"Wavering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to Sierra Leone. Then it was that Elijah Johnson, an emigrant from New York, made himself forever famous in Liberian history by declaring that he would never desert the home he had found after two years' weary quest! His firmness decided the wavering colonists; the agents with a few faint-hearted ones sailed off to America; but the majority remained with their heroic Negro leader. The little band, deserted by their appointed protectors, were soon reduced ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson
... But, as I had left my coat in camp for the sake of having my limbs free in climbing, I soon was cold. The wind increased in violence, raising the snow in magnificent drifts that were drawn out in the form of wavering banners blowing in the sun. Toward the end of my stay a succession of small clouds struck against the summit rocks like drifting icebergs, darkening the air as they passed, and producing a chill as definite and sudden as if ice-water ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... I'll do,' persisted the wavering doubter; 'if you will let this alone, I'll give you one hundred dollars to ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... Her story may have interested him at the time, even aroused his sympathies; but, afterwards, it was but natural he should, on returning to his duties, forget about her and her misery. What did she know of him? They had met but once; still her belief in him was strong, though wavering at the same time. Had he not said the unfortunate had a claim on all honorable men, and surely he was a man an unfortunate might apply to, if any man was? Such is the effect of imagination upon all poor mortals; it may be a grand gift, but is ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... not in the least disturb my equanimity or my allegiance to the great party to which I belonged, and for the success of which I had devoted my life since 1854. I listened with complaisance to the explanations made as to the wavering of the Ohio delegation on the Saturday previous to the nomination, and as to the unexpected action of the New York delegation and the curious reasoning which held them together in the hope that they could persuade ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... to escape knowing more about the universal panacea. And when he turned for the last time the sea and tower and man were blotted out by wavering ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... restless under useless expenditure. It was the man's fault and not misfortune that he had failed so signally in securing trade from the South, and, while they had paid him but a small salary, his ill-directed and wavering efforts had involved them in considerable expense. Asking the physician to remain, they summoned Mr. Jocelyn to the private office, and directly charged him with the excessive and habitual ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... the scene (Cicero, Ad Att. XV, II) at which Brutus and Cassius together with their wives, Porcia and Tertia, and Servilia, the mother of Brutus, discussed momentous decisions with Cicero. When Brutus stood wavering, Cicero avoiding the issue, and Cassius as usual losing his temper, it was Servilia who offered the only feasible solution, and it was her program which they adopted. Is it surprising that Greek historians like Plutarch could never quite comprehend the part in ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... lines constantly; fresh troops took the places of the fallen; we might slay and slay, but the number of our enemies never seemed to lessen. And in the midst of the terrible uproar a cry arose that our centre was wavering. For an hour or more a battle of giants had been taking place there. In front of our infantry the dead lay piled in a heap, but for every royalist who ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... silent. After a while he took the arm of the laborer, turned him so that the light of the moon struck his face squarely, and examined him with care. It was evident that he was wavering in spirit whether to inquire further and bring everything out with clearness, or for that time to stop with what he had ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... retreated; the British guns were pushed forward, opening a destructive fire, first from one distance, then from another, upon the wavering enemy. The Dost's army was soon broken to pieces, and the British cavalry were then let slip in pursuit. Following the disorded masses of the enemy for some miles along the defile, they cut down large numbers, and dispersed them in all directions. The defeat of the Dost's ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... the glimmer of the candle I could see that the man had changed; his big pale face was grim with some determined purpose, and there was about him the courage and the authority of one who, after long wavering, at last hazards a desperate venture. He broke the glass box and put ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... has gathered his armful, he turns and flings it down behind him, so that it lies spread out, covering when fallen the same space it filled while standing. And so he crosses the broad acres, and so each of the big black followers, stepping one by one to a place behind him, until the long, wavering, whitish green swaths of the prostrate hemp lie shimmering across the fields. Strongest now is the smell of it, impregnating the clothing of the men, spreading far ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... not yet decided on her line of action when Brooklyn is reached. She is still wavering, even when Letitia, drawing, her into the parlor, closes the door, and, having kissed ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Sherwen's voice, and bidden to come directly up. No time, on this occasion, for Miss Polly to escape. She decided in one breath to ignore the man entirely; in the next to bow coldly and walk out; in the next to—He was there before the latest wavering decision could ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... were also issued, declaring the whole of Griqualand West, except Kimberley and Mafeking and the districts four miles around each of these places, to be Free State territory. In the face of these energetic movements action on the part of the British was necessary to restore the confidence of the wavering people, and consequently the following telegram was despatched by the General Commanding in Chief to ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... moment, one of the drawing-room doors opened and old Morestal appeared on his wife's arm. Dressed in a pair of trousers and a waistcoat, bare-headed, tangle-haired, with a handkerchief fastened round his neck, he staggered on his wavering legs. Nevertheless, a sort of gladness, like an inward ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... be a lesson to the afflicted, afford hope to the despairing, fortitude to the wavering, and humanise the hearts of kings. Joyfully do I journey to the shores of death. My conscience is void of reproach, posterity shall bless my memory, and only the unfeeling, the wicked, the confessor of princes and the pious impostor, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... gleam o'er the mountains Goes wavering from sight, And the quiet moon enhances The loveliness ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... of a great system had been withdrawn from him. He still felt himself neither man nor priest—wavering in ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to his shoulder and its sharp crack woke the echoes in the little wood. "It's a deer and I have got it," he exclaimed, dashing off after the animal which was staggering and wavering as it ran. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... some time ago, by a solemn paragraph, in Mr. Hunt's best style, of the appearance of two new stars of glorious magnitude and splendour in the poetical horizon of the land of Cockaigne. One of these turned out, by and by, to be no other than Mr. John Keats. This precocious adulation confirmed the wavering apprentice in his desire to quit the gallipots, and at the same time excited in his too susceptible mind a fatal admiration for the character and talents of the most worthless and affected of all the versifiers of our time. One of his first productions was the following sonnet, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... witnessed. We could see the smoke and dust of battle, and hear the shout of the charge, and the roar and rattle of cannon and musketry. But Breckinridge's division continued to press forward, without wavering or hesitating. We can see the line of dead and wounded along the track over which he passed, and finally we see our battle flag planted upon the Federal breastworks. I cannot describe the scene. If you, reader, are an ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... circumstances and the object of his quest were forgotten. Visions, momentary but very vivid, crowded upon him, and among them, one of a girl whom he had kissed in the face of death. That girl—Yes, there was something. His mind asserted itself again, his purpose dominated his wavering faculties, and ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... flag-ship Benton leading. The heights above the city were crowded by the citizens of Memphis, awaiting with eager hope the result of the fight. The ram attack was unexpected, and, by its suddenness and evident determination, produced some wavering in the Confederate line, which had expected to do only with the sluggish and unwieldy gunboats. Into the confusion the Queen dashed, striking the Lovell fairly and sinking her in deep water, where she went down out of sight. The Queen herself was immediately rammed ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... almost seem to have been written with a supernatural knowledge of what was passing in Gylingden, and was certainly well contrived to prevent the vicar from wavering. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... lip The smile late wavering, on she moves; And seems through deepening tides to step Of steadier joys ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... in the new faith which had not been independently developed by the pagans, many of whom, like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, were ripe for the most abject self-abasement.] But this Orientalism fell at first upon unfruitful soil; the Vatican was yet wavering, and Hellenic notions of conduct still survived. It received a further rebuff at the hands of men like Benedict, who set up sounder ideals of holiness, introducing a gleam of sanity even in that insanest of institutions—the herding together ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... told whether her "Meredith Barrett" at the bottom of the page was as firmly penned as ever. To him it was now wavering from one misty letter to the next. Slowly he made a business of folding the sheet into a neat square of paper which he could fit into the safe pocket under his belt. A crack was forming in the shell he had started to grow on the night he first rode out of Red Springs, and he now feared losing ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... vantage brought a cross fire to bear on Clark's detachment. As their direct attack developed itself it encountered from the conical hill a heavy rifle fire, and shells at short range tore through the loose rush of ghazees, but the fanatics sped on and up without wavering. As they gathered behind a mound for the final onslaught, Captain Spens of the 72d with a handful of his Highlanders went out on the forlorn hope of dislodging them. A rush was made on him; he was overpowered and slaughtered after a desperate resistance, ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... government, every where, and against every person, without limitation or restriction.—Count Mansfeld, now "factotum at Brussels," had taken the oath with great fervor. So had Aerachot, Berlaymont, Meghem, and, after a little wavering, Egmont. Orange spurned the proposition. He had taken oaths enough which he had never broken, nor intended now to break: He was ready still to do every thing conducive to the real interest of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... thus, in the same year: "Quite a number of Mohammedans have renounced Islam, and become true Christians; many more are soberly inquiring after the truth; and many others are turning, unsatisfied, from a religion which cannot save, or wavering in a merely nominal devotion to Islamism. That which is most striking is the clear evidence, often, of the work of God's Spirit in individual cases, and ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... one or other of them, not both together. His imagination will therefore waver; and, with the imagination of future evenings, he will associate first one, then the other—that is, he will imagine them in the future, neither of them as certain, but both as contingent. This wavering of the imagination will be the same, if the imagination be concerned with things which we thus contemplate, standing in relation to time past or time present: consequently, we may imagine things as contingent, whether they be referred ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... arm and practised skill, went clean home in the packed ranks of the foe, but they caused no more than a second's wavering, as the dead went down and their fellows crowded on straight over them. A second volley from the grimly silent fighters on the plateau had somewhat more effect. Driven low, and at shorter range, every jagged ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... women are wanton, free to every conqueror, and her men unstable." "I am not from thence, but from Damascus," cried the youth." "Then," said Hyjauje, "thou art from a most rebellious place, filled with wretched inhabitants, a wavering race, neither Jews nor Christians." "But I am not from thence," replied the youth, "but from Khorassan." "That is a most impure country," said Hyjauje, "whose religion is worthless, for the inhabitants are of all barbarians the most savage. Plunderers of flocks, they know not mercy, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... it at home, wailed pitifully or spitefully till it was coaxed or scolded still; now and then some one coughed. The air was thick; a bat scandalized the assemblage by flying in at the open door, and wavering round the tallow candles on the pulpit; one of the men beat it down with his hat, and then picked it up and crowded his way down the aisle, out into the night with it. When he came back it was as if he had found the stranger whom they were all consciously expecting, and had brought him in ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... Mr. Brooks had several barns, the gables and roofs of which looked like a little settlement in the starlight, not far off; but this particular barn stood alone, and was probably known to the country people from former occasions; for they streamed towards it and filed in without any wavering or question. So Eleanor followed, trembling and wondering at herself; passed the curtain that hung at the door, and went ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... blessed it there, From all the fiends of upper air; Then round him cast the shadowy shroud, And tied his steed behind the cloud; And pressed his hand as she bade him fly Far to the verge of the northern sky, For by its wane and wavering light There was a star would ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... from her—it seemed as though he were drawing her soul out from her body—and then, just as sheer consciousness itself was wavering, he took his mouth from hers, and she could see his face, white ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... willing to be bereft of even the Heaven-sent consolation for the sake of the beloved, in whom may she find not only the earthly mate-fellow, but the kindred soul. For, all-pitying Mother of Mercy! should she, too, be doomed to stake all upon a wavering, unstable, headlong Richard, what will ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... rustling the branches of the trees, and causing a loose rose-branch to tap carelessly against the window panes. It sounded like the knock of someone anxious to come in. The candles flickered and guttered in the draught; the wavering light cast strange shadows over the dead man's face. You might have thought that his features moved from time to time; that now he frowned at the intruders, and now he smiled at them—a terrible, ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... moments Lord Ferriby was silent. Cornish watched him across the table. He knew that his uncle was no fool, although his wisdom amounted to little more than the wisdom of the worldly. Would Lord Ferriby recognize the situation in time? There was a wavering look in the great man's eye that made his nephew suddenly anxious. Then Lord Ferriby rose slowly, to make the shortest speech that he had ever made ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... Over the million intricate threads of life wavering and crossing, In the midst of problems we know not, tangling, perplexing, ensnaring, Rises ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... feeble monarch had for some time been supported by the counsels of his queen, Annabella, a daughter of the noble house of Drummond, gifted with a depth of sagacity and firmness of mind which exercised some restraint over the levities of a son who respected her, and sustained on many occasions the wavering resolution of her royal husband. But after her death the imbecile sovereign resembled nothing so much as a vessel drifted from her anchors, and tossed about amidst contending currents. Abstractedly considered, Robert might be said to doat upon his son, to entertain ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... discover ugly and active defects in you than that beautiful impassiveness. Besides, as I have told you many a time, the excellence that seems to me ideal has its weaknesses. It is rather a way of perfection for our poor humanity, a way that is all the better because it is adapted for our feeble and wavering steps!... ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... ebb and flow of the tide. On blue calm mornings, being part of the jetsam, you may glisten in the sun beside a water-logged spar; at night you become a nonentity, of no more consequence along the wavering line of drift than a rotten gull. But if, like Marianne, you have fought skilfully, you may again enter Pont du Sable with a quicker eye, a harder body, and a deeper knowledge of ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... must use his typewriter money. There was no escape. He chanced to be at the Echo offices that day with copy for the next issue of his paper and was still rebelliously wavering over the loss of his typewriter when the door of Mr. Carter's private room opened and the great man himself appeared, ushering out a visitor. Glancing about on his return from the elevator his eye fell ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... impress of its environment as easily as wax takes the impress of a seal. In two passages where this simile is employed,[31] the deduction from it is pressed to the furthest limit, and free-will is denied women altogether. Feminine susceptibility is pronounced to be incurable; wavering, impressionable emotion is a main constituent of woman's being; women are not responsible for the sins they commit nor ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... Hence action should under no circumstance be deferred. When all the votes of the provinces unanimously recommending the enthronement shall have reached Peking, the Government will, of course, ostensibly assume a wavering and compromising attitude, so as to give due regard to international relations. The people, on the other hand, should show their firm determination to proceed with the matter at all costs, so as to let the foreign powers know that our people are of one mind. If ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the mountain tops all crimson and purple with the sunset; and there were bright tongues of fiery cloud burning and quivering about them; and the river, brighter than all, fell, in a wavering column of pure gold, from precipice to precipice, with the double arch of a broad purple rainbow stretched across it, flushing and fading alternately in the wreaths of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... and slightly wavering voice appealed to all that was tender and loving in his cold undemonstrative nature, and he was strongly tempted to take her in his arms, and tell her the truth, which every day he found it more difficult ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... flight, and, high up on the hillside in an opening among the trees, saw the trunk of a fallen pine. Continuing the moose's flight in his mind he saw that it must pass the trunk. He resolved on one more shot, and in the empty air above the trunk he aimed and steadied his wavering rifle. The animal sprang into his field of vision, with lifted fore-legs as it took the leap. He pulled the trigger. With the explosion the moose seemed to somersault in the air. It crashed down to earth in the snow beyond and ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... In spite of her habit of reserve and repression she had a passionate heart, and this fact had been forced upon her by vain and continuous struggles. Had he the penetration to learn the truth? She could not tell, and this uncertainty touched her pride to the very quick. After hours of wavering purpose, impulses to ignore him and his request, moments of tenderness in which will, pride, and every consideration were almost overwhelmed, she at last arrived at a fixed resolution. "I will see him," she murmured. ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... glow of the lantern. He stood with hands gripping, and the muscles of his bare arms writhed beneath the skin with the force with which they clenched. He was strung to an emotion such as the Padre had never before seen in him, and it left the older man wavering. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... this parade was the gleam of the sun upon the long line of bayonets,—the sheen of all that steel appearing like a wavering fringe of light upon the dark masses of troops below. It was very fine. But I was glad when all was done, and I could go back to the mess-room, whither I carried an excellent appetite for luncheon. After this we ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... note in memory—and when I got up I was driven to the table absolutely, as if, after ripe consideration, I had made the irrevocable resolution to write that name on the fateful paper. All thought of risk, of consequence, had disappeared—there was no wavering—it was almost as if I were fulfilling a precious duty—and I wrote. [Springs to his feet.] What can such a thing be? Is it inspiration, hypnotic suggestion, as it is called? But from whom? I slept alone in my room. Could it have been my uncivilized ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... gentleness of Beulah, or the beauty, spirit, and generous impulses of Maud. In a word, the captain, when he went forth to review his men, who were now all assembled under arms within the palisades for that purpose, went to meet a wavering, rather than a positively disaffected ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... at a time when you were wavering between detestable principles and the impulses of a generous heart I saw that you were inclining towards justice and honesty. And I love you now, because I see that you are triumphing over these vile principles, and that your evil inspirations are followed by tears of honest regret. This ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... was thoroughly in earnest, Curly said no more, but stood there with his eyes fixed straight forward. The only time Glen spoke was whenever she detected his look wavering in the slightest degree. Then she called him sharply to attention, and warned him to be mindful of what he ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... until the other had passed on, then turned aside, and went with faster steps and less wavering, till she came in view of Utrovand, away down by the little stream that turns old Sveggum's ribesten. Up above the dam she waded across the limpid stream, for deep-laid and sure is the instinct of a wild animal to put running ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... usually interferes when violence goes to that length; but in its unwillingness completely to repress disorder, on the one hand, or to leave it wholly unopposed, on the other, a local government pursues a wavering policy, now repressing anarchy and again leaving it to gather headway. It seldom affords full protection to the non-union men who work during a strike. Moreover, it is the habit of state governments not to interfere with local affairs until the public peace is endangered, and therefore ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... listened, Fielding had not inaptly described them—now spoke, and spoke vigorously; enthusiasm, too, rode on his voice, deepening its tones—not enthusiasm of the febrile kind which sends the speech wavering up and down the scale, but enthusiasm with sobriety as its dominant note concentrated into a level flow of sound. His description had all the freshness of an immediate occurrence. Compared with the ordinary style of reminiscence ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... few seconds, wavering. He did not shed a tear. He took one glance more at the blanket with the little form beneath it, and then turned suddenly to the ladder and climbed down again. A silence fell once more in the room as he entered. He went straight to the door, passed ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... him. The officers of his staff fell all round him. His coat was pierced by several bullets. All was in vain. His infantry was driven back with frightful slaughter. Terror began to spread fast from man to man. At that moment, the fiery cavalry of Laudohn, still fresh, rushed on the wavering ranks. Then followed an universal rout. Frederic himself was on the point of falling into the hands of the conquerors, and was with difficulty saved by a gallant officer, who, at the head of a handful of Hussars, made good a diversion of a few ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ocean, or rising in an exhalation till they reached a sun-beam, they thus re-visited the haunts of men. These were the guardian angels, who in soft whispers restrain the vicious, and animate the wavering wretch who stands suspended between virtue ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... interrupted by outcries which seemed drawing near to the camp. In spite of the terrifying words of the old shepherd, his sang froid in the greatest perils and his resolution full of consoling fatalism, sustained the more wavering ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... meadow, and the stepping stones, to the wood. He had noticed a log lying in the path as he descended the hillside. With the toe of his boot he kicked a patch of bark from the log, and thereby lay bare the wavering trail of a busy grub. Following the trail he quickly found the fat, juicy insect, which immediately took the ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... anxiety for his poor converts kept him awake in the few hours when he might have snatched some sleep. He was here, there, everywhere at once, it seemed, writing letters to encourage the Christians in distress, visiting those who were wavering to strengthen their faith, teaching his students, praying, preaching, night and day, he never ceased; and always the mob surged about him threatening ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... salient littered with their killed and wounded. That torrent of shells, which should have killed every one of the slender garrison of Frenchmen, had failed in its effect; while the hope of gaining Verdun, the capture of which was to influence the whole world, and particularly wavering neutrals, was as far away as ever. That desperate attack made during the darkness broke down as others had done, and the Germans—those who were left of them—fled to the cover of the evergreen pine-trees, leaving the poilus ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... and fastened under the chin with a gold button, and an embroidered alms-purse, completed the costume. The other ladies of the party were attired as carefully, and the dress of the men was as rich and brilliant as that of the women. They passed through the wavering light and shadow of the woodlands like a covey ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... fly and be followed to the last moment; though I am upon the very verge of matrimony, I expect you should solicit me as much as if I were wavering at the grate of a monastery, with one foot over the threshold. I'll be solicited to the ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... I was among the tiers of shipping. I looked back over my shoulder, and saw their countless masts looming up as far as eye could see in the dim light, and their lamps flickering and wavering upon the water. I rowed about a score of strokes, and then stopped. Why go further? This place would serve as well as any other. No one was likely to hear my splash as I went overboard, and even if heard it would not be interpreted. I was still near enough to the Middlesex bank to be ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of imagery in his soul was stirred by something in the romantic unreality of his surroundings—the rude, yet interesting room which served all family purposes save that of slumber; the mellow radiance from a crude lamp and the ever-changing light of the open fire; the long, wavering shadows within the cabin; and, without, the banshee wailing of the storm wind around the eaves, the occasional crash of thunder, the creaking of limbs and fitful dashes of rain. He found himself leaning back in his chair and mentally attempting to dissect and study not the bodies, but the personalities, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... The fighting was severe and deadly, for we were now within easy musket range. At one time I trembled for Burnside's lines, and I saw one of his aides gallop furiously to the rear for help. It came almost immediately in the form of a fine body of regulars under Major Sykes; and our wavering lines were rendered firm and more aggressive than ever. At the same time it was evident that our forces were going into action off to the right of the Sudley Road, and that another battery had opened on the enemy. I afterward learned that they were Rickett's guns. Under this increasing and relentless ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... on. The wavering gleam came from behind a thicket—an open fire, she saw at length. Beyond the fire she heard a horse sneeze. Within a few yards of the thicket through which wavered the yellow gleam she halted, smitten with a sudden panic. This endured but a few seconds. All that she knew or ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of the two and a half gees seemed to bother him very little. I could barely stand under it, holding on. Thomas saw my wavering step and jumped to help me. He boosted me into the chamber of the converter and pointed out an opening near the top, ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... by the Mongol Tartars (1258), the barrier of fanatic hatred was weakened, and Central Asia became an attraction to Christendom instead of a dim horror, without form and void, except for Huns and Turks and demons. The Papal court sent mission after mission to convert the Tartars, who were wavering, as men supposed, between Islam and the Church, and with the first missionaries to the House of Ghenghiz went the first Italian merchants who opened the court of the Great Khan ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... outline of the Louvre seemed to frown sarcastically on her weakness, the silent river to mock her and her wavering purpose. The man beside her had wronged her and hers far more deeply than the Bourbons had wronged their people. The people of France were taking their revenge, and God had at the close of this last happy day of her ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the vast arch was momentarily wavering, trembling, and changing colour, and the brilliant streamers which fringed its edge swept back and forth in great curves, like the fiery sword of the angel at the gate of Eden. In a moment the great auroral rainbow, with all its wavering streamers, began to move ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Heroes, he said, always deceived the people. They kept people from seeing that nothing could be done in our modern society by any one man. Only crowds could do things, he intimated—each man, like one little wave on the world, wavering up to the shore ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... breeze contended with the mist, intrenched in the stronghold of the valley. From the east the red orb began its attack; out of the west rode the swift-moving zephyrs, and, vanquished, the wavering vapor stole off into thin air, or hung in isolated wreaths above the foliage on the hillside. Soon the conquering light brightly illumined a medieval castle commanding the surrounding country; the victorious breeze whispered loudly at its gloomy casements. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... drawers and shutting them, pausing for a moment to listen, then coming out, closing the door, listening again, then stepping downstairs, pausing for a moment in the hall to lay something on the table, then stepping out into the green wavering evening light? Or did the flames make pictures for him of the deserted railway-station, the long platform, lit only by one lamp, two figures meeting, exchanging almost no word, pacing for a little in silence the dreary spaces, stepping back as the London express rolled in—such a safe ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... thoughts and villainous dreams, Hag-rid and crying with cold and dirt and wet, The afflicted city, prone from mark to mark In shameful occultation, seems A nightmare labyrinthine, dim and drifting, With wavering gulfs and antic heights and shifting Rent in the stuff of a material dark Wherein the lamplight, scattered and sick and pale, Shows like the leper's living blotch of bale: Uncoiling monstrous into street on street Paven with ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... still considering how to overcome the wavering and perturbation of the psychic nature, which make it quite unfit to transmit the inward consciousness and stillness. We are once more told to use the will, and to train it by steady and persistent work: by "sitting close" to our work, in the ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... and beeches still wore their liveries of rustling amber, the short grass on hill-side pastures was intensely green, flocks of thistle-birds disguised in demure russet passed in wavering flight from thicket to thicket, and over all a hot sun blazed in a sky of sapphire, linking summer and autumn together in the magnificence of a ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... understand you better than you do yourself, for I have been with many and many dreamers at the same cross-ways. You have shut away the world and gathered the gods about you, and if you do not throw yourself at their feet, you will be always full of lassitude, and of wavering purpose, for a man must forget he is miserable in the bustle and noise of the multitude in this world and in time; or seek a mystical union with the multitude who govern this world and time.' And then he murmured something I could ...
— Rosa Alchemica • W. B. Yeats
... Except for the wavering smoke from the stovepipe, the place might have been deserted. The house was one with the pervading hush of the valley. Hollister grew numb. But he held his post. And at last the door opened and the woman stood ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... effect of a close approach. There was the prelude of a few shots, which hurt one or two of Lambert's troopers; but the orders were that the general fire should be reserved till the musketeers should see the pikemen already within push of the enemy. Then it was not necessary. Lambert's men had been wavering all the while; his troopers now turned the noses of their pistols downwards; one troop came off entire to Ingoldsby; the rest broke up and fled. But Lambert himself was Ingoldsby's mark. Dashing up to ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... perpetual night. This was the Fountain of Oblivion. Upon its brink the Student paused, and gazed into the dark waters with a steadfast look. They were limpid waters dark with shadows only. And as he gazed, he beheld, far down in their silent depths, dim and ill-defined outlines, wavering to and fro, like the folds of a white garment in the twilight. Then more distinct and permanent shapes arose,—shapes familiar to his mind, yet forgotten and remembered again, as the fragments of a dream; till at length, far, far below him he beheld the great City of the Past, with ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led A hundred maids in train across the Park. Some cowled, and some bare-headed, on they came, Their feet in flowers, her loveliest: by them went The enamoured air sighing, and on their curls From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, And over them the tremulous isles of light Slided, they moving under shade: but Blanche At distance followed: so they came: anon Through open field into the lists they wound Timorously; and as the leader of the herd That holds a stately fretwork to the Sun, And followed ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... shell—on, on, in spite of the fact that he was wounded, and the loss of blood made him weak, while the crippled wing retarded the swiftness of his flight. Still he carried on—his stout heart never wavering, until, in the distance, his keen eyes detected the tall shape of the new Campanile. Then, on and on, in spite of the great ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... pray for her grandfather's soul, but she could not. Her one cry was for Otto, that he be saved and brought back. In the study she had found the burntwood frame, and she held it hugged close to her with its broken-backed "F," its tottering "W," and wavering "O", with its fat Cupids in sashes, and the places where an ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was there one so inevitably his own frustration. This Betty saw after the passing of but a few days, and wondered how far he was conscious or unconscious of the thing. At times it appeared to her that he was in a state of unrest—that he was as a man wavering between lines of action, swayed at one moment by one thought, at another by an idea quite different, and that he was harried because he could not ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he spoke. In times of terror Oft a brave word at the right time Can work wonders; many cowards From example drink in courage; And one single iron will leads Oft along the wavering masses. Thus the council looked up strengthened To the Baron's gray moustaches. "Yes, this is just our opinion, We'll defend our city bravely, And the Baron shall command us; For he knows well how to do it. Death to all these cursed peasants!" Through the streets th' alarm is sounded ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... fascinated,—that high, wide white forehead, that weak chin, those soft, tremulous lips, on which a faint smile would so often play, and those great, wide eyes of blue that now looked purple in the lamp-light. And then, gradually, I saw, as I watched, an expression I had never seen there before; the wavering suggestion of the smile left the lips and they fell apart, loose and bloodless, with a glimpse of the missing front tooth. It was an expression that lasted but the fraction of a second, but it stamped her whole countenance with ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... have gone down to meet him with her head up. Suppose she found him broken, aged, with a dumb need for her crying out in his eyes, what would she do? What could she trust herself not to do? But just in human mercy to him she mustn't let him see she was wavering. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... sleeping in their arms, threw their hands in agony, for the small limbs started at that hiss. And as when above a pile of smouldering wood countless eddies of smoke roll up mingled with soot, and one ever springs up quickly after another, rising aloft from beneath in wavering wreaths; so at that time did that monster roll his countless coils covered with hard dry scales. And as he writhed, the maiden came before his eyes, with sweet voice calling to her aid sleep, highest of gods, to charm the monster; and she cried to the queen of ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... whimsical pranks with these outpost hills. They became, in turn, cones, pyramids, boxes, benches, chimney stacks, hourglasses. Sometimes they soared high in air, like the kites of a baby god; and, beneath, the unbroken desert stretched afar, wavering, misty, ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... I understood and felt at the time. Perhaps that is not quite possible, in the light of subsequently acquired knowledge and experience. This much I can say: there was no hint at this time of any wavering or diminution in the almost worshipful regard I ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... that ends our friendship," he said, with a wavering smile. "Lost my head altogether. Couldn't help it. I looked at you and—and it just happened. All my will and sense vanished in an ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... willing to believe in promises which she was convinced were made with entire sincerity; and when her affections had been wrought to this point, when her resolution was once determined, she never afterwards tormented the man to whom she was attached, with wavering doubts ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... resting on the back of the chair. "Why do you hold me off with such stubbornness? Why continue to be so unnatural a child, so incomprehensible a woman?" Even now he did not forget to measure his sentences, but with the depth of his earnestness his voice was wavering, ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... snow has settled our minds, which have been long wavering about future plans, and we leave this for Menaggio, Hotel Vittoria, on Thursday next, 6th. [He did not ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... stage, the audience, the amazing gleam and scintillation of the Opera, faded. He heard only the voice and saw only the purple shadows in the temple at Rangoon, the oriental sunset splashing the golden dome, the wavering lights of the dripping candles, the dead flowers, the kneeling devotees, the yellow-robed priests, the tatters of gold-leaf, fresh and old, upon the rows of placid grinning Buddhas. The vision was of short duration. The sigh, which had been so long repressed, escaped; ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... to the rightful owner for his property, rents, and profits. In due season courts will be established to execute the laws, the confiscation act included, when we will be relieved of this duty and trust. Until that time, every opportunity should be given to the wavering and disloyal to return to their allegiance to the Constitution of their birth or adoption. I ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... doubt, I shall desire him to make a brief survey of the world, as [176] Cyprian adviseth Donat, "supposing himself to be transported to the top of some high mountain, and thence to behold the tumults and chances of this wavering world, he cannot choose but either laugh at, or pity it." S. Hierom out of a strong imagination, being in the wilderness, conceived with himself, that he then saw them dancing in Rome; and if thou shalt either conceive, or climb to see, thou ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... unprofitable morning amidst the greasy ooze of his claim. Yet the glitter of the mica-studded quartz on the hillside, the bright-green and red-brown shading of the milky-white stone still dazzled his mental sight. There was no wavering in his belief. These toilsome days were merely the necessary probation for the culminating achievement. He assured himself that gold lay hidden there. And it was only waiting for the lucky strike of his pick. He would find it. It was just a matter ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... iron ribs are knit, Whose thunders strive to quell The bellowing throats, the blazing lips, That pealed the Armada's knell! The mist was cleared,—a wreath of stars Rose o'er the crimsoned swell, And, wavering from its haughty peak, The ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... each other a hand, and on that account do not produce resolution as a result. The forerunner of resolution is an act of the mind making evident the necessity of venturing, and thus influencing the will. This quite peculiar direction of the mind, which conquers every other fear in man by the fear of wavering or doubting, is what makes up resolution in strong minds; therefore, in our opinion, men who have little intelligence can never be resolute. They may act without hesitation under perplexing circumstances, but ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... if we will, love Dora in the Spartan simplicity of her soldierly adornments, and none the less love and cherish the woman who now lies upon the very spot, where, but a year ago, lay little Sunshine, wavering between this life and a better. For some reason unknown to herself, Mrs. Legrange had, from the first, felt a strong affection for this chamber, haunted, though she knew it not, by the presence of the beloved child; and she had taken much pleasure in its ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... at your nature and fashions; breeding, nourishing and fortifying such instruments as are most factious against you; repulses and scorns of your friends and dependents that are true and steadfast; winning and inveigling away from you such as are flexible and wavering; thrusting you into odious employments and offices to supplant your reputation; abusing you and feeding you with dalliances and demonstrations to divert you from descending into the serious consideration of your own ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... of faith. James makes this clear to us. "Let him ask in faith nothing wavering." God cannot bestow a blessing upon us if we doubt Him. If a neighbor doubts your character, how much of your heart do you let him see? If a fellow-preacher imputes selfish motives to your acts, how often do you go to him and pour your heart out to him? ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... face, and his black eyes held a strange light. He stared vacantly at the landscape until he suddenly noted the slender wavering pillar of smoke beyond ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... had been wavering before as to what he should do, which had often seemed likely, the advice and entreaty of so near a relation might settle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy as dignity unblemished could make him. In that case he would return no more. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... other like scentless roses, that are ever blooming. Save me from the excitement which brings exhaustion, and from the passion that procreates remorse. Give me the luminous mind, where recognised and paramount duty dispels the harassing, ascertains the doubtful, confirms the wavering, sweetens the bitter. Give me ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... missed a victory, and that in the actual posture of affairs nothing but a great victory could have saved the king. For the day which witnessed the triumphant return of Essex witnessed the solemn taking of the Covenant. Pym had resolved at last to fling the Scotch sword into the wavering balance; and in the darkest hour of the Parliament's cause Sir Harry Vane had been despatched to Edinburgh to arrange the terms on which the aid of Scotland would be given. First amongst these terms stood the demand of a ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... at the paper, a minute, as though quite unable to decipher a word. Through a kind of wavering mist that seemed to swim before her eyes, she vaguely saw the words: "Socialist White Slaver!" but that these bore any relation to the man she remembered, back there at the sugar-house, had not yet occurred ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... away—somewhere—for just now, till we can think up something to do. Father will find some way of making everything all right, won't you, Paw? He always does, you know. Don't be scared, my boy. We must keep very calm." Her hands were wavering over him in a palsy. "Where can he go, Paw? Where's the best place for him to go? I'll tell you, Steve. Is ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... was silent. She could not speak. She was so deadly pale, and her face had such an expression of misery, that the boys felt their resolution wavering. ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... divines are models of careful penmanship, and may be examined with interest by a student of chirography. The letters are cramped and crabbed, like the lives of many of the writers, but the penmanship is methodical, clear, and distinct, without wavering lines ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... in the drawing room. A wavering, greenish- golden light streamed in through the windows and played on the dim walls. Ivanov came out of his study. He was wearing high boots and a leather jacket, and carried a rifle under his arm. He went silently to the door. Lydia ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... Braganza in Charles the Second's day, so the son felt pity and gave what support he could to poor bullied and bewildered Queen Anne. To him her queenship was truly the lesser thing, her helpless, somewhat heavy-witted and easily wavering womanhood the greater; and there were those who feared him, for such reasons as few men in his position ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... can see; darkly, as through the foliage of some wavering thicket: a youth of no common endowment, who has passed happily through Childhood, less happily yet still vigorously through Boyhood, now at length perfect in "dead vocables," and set down, as he hopes, by the living ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... Raoul, wavering like a drunken man between what he had seen with his own eyes, and the imperturbable faith he had in a man who had never told a falsehood, bowed, and simply answered, "Go, then, Monsieur le Comte; I will await your return." And he sat down, burying his face in his hands. Athos dressed, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Scotland was thus wavering it seemed almost madness for the little army to advance into England. The greater portion of the Highlanders had from the first objected strongly to leave their country, and upwards of a thousand had deserted and gone home on the march down from Edinburgh. They had started less than six thousand ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... with uninterrupted success. Dick caught a big fellow too, and so did Pennington. Fortune, after wavering in her choice, decided to favor all three about equally, and they were content. The silvery heaps grew and they rejoiced over the splendid addition they would make to their mess. The colonels would enjoy this fine fresh food, and they were certainly ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... burnt by their order. Among these was Bartholomew Hector, a bookseller and stationer of Turin, who was brought up a Roman catholic, but having read some treatises written by the reformed clergy, he was fully convinced of the errors of the church of Rome; yet his mind was, for some time, wavering, and he hardly knew ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... from the novelty and importance of the event he was about to celebrate, or from some presentiment, occasioned, as he would fain believe, by the mournful and sudden change in the atmosphere, an embarrassment, a wavering, a fear, very unwonted to the calm and stately self-possession of Eugene Aram, made itself painfully felt throughout his frame. He sank down in his chair and strove to re-collect himself; it was an effort in which he had just succeeded, when a loud knocking was heard at the outer door; it swung ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... send thee forth with joy that gladdens my bosom, Nor will I suffer thee show boon signs of favouring Fortune, But fro' my soul I'll first express an issue of sorrow, Soiling my hoary hairs with dust and ashes commingled; Then will I hang stained sails fast-made to the wavering yard-arms, 225 So shall our mourning thought and burning torture of spirit Show by the dark sombre-dye of Iberian canvas spread. But, an grant me the grace Who dwells in Sacred Itone, (And our issue to guard and ward the ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... thee for help, that I may make more of my life. Steady me, that I may know its value without wavering, and the loss it sustains from wasted days. I pray that I may live more in thy commandments, and with my work accept the joy of thy ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... on the bank and he concluded to stop. Pulling in shore, he was bewildered to find only the mud bank. This discovery startled him into a realization that something was wrong with his brain. The mind was wavering between the hallucinations of a fever, and lucidity. Vagaries occasioned by a high temperature, would suddenly vanish as the struggling mind briefly asserted itself. As he resumed paddling, some swaying willows ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... he did not know he was going when he said good-night. He remained with Captain Palliser talking for some time." Miss Alicia's eyes held wavering and anxious question as she looked from one to the other. She wondered how much more than herself her visitors knew. "He found a telegram when he went to his room. It contained most disquieting news about ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... miseries of the former anarchy was now passing away, and to some of the feudal lords order doubtless seemed the greater ill. The new king too had lavished promises and threats to win the English nobles to his side. "There were few barons in England who were not wavering in their allegiance to the king, and ready to desert him at any time." The more reckless eagerly joined the rebellion; the more prudent took refuge in France, that they might watch how events would go; there was a timid and ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... words he turned, the harshness dropping from his face like a discarded mask; the lines of determination wavering. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... of wind and spitting rain, was walking over the lawn the centre of a large group, with Marsham beside her. Her white serge dress and the blue shawl she had thrown over her fair head made a brilliant spot in the dark wavering line. ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
