"Unsteady" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first to descend from the carriage; he held the door open for the young man. He saw him place his foot on the mossy ground with a trembling of the whole body, and walk round the carriage with an unsteady and almost tottering step. It seemed as if the poor prisoner was unaccustomed to walk on God's earth. It was the 15th of August, about eleven o'clock at night; thick clouds, portending a tempest, overspread the heavens, and ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... You are shockingly unsteady on your feet, and feel very dazed and feeble; but you are also hungrier than ever now, with the keen morning air whetting your appetite, and the immediate business ahead of you is to find food. So you turn to the bank at your side and begin to grub; and as you grub you wander on, eating the ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... the stern necessities of business drove forth, lingering and shivering, from their comfortable inns on to the deck, already wet and unsteady, Livingstone was an object of great interest and many theories. His impatience to be gone was so marked that the conscientious official looked more than once suspiciously ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... child begins to train himself to make use of his limbs, first by swinging his arms and legs, second by creeping, third by walking. Note a child feeding itself, how unsteady he is in getting his food to his mouth; sometimes his spoon misses his mouth and the food is spilled, for which he usually receives a slap, although he has displayed all his energy in getting his food in his mouth. Next we find him a trained athlete and skilled ...
— ABC's of Science • Charles Oliver
... the men laughed again, but the man I had spoken to got up and buttoned his coat. He had to lean against the fence, he was so unsteady. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... for she saw his hand stretched forth as if to arrest her, and his unsteady eyes wandering to his axe. A beaten path led westward from the clearing, and she swiftly followed it. She did not glance behind her. But as soon as the least turning of the path had concealed her from the woodman's eyes, she slipped among the trees and ran till ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thee to thy couch, and sleep off the effects of thy drink. Verily, Jacob, thou art plenus Veteris Bacchi; or, in plain English, thou art drunk. Canst thou conjugate, Jacob? I fear not. Canst thou decline, Jacob? I fear not. Canst thou scan, Jacob? I fear not. Nay, Jacob, methinks that thou art unsteady in thy gait, and not over clear in thy vision. Canst thou hear, Jacob? if so, I will give thee an oration against inebriety, with which thou mayest down on thy pillow. Wilt thou have it in ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... had been failing while they had talked. A tap fell on the door. Coming at that moment when their nerves were jangled, it sounded ominous. Their heads turned sharply. Maisie's voice was unsteady when she asked, "What is ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... generally in a profuse perspiration. William turned us round, and made us slip out of bed upon our feet; then slightly loosing the lower part of our cerements so that we could walk with difficulty, he took us by the shoulders and guided our unsteady steps out of our chamber, along a little passage, into an apartment containing a plunge bath. The bath was about twelve feet square; its floor and sides covered with white encaustic tiles; the water, clear as crystal against ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... careless tattoo with his whip on the toe of his boot. He did not appear to be regarding her very closely. Yet she did not feel at her ease. That sudden sense as of strain relaxed had left her curiously unsteady. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... stranger in passing, they eyed him with borrowing eyes—hungry, sharp, speculative as to his softness if they were accredited to him, and the likelihood of his standing something handsome. Mendicity on commission stooped in their high shoulders, shambled in their unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned and darned and dragged their clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of their figures in dirty little ends of tape, and issued from their mouths in ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... their features ill-formed and distorted. The teeth are few in number and very irregular. The hard palate has a very deep arch, or may even be cleft. The complexion is sallow and unhealthy, the limbs imperfectly developed, and the gait is awkward, shambling, and unsteady. In his legal relations an absolute idiot is civilly disabled and irresponsible, but in regard to crime, or as a ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... swing. Miss Lavinia sat in state in her rocker and received the offerings and congratulations of Sweetbriar as they were presented in various original and characteristic forms. Young Peter Rucker, still a bit unsteady on his pink and chubby underpinning, was steered forward to present his glossy buckeye, hung on a plaited horse-hair string that had been constructed by small Jennie with long and infinite patience. Miss Lavinia's commendations threw both ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... was terrible. So different from what she had dreamed of: "I love you!—you are my soul!—I can not live without you!" Yet he was right. She had slain his love before it was born to her—it was born dead. In an unsteady voice, which had suddenly become husky, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... years ago, at the Welsh National Eisteddfod, under the vast tent in which the Bard of Wales was being crowned. After the small golden crown had been placed in unsteady equilibrium on the head of a clever-looking pressman, several Welsh bards came on the platform and recited little epigrams. A Welsh bard is, if young, a pressman, and if of maturer years, a divine. In this case, as England ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... puts it: "We arrived at our camp to find boat and stores burnt and the fire still smoking and spreading. Cole arrives first, and as I come thrashing through the bushes he sits on a rock munching some burnt flour. He announces with an unsteady voice: 'Well, she's gone.' We say not much, nothing that indicates poor courage, but go about to find what we can in the wreck, and pack up for a tramp down river. In an hour we have picked out everything useful, ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... am exceedingly gratified with this thy self- denial and love of peace. But, at my command, let this act be done by thee for the good of my creatures. Bear thou, O Sesha, properly and well this Earth so unsteady with her mountains and forests, her seas and towns and retreats, so that she ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... hour and came back to find that, in a "dry" city which he had never seen before, the crafty Bill had obtained a quart of Bourbon, and was in a state of unsteady beatitude. He wanted, he ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... it?—let us not argue the matter. Convinced myself, I seek not to convince. There is, however, a remembrance of aerial forms—of spiritual and meaning eyes—of sounds, musical yet sad—a remembrance which will not be excluded; a memory like a shadow—vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like a shadow, too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... straight his arrow, a wise man makes straight his trembling and unsteady thought, which is difficult to ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... a minute," she explained. It was a two-story frame building, dingy and in disrepair. On the street floor was a grocery. Access to the New Day was by a rickety stairway. As she ascended this, making a great noise on its unsteady boards with her boots, she began to feel cheap and foolish. She recalled what Hull had said in the carriage. "No doubt," replied she, "I'd feel much the same way if I were going to see Jesus Christ—a carpenter's son, ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... them rushed up the staircase, and entered the room which Hutchinson had just quitted. There they beheld our good old chair facing them with quiet dignity, while the lion's head seemed to move its jaws in the unsteady light of their torches. Perhaps the stately aspect of our venerable friend, which had stood firm through a century and a half of trouble, arrested them for an instant. But they were thrust forward by those behind, and the chair ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the light that glared, They groped and stared Round about with steps unsteady; From his window Olaf gazed, And, amazed, "Who are ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... stop for the present to this dangerous assembly designed by the duke. The main object, however, of his present journey and of his future endeavours, a general confederacy of the Protestants, miscarried entirely, and he was obliged to content himself with some unsteady alliances in the Saxon circles, and with the weaker assistance ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... but read at length, in an unsteady voice, something about the Conservation of Force. It ended in a ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... very fast untanglin' them dockage contracts, and before 11 o'clock I was yawning. I'd just decided to quit and loaf around the station until the theater train was ready when I hears an unsteady step in the outer office and the next minute ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... unthrift youths, carousing deeply, chanced to turn their talk on ships and storms at sea; whereupon one giddy member of the company suddenly conceived that the room was a pinnace, that the sounds of revelry were the bawlings of sailors, and that his unsteady footing was due to the wildness of the tempest; the illusion spread among his companions, and a scene of whimsical confusion followed. In The Captives, ii. 2, we have a ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... repeated. Do this; and do it as if you were Lord Cashel's equal, not as if you were his son, or his servant. If you are collected and steady with him for ten minutes, you'll soon find that he will become bothered and unsteady." ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... no faintest forewarning of the grave issues that hung upon her answer, yet she was unaccountably afraid. Her driven heart cried out for the support of her husband's presence; and her voice, when words came at last, was pitifully unsteady. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... expression in tragedy, he naturally resorted to vehemence to supply their place, and was exaggerated and violent from the absence of all dramatic feeling and imagination. Moreover, in moments of powerful emotion he was apt to become unsteady on his legs, and always filled me with terror lest in some of his headlong runs and rushes about the stage he should lose his balance and fall; as indeed he once did, to my unspeakable distress, in the play of "The Grecian Daughter," ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... trained to a certain sort of rough fighting from their very childhood. They were invaluable in forest warfare, as had been proved again and again. But they lacked the stamina of the regular soldier. They were invariably unsteady when exposed to fire in the open, and they were impatient of discipline and control. Vaudreuil was always loud in their praise, trying to give them the credit of every successful engagement. But Montcalm ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his room and worked. The hour soon glided by to him; not so to the poor prisoner. At two in the morning Mr. Eden came softly back to the dark cell to see whether Robinson was asleep. He scratched the door with a key. A loud, unsteady voice cried ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... indeed, very weak with age, and tottering with unsteady steps on the brink of his grave, though he would still come down early from his room, and would, if possible, creep out about the garden and into the farmyard. He would still sit down to dinner, and would drink his allotted portion of port wine, in the doctor's teeth. The doctor by no means desired ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... eyes is immovable, for it is of glass, but her other eye shines with a feverish brilliancy, and a strange and almost awful smile hovers constantly about her thin lips. This woman moves with an unsteady quick step, and whenever her black mantilla is flung back by the violence of her movements, a small rope of hair with a crucifix at the end is plainly seen to bind her waist. This ungainly woman is the quondam authoress, Countess Ida ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... stiff-legged steed. Rosie had just housecleaned her desk for the second time that day. She had rubbed all the ink-spots off the top and put a new paper frill around the ink-well. She was re-arranging her books once more and had them in an unsteady pile on the edge of her desk, when Elizabeth leaned over to her side, to display her finished landscape. Rosie's arm came against the toppling pile of books, and they went crashing to ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... with the lamp beside her, she looked at it admiringly for a while, turning her head from side to side to see the bright ringlets glisten; then, with an unsteady hand the severed, one by one, the shining tresses, on which her tears fell like rain as she gathered them in a paper and put them away, wondering if the prison shears would cut closer or shorter, and wondering if it would make any difference that she was only ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... they have—no, no, I didn't give it [Pg 174] all." Her voice was unsteady, hesitating. She felt that he suspected something, ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... pale as death. I shall never during my life forget the despairing look which she gave me, as with trembling hand she passed me the shawl, just as her father appeared from a room near the place of the scene. I took the cashmere with an unsteady hand, and sought reluctantly for the name of Christine, for I trusted she would at least have taken it out; but the deathly paleness of the guilty one told the contrary, and in fact I had no sooner unfolded the shawl, than the name appeared, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... yourself!" he said in an unsteady voice. "Here is the tape! You can read, can't you? Six thousand feet—and running evenly. Six thousand five hundred!... Seven ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... no mistaking the figure which turned the corner toward Hopewell Drugg's store. It was the proprietor of the store himself, with his fiddle in its green baize bag tightly tucked under his arm; but his feet certainly were unsteady, and his head hung upon ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... George's heavy tread sounded on the stairs; he came to the door, looking about him, east and west. His features were pallid and set and seamed with stern lines; he laid an unsteady hand on my arm and ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... themselves, drinking deeply and waxing merrier every moment, the parson singing songs that were quite unfit for a priest, entirely forgetting the sanctity of his calling, while the clerk followed his master's example. They stayed long, and when, with giddy heads and unsteady legs, they rose to depart, the parson said he was sure he could not find the way, and he must have a guide, even if it were the devil himself. The man who had invited them into the house said he would put them on the right way for Dawlish, and led them to the top of the road, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... princely blood in his veins, he was a Senator of Poland, he might even become a king. His dearest hopes were in Stanislaus, his second son. Paul, the eldest, was wild and unsteady. And though there were two other sons and a daughter, none gave such promise as Stanislaus. So that the Lord John looked chiefly to him to carry on the great name and make it more glorious still. No wonder ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... her eyes. From down-stairs arose the babel of the drinkers, punctured suddenly by a tinkling shiver of broken glass, and then another, and by a soaring fragment of unsteady, irregular song.... ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... fully a couple of hours had gone by, when the huge clock struck one. During the interval a number of pedestrians had passed, and a party of roystering youths rode by in a carriage, each one singing independently of the other, and in a loud, unsteady voice, but nothing yet had occurred on which to hang ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... too unsteady, Favraud, for my maitre d'hotel. Your mind is too much engrossed by the bubbles of politics, you would spoil all my materials, and realize the old proverb that 'the devil sends cooks.' But go to work like a good ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... that respect our Grand Army of the Potomac,—and no trifling amount of shoe-leather for Uncle Sam. The night was terribly cold, and the wind in gusts swept over the mountain-top with violence sufficient to put the toil-worn man, unsteady under his knapsack, through the facings in short order. Amid stunted pines and sturdy undergrowth, the Regiments in line formed stacks, and the men, debarred fire from the exposed situation, provided what shelter they could, and endeavored to compose themselves for the night. Vain ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... spectacle; for, unlike politicians in general, Squire Fishley had made his reputation, and his political capital, on his high moral and religious character. I had often heard what a good man the distinguished senator was, and I was horrified at seeing him drunk. With unsteady gestures, and in maudlin tones, he pointed out his trunk to me, and I put it into the wagon. I did not see him again till he reached the steamboat landing. He went on board with two other gentlemen, and was ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... below was slow and unsteady. Dawson watched him until the door of the cabin had closed behind the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... infantry, at full speed, dashed on towards the river, and rushed up the sloping bank. The stern Beloochees, with matchlocks resting on the summit, let their assailants come within 15 yards before they delivered their fire; but the steepness of the slope inside, which rendered their footing unsteady, and the rapid pace of the British, spoilt their aim, and the ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... fill up the lower parts of the town; but, here and there, you heard the steps of fugitives cranching them warily, or saw their pale and haggard faces by the blue glare of the lightning or the more unsteady glare of torches, by which they endeavored to steer their steps. But ever and anon the boiling water, or the straggling ashes, mysterious and gusty winds, rising and dying in a breath, extinguished these wandering lights, and with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... which had come over this unfortunate girl. Stout to repulsiveness, shabby of attire, fiery of face, unsteady of pose, with one bright beautiful eye burning with the supernatural fire of absinthe, the ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... could only be done by putting a ball through his brain, or spine, or directly through his heart? I thought not. The distance was too great to be sure of any thing like that; and besides, my nerves, I felt, were getting a little unsteady, and I also found I was losing my faith, which is just the worst thing in the world for a hunter to lose. While I was thinking of all this, the creature leaped down, and, the next instant, I saw his head rise above the bushes, in his prodigious bounds towards ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... our men had shipped the crest of a sea, and they were now labouring under the great disadvantage of carrying more than a barrel of water, which was washing about in the bottom of their cutter, rendering her both heavy and unsteady. ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... told me I could be fond of a child," he said, his harsh voice low and unsteady, "I should not have believed them. I always detested children—my own more than the rest. I am fond of this one; he is fond of me" (with a bitter smile). "I am not popular; I never was. But he is fond of me. ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... say nothing; and she looked closer. She saw his gray face, his unsteady eyes, the tragedy of the broken man. Then she spoke ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... little enough I have to offer you," said John, his voice growing unsteady in the great effort to speak calmly. There was something almost terrible in the strength of his rising passion. "It is little enough—my poor life, with its wretched struggles after what is perhaps far too great for me. But such as it is I offer it to you. Take it if you will. Be my ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... only stare at her, dumfounded. He lifted an unsteady hand toward her appealingly. But the manner of the lady, as she saw the truth, underwent an April change. She drew back lightly; he was favored with the most delicious, low laugh he had ever heard, and, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... out of bed and put her arms around her mother's neck. "Say, Mother, you are great!" she said in an unsteady voice. Mrs. Marshall patted her on ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... of thought into which I fell might unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to cope with whatever of marvelous the advancing night might bring forth. I roused myself; laid the letters on the table; stirred up the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... names he had kept in reserve. Northway jotted them down on the back of an envelope, his hand rather unsteady. ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... not going to-night? You will not try to start, after this dreadful storm?" she said, in an unsteady voice. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... which William Dulan arose to take his leave, which he did in a choking, inaudible voice. As he turned to leave the room, his ghastly face and unsteady step attested, in language not to be misunderstood, the acuteness and intensity of his suffering. Alice did not misunderstand it. She uttered one word, in a low ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... monuments, crosses, and slates were set out for sale, bearing inscriptions beginning with "Sacred to the Memory of." Another had piles of old lumber in it, another exhibited second-hand furniture, chairs with unsteady legs, sofas with horsehair stuffing bulging out of holes in their covering, mirrors with blotches or cracks in them. The insides of the houses were as gloomy as the outside. They were all exactly alike. In each a dark entrance passage led to narrow stairs going up to bedrooms, and to ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... He was brave enough, but the terror of the negroes was catching. He would not have admitted to being afraid, but there was a lump in his throat and his legs felt unsteady. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... the unsteady answer. Then of a sudden the young man sank down in a heap on the rocks. "Great Heavens! ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.
... Carrier, and turning down Rooks's Hill before the Sqr., rideing like a madman To and fro, forward and backward Hallooing among the Company, the Horse at full speed fell with him and kill'd him. A Caution to the flighty and unsteady; and a verification of his Coppy." Again: "Robt. Madlock, a most Prophane Swarer, being Employ'd in Cleaning the outside of the Steeple," fell, owing to a breaking rope, and soon after died. Mr. Spershott adds: "A warning ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... that a journal supported in the manner above described would be unsteady and liable to injurious vibrations. This is not the case, and it is easy to see why not. When the journal is truly in the middle of the socket, that is to say when there is an equal distance between it and the wall of the socket ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... with downcast eyes, whose drooping lashes were heavy with unshed tears, I saw a glass of water held before me by an unsteady hand. I looked up and saw Richard Clyde, his student's robe of flowing black silk gathered up by his left arm, who had literally forced his way through a triple row of men. We were very near the platform, there being but ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... convivial turn of mind itself, went off into fits of laughter also. On hearing this echo Mr Villiers tried to get up, in order to punish the man who mocked him, but, though his intentions were good, his legs were unsteady, and after one or two ineffectual attempts to rise he gave it up as a bad job. Then rolling himself a little to one side of the dusty white road, he went sound asleep, with his head resting on a tuft of green grass. In his white ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... was his habit on Saturday afternoon, had come over to the League's club-house, and he had entered during the reading, followed by his usual bevy of boys; Rex, Lassie, and four roly-poly puppies, now able to run around on unsteady ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... pains and bowel and bladder disturbances, their handling will be discussed in considering the treatment of the next or middle stage of tabes. In this period the ataxic symptoms are most prominent; the gait has become so unsteady that the patient needs canes to walk at all and must constantly watch his feet. He walks a little better when well under way, but at starting or when standing still he sways and totters. The girdle-sense is severe and constant, various pains assail the body and limbs; the numbness of the feet, ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... than on her own; to owe her a double grudge as discoverer and supplanter—this aroused the smouldering and now perverted pride yet alive within her bosom, and fanned it to a flame. She clinched her hands convulsively, her teeth shut together with a dull, grating sound, the unsteady form swayed to and fro, like a lithe tree shaken in the wind of a coming tempest, and the bloated face, dark with wrath, was terrible to look upon. It was a fearful thing to be alone with that half-drunken creature, and see wave after wave of passion rolling over her ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... are all here, now," exclaimed Soloveitchik, trying to speak in a loud, cheery way with his feeble, unsteady voice, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... lips'? Do you remember?" he said, with an unsteady laugh, answering the challenge. "It's my ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Monsieur Beaucaire of the story they tol' you, but never with the heart of a lackey, an hones' man, a man, the man you knew, himself, could you—would you—" He was trying to speak firmly; yet, as he gazed upon her splendid beauty, he choked slightly, and fumbled in the lace at his throat with unsteady fingers.—"Would you—have let me ride by your side in the autumn moonlight?" Her glance passed by him as it might have passed by a footman or a piece of furniture. He was dressed magnificently, a multitude ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... brought up again, he couldn't tell by which of them. And in five minutes after, they were all at my door, demanding the key of the room at the top of the stair. I was just going up to see poor Emily when I heard the noise of their unsteady feet coming along the passage to my door; and I gave the captain the key at once, wishing with all my heart he might get a good fright for his pains. He took a jug with him, too, to bring some water up from the well, as a proof he had been down. The rest of the gentlemen went with him into ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... has just left, bound on a long voyage, and with a quantity of deadly poison on board, with which to refresh the crew. I tell thee, neighbor, I have fears for the result. The jug may possibly stand still when on land, but when it's afloat it's rather unsteady." ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... my walk as to arrive at the gate at my old time. When I had rung at the bell with an unsteady hand, I turned my back upon the gate, while I tried to get my breath and keep the beating of my heart moderately quiet. I heard the side-door open, and steps come across the courtyard; but I pretended not to hear, even when the gate swung on ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... home to me what could happen even with the advantage on my side. Also it brought the cold tight prickle to my skin, the shudder that was not a thrill, the pressure of blood running too swiftly, I did not feel myself shake, but the rifle was unsteady. I rested an elbow on my knee, yet still I had difficulty in keeping the sight on him. I could get it on him, but could not keep it there. Again he came out into the open, at the head of a yellow slide, that reached to a thicket below. I must ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... his coat and to gather together his hat and gloves and walking-cane. Then he made a movement to go, but half-way to the door stopped irresolutely. I thought he was about to speak again, but after a pause of a second or two he went on, opened the door with an unsteady hand, and went out without closing it behind him. The man I had told to wait outside must have been upon the watch, for I heard his voice at the very instant at which Brunow set foot ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... make six glasses of eau sucree was a LITTLE too strong, wasn't it, John? Ah, how frankly, how trustily, how bravely he lied, poor John! One evening, being at Brighton, in the convalescence, I remember John's step was unsteady, his voice thick, his laugh queer—and having some quinine to give me, John brought the glass to me—not to my mouth, but struck me with it pretty smartly in the eye, which was not the way in which Dr. Elliotson had intended his prescription should be taken. Turning that ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ball, and here Nan and Daisy appeared as gay as peacocks in all sorts of finery. Nan was especially good as the proud sister, and crushed many imaginary ladies as she swept about the palace-hall. The Prince, in solitary state upon a somewhat unsteady throne, sat gazing about him from under an imposing crown, as he played with his sword and admired the rosettes in his shoes. When Cinderella came in he jumped up, and exclaimed, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... sorry to disturb you," said a cracked, unsteady voice. "I have the next room. You ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... man's cheek grew white as death As thus, with short, unsteady breath, He said: "When last I went to sea, You waved, nay, kissed your hand ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... trees by scores. Their motions are unlike those of all other birds. They dart to and fro so swiftly that the eye can scarcely follow them, and when they stop before a flower, it is only for a few moments. They poise themselves in an unsteady manner, their wings moving with inconceivable rapidity, probe the flower, and then shoot off to another part of the tree. They do not proceed in that methodical manner which bees follow, taking the ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... no, you're not going blind," said the oculist kindly. "All you need is"—I heard nothing more. I had never had any idea before of how swift and deep relief could be. On the street outside I heard it not only in his unsteady laugh but in my own as well. We celebrated long that night, and very late he took me to his favorite place down on the lower quay of the river, where with the lights and the sounds of the city far off it felt like ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... astonished at the apparition which burst in upon him. He was accustomed to O'Reilly's high head of steam and disapproved of it, but he had never seen the fellow so surcharged as now. He was positively jumpy; his voice was sharp; his hands were unsteady; his eyes were bright and ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... hove in sight, coming from the direction in which lay the prison, a group of three men. It was a jaunty party, evidently under the influence of many libations. They came with arms linked, with dignified but unsteady gait, their hats well back on their heads. In the middle was a very tall man, flanked on one side by a very short fat one, on the other by a slender youth ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... closed-in beds. The flooring is not steady, and here and there holes have been eaten into the planks. You can scarcely stand upright beneath the decaying ceiling. Worn boards and ragged walls, and the rusty ribs fallen from the fireplace, are all that meet your eyes, but I see a round, unsteady, waxcloth-covered table, with four books lying at equal distances on it. There are six prim chairs, two of them not to be sat upon, backed against the walls, and between the window and the fireplace a chest of drawers, ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... to assist each other in getting up. After walking about three miles and a half however we were cheered by the sight of a large herd of reindeer and Hepburn went in pursuit of them but, his hand being unsteady through weakness, he missed. He was so exhausted by this fruitless attempt that we were obliged to encamp upon the spot although it was a very ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... unsteady step she makes her way to the little graveyard; she had gone there often, and there were those who said wantonly that she went to say her prayers before the little cross upon the tombstone she had placed over the grave of Madame ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... and almost speechless with fright. Returning to the charge, I was soon once more alongside, and, firing from the saddle, I sent another brace of bullets into the wounded elephant. Colesberg was extremely unsteady, and destroyed ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... said, and his voice was curiously unsteady also; it vibrated as if he were not wholly sure of himself, "you have made your choice—and counted ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... not depend upon him to man one of the watch-towers. Eye and hand were too unsteady to do good service in picking off escaladers. The ex-soldier was brave enough for any feat, however, and was delighted when the Englishman suggested, rather than gave orders, that his should be the duty of lighting the bonfires. That done, he was to take his stand in ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... when by-and-by Dick, suggesting we should go home, took me by the arm and led me into the open air, I found the ground was rising up to meet me, and I remarked to my mate I thought that the moon must be getting old, she was so remarkably unsteady on her legs. I retired to my tent to wake up next morning with a splitting headache, as a pleasing reminiscence of the revel of ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... middle-age, and of cautious and frigid temperament. True, he pondered over the incident, but in more deliberate fashion than a younger man would have done. That is to say, his reflections were not so irresponsible and unsteady. "She was a comely damsel," he said to himself as he opened his snuff-box and took a pinch. "But the important point is: Is she also a NICE DAMSEL? One thing she has in her favour—and that is that she appears only just to have left school, ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... it waters a garden, or turns a little mill. Gathering strength in its youth, it sometimes becomes wild and impetuous. Impatient of the restraints it meets with in the hollows among the mountains, it is, perhaps, restless and turbulent, quick in its turnings, and unsteady in its course. In its more advanced age, it comes abroad into the world, journeying with more prudence and discretion, through cultivated fields; and no longer headstrong in its course, but yielding to circumstances, ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... Get them, and we'll catch the first train back. Mrs. Bawdrey, my best respects. Captain, all good luck to you," said Cleek—and swung out into the darkness and the moist, warm fragrance of the night; his mental poise a bit unsteady, his nerves raw. It was not in him to have stopped longer, to have remained under the same roof with a monster like young Bawdrey and ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the two turned and rode back, shooting blindly at the place, but the shadow yawned silently before them and gave no sign. Then the Silent One, observing that the marshal was getting upon a pair of very unsteady legs, again assumed the leadership, and fairly forced Rowdy and ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... himself with great vitality as if to retort floutingly; but as he turned, his jaw suddenly fell; his eyes widened with a ghastly distension. With an unsteady arm extended he pointed silently. Distinctly outlined on the lid of-the coffin was the simulacrum of the figure ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... her head, Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye, And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread At Christabel she looked askance!— One moment,—and the sight was fled! But Christabel in dizzy trance, Stumbling on the unsteady ground— Shudder'd aloud, with a hissing sound; And Geraldine again turn'd round, And like a thing, that sought relief, Full of wonder and full of grief; She roll'd her large bright eyes divine, Wildly on ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... the set carriage. It had been agreed that she was to come over at opening time in the morning and start the machinery. She was a proud and eager woman when she crossed the bridge and started down the street toward the gate. From the opposite direction came George, so unsteady that he was running into tree boxes, then lifting his hat and apologizing to them for his awkwardness. Kate saw at a glance that he might fall any instant. Her only thought was to help him from the street, to where ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... child," he said at last, in an unsteady tone. Then without another word he left the room and softly closed the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... of weakness through improper food, or possibly as the result of too much eagerness, but the aim was unsteady and the bullet only grazed and ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable homes,—the aged, the helpless, the women, and the warriors, "few and faint, yet fearless still." The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The smoke no longed curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, for terror or dispatch; but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers They shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the selection of our books—the variety is now so great; and I grieve to say (and I think I am right) that the sensational works of the present day have a tendency to lead the mind into a train of thought that is flippant and unsteady, and I would warn young people against them. When we look to such works as those of Sir Walter Scott, Macaulay, and many others of the same kind, we find food for the mind, the benefit of ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... her?—You should endeavour to strengthen the connexion between theory and practice, if it be not sufficiently strong already; but you can gain nothing by destroying theory.—Happiness is your aim; but your unpractised or unsteady hand does not obey your will: you do not at the first trial hit the mark precisely.—Would you, because you are awkward, ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... steps and gait he was a little hasty and unsteady, and twice or thrice he was obliged to pause in the steep of the street to draw his breath; but even in this there was an affecting and great earnestness, a working of a living soul within, as if it panted to enter on the performance of some great ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... when Miss Caroline had refused to let me watch, she met me at the door as Young Doc was leaving. She was wearied but chipper, though there was an unsteady little lift in her voice as ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... unaccountable whims which influence crowds seized on the mob, and there was almost perfect silence. This seemed to take Donovan by surprise; the open air was having the common effect on him; he was getting unsteady on his legs, and his brains were wondering. "Now's your time, Donovan, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... too divine o'ershadowings; Its odorous heart have been a blossom That in darkness did unbosom, Those fire-flies of God to invite, Burning spirits, which by night Bear upon their laden wing To such hearts impregnating. For flowers that night-wings fertilize Mock down the stars' unsteady eyes, And with a happy, sleepless glance Gaze the moon out of countenance. I think thy girlhood's watchers must Have took thy folded songs on trust, And felt them, as one feels the stir Of still lightnings in the hair, When conscious hush expects the cloud To speak the golden secret loud ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... Mr. Garland, in an unsteady voice. "And don't you study to-morrow one word. You may sit and draw pictures all day ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... the fire get rather low," returned Fern, jumping up to replenish it; but somehow her voice was not quite under her control, and her hand was a little unsteady. "Oh, yes, her mother and Crystal were right; these foolish dreams of hers could never come true; she would have to see her prince ride away some day in quest of some dark-haired princess. And yet, in the fairy stories, the ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a fox, and where you can without much trouble dig him, give him to the hounds on the earth, and go home. But whatever you do, never turn out a bag-fox; it is injurious to your hounds, and makes them wild and unsteady: besides, nothing is more despicable, or held in greater contempt by real sportsmen, than the practice of hunting bag-foxes. It encourages a set of rascals to steal from other hunts; therefore keep in mind, that if there were no receivers there would be no thieves. ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... mattress. The young man on the bench who seemed to assert some sort of right of kinship with the dead woman, got to his feet again, and the proprietor of the stove joined him. Between them they raised up the mattress; but their movements were unsteady, and the coat slipped to the floor, revealing the poor body in its helpless misery. Charity, picking up the coat, covered her mother once more. Liff had brought a lantern, and the old woman who had already spoken took it up, and opened the door to let the little procession pass out. ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... once more over her father's things, putting them together with unsteady fingers. So this was the answer to the riddle—the secret of his choice for her! She understood it ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... Schurz's popularity—a popularity that was very marked in the earlier period of his career—is due in part to certain unsteady and erratic tendencies, some of which are in strong contrast with characteristics that are recognized as belonging in an especial degree to his race. Through all the centuries since Tacitus drew his vivid picture ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... must be changed to be worthy of the happiness I have designed for you. Patience must chasten that reckless spirit in you; for feverish diligence, alternating with indifference or despondence, there must be unremitting effort; and for that unsteady flame of hope, which burns so brightly in the morning and in the evening sings so low, there must be a bright, unwavering, and rational hope. It would be strange indeed if after this you were cast down; and, lest you forget anything, I will ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... black pall over the spirit of Paris, lifted as though a great wind had blown it away, and the people revealed a sane, strong spirit of courage and confidence and patience, amazing to those who still believed in the frivolity and nervousness and unsteady emotionalism of ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... first, rises a vision of a nightly struggle, of two dark figures and a machine in a dark road,—the road, to be explicit, from Roehampton to Putney Hill,—and with this vision is the sound of a heel spurning the gravel, a gasping and grunting, a shouting of "Steer, man, steer!" a wavering unsteady flight, a spasmodic turning of the missile edifice of man and machine, and a collapse. Then you descry dimly through the dusk the central figure of this story sitting by the roadside and rubbing his leg at some new place, and his friend, sympathetic (but by no means ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... Spanish helm, by the sweep from the end; accordingly, they use two rudders, one at one side and one at the other, where the flat part of the keel begins. One is usually employed for managing the boat, and both of them when it is stormy. With the second they keep the boat from getting unsteady, which would follow from its lightness, that rudder giving the boat more stiffness and serving as ballast. That is a precaution rendered necessary by its very lightness, the vessels that are lightest being those that require most care by being unsteady. In the middle they have a scaffold, four ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... bewailing the loss of "Jacob Hunker, aged 67." The attitude of utter dejection, the look of matchless misery upon that angel's face sank into my heart like water into a sponge. I was about to offer some words of condolence when another man, similarly affected, got in before me, and laying a rather unsteady hand upon the celestial shoulder tipped back a very senile hat, and pointing to the name on the stone remarked with the most exact care and scrupulous accent: "Friend of yours, perhaps; been ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... are very kind!" said Dolly with sincere delight at this proposition. For now she was upon her feet she felt that her knees trembled under her, and her footsteps were unsteady as she followed the woman over the grass. They went towards a small door in the long line of the building, the staghound coming back from his chase and attending them gravely. The woman opened the door, led Dolly through ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... I walked out with the lantern, the doctor following, and, buttoning his coat closely round him, remarked upon the darkness of the night. I walked on with an unsteady step, feeling as if every yard of ground I strode over would be the last. But, urged on by my situation, I reached the doctor's house without any remark from him upon my wearied step, and pulled his bell ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... experience revived something of the natural fear which it had occasioned. He raised his glass, with unsteady hand, ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... or any animal less in size than a cow could enter without even a squeeze.... The green ash puncheons had shrunk so as to leave cracks in the floor and doors from one to two inches wide. At both the doors we had high, unsteady, and sometimes icy steps, made by piling the logs cut out of the walls, for the doors and the window, if it could be called a window, when perhaps it was the largest spot in the top, bottom, or sides of the cabin where the wind could not ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... was New Year's Eve, and the fun—the age was still a bibulous one—waxed fast and furious. At last the curtain dropped, and the modest orchestra struck up "God save the king!" Hats were at once doffed, and from among the standing audience came a loud but unsteady voice, calling upon the orchestra to "play up" Hail Columbia! or ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... disrespect. At the halfway of the meal, a gorgeous popinjay—he was a governor of an out-province driven into the capital by a rebellion in his own lands—this gorgeous fop, I say, walked up between the groups of feasters with flushed face and unsteady gait, and did obeisance before the divan. "Most astounding Empress," cried he, "fairest among the Goddesses, Queen regnant of my ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... euerlasting is: Were not thy wit, and that thy vertues shall, Be deemd diuine thy fauour face and all: And that thy loze, ne name may neuer dye, Nor thy state turne, stayd by destinie: Dread were least once thy noble hart may feele, Some rufull turne, of her unsteady wheele. ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... Her Majesty, now. She returned them stare for stare, her back stiff and straight and her white hair enhaloed in the room's light. "Sir Kenneth," she said—and her voice was only the least bit unsteady—"they all think I'm ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... to her disjointed talk, or at least, turned her head towards her when addressed; replied in a few low words when necessary; and sometimes stopped her when she was rambling, or brought her thoughts back with a monosyllable, to the point from which they had strayed. The mother, however unsteady in other things, was constant in this—that she was always observant of her. She would look at the beautiful face, in its marble stillness and severity, now with a kind of fearful admiration; now in a giggling foolish effort to move it to a smile; ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... gasped, pointing with an unsteady hand at the work in my hand. "The click, click of the needles is more than I can stand. Put them down, pray; put ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... the cosmopolitan light-handedness of appeal which the town-bred Egyptian picks up much too quickly; but with a certain desperate zeal, foreign to his whole creed and nature. He fingered, he implored, he fawned with an unsteady eye, and while I wondered I saw behind him the puffy pink face of a fezzed Jew, watching him as a stoat watches a rabbit. When he moved the Jew followed and took position at a commanding angle. The old man glanced from me to him and renewed his solicitations. So one could ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling |
