"Unsteady" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she was more calm. She condescended to reason, to expostulate. She carefully shunned the mention of atrocious charges. She dwelt only on the proofs which your past life and your own confessions had afforded of unsteady courage and unwarrantable principles; your treatment of the Woodbury girl; your correspondence with Thomson; your ignoble sloth; your dependence upon others; ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... his mouth with unsteady hand, and swallowed the contents at a gulp. Fernand dashed ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had fed well into the open, and it was impossible, even by the most careful stalking, to get nearer than a small patch of tall grass about 175 yards away. I put up my rifle to shoot, but found that the front sight was most unsteady, for I was wet to the skin and shaking all over with cold. Half expecting to miss, I pressed the trigger, and was not greatly surprised to see my bullet splash in the marsh just over the bear's head. He saw the bullet strike on ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... pour, I was to sleep in the kitchen. Drunken peons were shouting outside and the family seemed much frightened, keeping absolute silence. The four by two door with its six-inch cracks was blocked with a heavy pole, the family retired to the other room, and I stretched out in the darkness on the unsteady wooden bench, a foot wide, my head on my knapsack. I was soon glad of having a sweater, but that failed to cover my legs, and I slept virtually not at all through a night at least four months long, punctuated by ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... the other day that I find the yawl. I'll never forget that boat. Lord! how unsteady she was! I'm sorry for the dame. Women don't generally feel so bad as she does. It's a great act, this monument—all her—every bit! These prominent citizens—say, they make me weary! You've heard about the hospital—the memorial hospital. She blow hundred and ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern
... rather unsteady on her feet, so that it was a relief to sit down. She was cold and sick inwardly, almost stunned. Some great peril menaced her. Men like Roberts did not talk that way without cause. She was brave; she ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... him the shield and sword. Julian took them, and made a few unsteady steps, like a child learning to walk. The wound re-opened; he let fall his sword and shield, sank into the arms of Oribazius and Victor, and looking up, cried contemptuously, "All is over! Thou hast conquered, Galilean!" ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... canoes, menaced by such a deadly aim, stopped, and several of the occupants fired at the five on the bank. But firing from such an unsteady platform, their bullets went wild, and only cut the leaves of the forest. Henry had now reloaded, but he did not pull the trigger a second time. He had noticed a movement in the woods on the opposite bank of the ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... drunk," he said calmly. "If you will reflect, you show all the signs of a man that has taken too much liquor. Your face is flushed, your hand is unsteady, and——" ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... said, in a rather unsteady voice. "Now you know of what blood I am, and that what I said was true. The son of your mother cannot marry the ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... didst distinguish thyself in the archery match last spring, and hit the doel,[A] though the bird was swung before it to unsteady thine eye. I give thee credit for excelling in manly sport and exercise; though I must not unduly countenance thy boat-racing, since it leaves thee too little time for thy ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... British, but their early arrival is daily predicted, and the delay explained away. Meanwhile, the twenty-one live in clover, eating and drinking the best of everything, and overwhelmed with offers of marriage from adoring maidens. Luxury threatens to sap their manhood. Guards and patrols are unsteady in their gait; vigilance slackens. A grand concert is given one night, during which the whole army of occupation is inside one room. Two guards are outside, but these are Dutch police. At this moment a handful of determined enemies could have ended the ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... said, his voice a little unsteady. "You'll have to look out for the Kid all by yerself for a bit now. I reckon I'm goin' to hev' about all ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... And Kells seemed all fire and whirling hope and despair and rage. His vanity began to bleed to death. This game was the deciding contest. The scornful and exultant looks of his men proved how that game was going. Again and again Kells's unsteady hand reached for one of the whisky bottles. Once with a low curse he threw an empty bottle through ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... rolling his eyes, more unsteady than usual with indignation, in the direction of Gibbie, "what have ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... room and worked. The hour soon glided by to him; not so to the poor prisoner. At two in the morning Mr. Eden came softly back to the dark cell to see whether Robinson was asleep. He scratched the door with a key. A loud, unsteady voice cried out, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... were bold enough, but the girl's voice trailed off into a low, unsteady whisper, as terror at the rash plan which she had made and must now carry through caught at her heart. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... covered his baldness were evidently of home manufacture. He smiled softly and timidly with blue, rheumy eyes. Two or three recent cuts on his chin and neck were the result of conscientious shaving with an unsteady hand. ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... which must always be described by contrasts, possesses an unheard of perseverance in its struggles with nature or with hostile armies. Necessity always found the Russians patient and invincible, but in the ordinary course of life they are very unsteady. The same men, the same masters, do not long inspire them with enthusiasm; reflection alone can guarantee the duration of feelings and opinions in the habitual quiet of life, and the Russians, like all people subject ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... heart Peter let out a little yip. It was a great satisfaction, just at a moment when his nerves were getting unsteady, to discover that a monster like this one in the moonlight was anxious to run away from him. And Peter went on, a bit of pride and jauntiness in his step, his bony tail ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... from you," he said, his voice unsteady. "What can I do to show you how I—how we worship you for all you have done, all ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... qualities of the laborers are fully as important to the efficiency and worth of their labor as the intellectual. Independently of the effects of intemperance upon their bodily and mental faculties, and of flighty, unsteady habits upon the energy and continuity of their work (points so easily understood as not to require being insisted upon), it is well worthy of meditation how much of the aggregate effect of their labor depends ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... an unsteady voice. "I know the man you have to deal with. There is no mercy in him, I tell you, and no safety now for you until you make ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... woman became pale as death. I shall never during my life forget the despairing look which she gave me, as with trembling hand she passed me the shawl, just as her father appeared from a room near the place of the scene. I took the cashmere with an unsteady hand, and sought reluctantly for the name of Christine, for I trusted she would at least have taken it out; but the deathly paleness of the guilty one told the contrary, and in fact I had no sooner unfolded the shawl, than the name appeared, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... feather, who was his teacher in the first lower class. But he never says, "I am hungry; my father does not give me anything to eat." His father sometimes comes for him, when he chances to be passing the schoolhouse,—pallid, unsteady on his legs, with a fierce face, and his hair over his eyes, and his cap awry; and the poor boy trembles all over when he catches sight of him in the street; but he immediately runs to meet him, with a smile; and his father does ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... in these days to see gentlemen unsteady after dinner, yet Nance was both surprised and amused when her companion, who had spoken so soberly, began to stumble and waver by her side with the most airy divagations. Sometimes he would get so close to her that she must edge away; and at others lurch clear out of the track and ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by a measure which broke up the unity of the state; which subjected the magistrates to a controlling authority unsteady in its action and dependent on all the passions of the moment; which in the hour of peril might have brought the administration to a dead-lock at the bidding of any one of the opposition chiefs elevated ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... confidentially, and pointed with a very unsteady forefinger to the purse which Anne ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... moment a group of ladies, attired in deep mourning, appeared beneath the portico; where, separating into two ranks, they left a passage open for the widowed Queen; who, clad in violet velvet like her son, with a high ruff, and her head uncovered, advanced with an unsteady step and streaming eyes ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... mill now without a word, as usual. Old Gabe noticed that his feet were unsteady, and with quick remorse ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... walking toward the "L" together, and he was wondering what he should say to Mrs. Bowse when he saw his companion fumbling under his coat at the back as though he was in search of something. His hands being unsteady, it took him some moments to get at what he wanted. He evidently had a belt or a hidden pocket. He got something out and stopped under a street light to show it to Tembarom. His hands still shook when he held them out, and his look was a curious, puzzled, questioning one. What he ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... active, nimble, deft, fleet, swift, spry; spongy, porous, well-leavened; incompact, loose, porous; gossamery, sleazy, flimsy, thin, unsubstantial; volatile, unsteady, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... stable attending to the horse. He had, moreover, to run the cart under shelter. Mehetabel put out a trembling hand to snuff the candle. Her hand was so unsteady that she extinguished the light. Where to find the tinder box she knew not. She felt for a bench, and in the darkness when she had reached it, sank on it, ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... public will. By the judicious form of our Constitution, the public contribution is in its name and substance a grant. In its origin it is truly voluntary: not voluntary according to the irregular, unsteady, capricious will of individuals, but according to the will and wisdom of the whole popular mass, in the only way in which will and wisdom can go together. This voluntary grant obtaining in its progress the force of a law, a general necessity, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... full back retreated for a punt. Fast and far the ball sailed into the scrub field, which proved that the back's feet were not nervous, no matter if his hands and arms had been a trifle unsteady. ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... by the Earl of Lennox, their swords, which had been blessed by the abbot at the altar, slung round their necks, they advanced up the hall. There was a glow on the cheek of the young Alan, in which pride and modesty were mingled; his step at first was unsteady, and his lip was seen to quiver from very bashfulness, as he first glanced round the hall and felt that every eye was turned towards him; but when that glance met his mother's fixed on him, and breathing that might of love which filled ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... parted, but he could not speak. With unsteady hand he quieted the impatient horse—blinking incredulously. There were the high cheek bones, the bluish tinge—darker now—the pleading smile, the leather chaps and dirty Stetson and polka dot neckerchief and huge spurs, there the ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... however ingenious in their arrangements, had proved practical failures. Mr. Blackett's was as yet both clumsy and expensive. Chapman's had been removed from the Heaton tramway in 1812, and was regarded as a total failure. And the Blenkinsop engine at Coxlodge was found very unsteady and costly in its working; besides, it pulled the rails to pieces, the entire strain being upon the rack-rail on one side of the road. The boiler, however, having soon after blown up, there was an end of that engine; and the colliery owners ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... parcels, and when she could trust herself, began to talk about the surprise they would have for the children, and now and again to express her appreciation of some dainty trifle he had selected for her. She watched him closely, noting that his hand was unsteady, and that he was inclined to stagger after stooping for a little while. Finally, when the tree had been trimmed, and the sled for the boy and the doll-carriage for the girl were placed beneath it, she got him to lie down. When she had made him comfortable she kissed him again, knelt by his bed ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... aspired to place a crown on her brow!" Be then told me, that he did not deem the time of its presentation to him on the Carse of Stirling a safe juncture for its acceptance; neither was he tempted to run the risk of maintaining an unsteady throne when I was not free to partake it; but since the death of Lord Mar, every wish, every hope was re-awakened; and then he determined to become a king. Philip of France had made secret articles with him to that end. He was ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... hard, however, for a literary antiquary to be caricatured, and for a herald to be ridiculed about an "unseemly reeling with the coronet of the Princess Caroline, which looked unsteady on the cushion, to the great scandal of his brethren,"—a circumstance which could never have occurred at the burial of a prince or princess, as the coronet is carried by Clarencieux, and not by Norroy. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... shown that when the plant had a surfeit of drink, it became excessively lethargic and irresponsive. By extracting fluid from the gorged plant, its motor activity was at once re-established. Under alcohol its responsive script became ludicrously unsteady. A scientific superstition existed regarding carbonic acid as being good for a plant. But Professor Bose's experiments showed distinctly that the gas would suffocate the plant as readily as it did the animal. Only in the presence ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... house. In another minute Curly was near, and a most wretched figure he presented. His clothes were torn and his face dirty and bleeding. He had apparently received severe treatment at the hands of his captors. He walked with a shambling and unsteady gait, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. But as he came to where Glen and Reynolds were standing, he suddenly lifted his head, and seeing the two, he stopped dead in his tracks. For an instant he stared as if he ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... tension. In order to hear better he was leaning over, supporting himself with the chair. The point of support was unsteady. The chair slipped and rattled across the floor, crashing into ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... the front door when the general met him. "I am keeping Hippolyte company. He is worse, and has been in bed all day. I came down to buy some cards. Marfa Borisovna expects you. But what a state you are in, father!" added the boy, noticing his father's unsteady gait. "Well, let us ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Robert briefly expressed in the words, 'Phoebe, it is not that his habits are irregular and unsteady; many are so whose hearts are sound. But he is not sound—his opinions are loose, and he only respects and patronizes Divine Truth as what has approved itself to so many good, great, and beloved human creatures. It is not denial—it is patronage. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Eric's unsteady footsteps had made Mr. Rose quickly raise his head; but at the same moment Duncan hastily made room for the boy on the seat beside him, and held out his hand to assist him. It was not Eric's proper place; but Mr. Rose, after one long look of astonishment, looked down at ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... of the most extraordinary gullibility of the natives; but I am sure that a careful observer is more than a match for these simple children of nature, and that he can easily read the bad intention in their unsteady, greedy, glistening eyes. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... earnestly with their representatives on the floor. In response to the megaphoned bellow of a call boy, individuals hurry to the telephone booths. Messengers shove about, looking for certain brokers. The market is very unsteady; it may go up or down. The men are clustering about the Pit now; most of them are in their shirt-sleeves and they are on tip-toe like sprinters who wait for the starter's pistol. Some of them have instructions to dump ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... nothing to say now. You are not his wife now. You have never been anything but a bad wife." She gathered up her work with unsteady ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... no farther than the landing when a sound of unsteady footsteps on the stairs caused her to stop. As she lifted the lamp and looked up, she saw a strange woman descending toward her, holding the balustrade, and moving as though with pains in her limbs. This woman, whose black hair fell ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... pacing up and down the room, deliberating on what should be done. The parlor-door was ajar, and as the woman admitted the new-comers, I caught a glimpse of them. They were three rough, hard-looking characters; and one, from his unsteady gait, I judged to be intoxicated. She seemed glad to see them, and led them into the room from whence the noises proceeded. In a moment the doctor rose to go, saying: 'I can do nothing more. But what do you intend to do here? I brought you ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... and mountains, the caverns and the woods, which diversify the beautiful land of Greece, afforded their natural fortresses to these barbarous hordes. The chief who had committed a murder, or aspired unsuccessfully to an unsteady throne, betook himself, with his friends, to some convenient fastness, made a descent on the surrounding villages, and bore off the women or the herds, as lust or want excited to the enterprise. No home was safe, no journey free from peril, and the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mr. Ratsch. I caught sight of her face in profile. The delicate eyebrow rose high above the downcast eyelid, an unsteady flush overspread the cheek, the little ear was red under ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Cora. "Do try not to be so foolish. There are no whales in this bay." But all the same her voice was unsteady, and she would have given worlds for a reassuring ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... she said, in low, unsteady tones, " I know you air religious, 'n' I know as how, when y'u give yer word, you'll do what you say. Now, I want ye to hold up yer right hand and sw'ar that you'll never tell a livin' soul that you know whar ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... first to descend from the carriage; he held the door open for the young man. He saw him place his foot on the mossy ground with a trembling of the whole body, and walk round the carriage with an unsteady and almost tottering step. It seemed as if the poor prisoner was unaccustomed to walk on God's earth. It was the 15th of August, about eleven o'clock at night; thick clouds, portending a tempest, overspread the heavens, and shrouded ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... find the journey so short, but she arose directly, with silence and dignity—at least with as much of the latter commodity as could be reasonably expected, considering that boats on water are rather unsteady things to be dignified in—and was led gently and with care out of the swaying vessel, and up another flight of stairs. Then, in a few moments, she was conscious of passing from the free night air into the closer atmosphere of a house; and in going through an endless labyrinth ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... said, I did not expect you, Arthur," commenced Mark Elwood, in the unsteady and hesitating tone of one about to broach a matter in which he felt a deep interest. "I was not looking for you here at all, these days; but presumed, when I wrote you, that, if you concluded to grant the favor I asked, you would transact the ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... clearness with regard to the development of his nation. This has, like himself, its distinct periods; in him some important event in life, in it some agitating world convulsion, may advance them suddenly a great leap forward. The public favor is unsteady; to-day it strews palm-branches, to-morrow it cries, 'Crucify him!' But I regard that as a moment of development. You will permit me to make use of an image to elucidate my idea. The botanist goes wandering ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... woman's drapery, and the piano was murmuring inarticulately. Outside, on the broad stone doorstep, showed another drift, resolving itself into the muslins of Miss Nelly Morris, springing up with glad words of welcome as his unsteady frame came into view. Before half the protracted and vehement hand shaking was over, Moore turned at a soft rustle behind him, and Nelly found her introduction forestalled. Moore hoped, with his courtliest reverence, that Miss Berkeley ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Julio trying to insert the key in the lock as if his hand were unsteady. He noticed that there was no finger in his tone of voice; on the contrary, the cries which escaped him were rather those of alarm and distress; but before he had time for reflection the ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... came to a standstill, with the little, weazened old man leaning far out from the torn leather seat, shading his eyes with one unsteady hand while he peered into the shadows searching for the big-shouldered figure that stepped hesitatingly nearer the wheel. There was something birdlike in the brilliancy of the beady little eyes; something of sparrowlike pertness in the tilt of the old man's head, perked ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... have been heard, for the poor fellow with another wounded man was left in the hut, and both were murdered by the mutineers. So many of the men with the two guns were hors de combat, and the horses were so unsteady (several of them being wounded), that there was great difficulty in limbering up, and I was helping the drivers to keep the horses quiet, when I suddenly felt a tremendous blow on my back which made me faint and sick, and I was afraid I should not be able to remain on my horse. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... slow and unsteady. Dawson watched him until the door of the cabin had closed behind the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... picture in the village church at early Mass. As there was a small surplus he crossed himself piously, then betook himself to the poorer quarter of the town, where he spent his riches, and then reeled home again on his unsteady legs, displaying a slight redness on his nose and his cheeks. Tatiana Markovna happened to meet him. She immediately smelt the brandy, and asked in surprise what he had been doing. He replied that he had been to church, bowed his head devoutly, and ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... foreign-looking, and rather handsome woman, came into the room, and announced that the doctor wished to see me. She was deadly pale, and, I observed, trembled like an aspen. I motioned her to precede me; and she, with unsteady steps, immediately led the way. So great was her agitation, that twice, in ascending the stairs, she only saved herself from falling by grasping the banister-rail. The presage I drew from the exhibition of such ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... kept somewhat aloof, and the general population gave them the sidewalk. It was as though a stately and venerable charger, accustomed for years to graze in a comfortable pasture, were suddenly intruded on by an unsteady and vicious drove of bad manners and low degree. The thoroughbred can only condescend to ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... but make wealth serve thee. Though all alone, yet nothing think or do, Which nor a witness, nor a judge might know. The highest hill is the most slipp'ry place, And Fortune mocks us with a smiling face; And her unsteady hand hath often placed Men in high power, but seldom holds them fast; Against her then her forces Prudence joins, And to the golden mien herself confines. 250 More in prosperity is reason toss'd, Than ships in storms, their helms ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... bags were really back in the coach, piled roof-high on those of the downward mail, then it was worse fun for Guy Kentish outside than even he had anticipated. Question followed question, compliment capped compliment, and a certain unsteady undercurrent of incredulity by no means lessened his embarrassment. Had he but told the truth, he felt he could have borne the praise, and indeed enjoyed it, for he had done far better than anybody was likely to suppose, and ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... been long alone, before the door opened; and a woman with a light in her hand appeared. She was evidently intoxicated, and approached Houseman with a reeling and unsteady step. ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... primitive. Like Armide, she could have burned the palace that enchanted her. None the less, she did nothing. To do nothing may be very important. The inactivity saved her. During it, the vitriol vaporised; the hate fell by. She was still trembling, her hands were unsteady, but the fever was departing, the crisis had passed, the primitive had slunk back into the cellars of the subconscious, and, in the chair, to which without knowing it she had returned, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... goes it!" cried Shep, as the humming increased to a tremor, and the tremor to a wild, unsteady din, till the timbers shook and the bolts and windows rattled. "I just wish father could ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... position, a good climate, considerable mineral and some agricultural resources, are all to be found in Persia. All that is wanted at present is the development of the country on a solid, reliable basis, instead of the insecure, unsteady intrigues upon which business, whether political or commercial, is unfortunately carried on in the present ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... His eyes were red; his face ashen; his lips white. His unsteady glance met the girl's. His mouth opened, and flapped like a broken shutter in the wind. His arms swung wildly upward; then dropped heavily. Suddenly he bent to one side; caught himself; straightened up; and then, with ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... avail: the terrible brute dashed in head foremost, and tumbled into the room, with Boone and the fragments of the door. The two foes rose and stared at each other. Boone had nothing left but his knife; but Bruin was tottering and unsteady, and Boone felt that the match was more ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... fry some potatoes," muttered Ben, shuffling with a show of speed into the kitchen, and calling inquiries back in his unsteady voice to the living-room, patiently digging at Laramie for scraps of news from Sleepy Cat, volunteering, in return, scraps from the range and ranch. Laramie sat down in the nearest chair, tilted it slightly back, and ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... shy, And the lady's eyes, they shrunk in her head, Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye, And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread At Christabel she looked askance!— One moment,—and the sight was fled! But Christabel in dizzy trance, Stumbling on the unsteady ground— Shudder'd aloud, with a hissing sound; And Geraldine again turn'd round, And like a thing, that sought relief, Full of wonder and full of grief; She roll'd her large bright eyes divine, Wildly ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... but who, to look at his speckled throat and breast, would ever take him for anything but a diminutive thrush; or, studying him from some distance through the opera-glasses as he runs in and out of the little waves along the brook or river shore, would not name him a baby sandpiper? The rather unsteady motion of his legs, balancing of the tail, and sudden jerking of the head suggest an aquatic bird rather than a bird of the woods. But to really know either man or beast, you must follow him to his home, and if you ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... about waking him; nor, on the other hand, that the coachman and footman, who were like all the squire's servants, of the good old sort, honest, faithful, boozing, extravagant, happy-go-lucky souls, who had 'been about the place these forty years,' were somewhat owlish and unsteady on the box. Nor was it extraordinary that there was a heavy storm of lightning, for that happened three times a-week in the chalk hills the summer through; nor, again, that under these circumstances the horses, who were of the squire's own breeding, and never thoroughly broke (nothing was done ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... of its colleague. As the two iron tongues were silenced, and the stillness of death sank over the whole house, I suddenly seemed to hear, in the corridor before my chamber, something halting and shuffling along, like the unsteady steps of an old man. At last my door opened, and there entered slowly the late departed Dr. Saul Ascher. A cold fever ran through me. I trembled like an ivy leaf and scarcely dared to gaze upon the ghost. He ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... throw old letters and papers, of no worth or importance.—And this letter ... Oh! how it would have changed my heart, and my future! This letter was written by my husband, apparently immediately after his severe paralytic stroke; but its words, in an unsteady hand, said, that the lost child still lived, and directed me for further explanation to a certain Sergeant Roenn, in Bergen. Here the letter appeared to have been broken off by a sudden increase of his attack. I was, as it chanced, absent from home on this day. When ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... you restrain your tongue, Chevalier," I said, my voice unsteady. "God being my witness, never before did you stand so close to death as now. Look," and I held up the keen blade before his eyes. "This steel thirsts for your blood; only one thought ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... kind," began the old sailor hesitatingly. He fumbled at his necktie for a moment with unsteady, weather-beaten hands. "But I shouldn't like to trespass on your time. I take ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... shooting-gallery, my targets have shown it. By-the-bye, this is a very decent carriage, Denoisel. Well, with a cigar it's the same thing. Now a cigar that's difficult to smoke keeps you at work, you have to keep lifting your hand to your mouth, and that makes your hand unsteady; while a good cigar—you ask any good shot, and he'll tell you the same thing—it's soothing, it puts your nerves in order. There's nothing better than the gentle movement of the arm as you take the cigar out of your ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... walked in. His face was very flushed and his articulation a little odd. When, after greetings, he sat down, he sat down with a curiously unsteady thud and gave a little laugh and said, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... intellectual ability of its author—so great as to extort our profoundest, though it may be reluctant admiration—there are nevertheless moments in which it appears that his movement is becoming wavering and unsteady—that he is failing to handle his ponderous weapon with self-balanced power. This is particularly the case in that point at which he is passing from the consideration of pure force to the unavoidable consideration of visible nature, the actual existence ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Freckles knew that from somewhere he would muster the strength to kill him. He mentally measured the distance to where his club lay and set his muscles for a spring. But no—by the splendor of God! The big fellow was baring his head with a hand that was unsteady. The Angel pulled one of the long silver pins from her hat and ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... blackness of the house and lighted a candle, which she placed on the table, where it burned with an unsteady yellow light, illuminating the centre of the room with a fitful glow, but leaving the corners still in darkness. Everything lay under its veil of ashes—the table, the floor, and the bed on ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... An unsteady hand began to fumble at the door, and Anne glanced up with a start. The blood rose to her face. "I think it is my husband," she said, in ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... a slow, unsteady line. Molo led. Behind Snap and me came the girls, ignoring us; and at the rear, the brown-shelled giant ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... contemplated gathering became a concrete fact. The Professor's friends were the first to appear at the rendezvous. They were unsteady as to their gait, their neckties were in disorder and their hair falling carelessly over their eyes, added a fresh impediment to an eyesight that seemingly was temporarily defective. They sank into three chairs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... keep it all," the old tradesman said at last, in a faint, unsteady voice that came from his heart; "I don't want anything back. There is the worth of sixty thousand francs here in the furniture; but I could not bear to think of my Coralie in want. And yet, it will not be long before you come to want. However great this gentleman's talent ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... bills of a large amount, contracted at college, of whose existence the father was perfectly unconscious. No reference was made to these, save in the postscript, most incoherent in expression, and written evidently with an unsteady hand. He begged his father to forgive him for having forgotten—the word forgotten was partially erased, and neglected substituted in its place—ah! Louis, Louis, you should have said feared to present to him before his departure. He threw himself ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... furious, but now the allusion, in past tense, to the conquest she had suddenly and amazingly found dear quite broke her spirit. It was a very pale, unsteady, and miserable girl who avoided Helen's gaze and ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... courage that would render him, phy- sically or morally, capable of coping with any great emer- gency, I confess I cannot believe. I observed a certain heaviness and dejection about his whole carriage. His wavering glances, the listless motion of his hands, and his slow, unsteady gait, all seem to me to indicate a weak and sluggish disposition. He does not appear as though he could be energetic enough ever to be stubborn; he never frowns, sets his teeth, or clenches his fists. There is some- thing enigmatical about him; however, I ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... well if they had some occupation which would expose them less to bad company and unsteady habits; but a news-boy can be honest, virtuous, and temperate, as well as any other boy,—if he will take the ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... cheeks and unsteady steps they came into the open air, which tended yet more to stimulate that glowing fever of the grape. As if to make up for the silence with which the guests had hitherto listened to Zanoni, every tongue was now loosened,—every man ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... observed, not far off, a party of youths rowing on the bosom of a lake. They sat in a rocking, unsteady little bark, but were in gay spirits, blowing bubbles, watching idle clouds, and throwing up empty shouts to be caught up and echoed by ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May
... of the lip of the ripple just under— The half-awake nightingale's dream in the yews— Came up from the water, and down from the wonder Of shadowy foliage, drowsed with the dews,— Unsteady the firefly's taper—unsteady The poise of the stars, and their light in the tide, As it struggled and writhed in caress of the eddy, As love in the billowy breast ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... did not now look very like a sick man, as he sprang up and looked about him; save that he put his hand to his head because of a momentary dizziness and seemed somewhat unsteady on his feet. However, his eyes had lost their dullness and a faint color had come into his cheeks; and the attendant saw no reason ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... by some one when they brought up, and Cranze asked where it was. Kettle marked it off with a leg of the dividers on the chart. "Yucatan," said Cranze, "that's the ruined cities shop, isn't it?"—He shaded his unsteady eyes, and looked out at a clump of squalid huts just showing on the beach beyond some three miles of tumbling surf. "Gum! here's a ruined city all hot and waiting. Home of the ancient Aztecs, and colony of the Atlanteans, and all that. ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... off twice ere he reached a crotch and drew himself down into it. He was safe there with his back against a big limb; they could not get at him from behind. But the angry clamor in front frightened him, and again he started for his place of refuge. His footing was unsteady now and his head dizzy from the blows he had received. Before he had gone half a limb's length he was again on the ground, with a dozen birds pecking at him ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... fact hardly diminished my feeling of apprehension, for a single failure in an attempt to speak will stagger any man, no matter what his state of health. I tried to copy certain records in the day's work, but my hand was too unsteady, and I found it difficult to read the words and figures presented to my tired ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... while the hum of surprise was hushed at her approach, and the proud and the humble stood aside, that her white garment might not wave against them. It was a long, loose robe, of spotless purity. Its wearer appeared very old, pale, emaciated, and feeble, yet glided onward, without the unsteady pace of extreme age. At one point of her course, a littly rosy boy burst forth from a door, and ran, with open arms, towards the ghostly woman, seeming to expect a kiss from her bloodless lips. She made a slight pause, fixing her eye upon him with an expression of no earthly sweetness, so ...
— The White Old Maid (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Braefieldville till I married. I did see Melville on one of my visits to the place some years ago; but, between ourselves, he is not the sort of person whose intimate acquaintance one would wish to court. My mother told me he was an idle, dissipated man, and I have heard from others that he was very unsteady. Mr. ——-, the great painter, told me that he was a loose fish; and I suppose his habits were against his getting on, till this year, when, perhaps, by a lucky accident, he has painted a picture that raises him to the top of ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was entirely mistaken,—that I was intoxicated; then asked me to swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the mystery to me. I pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy look in his eyes, and hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he drew a small case from his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the mild lamplight was shivered into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it fell upon a vast rose-diamond that glittered in the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... seemed to be growing sad; also they were failing in their length and frequency—the young man felt that they were perfunctory. His father's letters showed a physical breakdown. His handwriting was unsteady, and often he repeated himself in successive letters. The sister wrote about her father's weakness, and seemed to think he was working too hard. But the son suspected that it was worry rather than work, and that things were not going right in the bank. He ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... quarter of a mile farther down, a fourth, deer was shot at, and missed, the dug-out having grazed suddenly against a rock just as I was pulling trigger, thus rendering my aim unsteady. ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... Aladdin's cave in a daze. He set his candle down, for his fingers were numb and unsteady. Cautiously, as if fearful of breaking some spell, he stooped and tried to move one of the casks, but found that it resisted him as if cemented to the rock. He noted that its head was bulged upward, as if by the dampness, so he took his iron bar and aimed a sharp blow at the chine. A hoop ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... and more seedy; some of the more mercurial go off in a fit of apoplectic amazement; some betake themselves to Waterloo Stairs on a moonless night; some proceed to the Diggings, some to St Luke's, and some to the dogs; some become so unsteady, that they sign the wrong name to a draft, or enter the wrong house at night, or are detected in a crowd with their hand in the wrong man's pocket. But by degrees everything comes right again. The insane are shut up—the desperate transported—the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 447 - Volume 18, New Series, July 24, 1852 • Various
... why do you harrow my broken heart with such a picture?" cried Mr Mason, rising and pacing the room with quick unsteady steps, while with both hands on his head he seemed to attempt to crush down the thoughts that burned up ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne |
