciple of every cause she espoused, and scrupulously exact in obeying even its implied provisions. In this there was no hesitancy. No matter who was offended, or what sacrifices to herself it involved, the law, the strict letter of the law, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... or personal interest and ambition, or love of novelty, attempt to falsify or to minimise or to distort the teaching of Our Divine Master. Without respect of persons, without regard to temporal consequences, without either hesitancy or ambiguity, he speaks "as one having power" (Matt. vii. 29). And while, on the one hand, every true Catholic throughout the world, who hears his voice, is intimately conscious that he is hearing the voice of Christ Himself, "who heareth you, heareth Me" (Luke x. 16); so, ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... whole affair in a peculiarly vivid light. He said that something would have to be done about Bridget and advised her to come out on the earliest day possible to talk it over with him. He confessed to a hesitancy about discharging the cook, recalling the trouble she had experienced in getting her away from a neighbour in the first place. But Bridget was drinking and quarrelling with Annie and using strong language in the presence of Phoebe. He would have discharged her long ago if it hadn't ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... shop just in time to find him locking the door. He recognized them immediately, and had no hesitancy in opening up his store again. Phil soon found a rifle to his liking, and Garry replaced the compass that he had dropped when he was lost in the woods; ammunition was also procured, and then Garry purchased a small ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... such a view, have no hesitancy in expressing it in the presence of their children, if it so happens that they are old enough to be sitting by, listening to ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... Chancellor, Lord Eldon's great foible was an apparent inability to arrive at an early decision on any question: it was really a desire to weigh carefully all sides of a question before expressing his opinion. This hesitancy was expressed in the formula "I doubt," which became the subject of frequent jests among the members ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... a kind of timid pride, as though he knew himself to be of a greater value than he was likely to be reckoned at by others; almost as though he were confident that he was possessed of a claim to merit which, once stated, could not fail to be recognised. At the same time, there was a distressful hesitancy in his manner, not unnatural under the circumstances, of a man not sure of his acceptability. He seemed forever on the point of declaring himself, and forever thinking better of his decision—postponing his declaration to a ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... time, whenever a puddle is encountered, lifts and shakes fastidiously one of its soft paws. Probably, in the woman's case, this came of the fact that things kept pricking and tickling her soles as she proceeded. Also, her knees, I could see, were trembling, and her step had in it a certain hesitancy, a certain ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... after somewhat anxious consideration, because I am aware that the bulk of opinion in the world of science strongly insists upon the finality of the axioms of mathematics, and therefore it was with no little hesitancy that I approached such a subject as this. I am well aware that, in the estimation of most of my learned confreres and fellow-seekers after scientific truth, to suggest those axioms may not embody final and universal truth is, if I may put it so, to ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... accounts for some Byzantine traits in your national character and for the formlessness and hesitancy which I, at least, seem to detect in the demeanour of many individual Anglo-Saxons. They realize that their traditional upbringing is opposed to truth. It gives them a sense of insecurity. It makes them shy and awkward. Poise! That is what they need, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... in to afford him an escort, in case he wished to attend the inspection of the opposition herds; that if there was any bulldozing going on he needn't stand behind the door. Dave informed him that Bob and Quince and three of the other boys would meet us at the cattle, and that he need feel no hesitancy in going if it was his wish. It was quite evident that Mr. Lovell was despondent, but he took courage and announced his ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... field—wholly unsafe in council, if inference and conclusion are checked by reference to well-settled principles and fortified by knowledge of the experience of ages upon whose broad bases those principles rest. Pottering over mechanical details doubtless has its place, but it tends to foster a hesitancy of action which wastes time more valuable than ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... my district," growled the fellow, but I saw that his hesitancy was due to his uncertainty as to whom ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... airth did you stop me for," said he, quite impatiently, and yet with a lingering gleam of respect, and with some hesitancy at any ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... of love to the schoolmistress in the course of these pleasant walks. It seemed to me that we talked of everything but love on that particular morning. There was, perhaps, a little more timidity and hesitancy on my part than I have commonly shown among our people at the boarding-house. In fact, I considered myself the master at the breakfast-table; but, somehow, I could not command myself just then so well as usual. The truth is, I had secured a passage to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... full-bottomed wig was pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled lady on a camel. But in Venice so many things were happening at once—more, Tony was sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a twelve-month or in Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by their garb, ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... ecclesiastical tradition, exhaust or fulfil all the potentialities latent in the idea of Christ. What the complex vision seems to demand is that the invisible companions of men should be regarded as immortal gods. If, therefore, we throw all hesitancy and scruple aside and risk the application of the name of Christ to this vision of the sons of the universe, then we shall be compelled to regard Christ as ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... accomplishment of his desire, but the same Divine power which had implanted the desire, prepared the way for its fulfilment. He visited Manchester, shortly after the event just related, to be present at a Wesleyan Conference; and while there, with much hesitancy and trepidation, ventured to knock at the door of Mr. Roby's house and request an interview with that gentleman. He was shown into the parlour, and the man whom he had been hoping, yet dreaded, to see, quickly ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... to reproduce with sufficient accuracy that of the original writing, so that when subjected to rigid analysis and microscopic inspection, the spuriousness is made manifest and demonstrable. Specific attention should be given to any hesitancy in form or movement in tracing which is manifest in angularity or change of direction of lines, changed relations and proportions of letters, slant of the writing, its mechanical arrangement, disconnected lines, ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... did indeed at times appear to me a foolhardy one, but the confidence of the woman of Bulika, real or simulated, always overcame my hesitancy. The princess's magic, she insisted, would prove powerless against the children; and as to any force she might muster, our animal-allies alone would assure our superiority: she was herself, she said, ready, with a good stick, to encounter ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... Haugwitz, Beyme, and Lombard to you, and hence you withdraw from the service. You did right, and it makes my heart ache to be compelled to admit it. So long as those three men are here, there will be a policy of continued vacillation and hesitancy, and what you would do one day those three men would annul the next. Oh! the king is so generous, so faithful and modest! He believes in the disinterestedness of Minister von Haugwitz, in his honesty and sagacity; for this reason, he will not altogether give him up, and he listens still to his ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... until the announcement, reiterated through the press, elicited only disdainful merriment among our friends, was never satisfactorily explained. The month of December had been beautiful, the roads in excellent condition, the army well supplied and disciplined, so that nothing but hesitancy in our leaders stood in the way of army movements. The North and West, which had supplied myriads of men and millions of money, were becoming very impatient with such a state of things. This feeling was intensified by the fact that it was known that the enemy was tireless in his efforts to increase ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... theory of the possibility of knowledge, and issues from criticism and scepticism. If we revert again to the history of Greek philosophy, we find a first period of enterprising speculation giving place to a second period of hesitancy and doubt. This phase of thought occurs simultaneously with the brilliantly humanistic age of Pericles, and it is undoubtedly true that energy is withdrawn from speculation largely for the sake of expending it in the more lively and engaging pursuits of politics ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... and full account of an exceedingly intricate negotiation. The majority of the answers given by Ministers in their places in Parliament appear much better in print than when spoken, redundancies being cut out, parentheses put straight, and hesitancy of manner not appearing. But to the orderly mind and clear intelligence which instinctively brings uppermost and in due sequence the principal points of a question, Sir Charles Dilke adds a frank manner, a clear voice, ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn |
