"Waver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... says to you, at the same time shrugging his shoulders: 'Je suis au desespoir, Monsieur; mais j'ai un ordre, Monsieur, qui vous arrete, Monsieur; de la part de la police, Monsieur.'——'Moi, Monsieur?'——'Vous-meme, Monsieur.'——You waver an instant between anger and indignation, ready to vent all sorts of imprecations. You see only a polite, respectful, well-bred man, bowing to you, mild in his speech, and civil in his manners. Were you the most furious of mankind, your wrath ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... Miss Armitage seemed to waver. She sent a backward look to the river, and the glance, returning, swept Tisdale; then she straightened in her seat and swung the bays into the branch. It cut the valley diagonally, away from the Wenatchee, past a last ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... fringed with post-card boys and their bargains. In spite of them, the sight of the temple does mightily lift the heart; and though you may have had, as I had, forty-odd years to believe in it, you must waver in doubt of its reality whenever you see it. It seems too great to be true, standing there in its immortal sublimity, the temple of all the gods by pagan creation, and all the saints by Christian consecration, and challenging ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... her so aroused and indifferent to reputation as to defend that slave in her arms, and claim him for at least a friend and brother, began to wonder whether she might not really be innocent. She had confessed to nothing—she had asserted her blamelessness—she had never been known to waver from the truth; might she not have been able to explain her actions? With his regret for having, in such hasty passion, so compromised her before the world that no explanation could henceforth shield her from invidious slander, he now began ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... poems, consider the justice or injustice of Mr. Aiken's criticism: "It is a sort of absolute poetry, a poetry of detached waver and brilliance, a beautiful flowering of language alone—a parthenogenesis, as if language were fertilized by itself rather than by thought or feeling. Remove the magic of phrase and sound and there is nothing ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... had stopped, and was beginning to waver in his determination of going to the priest. He felt that what Brady said was true—that the priest would implore him not to avenge himself, in the manner in which his heart strongly prompted him to do. He felt he could not forego the impulse to inflict ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... with the rest marched against Draper's troops in the plain. A heavy musketry fire was kept up on both sides, until the two guns, posted by Draper's regiment, and left behind when they attacked the intrenchment, came up and opened on the French. These began to waver. Bussy, as the only chance of gaining the day, put himself at their head, and endeavoured to lead them forward to attack the English with the bayonet. His horse, however, was struck with a ball and soon fell; the English fire was redoubled, ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... effect of bringing the true facts of the case to Hsiang-yuen's notice, and she began to waver in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... You've kept your word to th' law, an' I believe you'll keep your word with me. If I say the word that'll save us now will you go back to headquarters an' report me dead?" For a full half minute their eyes did not waver. ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... when she heard a loud insistent ringing in her head, and saw the stars waver and grow dim that she ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... to the soldiers to free the Council from the menaces of some deputies armed with daggers, and in the pay of England, who are terrorising the majority. The shouts of command, clinched by the adroit reference to daggers and English gold, cause the troops to waver in their duty; and Lucien, pressing his advantage to the utmost, draws a sword, and, holding it towards his brother, exclaims that he will stab him if ever he attempts anything against liberty. Murat, Leclerc, and other generals enforce this melodramatic ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for defence of American liberty,[8] may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... hands over her bosom, and began to waver to and fro on the moss seat, struck with a pang of that exquisite pleasure which so closely approaches pain when we ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... catch faint tones of bells that seem blown to us from beyond the horizon of time, and looking down into the clear depths, catch glimpses of towers and far-shining knights and peerless dames that waver and are gone. Is it a world that ever was, or shall be, or can be, or but a delusion? Spenser's world, real to him, is real enough for us to take a holiday in, and we may well be content with it when the earth we dwell on is so often too real to allow of such vacations. It is the same kind ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... feebly. He had the part of Ray, Laura's lover, the society individual who was to waver in his thoughts of marrying her, upon finding that she was a waif and a nobody ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... on the clover! Tears on the eyelids that waver and weep! Rockaby, lullaby—bending it over! Down on the mother-world, Down on the other world! Sleep, oh sleep! Down on the ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... business, had rules relating to the number of hours for rest and for work, to the kind of food to eat, the way to dress, to heat and light up the rooms. With all this Simonson was very shy and modest; and yet when he had once made up his mind nothing could make him waver. And this man had a decided influence on Maslova through his love for her. With a woman's instinct Maslova very soon found out that he loved her. And the fact that she could awaken love in a man of that kind raised her in her own estimation. It was Nekhludoff's magnanimity and what had ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... clear as thine, But blood and tears have dimmed its shine. I will not tell thee when 't was shred, Nor from what guiltless victim's head,— My brain would turn!—but it shall wave Like plumage on thy helmet brave, Till sun and wind shall bleach the stain, And thou wilt bring it me again. I waver still.—O God! more bright Let reason beam her parting light!— O. by thy knighthood's honored sign, And for thy life preserved by mine, When thou shalt see a darksome man, Who boasts him Chief of Alpine's Clan, With tartars broad and shadowy plume, And hand of blood, and brow of gloom Be thy ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... affairs. In the one sense it means only that Ireland shall remain part of the British Empire, in the other that Ireland shall still be part of the United Kingdom. And, what is of great importance, the mass of Englishmen waver between these two interpretations of Imperial supremacy. When they think of Home Rule as satisfying Ireland, they hold that it gives Irishmen everything which they can possibly ask. When they think of Home Rule ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... them are enough," said Phil bitterly, and put his arm around the quiet girl standing next to him. Together, a silent little group, they watched the spot of orange die to a pin-point; watched it waver, twinkle, ever growing smaller.... ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... that the Regency would, in fact, be nothing but Bonaparte in disguise. However, Dessolles acknowledged that such was the effect of Marshal Macdonald's powerful and persuasive eloquence that Alexander seemed to waver; and, unwilling to give the Marshals a positive refusal, he had recourse to a subterfuge, by which he would be enabled to execute the design he had irrevocably formed without seeming to take on himself alone the responsibility ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... steady holding of their sympathies as one of the best instruments for that accumulation. It must be grounded in a philosophy whose foundation is on the solidarity of the human race, a philosophy which will not waver when the race happens to be represented by a drunken woman or an idiot boy. Its residents must be emptied of all conceit of opinion and all self-assertion, and ready to arouse and interpret the public opinion of their neighborhood. They must be content to live quietly side by side with their neighbors, ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... eyes half closed, his breath irregular and difficult. Yet it was less painful to see him thus, than to find him fulfilling the animal functions uninterruptedly, his mind sick the while. I established myself at his bedside; I never quitted it day or night. Bitter task was it, to behold his spirit waver between death and life: to see his warm cheek, and know that the very fire which burned too fiercely there, was consuming the vital fuel; to hear his moaning voice, which might never again articulate words ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... himself a home. He is a patriot and, at the same time, a cosmopolitan who has probably travelled more extensively abroad than any other of his fellow-countrymen. After becoming a Catholic at the age of twenty, he spent a year in monasteries abroad, but had already begun to waver in his Catholicism when he first visited America, where he stayed from 1927 to 1930. During those years he became more and more radical in his social beliefs. Already in his first year there, he wrote the short story New Iceland (Nja sland), which was immediately published in Heimskringla, ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... different parts of the house as far removed from each other as possible. She had denounced him first to his face for the boy's self-imposed exile, and again behind his back to her intimates. Nor did her resolve waver even when the colonel was thrown from his horse and so badly hurt that his eyesight was greatly impaired. "It is a judgment on you," she had said, drawing her frail body up to its full height. "You will now learn what other people suffer," and would have kept on upstairs to her ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Liberalism more than the sympathy of its left wing with the loose ruffianism of unsettled States." "Such a State," I said, "is Ireland; and if, under the pressure of extraordinary difficulties, Ministers vacillate or waver in their dealings with it, the truest Liberalism, I believe, is that which holds them ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... anything of an actor, and he seemed to be in deadly earnest now. Was it just possible that the man had it in him to do a kindly thing? If so it seemed a pity to thwart him. Berrington looked fairly and squarely into the eyes of the speaker, but they did not waver in the least. The expression of Sartoris's face was one of hopelessness, not free ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall hereafter be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... a plan, push it through—don't vacillate, don't waver. Make your plan simple. No other has much show. Complicated plans look well on paper, but in war they seldom work out. They require several people to do the right thing at the right time and this under conditions of excitement, danger and confusion, ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... vibrating roar the Ba-gcatya, massing suddenly, hurl fully one-half of their force upon the point directed by Lutali. They surge up the slope in one dense charge of lightning swiftness. Bullets are hailed upon them. They waver not. The hands of the defenders are skinned and blistered by contact with the breeches of their own rifles, so hot have these become through quick firing, and still the firing is not quick enough. Stumbling, leaping, flying over the ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... at the compliment she was making, laughed lightly; while Diana inwardly shook, like a person who has received a sudden sharp blow, and staggers in danger of losing his footing. Did she waver visibly before her adversary's eyes, she wondered? She was sure her colour did not change. She found nothing to say, in any case; and after a moment her vision cleared and she had ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... fancy and vigour of expression, but evidently neglects to cultivate that beautiful rhetoric and exquisite rhythmic harmony which impress us so forcibly in the work of scholars and bookmen like Rheinhart Kleiner. "A Girl of the U. S.", by George W. Macauley, is a prose piece whose nature seems to waver between that of a story and a descriptive sketch. Though description apparently preponderates, the narrative turn toward the conclusion may sanction classification as fiction. The faults are all ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... to him, Allen was completely overpowered by his sense of its importance. He blessed books and book agents, since they had been the indirect means to this much-desired end. His chance had come to him just when his optimism had begun to waver, with the hydra's heads multiplying beyond belief; and he proposed to show Alice especially, and Mr. Gorham incidentally, that he was no mere callow youth idly waiting by the wayside. There could be no doubt whatever regarding his intentions, ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... dazzled by the glint of the spears and the flash of the swords. The horses began to neigh, bite, rear and kick. Then the Zmudz noblemen charged down; Zbyszko, Hlawa and the Mazovians fell upon them. By dint of the press, the German throng began to waver, and swayed like trees before a storm, but they hewed like choppers of firewood in the forest thickets, and advanced slowly amidst fatigue ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... We had to retreat. We were pressed back to the narrows. Then General Taylor, hastening up, took command. Batteries were opened. Grapeshot and canister were poured into the advancing Mexicans. The cannon belched deadly fire. Colonel Davis had routed Ampudia at the left. The Mexicans began to waver in front. We from Illinois and Kentucky started in pursuit. We drove ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... ill-natured man, or one who could not outlive what was mistaken in himself or resentful in others. As to my opinions about Governments, the bad conduct of the Allies, and of Napoleon, and the old Bourbons, certainly made them waver as to what might be ultimately best, monarchy or republicanism; but they ended in favour of their old predilections; and no man, for a long while, has been less a republican than myself, monarchies and courts appearing to me salutary for the good and ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... hearts. Truth has not withdrawn into those deserts; it is not graved on those sands. The abode of God is in heaven, in the earth, in the sea, and in virtuous hearts. God speaks to us by all that we see, by all that surrounds us. Let the inconstant and those that are subject to waver, according to events, have recourse to oracles. For my part, I find in nature every thing that can inspire the most constant resolution. The dastard, as well as the brave, cannot avoid death. Jupiter cannot tell us more." Cato thus spoke, and ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... out on the pond in such a storm?" asked Jasper. His lips were white, but he didn't allow his eyes to waver, for it was better to have the whole story before getting back ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... her hair; added to the last observations, reminded her that it might be possible that he had some message from her lover, and she consequently seemed to waver a little, as if struggling against her strong, ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... the hotel had opened the cab door, but not for an instant did Paul's purpose waver. "I'm sorry, my good fellow, but we must reach the convent, as ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... trying to get into touch with his friend Howell, but after Lisette's disclosures, he was very glad that he had not done so. His master-mind worked quickly. He could sum up a situation and act almost instantly where other men would be inclined to waver. But when The Sparrow arrived at a decision it was unalterable. All his associates knew that too well. Some of them called him stubborn, but they had to agree that he was invariably right in ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... in the afternoon a general advance was ordered. The Union skirmishers encountered at first a series of rifle-pits. The orders had been to take these, and nothing more was expected. The battle waged with great fury, and soon the Confederates were seen to waver and abandon first one ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... winding river, where the bullets sang, where the shells burst, where hundreds of brave men fell. Terrible the contest. It was like a thunder-storm among the mountains,—like the growling of the angry surf upon the shore of the ocean. How trying, after hours of hard fighting, to see the lines waver and behold the Rebels move victoriously over the field! with disaster setting in, and to know that all that is worth living for ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... time, when I was about to be subjected to great exertions, and did not practise it every day, but thought it was enough to sing coloratura fireworks, I soon became aware that my transition tones would no longer endure the strain, began easily to waver, or threatened even to become too flat. The realization of it was terrible! It cost me many, many years of the hardest and most careful study; and it finally brought me to realize the necessity of exercising the vocal organs continually, and in the proper way, ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... her. He saw her waver, and sink, ghost-like, on a chair. It was clear enough that the news had for her no ordinary significance. His heart knew pain—the reflex of a past anguish; only to be lost at once in the desire ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and the men waver, Capt. Blakely with a cheer called up the boarders of the "Wasp;" and in an instant a stream of shouting sailors, cutlass in hand, was pouring over the hammock-nettings, and driving the foe backward on his own decks. The British still fought stubbornly; but ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... white and red, showing not a green spot except the course of the Platte; with scorched, rusty hills rising above its fantastic surface, and, in the distance, bluish mountain ranges that appeared to float and waver ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... the people affectionately called him after this, later the Emperor Frederick William—made his appearance on the field with his army. Assailed on both flanks and pressed in the centre, the Austrians first began to slacken fire, then to waver, then to give way under the terrific concentrated fire of the needle-guns, then to retreat into ignominious flight. The contending forces were about equal; but science and the needle-gun won the day, and changed the whole aspect of modern warfare. The battle ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... dare say that, owing to my youth, I may often waver in my view, but now when I look at you and see that you incline to refer them to God, ...
— Sophist • Plato
... DuQuesne, watching the other narrowly as he made this startling announcement and remembering the effect of a similar one upon Perkins, saw with approval that the coffee-cup in midair did not pause or waver in its course. Loring noted the bouquet of his beverage and took an appreciative sip ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... only to himself, and to his plateful of meat, and to the small bottle of Bass's pale ale that stood before him—ultimate allowance of one who had erst clashed cymbals in Naxos. This small bottle he eyed often and with enthusiasm, seeming to waver between the rapture of broaching it now and the grandeur of having it to look forward to. It made me unhappy to see what trouble he had in managing his knife and fork. Watts-Dunton told me on another occasion that this infirmity of the hands had been lifelong—had ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... said my companion, leaning over the car. "Do you perceive the chateau? Not very distinctly, eh? What would you have? The heat of the storm makes the outline of objects waver, and you must have a skilled eye ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... abandoned their usual practice of fighting from behind cover, and braved the enemy in open conflict. In spite of Tenskwatawa's prophecies, the American bullets wrought deadly havoc among the warriors, who, seeing that they had been deceived, began to waver. Finally, the Indians gave way before a terrific charge and fled to the woods, while the soldiers applied the torch to ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... clear over and has a chance to swell around for a minute with his new-born paper in plain sight, watching the mad foreman lock up the forms. The first paper into the post-office gets distributed first, while the subscribers of the other paper hang around in a state of frenzy and waver in their allegiance in a manner to make the stoutest heart quail. And one of the weekly diversions in Homeburg is watching this race. If it isn't too late in starting, we hang around and make mild bets ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... contested by the two armies; banners rose and fell, and the whole field was slippery with blood, and strewn with fragments of armor, shivers of lances and arrows, and rags of scarfs and pennons. The English troops began to waver. "They fail! they fail!" was the Scottish cry, and as they pressed on with double vehemence, there rose a shout that another host was coming to their aid. It was only the servants on the Gillies ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the smallest fraction of a second withdrawn my gaze from Captain Lenoir's eyes, or allowed the barrel of my pistol to waver a hair's-breadth from his larboard optic, for I knew that if I did he would be upon me like lightning. But although he dared not move his limbs he was not afraid to use his tongue, angrily demanding what ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... not yet attacked the French and seemed, it was said, to waver; but at last urged on or even threatened by the Prussian Marshal Blcher, he decided to cross the Partha above the village of Mockau, at the head of his troops and a Russian corps which had been placed under his command. When a brigade of Saxon Hussars and Lancers ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... head in reluctant assent. Her figure seemed to waver as with faintness, but when Stuart reached out his arms to catch her, she stepped back and stood with ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... in turn, missing nobody. Her clear gaze, the blue eyes black beneath the shadowing thick lashes, met each answering pair of eyes with a steady scrutiny which did not once waver. ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... intercourse naturally afforded him, and which momentarily relieved his sick and fainting spirit, groaned out half-articulate expressions of acquiescence in the appeals that were made to him; but the relief was physical merely. The grasp of the friendly hand made waver for a moment the heavy shadow of death which hung upon him—and he grasped it. The voice breathing mercy and comfort in his ear, stilled for a second the horrid echo of doom—and he listened to it. It was as the drowning man gasps at the bubble of air which he draws down with him in sinking—or ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... defiance, however, Caroline was terribly afraid. She sub-consciously so dreaded the agony she must endure if he did come after her again and she had to send him away. For that was what she would do. Never for one second did she waver in her determination to have no more to do with a man who could behave as he had done. She couldn't help loving him, but she could help trusting him ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... so she seemed now to be walking to him down the years, the light and shade of old memories and new hopes playing variously on her, and each step giving him the vision of a different grace. She did not waver or turn aside; he knew she would come straight to where he stood; but something in her eyes said "Wait", and again he ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... from the lurid horizons paling upward into the dull, unbroken blue of the heavens, ordinarily overcast or heaped with masses of white cloud. A good deal came also from the thronged streets, in which the season had scarcely begun to waver, and the pulses of the plethoric town throbbed with a sense of choking fulness. The feverish activity of the cabs contributed to the effect of the currents and counter-currents, as they insinuated themselves into ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... examples and a great number of others, struck terror into the partisans of the king, and many prelates and priests threw themselves at the feet of the Pope and renounced their errors. Thus, Udo, Archbishop of Treves, repaired all penitent to Rome, and Herman of Metz began to waver in his hitherto steady ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... I saw your eyes waver, and I'm not interested in a makeshift alias. But it's the stock question, you know.... Do you care for ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... saw Mr. Tawnish's blade waver aimlessly; Raikes saw it too, and drove in a lightning thrust. There was a sharp clash of meeting steel, a flurry of blades, and Sir Harry Raikes staggered back, his eyes wide and staring, threw up his arms, and pitching forward, rolled ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... continually with me, persuading me to abandon the idea. The magnificence and liberality which he showed in the costly presents bestowed upon me, that I might return with honour and wealth to my own country, more than once made me waver in my resolution. The evening before my departure he made a last attempt, but in vain. My refusal was at least softened by the tears which I shed, for now that the time of departure was so near, I felt how truly, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... she was herself the real cause of Mr Arnott's resistance, now felt her resolution waver, internally reproaching herself with the sufferings of his sister; alarmed, however, for her own constancy, she earnestly besought Mrs Harrel to go and compose herself for the night, and promised to deliberate what could be done for ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... advancement. He glossed over nothing of his own baseness, but went on to show how, from the moment he had seen her upon that Good Friday at the orchard house, his determination about Cecilia Cricklander had begun to waver, until the night under the tree when passion overcame every barrier and he knew he must ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... had Elizabeth silenced with this show of inflexibility all the pleadings or menaces by which others had attempted to divert her from her fatal aim, than she began, as in the affair of the French marriage, to feel her own resolution waver. It appears unquestionable that to affected delays a real hesitation succeeded. When her pride was no longer irritated by opposition, she had leisure to survey the meditated deed in every light; and as it rose upon her view in all its native deformity, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... formalities of a pious purloiner from the people's purse. No criminal in history had ever slept with a smoother rhythm to his heart-beat than this one, with the elite of New York's private detective bureaus hot upon his trail for a long chase. His sonorous snore might have sent a waver through the mind of the crafty Tescheron, and made the wily Smith feel that the case would dwindle to less than a week's job, when he was probably figuring on a good two thousand dollars in it, having sized up ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... bottle and tins on a stool near the woman. Quinn's glance did not waver, and not a word passed his swollen lips; but his wife snatched up one of the tins ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... all sides begin to waver, and the infidels shout for joy. But at this moment a knight in glittering white armor appears on the Mount of Olives, and waves his fiery shield toward the Holy City. Godfrey, first to behold the strange ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... jolt them, if they could see me? I thought of it this morning when I was walking a log without so much as a waver. That phrase relative to walking a chalk-line is weak and inadequate, after a man has tried to work his way along a peeled hemlock. If anyone wants to measure sobriety by word of mouth, there's his standard. It involves ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... instant on a rock which he had just reached, waving his sword above his head, and then fell backwards over the men who were coming up behind him. The Frau instantly seized the gun, and began reloading it. The pirates, who had been quickly advancing, now appeared to waver. ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Dhritarashtra whose knowledge only was his eyes, on hearing these words of his son and recollecting everything that Kanika had, said unto him, became afflicted with sorrow, and his mind also thereupon began to waver. Then Duryodhana and Karna, and Sakuni, the son of Suvala, and Duhsasana as their fourth, held a consultation together. Prince Duryodhana said unto Dhritarashtra, 'Send, O father, by some clever contrivance, the Pandavas to the town of Varanavata. We shall then ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... know what you say," said Tarra. "The white people who are with us have fire guns, which kill when they speak," and he held up one of them, and the boys were amused to see how quickly they began to waver and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... all will change their mind, So, brothers, do not waver! Kyrie eleison! Pidi, Pom, Pom, Pom, Alarum beat, There's no retreat; Wilt soon be slashed, Be pierced and gashed: But none of these things heeding, The foe, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... things as they know certainly, in their general kind, to be agreeable to truth and righteousness. Such Christians are impeded by the ceremonies from going on in their Christian course so fast as otherwise they would, if not also made to waver or stumble. And thus are they properly scandalised according to my fifth proposition. Si quis nostra culpa vel impingit, vel abducitur a recto cursu, vel tardatur, cum dicimur offendere, saith Calvin.(423) Porro scandalum est dictum vel factum quo impeditur ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... stood, upon the moment, for Belgium, revealed unto herself and unto others. He had the wonderful good fortune to realize and bestow a conscience in one of those dread hours of tragedy and perplexity when the best of consciences waver. ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... at last what I have yearned for all my life long," he protested. "I know I shall never waver in ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... tried to get a good sight at its head, but hesitated to draw trigger, for the glow from the fire made appearances deceptive, the body of the cat-like beast seeming to waver up and down; and directly after the creature moved, and its head was covered by a ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... in the evening Baker City, which was in flames, was stormed by the Japanese, Indian Valley having already fallen into their hands. The attack in front, high up in the mountains, began to waver, then to stop; a few captured positions had to be abandoned, and down in the valley near La Grande, whence the field-hospitals were being removed to the rear, the ambulances and Red Cross transports encountered the troops streaming back from Baker City. One retreating force caught up with the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... mind is made up. I own that I might have preferred another course, and Heaven knows it is not that I think myself worthy of this; but I have been brought up to this, and I will not waver. It is marked out for me as plainly as your earldom for you, and I will do my duty in it as my appointed calling. There lies my course of honest independence: you call it pride—see what those are who are devoid of it: there lie my means of educating my sister, providing for my grandmother. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spectators, among whom he knew no one except Apollonius, who had charge of the museum accounts, and the architect, for whom he had composed the inscription on the Odeum, which he had recently built. But when his eyes met only unfamiliar faces, the confidence which hitherto had sustained him began to waver, though still convinced that a demand such as the philosopher suggested could not possibly be made upon him, he continued: "It is stated that there is a plan for turning my garden into a public square. And for what purpose? To erect a piece of sculpture. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... throwing them in, the enemy would be driven from the spot, and time allowed for the seamen to climb over the palisades. The naval party were received with as hot a fire as had met the troops. The brave Maoris, disconcerted by the repeated attacks made on them, began to waver. ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... crowning the son of Henry, and threatened Henry himself with an interdict, and recalled his legates. Becket also fulminated his excommunications. There was hardly a prelate or royal chaplain in England who was not under ecclesiastical censure. The bishops began to waver. Henry had reason to fear he might lose the support of his English subjects, and Norman likewise. He could do nothing with the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... 'ship-money,' and Cromwell against Star Chambers, and the Dutchman William laid his firm hand on the British Constitution. All revolutions are treason until they are accomplished. We have long hesitated, we will waver no more. The conduct of Sir Jeffrey Amherst ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... every clime, and who has taken up his sword to destroy life in every cause, whose everything is also at stake, yet there is, on the other side, your Government at stake. If these men be guilty, justice to the nation demands of you this day that you should convict them, and you must not waver. In the consideration of this case, you must bring to your aid a power, that may be a little more than is ordinarily given to human nature. You must, for the time, sink all hatred, malice, even human sympathy; and rise, God-like, to determine the ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... humanity had vanished. As Nick gazed, the head seemed to waver in the midst of the strange fluid, and then, suddenly, Nick saw, in a direct line where it had been, the bottom ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... evident to the girl facing him: his eyes were still fixed full upon hers, but he was not actually looking at her; nevertheless, and with an extraordinarily acute attention, he was unquestionably looking at something. The direct front of pupil and iris did not waver from her; but for the time he was not aware of her; had not even heard her question. Something in the outer field of his vision had suddenly and completely engrossed him; something in that nebulous and hazy background ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... shore, In numbers more and ever more, From lonely hut and busy town, The valley through, the mountain down, What was it ye went out to see, Ye silly folk of Galilee? The reed that in the wind doth shake? The weed that washes in the lake? The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?— young man preaching ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... But since the statute does not exist in an authentic shape, and is not to be found in the Rolls of the Realm, we cannot safely base any conclusion on it. As to the date too at which it may have been passed, our statements waver between the twenty-eighth and the thirty-fourth year of Edward. On the other hand we find in the collection of charters an undoubted charter of confirmation given at Ghent and dated 5 November 1297, in which not merely are the Great Charter of Henry III and the Forest Charter confirmed, ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... many things; but there are principles lying at the root of human life which are invincible to all doubt. We can demonstrate many things; but there are natural realities beyond our power of demonstration. On the side of sense, all things seem to fluctuate and waver in uncertainty; on the side of mere intellect we soon cross the limit of our powers. But Humanity is more than either sense or intellect. There is, as he believes, a primitive endowment of spiritual instinct in man, which ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... Hence he proceeded to menace the Peloponnese, where he formed an alliance with the Argives, who promised him that they would openly embrace the Persian cause. At the same time the Athenians, finding that Sparta took no steps to help them, began to waver in their resistance, and to contemplate accepting the terms which Mardonius was still willing to grant them. The fate of Greece trembled in the balance, and apparently was determined by the accident of a death and a succession, rather than ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... the whole force of the enemy. Already their bayonets had cleared for themselves a passage to the more even ground, and the Americans, dismayed at the intrepidity of this handful of assailants, were evidently beginning to waver in their ranks. A shout of victory, which was answered by the main body of the English troops, just then gaining the summit of the hill, completed their disorder. They stood the charge but for a moment, then broke and fled, pursued ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... credulity often accuse unbelievers of insincerity, because they sometimes waver in their principles, alter their minds in sickness, and retract at death. When the body is disordered, the faculty of reasoning is commonly disordered with it. At the approach of death, man, weak and decayed, is sometimes himself sensible that Reason abandons ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... disasters urge it into action, but never depress it to repose. Its existence is the air that preserves the vitality of the mind—the spring that moves the action of the thoughts. Never for a moment did Ulpius waver in his devotion to his great design, or despair of its ultimate execution and success. Though every succeeding day brought the news of fresh misfortunes for the Pagans and fresh triumphs for the Christians, still, with a few of his more zealous comrades, he persisted in expecting the advent ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... its say on certin pints It knows the wind's opinions to a T, An' the wind settles wut the weather'll be." "I never thought a scion of our stock Could grow the wood to make a weathercock; When I wuz younger'n you, skurce more'n a shaver, No airthly wind," sez he, "could make me waver!" (Ez he said this, he clinched his jaw an' forehead, Hitchin' his belt to bring his sword-hilt forrard.) "Jes' so it wuz with me," sez I, "I swow, When I wuz younger'n wut you see me now,— Nothin' from Adam's fall to Huldy's bonnet, Thet ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... are lost in obscurity. Even of "orthodox" theologians few, with any claims to scholarship, now hold that these Gospels, as they stand, were written by the persons whose names they bear. They wander and waver in a thick fog. See Milman's "History of Christianity," vol. i. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... practically the choice of three instruments to select from; but his heart did not waver for long, ere it became fixed upon the pianoforte as the fittest interpreter of his genius, and he was true to his first love to the end. His 'Three Sonatas for the Pianoforte,' written about this time, gives us the first record of his published works. Evidently those ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... this was the end. There was Allister's whistle; Jeff Rankin ran around from the other side of the train; the gang faded instantly into the thicket. Andrew, as the rear guard—his most ticklish moment—backed slowly toward the trees. Once there was a waver in the line, such as precedes a rush. He stopped short, and a single twitch of his rifle froze the ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... hole, the entire globe being expanded nearly to bursting point, and the cords designed for rending the balloon very tense. At this critical period Wise owns to having experienced considerable nervous excitement, and observing far down a thunderstorm in progress he began to waver in his mind, and inclined towards relieving the balloon of its strain, and so abandoning his experiment, at least for the present. He remembers pulling out his watch to make a note of the hour, and, while thus occupied, the straining cords, growing tenser every ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... Andy about it, and he liked the idea immense. Andy was a man of an involved nature. He was never content to plod along, as I was, selling to the peasantry some little tool like a combination steak beater, shoe horn, marcel waver, monkey wrench, nail file, potato masher and Multum in Parvo tuning fork. Andy had the artistic temper, which is not to be judged as a preacher's or a moral man's is by purely commercial deflections. So we accepted Bill's offer, and strikes out ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... any other available purpose in the case of defeat[115]. The Oulad Suleiman then attacked the Bashaw with extreme ferocity, and His Highness was in great danger. He was so unwell at the time that he could not sit upon his horse. But, when the troops began to waver, the officers took the Bashaw and set him upon his horse to show him to the soldiers. The sight of the veteran commander rallied their sinking courage. His Highness had just strength enough to hold up his sword ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... ruins of the wall, and from its top were firing down on the defenders of the barricade. Inch by inch they won their way up the barricade, already thickly covered with dead; and then Charlie, seeing that his men were beginning to waver, gave the signal. ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... out of the window, and the distant trees were a froth of hard spring green and almond blossom. She formed a wild resolution, and, lest she should waver from it, she set about at once to realize it. "I've broken off my engagement," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone, and found her heart thumping in her neck. He moved slightly, and she went on, with a slight catching of her breath: "It's a bother and disturbance, ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... young prince exclaimed, clapping his hands. "See how he lays about him with that club of his. There, he has knocked down the leader of the defenders as if his club had been a battle-axe. Well done, young sir, well done! But his followers waver. The others are too strong for them. Stand, you cowards, rally round your leader!" and in his enthusiasm the young prince urged his horse forward to ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... the sign above it appeared to waver uncertainly, to become disjointed as though viewed through uneven glass. But the effect passed and Sutter approached the stand and nodded to the individual tilted back in ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... hastened along the road together, urging the stragglers to join them, which many of them did. The way became more and more encumbered with men, and the bullets came thicker. Sam was thoroughly scared. He could feel his legs waver at the knee, and it seemed as if a giant hand had grasped him by the spine. They passed ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... the Diamond Dot in a tol'able wide variety o' moods; but I never felt like I did the mornin' I came back to ditch Barbie's weddin'. I knew 'at the chances were 'at I'd break her heart; but I had only one course open, an' I didn't intend to waver. I had gone on through to Laramie, an' had found 'at Silver Dick's wife was still there, livin' her locked-in life. Then I came on back through Danders to Webb Station where I hired a feller to drive me to within a mile o' the ranch house. All he ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... at whose instance these tales of that all-so-long-ago are written with flying pen and brimming heart, and sometimes eyes so moist that the lines waver and swim upon the page, will have it—as their parents insisted before them—that "we never, never can have such good times and so many happenings as you had when you ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... 'The passengers got up two dances, and quite a number of gentlemen invited me, but I declined with thanks, though I would not say it is wrong in itself.'" Lindsay seemed to waver; her glance went near enough to him to show her that his face had a red tinge of embarrassment. He looked at the letter uncertainly, on the point ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... and ability, held them together and for a time repelled the attack of the German cavalry; but these, inspirited by their previous success, continued their attacks with such fury that the reserves began to waver and fall back. Enghien was still in pursuit of the Walloons when an officer rode up with news of the disaster that had befallen the rest of the army. Enghien grasped the situation instantly, and his military genius pointed out how the battle might yet be retrieved. His trumpets ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... listener, a wail which could not have come from the throat of any normal living thing, intelligent being or animal. Ululating in ear-torturing intensity, the cry sank to a faint, ominous echo of itself, to waver up ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... in sight of the window where Fanny was impatiently watching for her. The sight of that bright, joyous face, as it looked from the window, anxious for the expected sight of her letter, made Julia for a moment waver. She thought how gentle and loving Fanny had always been to her and involuntarily her hand sought the letter which lay like a crushing weight in her pocket. It was half drawn from its hiding place when the spirit of evil which seemed ever to follow Julia's footsteps whispered, ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... him with all his eyes. Perhaps there was a film upon his sight, but the outlines of the newcomer seemed to change and waver like those of the idols in the wavering candle-light of the shop; and at times he thought he knew him; and at times he thought he bore a likeness to himself; and always, like a lump of living terror, there lay in his bosom the conviction ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... clear and impartial sketch of Stafford's trial will be found in Ranke (B. viii): who deals dispassionately and historically with an event much obscured by declamation in popular narratives. Even in Hallam's hand the balance seems here to waver ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Will began to waver in his resolve not to go down into Suffolk before Christmas. There came a letter from his mother which deeply moved him; she spoke of old things as well as new, and declared that in her husband and in her ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing |
