"Faltering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Van Quintem had said to him, in faltering accents; "go among the gambling houses, and other dens of infamy, and you will surely hear of ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... course, would not let us associate with her, but she always treated her kindly when she came and did what she could to lighten the burden which was pressing her down to the grave. But, poor child, she was never again the same light-hearted girl. She grew pale and thin and in the hectic flush and faltering tread I read the death sign of early decay, and I felt that my misguided young friend was slowly dying of a broken heart. Then there came a day when we were summoned to her dying bed. Her brothers and sisters ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... things and are planted on their feet. What have I done? What am I fit to do? Nearly twenty-six and I'm still playing games like a schoolboy!... What's my father saying? 'We count it death to falter not to die' ... I've been faltering—and before I know anything about it I shall be thirty—half-time.... This can't go on. This waiting for Joan is faltering. If she's not coming to me I must go to her. If it's not coming right it must ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... on his knees, regarding with fear and wonder the unnatural stillness of his mother—the child had never before looked on death, and could not recognize its presence. Laying his hand on her cold cheek, he cried, with faltering voice, "Mother, can't you speak?" but there was no answering light in the fixed stare of those glassy eyes, and the lips of the dead could not move. "Why ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... moves the pageant of a climbing race; Their footsteps drag far, far below the height, And, unprevailing by their utmost might, Seem faltering downward from each hard won place. No strange, swift-sprung exception we; we trace A devious way thro' dim, uncertain light,— Our hope, through the long vistaed years, a sight Of that our Captain's soul sees face to face. Who, faithless, faltering that the road is steep, Now raiseth up his drear ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... impulse swaying, To yon calm spirit-realm uplifts my soul; In faltering cadence, as when Zephyr playing, Fans the Aeolian harp, my numbers roll; Tear follows tear, my steadfast heart obeying The tender impulse, loses its control; What I possess as from afar I see; Those I have lost ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... two tiny wax hands across her two glass eyes. "You have guessed rightly," she said in a little faltering voice. ...
— Adventures in Toyland - What the Marionette Told Molly • Edith King Hall
... exclaimed, while the bridal party shrank back, the untasted wine trembling in their faltering grasp, and the judge fell overpowered upon his seat—"see! his arms are lifted to heaven—he prays—how wildly!—for mercy. Hot fever rushes through his veins. He moves not; his eyes are set in their sockets; dim are their ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... her manner was not calculated to inspire a lover at last dawned on Miss Wildmere, and with it came a faltering purpose to decide in favor of Graydon at once; but as she turned toward him, to speak with what was meant to be a bewildering smile of joy, a messenger from the office said, "A ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... Halbert, with a faltering and uncertain voice, began to speak of his distant pretensions to claim a descent from the ancient Glendonwynes of Galloway, when Murray ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... banner lifted and faltering then In vague lisps and whispers fell silent again. Old Glory: the story we're wanting to hear Is what the plain facts of your christening were,— For your name—just to hear it, Repeat it, and cheer it, 's a tang to the spirit As ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... flushed, and Philemon began a faltering explanation and self-exculpation, but he was cut short by his superior saying sharply: "Tush, sir, such language will not make us deal the more gently with your cribs; so if you 'd save something, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... sure of a fortune. Without it he was a beggar. Mr. Bolton had already Small's notes for a large amount in his safe, labeled "doubtful;" he had helped him again and again, and always with the same result. But Mr. Small spoke with a faltering voice of his family, his daughter in school, his wife ignorant of his calamity, and drew such a picture of their agony, that Mr. Bolton put by his own more pressing necessity, and devoted the day to scraping together, here and there, ten thousand dollars for ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... hat, of which he was very proud, shot away, but, bare-headed, calm and resolute, he strode about among his men, handling his forces like the veteran that he had become, strengthening the weak points, applauding the daring and encouraging the faltering. Willet, who was crouched behind the logs, firing his rifle with deadly effect, glanced at him ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to speak firmly, and I hoped my voice did not seem faltering to him. He sat silent a long while. Then he rose and straightened to his full height—a splendid form of strength ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... God-forgotten sailors drifting Rudderless to death ... And as I heard, Though no wind stirred, An icy breath Was in my hair ... And clutched my heart with cold despair ... But, as the wild song died away, There came a faltering break That shivered to a sobbing fall; And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... knew you," she said, faltering, "but I don't. Why don't you despise hypocrisy and double-dealing as ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... away,'" said the Senator, in a faltering voice, and breaking out into a cold perspiration for fear of committing himself by such ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... many vital questions touching the future of the negro were awaiting settlement, and in which we are acting strictly on the defensive. Under the magnificent utterance of our brave Senator Sumner—which was an inspiration and a prophecy—we looked to see all faltering and compromise, so fatal in all our past, so fatal always and everywhere, swept like dew before the sun. But the old fears and falterings return sevenfold reinforced to renew a puerile and patch-work legislation, which, while ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... life-blood in my frame. I desired to reply, to acknowledge his goodness, accept his proffered friendship; but words, fitting words, were not afforded to the rough mountaineer; I would have held out my hand, but its guilty stain restrained me. Adrian took pity on my faltering mien: "Come with me," he said, "I have much to say to you; come home with me—you ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... by water) to those which originally gave birth to the ascending energy of the Antarctic waters, a gelid current is also generated in the Arctic Ocean, which, descending in a south-westerly direction, encounters the already faltering Gulf Stream in the space between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. A contest for the mastery ensues, which is eventually terminated by a compromise. The warmer stream, no longer quite able to hold its own, splits into two branches, the one squeezing itself round ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... it—which, alas, proves that it still lasts without hope of change for the future. It is especially at the initial stages of revolutions that these sorts of people abound. It is then, indeed, that the abnormal and unhealthy spirits predominate over the faltering and the weak and drag them on to excesses by an ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... nod of invitation. When Mrs Kenwigs had been, in some degree, restored, and Newman, as a person possessed of some influence with her, had remonstrated and begged her to compose herself, Mr Lillyvick said in a faltering voice: ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... one of the loveliest of women, my lord," said Mr Graham, with solemn, faltering voice, "and you left her to die in neglect, and the child to ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... lived not but by hope deferred. Grimly he suffered till such time he heard Helen's light foot and faint and gray in the mist Descried her slim veiled outline, saw her twist And slip between the sleepers on the ground, Atiptoe coming, swift, with scarce a sound, Not faltering in fear. No fear she had. From head to foot a sea-blue mantle clad Her lovely shape, from which her pale keen face Shone like the moon in frosty sky. No case Was his to waver, for her eyes spake true As Heaven upon the ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... leisurely advance, most unlike a march to the front, when couriers arrived post-haste with the news that Lucilius Bassus had surrendered the Ravenna fleet.[104] If he had hurried forward on his march he might have been in time to save Caecina's faltering loyalty, or to have joined the legions before the critical engagement was fought. Many, indeed, advised him to avoid Ravenna and to make his way by obscure by-roads to Hostilia or Cremona. Others wanted him to send to Rome for the Guards and to ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... of the two hours left when the mother-subs broke water and started crawling inland, swiftly, surely, without faltering in the slightest as they changed their ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... strove with her anguish, and replied, (but with a faltering voice) "I expected as much, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... cool and determined Colonel Peabody, rallied the faltering troops in front, but there was no power to stop the ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... faltering, Mrs. Packard reseated herself, while the mayor, outraged by what was evidently a very unexpected answer, leaned forward ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... what to say or do. "Give me till to-morrow," he replied in a faltering voice; "I must have ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... her, I had to say, by the advice of Mrs. Delany, which I begged her permission to communicate. She assented in silence, but with a look of the utmost softness, and yet mixed with strong surprise. I felt my voice faltering, and I was with difficulty able to go on,-so new to me was it to beg to be heard, who, hitherto, have always been begged to speak. There is no absolutely accounting for the forcible emotions which every totally new situation and new ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... to the ground. She immediately stooped to regain it, but as she picked it up, the red leaves scattered themselves on the carpet, and the stalk alone remained in her hand. The poor girl, who had been depressed in spirits before, was evidently affected by this incident, and said, in a slightly faltering voice, 'I trust I am not to consider this as an evil omen!' But soon rallying, she expressed to Mr. Lewis, in a cheerful tone, her hope that they would meet again after the theatre—a hope, alas! which it was decreed should not be realised." ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... Heavenly Friend, We seek Thy gracious throne; To Thee our faltering prayers ascend, Our fainting hearts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... dream nor wild conceit— Though faltering, as before— Through tears he paints her, as is meet, Tracing the dear face o'er With lilied patience meek and sweet As Mother ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... we repulsed I am conservative when I say that they were lying dead and wounded three and four deep and yet they attacked again and again without faltering, only to be driven back to ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... soon developed therefrom the works which have astonished not only this country but even Europe, and the firm, which took thereby the lead in their speciality of art reproduction in color, has succeeded in keeping it ever since from year to year without one faltering step, until there is no single competitor in the civilized world to dispute its mastery. This is something to be proud of, not only for the firm in question, but even for the country at large, and to crown its achievements, the firm of L. Prang & Co. ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... between life and death. At last the light was stilled in the kindly eyes and the breath went from the lips that even in mortal agony uttered no words save of forgiveness to his murderer, of love for his friends, and of faltering trust in the will of the Most High. Such a death, crowning the glory of such a life, leaves us with infinite sorrow, but with such pride in what he had accomplished and in his own personal character, that we feel the blow not as struck at him, but as struck ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... offer; she knew that the Churtons were poor and burdened with debt; and that even if it had not been so, after taking up an independent position in opposition to Mrs. Churton, she had no right to remain a day beyond the time for which payment had been made. All this in a faltering way she tried to explain to her kind friend, and Mrs. Churton confessed to herself that the girl took the right view. She made no further attempt to win her confidence or to make her change her mind; towards both Fan and her daughter she ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... stay our faltering feet, And this our mournful minds beguile:— We helped some little heart to beat And taught some ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... knew the danger that lay before them, but there was no sign of faltering upon their faces. Rather, there was an eagerness for instant action that was not ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... one quiet misty morning that, as we sat together in tranquil talk, we heard faltering steps within our garden. We had seen, let me say, very little of the other inhabitants of our valley. We had sometimes seen a pair of figures wandering at a distance, and we had even met neighbours and exchanged a greeting. But the valley had no social life of its own, and no one ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... going away, then, for any length of time?" inquired La Valliere, with faltering utterance, while Montalais turned her ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I stretched my hand back for a spare rifle; the lion remained standing, but gazing up wind with his head raised, snuffing in the air for a scent of the enemy. No rifle was put in my hand. I looked back for an instant, and saw my Tokrooris faltering about five yards behind me. I looked daggers at them, gnashing my teeth and shaking my fist. They saw the lion, and Taher Noor snatching a rifle from Hadji Ali, was just about to bring it, when Hassan, ashamed, ran forward—the lion disappeared at ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... out of practice, or that they never played except for their own amusement, or something of the kind; especially if they took no pride whatever in that accomplishment. But Edith went back to the piano at once, and went on trying over the song that she didn't know, without making any excuse for the faltering notes. ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... heart not down Nor marred one crowning blossom of his crown? For surely, might we say, Even from the dark deep sea-gate that makes way Through channelled darkness for the darkling day Hardly to let men's faltering footfall win The sunless passage in, Where breaks a world aflower against the sun, A small sweet world of wave-encompassed wonder Kept from the wearier landward world asunder With violence of wild waters, and with thunder Of ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... ride of some hours, the hounds never faltering or losing the scent; but at length they were at fault. They had reached a brook and here the trail was lost; it was sought for on both sides of the stream for a considerable distance both up and down, then abandoned ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... coat-tails singeing at the fire, I had not the power to withdraw them. The young man put the packet in my faltering grasp, and repeated,—let me do him the ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... him with eyes wet. He was swearing, too, in a weak, faltering way, calling upon all the saints to witness that the prostrate man was the embodiment of every virtue, and that his death would be a national calamity. Others were gathered about, men and women, and among them O'Neil saw the doctor from Sitka ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... pass this test, the second comes when the bridegroom's eyes are uncovered. They are then to converse with each other, and they must not for a moment relax the talk. Neither has any knowledge of the time that this test must continue. There must be no faltering, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... they went hunting in the forest, and it was not long before a stag leaped out of the thicket beneath the very eyes of the Tsar. Off after it went the Tsar; every moment the stag seemed to be faltering, and yet the Tsar could never quite come up with it. Hot with excitement, the Tsar spurred his horse on yet faster. "Gee up! gee up!" he cried; "now we've got him!" But here a stream crossed the road, and the stag plunged into the water. The Tsar was a good swimmer. "I've got him now, at any rate," ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... falsehood, she advanced towards the latter—and it might be remarked that in addressing him by the title of Lord Nelville, that name seemed to produce a singular effect upon her, and twice she repeated it with a faltering voice, as if it recalled ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... very wonderful indeed, dear, yes," she replied low, her voice not faltering though indistinct. "But for me it ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... yourself to be so scrupulous," he said; "but you will never again speak of leaving us, Mrs. Bundle. Please, for her sake," added my father, his own voice faltering as he looked towards the miniature. As for Nurse Bundle, her tears utterly forbade her to get out ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... instantly, and the crimson colour rushed into those fair cheeks as she made a very low reverence, and murmured some faltering civility. ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in my simple gospel creed That "God is Love" so plain I read, Shall dreams of heathen birth affright My pathway through the coming night? Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale Fill with their threats the shadowy vale, With Thee my faltering steps to aid, How can I dare to ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and feelings which move the greater number of patriotic Irishmen. I on the other hand believe that poetry and romance cannot be made by the most conscientious study of famous moments and of the thoughts and feelings of others, but only by looking into that little, infinite, faltering, eternal flame that we call ourselves. If a writer wishes to interest a certain people among whom he has grown up, or fancies he has a duty towards them, he may choose for the symbols of his art their legends, their history, ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... Aunt Mary, you know father has lost all his property and Uncle Cradd assured us that—that there was plenty for us all at Elmnest," I said in a faltering tone of voice as a feeling of descending ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... hanging, his cheeks flushing, as though it were something of which he was most mightily ashamed, he knew what it was he had been wanting all these months. The desire had been there, the impulse had been there ... now with the spoken word the blind faltering impulse was ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... thing," continued Titmouse, in a faltering tone, and with a depressed look—"That was what I wanted to know myself; for they said I'd better go back!! So I said, 'Gents,' said I, 'I'll be—— if I'll go back to the shop any more;' and I snapped my fingers ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... dreary. Descending some thirty feet down rather rude steps of stone, you are fairly under the arch of this "nether world"—before you, in looking outwards, is seen a small stream of water falling from the face of the crowning rock, with a wild faltering sound, upon the ruins below, and disappearing in a deep pit,—behind you, all is gloom ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... harp as it lists. It has its HIGH NOTES, its LOW NOTES, its heavy notes—and its faltering notes, in the end it is all the same to me provided the emotion comes, but I can find nothing in myself. It is THE OTHER who sings as he likes, well or ill, and when I try to think about it, I am afraid and tell myself that I am nothing, nothing ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... otherwise. I believe, on the contrary, that they will eventually uphold all who have patriotism and courage to stand by the Constitution, and who place their confidence in the people. There should be no faltering on the part of those who are honest in their determination to sustain the several co-ordinate Departments of the Government in accordance with its original design. Andrew Johnson. Hon. L. ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... Miss Singleton's room knowing that I was doing wrong. I hated to go and did not take the smallest interest in the proceedings which were being enacted there." She paused again. Her voice, which had been slightly faltering, grew a little firmer. Her eyes met Miss Heath's, which were gazing at her in sorrowful and amazed surprise. Then she continued: "I did not go alone. I took another and perfectly innocent girl with me. She is a newcomer, and this is her first term. She would naturally be led by me, and I wish therefore ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... open the door. Dawn was flushing behind the eastern range; the tops of the mountains were thinly visible on the brightening sky. His dwelling, with every window closed, was silvery with dew. He walked slowly, but without faltering, to the porch, and mounted the steps from the sod; the ascent seemed surprisingly steep, long. The door to the dining room was unlocked and he entered; in the thinning gloom he could distinguish the table set as usual, the coffee pot at Lettice's place glimmering faintly. He turned to the left ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... be the might of the Word of God which can convert to salvation strong men through the faltering lips of a child And yet, after all, is not this the combination which alone is powerful in spreading the gospel—a simple, child-like heart, through which the Word may speak forth? "A little child shall lead them," because it ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... had divided. Two guns pounded away at Taylor's feint, while two shelled the main column. The latter was struck repeatedly; more than twenty men dropped silent or groaning out of the hurrying files; but the survivors pushed on without faltering and without even caring for the wounded. At last a broad belt of green branches rose between the regiments and the ridge; and the rebel gunners, unable to see their foe, dropped suddenly ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... her face; but although he thought he caught an under air of intense desire towards him and That which he bore, there was no faltering in the tone of her voice. It was, as some man said, as "soft as running water heard ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... happened. Then a silence fell, and Little John sat with Robin Hood's hand in his, gazing out of the open window, ever and anon swallowing a great lump that came in his throat. Meantime the sun dropped slowly to the west, till all the sky was ablaze with a red glory. Then Robin Hood, in a weak, faltering voice, bade Little John raise him that he might look out once more upon the woodlands; so the yeoman lifted him in his arms, as he bade, and Robin Hood's head lay on his friend's shoulder. Long he gazed, with a wide, ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... said in faltering tones, striving to disguise his vice, "I know your son well. He is living on the east side of ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... little butterflies lined up in front of her and began to dance, not our Western dance of free limbs, but an Oriental dance from the hips with posturings of hands and feet. They sang a harsh faltering song without any apparent relation to the accompaniment played ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... sacrifice, suffered terribly thereby. Willingly, thankfully would they have taken all her duties upon them; they burned to be up and doing. But—seeing how weak she was—they dare not cross her; they had to sit still and endure to see her labour for their comfort with faltering and ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... wretchedness and misery than that out of which he had arisen. In this painful struggle he stood not alone. Good spirits clustered around him, anxiously interested in his fate, and endeavouring to sustain his faltering purposes; and evil spirits were also nigh, infusing into his mind reasons for the abandonment of his useless pledge. It was a period in his history full of painful interest. Heaven was moving forward to aid and ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... single rail; its four wheels revolved in a line, one behind another; and it traveled with the level, flexible equilibrium of a ship moving across a dock. It swung over the sharp curves without faltering, crossed the switch, and floated—floated is the only word for the serene and equable quality of its movement—round and round the quarter-mile circle. A workman boarded it as it passed him, and sat on the edge ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... as strong and stern, To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn!— Whose icy wing flapped o'er the faltering foe, Till fell a hero with each flake of snow; How did thy numbing beak and silent fang, Pierce, till hosts perished with a single pang! 190 In vain shall Seine look up along his banks For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... the shaggy god called her, wounded and outworn, kindly to him and said, "I am but a rustic herdsman, pretty maiden, yet wise, by favour of my great age and long experience; and if I guess truly by those faltering steps, by thy sorrowful eyes and continual sighing, thou labourest with excess of love. Listen then to me, and seek not death again, in the stream or otherwise. Put aside thy woe, and turn thy prayers to Cupid. He is in ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... river down which he had fled, it looked ill enough for the chances of that robber when the stanch Sea Rover, her flag again aloft and promising no quarter, chugged out into midstream and took up a pursuit which was to know no faltering until at last I had learned the truth about the fair captive of the Belle Helene. For indeed, indeed, Omar, and you, too, stout Lafitte and hardy L'Olonnois, the Bird of Life ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... undiminished trust, and though she had less confidence in her aunt than in a young man with whom she had exchanged so many tender vows, she gave her no handle for explaining or confessing. Mrs. Penniman, faltering and wavering, declared Catherine was very stupid, put off the great scene, as she would have called it, from day to day, and wandered about very uncomfortably, primed, to repletion, with her apology, but unable to bring it to the light. Morris's own scenes ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... session arrived and a sad-eyed, pale-faced, scrupulously groomed and dressed accused arose before the dignified array and the little line of curious spectators, to make his last plea, a silence not unmixed with a certain sympathy, fell upon all hearers, as in low voice and faltering accents the friendless fellow began his story. Partly from manuscript, which he seemed to find hard reading, but mainly as an extemporaneous effort, his remarks ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... Of all the blessedness of sleep! And while she spake, her looks, her air, Such gentle thankfulness declare, That (so it seemed) her girded vests Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts. "Sure I have sinn'd!" said Christabel, "Now heaven be praised if all be well!" And in low faltering tones, yet sweet, Did she the lofty lady greet With such perplexity of mind As dreams ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... of the end. A week later the actual starvation began. Slower and slower moved the expedition on its daily march, faltering, staggering, blinded and buffeted by the incessant northeast winds, cruel, merciless, keen as knife-blades. Hope long since was dead; resolve wore thin under friction of disaster; like a rat, hunger gnawed at them hour after hour; the cold was one unending agony. Still Bennett was unbroken, ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... Still to his interest true where'er he goes, Wit, bravery, worth, his lavish tongue bestows; In every face a thousand graces shine, From every tongue flows harmony divine. These arts in vain our rugged natives try, Strain out, with faltering diffidence, a lie, 130 And get a kick ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... to assure one's success. You may think your voice is a heavy handicap. Perhaps it is high pitched and squeaky; or, on the other hand, a "growly" bass suggestive of ill-nature. Again it may be faltering or hoarse. Such faults are not serious to a master salesman. If your vocal equipment is physically normal, your voice can be made pleasing. In order to make your tones agreeable, learn to vibrate them naturally through your nose. A mouth tone ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... with me, binding up, tending and watering, night and day; till at last life came back to her plants, first faltering, then flowing free, and they held up their heads and drank the sunshine, and opened fair ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... no faltering now. The beautiful voice had never been more touching in its exquisite appeal. All the unutterable sweetness and humility and faith, the wistful memories, the passion and surrender that love holds, dwelt in the ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... got to kill 'em all. Head back and we'll get the rest of 'em with the hydrogen artillery." Accordingly the ship swept low over the strange planet. "Ah-ah-ah-ah." Twin sheets of imaginary flame burst from the rocket and the remainder of the faltering spider-monsters perished horribly. ...
— The Amazing Mrs. Mimms • David C. Knight
... children leap to pluck a spray Bent earthward, and then run away. Park-keeper! catch me those grave thieves About whose frocks the fragrant leaves, Sticking and fluttering here and there, No false nor faltering witness bear. ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... the heart of her I loved; And in that time and place she answer'd me, And in the compass of three little words, More musical than ever came in one, The silver fragments of a broken voice, Made me most happy, faltering [9] "I am thine". Shall I cease here? Is this enough to say That my desire, like all strongest hopes, By its own energy fulfilled itself, Merged in completion? Would you learn at full How passion rose thro' circumstantial grades Beyond all grades ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... strong; it tears the bonnet from her head, it unwinds the coronet of braided locks, and her bright hair streams out behind her. Feel how the spray stings, striking like a whip. No, not this wave, she rides that also; she will die as she has lived—fighting to the last; and once more, never faltering, she sets her face towards the rollers and consigns her soul ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... the heights of Uam-Var, 75 And roused the cavern, where, 'tis told, A giant made his den of old; For ere that steep ascent was won, High in his pathway hung the sun, And many a gallant, stayed perforce, 80 Was fain to breathe his faltering horse, And of the trackers of the deer, Scarce half the lessening pack was near; So shrewdly on the mountain side, Had the bold burst their ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... go now," said Blucher, turning again toward the room. "I—" He paused, and a blush suffused his cheeks. There, in the middle of the room, stood General Gneisenau, and gazed at him with a strange, mournful air. "Gneisenau, is it you?" asked Blucher, in a faltering voice. "How ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... a second Jenkins hesitated, as one might do who was loath to bring trouble upon another. Then he replied, in faltering tones: ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... difficulties which afterward, during execution, so terribly appear and multiply, her heart beat already with the exquisite bliss of an immortal achievement. In her vocabulary at that instant it would have been impossible to discover under B the aggressive But, or under I the faltering If. She was inspired. It ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... Lucile! "Say again," She resumed, gazing down, and with faltering tone, "Do you blame me that, when I at last had to own To my heart that the hope it had cherish'd was o'er, And forever, I said to you then, 'Hope no more'? I myself hoped no more!" With but ill-suppressed wrath The Duke answer'd... "What, then! he recrosses your path, This ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... was brought in a sedan chair through the hall. Not a hat moved as he passed; and many voices cried out "Popish dog." He came into Court pale and trembling, with eyes fixed on the ground, and gave his evidence in a faltering voice. He swore that the Bishops had informed him of their intention to present a petition to the King, and that they had been admitted into the royal closet for that purpose. This circumstance, coupled with the circumstance that, after they left the closet, there was ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Vockerat and Michael Kramer, Dr. Scholz and Professor Crampton speak with a human raciness and native truth not surpassed by the weavers or peasants of Silesia. Hauptmann has heard the inflections of the human voice, the faltering and fugitive eloquence of the living word not only with his ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... them there, draped above the tombs, some faded but still intact, some mere clotted wisps of ragged silk clinging to blackened standards, gives one an uplifting conception of the spirit that has sent the British soldier forth to girth the globe, never faltering, never slackening pace, never giving back a step to-day but that he took two steps forward ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... solicitude on hearing my intelligence. He could not keep his chair one moment at a time, but walked about the floor trembling. He called his servant, and directed him, in a faltering voice, to go to my brother's house and request him ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... With faltering voice Pogosa began the all-important part of her tale: "The mine is on the head of the Wind River. Not far, but the way is very hard. Pogosa will not be able to lead you. From where we are you cross the valley to the mountain. You turn to your right and descend to a small lake lying under ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... groomsman should walk with the bridesmaid? He did not ask if he might; there was no need, for they were very good friends now. When he had returned that night from the rescue of Martin, all mud-splashed and exhausted, he had read, with a glad leap of his heart, the message in her eyes and in her faltering words—he had ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... girl's forced composure gave way. This was not her first tilt with the man she loved, but he had never been so hard, so desperate, so unjust. Heroically she had tried to do her duty. Ignominously she now felt herself faltering in the way. ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... as he entered and he stopped to count the strokes. Seven. The last stroke died away with a quivering sound. Then with faltering feet he approached ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... minutes before oozed away as every street corner brought him nearer his destination, and when at last the stately front of Saint Nathaniel's loomed before him, he wished his journey could never end. He gazed with faltering heart up at the ward windows, as if he could read his fate there. The place seemed deserted. A few street boys were playing on the pavement, and at the door of the in-patients' ward a little cluster of visitors were collected round a flower stall buying sweet mementoes ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the little boy, in a sweet, though faltering voice, "they call me Ilbrahim, and my ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... the Object of their fear. And just as the fact of physical life binds God to care for it, and to give all that is needed for its health, growth, blessedness, so the fact of man's having in his heart the faintest tremor of reverential dread, the feeblest aspiration of outgoing affection, the most faltering desire after purity of life and conduct, binds God to answer these according to the man's need. Of all incredibilities in the world, there is nothing more incredible, because there is nothing more contrary to the very depths ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... gaze; "a Plan to which I have resolved to sacrifice everything. It absorbs my being. Till that Plan is fulfilled—" I saw the tears were gathering fast on her lashes. She suppressed them with an effort. "Say no more," she added, faltering. "Infirm of purpose! ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... were broad stretches of moonlit foliage visible on the rising slopes beneath, Bell felt the engine faltering. He switched on the instrument board light. One glance, and he was cold all over. The motor was hot. Hotter than it had ever been. The oil lines, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... difficulties, and months of suffering and privations by land and water, in the woods, and swamps of North Carolina and Virginia, were before him, as his experience in traveling proved. But the hope of final victory and his daily sufferings before he started, kept him from faltering, even when starvation and death seemed to be staring him in the face. For several months he was living in dens and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... it," whispered the Baroness with faltering breath. "Did you leave me anything but my music? Have you not raged like a tiger? But it is not true," she exclaimed, "you are not so vicious, otherwise I myself would be a lie in the presence of the Eternal Judge, and that I had borne children by you would be contrary ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... gave you one of the loveliest of women, my lord," said Mr. Graham with solemn, faltering voice, "and you left her to die in neglect and her child to be brought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... storm of laughter—that faltering, ingenuous reason of hers—and Barbara hastened to explain that the phrase was a relic of her own childhood, which she had once coined in extenuation of conduct to which her mother had objected. She still employed it, she ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... more admirable, being at once clear and conclusive, simple and profound, culminating in the utter razing and dismantling of the Malthusian theory, than the discussion of value in the 'Templars' Dialogues.' There is no faltering, no hesitation, no discursiveness; the arrow flies swiftly and fatally to the mark. It is not possible, or desirable, at the present time, to discuss minutely De Quincey's achievements as exhibited in his ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... about us by home names, I yet shrunk from giving the name of our beloved home to the hut in which we now seemed doomed to pass our days. Several times I attempted to begin upon the subject, but it was too painful and I dared not trust my voice, lest its faltering should show my companions that this Christmas-day was not one of unmixed pleasure, and I was the more anxious to restrain my feelings as I could easily perceive that a little was only wanting to turn our day of feasting into one of mourning. It was not, therefore, ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... gleam dully in the flickering light of the fire. Against the heaping coils of white the priest was outlined, drawn, as Jerry sensed, against the protest of every fiber of his being. Yet, one stiff step at a time, he went faltering on. The hair above his white face was torn in disarray. And the face itself, so exultantly fierce in its hour of triumph, now a mask ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... pavilion. He recollected that there was at the back a secret door, by which he could reach the inner room where Muzzio had been lying in the morning. He stole round to this door, found it unlocked, and, parting the folds of a heavy curtain, turned a faltering ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... crook prevent Rogers and Rockefeller from unloading. I bought and bought to steady the market when no one else apparently would buy; and when I found others whom I could induce to venture, I had them relieve those who were faltering and who must sell. When Mr. Rogers took me to task, I invented all manner of excuses to account for my tardiness in creating a market on which he could unload his holdings. He listened impatiently and incredulously, and I felt that sooner or later ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... road in a little plot of ground, the property of a kindly old woman known to both. There Diana expressed the wish to rest awhile, and thither they took their way, Ruth leading both horses and supporting her faltering cousin. The dame was all solicitude. Diana was led into her parlour, and what could be done was done. Her corsage was loosened, water drawn from the well and brought her to drink and ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... in all things, said Holman, and when the clock struck eight, with his tools in his hand and his head bent, he turned his faltering steps homewards. ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... failing. And presently he stopped again, and without a word lifted her in his arms. She gasped a protest to which he made no response. His arms compassed her like steel, making her feel helpless as an infant. He was limping himself, she noticed; yet he bore her strongly, without faltering, sure-footed as a mountain goat over the broken ground, till he found at length what he deemed a safe halting-place in a ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... William III ordered the extirpation of a Catholic clan, and scouts the faltering excuse of his defenders. But when he comes to the death and character of the international deliverer, Glencoe is forgotten, the imputation of murder drops, like a thing unworthy of notice 96. Johannes Mueller, a great Swiss celebrity, writes that the British ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... try and sell my estate to some man I know something of,' he articulated, not without faltering, 'or perhaps the peasants themselves will want to buy ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... look left her no choice. She felt his will, and yielded. In very simple words, faltering yet restrained, she told the whole story. Manisty followed ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as vivid, in any case, when Mr. Gutermann-Seuss, with a sharpness of discrimination he had at first scarce seemed to promise, invited his eminent couple into another room, before the threshold of which the rest of the tribe, unanimously faltering, dropped out of the scene. The treasure itself here, the objects on behalf of which Mr. Verver's interest had been booked, established quickly enough their claim to engage the latter's attention; yet at what point of his past did our friend's memory, looking back and back, catch ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... great eagerness of expression and gesture, was urged by the Queen, much to the discomfiture of the envoys. In vain they attempted to modify and to explain. Their faltering excuses were swept rapidly away upon the current of royal wrath; until at last Elizabeth stormed herself into exhaustion and comparative tranquillity. She then dismissed them with an assurance that her goodwill towards the States was not diminished, as would be found to be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in the intimacies of the headquarter's tent, discerned in him, and now so mildly, but so frequently, smiled at. "Major Garnet," she said, and silently indicated that some one was waiting in the doorway. The Major, standing, turned and saw, faltering with conscious overboldness on the threshold, a tawny figure whose shoulders stared through the rags of a coarse cotton shirt; the man of all men to whom he was just then the ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... his head and heart were always at leisure; and his successes had been the means, on more than one occasion, of extending his means of disgraceful enjoyment. At least, however, his career lay on the verge of a precipice; for playing at a stake beyond the limit of his fortune, a single faltering step might at any hour precipitate him into an abyss of shame and ruin. Amelia was often tempted to doubt whether she had more cause to dread that intoxication of triumph, which induced him to still further excesses, or the reverses tending to aggravate ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 548 - 26 May 1832 • Various
... unsuggestive of what Thackeray was just doing, and really not far from what Trollope was not for some years to do. There are other passages which make one think of George Eliot, who indeed might have been writing at the very time; there are even faint and faltering suggestions of Ibsenic "duty to ourselves." Mr. Danby (the characters regularly call each other "Mr.," "Mrs.," and "Miss," even when they are husbands and wives, daughters or nieces, and uncles or fathers) is a miss, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... came to pass, that the clergyman who read the burial service beside the mother's coffin, lifted the cooing infant in the midst of a weeping funeral throng, and with a faltering voice baptized her, in the presence of the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... going from this place. I felt it would be better for us both that I should not stay after what has happened. In fact, I couldn't stay here, and look on you from day to day, without becoming weak and faltering in my course. I have just heard of an arrangement by which the other minister can arrive here in about a week; ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... we are all beside you Urging and beckoning on, Watching lest aught betide you Till the safe near goal is won, Guiding the faltering footsteps That tremble and fear to fall— How will it be, my darling, With the last ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... are not like unto the ways of men. A man clings close to his friend while he has riches, and forsakes him when he falls into poverty. But when God sees a mortal unsteady and faltering, He reaches a hand out to him, and raises him up. Thus it happened with Leah. She was hated by Jacob, and God visited her in mercy. Jacob's aversion to Leah began the very morning after their wedding, when his wife taunted him with not being wholly ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... a fair living and a fair standing in the Church; you have held them for eight or ten years; when some evening as you are sitting in your study or playing with your children, a servant tells you, doubtfully, that a man is waiting to see you. A poor, thin, shabbily-dressed fellow comes in, and in faltering tones begs for the lean of five shillings. Ah, with what a start you recognise him! It is the clever fellow whom you hardly beat at college, who was always so lively and merry, who sang so nicely, and was so much asked out into society. You ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... kind of Mr Farrance to help you to become a midshipman, and some day you may perhaps be made a lieutenant. I am indeed glad!" exclaimed Mary, though her faltering voice and the tears which filled her eyes belied her words, as she remembered that Ned must go away, and perhaps not come ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston |
