"Hesitating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... away, leaving Hemmingway standing in the doorway still distraught and hesitating. Nor did the young man recognize the delicacy of Jules' leave-taking until he had unstrapped his portmanteau and found himself alone, free to make his toilet, unembarrassed by company. But even then he would have preferred the rough companionship ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... what the judge and Gregory plan for year after next, grow and bloom there in a couple of months. Wilkerson is not a creator, he's just nature keyed up to the nth power. And also I'll give him for a bait the Jeffries estate I was hesitating about making a bid for. All the big fellows are after it. Old man Jeffries has made two barrels of money in the last ten years in oil and he is going to build an estate up on the Hudson that will make the world gasp. I hadn't put in a bid, but this ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... away; I don't want to buy it. She has probably gone to look for you and is wandering about upstairs; she didn't seem at all intelligent. You had better tell her it's no matter." And then, since the girl stood there hesitating and wondering, this unexpected critic said to her abruptly: "I suppose you're one ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... He stood hesitating. Gertrude lifted her eyebrows as though he puzzled her. She never had liked him, and by now all her instincts were hostile to him. His clumsy figure, and slovenly dress offended her, and the touch of something grandiose in his heavy ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the cape for one hesitating moment, and then he sprang to his feet and snatched it from the ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... received from Lange. We were all clearly of opinion that this was a mere artifice of the factors to extort money from us, for which we had been prepared by the account of a letter from Concordia; and while we were hesitating what step to take, the Portuguese, that he might the sooner accomplish his purpose, began to drive away the people who had brought down poultry and syrup, and others that were now coming in with buffaloes and sheep. At this time ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... hesitating and indirect? You would say that you have appealed to Aurelian for my life—and that hope is not extinct in your mind of ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... task of telling Hardy just as difficult as he expected it to be, but by some mercy it did not last long. Explanation had not been necessary; he had only to make the first hesitating approaches, and Hardy understood. Hardy was, in a way, hurt; Kittrell saw that, and rushed to his ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... were employed to make them enduring patrons. With many of them the question of sparing from their scant income three cents a week for a county paper, was one that called for sober thought from year to year, and it often required a personal visit and earnest importunity to hold the hesitating subscriber. I well remember the case of a frugal farmer of the Dunker persuasion who was sufficiently public-spirited to subscribe for the "Sentinel" for six months, to get the paper started, but at the end of that period he had calculated the heavy expenses of gathering the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... Joel was hesitating. Was it right to throw suspicion on Bartlett Cloud by mentioning the small occurrence on the football field so long before? It was inconceivable that Cloud would go to such a length in mere spite. And yet—Remsen interrupted ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... then I'll call for you on Saturday, at half-past ten," went on Mrs. Wallis, quite regardless of Mary's hesitating tone. "I'm glad you'll come. It would never do not to have some of the minister's family. Saturday morning, at half-past ten! Good-by, Mrs. Forcythe. Don't get up; you look peaked still. To-morrow is baking day, and I shall send you a green-currant pie. Perhaps ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... "Ticket three hundred and nine wins the capital prize," the rehearsed scene was gone through with, although Alfred's friend made the play doubly strong by hesitating in accepting the cash in lieu of the tea set. "I would prefer the silverware; I wish to preserve it in our family." After a little further parleying, he was handed one hundred and seventy-five dollars. He received congratulations, answered ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... has traced the phases and variations of religions, and the influences that governed them, with a fulness of knowledge and an independence of judgment unknown in the past, and it has led its votaries to regard in these matters a sceptical and hesitating spirit as a virtue, and credulity and easiness ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... He wrestled with his awful agony Till almost dark; and then, at last—then, with The very latest lingering group of his Companions, he moved turgidly toward home— Nay, rather oozed that way, so slow he went,— With lothful, hesitating, loitering, Reluctant, late-election-returns air, Heightened somewhat by the conscience-made resolve Of chopping a double-armful of wood As he went in by rear way of the kitchen. And this resolve he executed;—yet ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... presence, plunged into an earnest, sympathetic, and intelligent account of the condition in which he found the invalid at St. Moritz. The old man at first listened with an almost perfunctory courtesy and a hesitating reserve; but as Bradley was lapsing into equal reserve and they drove up to the gates of the quadrangle, he unexpectedly warmed with a word or two of serious welcome. Looking up with a half-unconscious smile, Bradley ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... him where we were going," cried Betty desperately, driven into a corner. "But I had no idea he was going to write to me until—until—" hesitating as a picture of Joe Barnes, standing beside her car and asking if he might tell her "how things were with him" ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... the Mona Liza, celebrated in literature, hanging a few feet away, seems factitious when compared with this portrait; I have heard that tedious smile excused on the ground that she is smiling at the nonsense she hears talked about her; that hesitating smile which held my youth in tether has come to seem but a grimace; and the pale mountains no more mysterious than a globe or map seen from a little distance. The Mona Liza is a sort of riddle, an acrostic, a poetical ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... the shadow as well as the sunshine—love you ever and always." And so, the little foot hesitating no longer, ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... the Moltke of this War in the Air, but it was the curious hard romanticism of Prince Karl Albert that won over the hesitating Emperor to the scheme. Prince Karl Albert was indeed the central figure of the world drama. He was the darling of the Imperialist spirit in German, and the ideal of the new aristocratic feeling—the new Chivalry, as it was called—that followed the overthrow of Socialism through its internal divisions ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... recalls," said Arvasita, arriving at our group by the fence. An elder sister, she was, evidently. "Are you acquainted with 'Camill'?" she asked me, with a trifle of sternness; and upon my hesitating, "the celebrated French drayma of 'Camill'," she repeated, with a trifle more of sternness. "Camill is the lady in it who dies of consumption. Leola recites the letter-and-coughing scene, Act Third. Mr. Patterson of Coloraydo Springs pronounces it ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... those men who put you at ease with them in a moment. He makes no ceremony whatever with one, and of course is a very fine man in society, all mirth and good humor. He has a most beautiful countenance, and a very intellectual one, but he has some halting and hesitating in his conversation, and says very pleasant, agreeable things in a husky, weak, peculiar voice. He has a dark complexion, dark hair, whiskers already a little gray. This is a very offhand portrait of ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... to the books of Scripture can only be deduced from the conduct of Ezra himself, as well as the prevailing views and wants of the times. The scribes who began with Ezra, seeing how he acted, would naturally follow his example, not hesitating to revise the text in substance as well as form.(43) They did not refrain from changing what had been written, or from inserting fresh matter. Some of their novelties can be discerned even in the Pentateuch. ...
— The Canon of the Bible • Samuel Davidson
... after Miss Dunreddin had broken the seals she judged we might have them, and I was at liberty for an hour, and meantime Angus Ingestre awaited me. Angus! I sprang down the stairs, my cheeks aglow, my heart on my lips, and only paused, finger on lock, wondering and hesitating and fearing, till the door was flung open, and I drawn in with two hands shut fast on my own, and two eyes—great blue Ingestre eyes—looking down on me from the face so far above: for he towered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... producing a silver case primed with sovereigns and slipping one coin on to the table. Then Mrs. Durrant got up and passed down the room, holding herself very straight, and the girls in yellow and blue and silver gauze followed her, and elderly Miss Eliot in her velvet; and a little rosy woman, hesitating at the door, clean, scrupulous, probably a governess. All passed out at the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... the occupants—boys engaged mostly in arranging bureau drawers or hanging pictures. They were all friendly enough; it seemed to him that he could get on with boys individually; it was when they faced him in numbers that they alarmed him and caused his manner to be hesitating and embarrassed. One big fellow named Allison was trying to hang a picture when Irving entered; it was a large and heavy picture, and Irving held it straight while Allison stood on a chair and set the hook on the moulding. ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... to the veranda. In the doorway she paused, really taken aback by the number of men grouped about on the grass; and she stood there, with fifty eyes turned upon her, the picture of embarrassment, hesitating whether to run ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Fourth Act, and in the Fourth Act Mr. Levinski has a splendid time. He tells the audience two parables—one about a dahlia and a sheep, which I couldn't quite follow—and three reminiscences of life in India; he brings together finally and for ever these hesitating lovers; and, best of all, he has a magnificent love-scene of his own with a pretty widow, in which we see, for the first time in the play, how love should really be made—not boy-and-girl pretty-pretty love, but the deep emotion felt (and with occasional lapses of memory ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... fair way to oblige him; after some dreadful mistake about a climate or a "cure" she had suddenly collapsed on the return from abroad. Her daughter, unsupported and alarmed, desiring to make a rush for home but hesitating at the risk, had accepted our friend's assistance, and it was my secret belief that at sight of him Mrs. Erme would pull round. His own belief was scarcely to be called secret; it discernibly at any rate differed from mine. He had showed me Gwendolen's photograph with the ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... one of 1919 adopted a resolution calling upon Congress to submit the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment. Four of the five North Dakota members were then in favor of it and in 1918 the hesitating Senator made ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... a banker emerges at the age of forty, the said banker is usually an observer of human nature; and so much the more shrewd if, as in Brunner's case, he understands how to turn his German simplicity to good account. He had assumed for the occasion the abstracted air of a man who is hesitating between family life and the dissipations of bachelorhood. This expression in a Frenchified German seemed to Cecile to be in the highest degree romantic; the descendant of the Virlaz was a second Werther ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... final little pressure, patted and released it. He felt, somehow or other, immeasurably grateful to her, flattered by her confidence, curiously exalted by her hesitating words. Speech, however, ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thought of deserting her country husband yields to a sort of resignation when she persuades herself of the necessity of the step. And when she considers the riches, title, and agreeable person of the Marquis, she almost disdains herself for hesitating to prefer him to Clermont. Her life is the tragedy of a soul too indolent to swim against the current of events. Mrs. Haywood managed to give extraordinary vividness and consistency to the character of the vacillating Henrietta by making the plot depend almost entirely upon the ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... this little spot of friction had rattled the bearded bloke a bit. He stood for a moment fumbling at the fungus with a hesitating hand. But they make these head masters of tough stuff. The weakness passed. He came back nicely ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... his footsteps as he came upstairs. When he arrived on her landing, instead of going to the end of the passage, and up the staircase, he stopped; it seemed as if he were hesitating about something. Agnes wondered, and hoped he was coming to see her. A ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... which in former days one could recognise directly the children of steady-going, noble families, 'sons of their fathers,' fine young landowners, born and reared in our open, half-wild country parts,—a hesitating gait, a voice with a lisp, a smile like a child's the minute you looked at him ... lastly, freshness, health, softness, softness, softness,—there you have the whole of Sanin. And secondly, he was not stupid and had picked up a fair amount of knowledge. ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... she said, with an authority he had not the courage to defy. He stood there—abashed, or hesitating as to the way in which he should ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... of Greek philosophy, the first to whom we must turn is Philo the Jew, who lived in the time of the Emperor Caligula. In harmony with the ideas of his nation, he derives all philosophy and useful knowledge from the Mosaic record, not hesitating to wrest Scripture to his use by various allegorical interpretations, asserting that man has fallen from his primitive wisdom and purity; that physical inquiry is of very little avail, but that an innocent life and a burning faith are what we must trust to. He persuaded ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... arrival carried off one-third of the Serbian Army Medical Corps, and the epidemic threatened the very existence of the Serbian Army. She organized four great Hospital Units, initiated every kind of needful sanitary precaution, looked into every detail, regardless of her own safety and comfort, hesitating at no task, however loathsome and terrible. Her constant message to the Serbian Medical Headquarters Staff was "Tell me where your need is greatest without respect to difficulties, and we will do our best to help Serbia ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... upon the frail rafts. But alas! morning light showed us our enemy approaching us, supported on either hand by two giants nearly as large and fearful as himself, while a crowd of others followed close upon their heels. Hesitating no longer we clambered upon our rafts and rowed with all our might out to sea. The giants, seeing their prey escaping them, seized up huge pieces of rock, and wading into the water hurled them after us with such good aim that all the rafts except ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... both, probably, have continued hesitating some time longer, had not a letter arrived from the Captain, in reply to Edward's last. He had made up his mind to accept one of the situations which had been offered him, although it was not in the least up to his mark. He was to share the ennui of certain ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Lanfear stood a moment hesitating. Then a glance at the girl on the bench, drooping a little forward in freeing her face from the veil that hung from her pretty hat, together with a sense of something quaintly charming in the confidence ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... went on, hesitating, but still showing something of his old stolid manner, "I wasn't a-scared, but I was thinking—I had to think about something—before I could decide what ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... combat. General Wickham succeeded him. In the stone fence there were places where the stones had fallen or had been thrown down, making openings through which horses could pass one, or at most two, at a time. The Union cavalrymen made for these openings, not halting or hesitating for an instant. The fence was taken and breaking through they put to flight the confederate cavalrymen who did not stop until they found refuge behind ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... hands.... As it is without doubt, our present business is to go to some place of safety, where we may wait His will." How admirable is the passage about William's sister, the widow with four children who kept a little shop in the Minories, and that in which the penitent ex-pirates are shown us as hesitating in Venice for two years before they durst venture to England ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... empty-handed, did not comply with the request. He remained hesitating, obviously doubtful, till with a sharp jerk de Montville ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... to answer, but the committeeman had finished, and after hesitating over the matter he went into the library and resumed ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... brightened again as she noticed Professor Spence passing on the opposite side of the street, and became quite snappy with interest as she saw him pause as if to call to his wife, then, after a swift and hesitating glance at the door from which she had emerged, pass on without attracting ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... will think it strange, sir,'—this was said in a hesitating voice—'that I should so soon ask you to allow me to confide in you, and to have the kindness to hear a word or two from ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... so," Harry agreed, in a somewhat hesitating way, "but it would greatly add to her danger, and, were you detected, might lead to the discovery of her disguise. Besides, the thought that you were liable to arrest at any time would naturally heighten the anxiety from which ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... to me a week ago. Partly to satisfy the wishes of the family, and partly..." She broke off, hesitating a moment, to resume on a note of dull pain, "Partly because it does not seem greatly to matter whom I marry, I gave him my consent. That consent, for the reasons I have given you, madame, I desire now definitely ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... colour, which formed so bright a charm in Rose's sweet face, deepened, in a way to prove that that colour spoke with a tongue and eloquence of its own. Nor was Mulford's cheek mute on the occasion, though he helped the hesitating, half-doubting, half-bold girl along the plank with a steady hand and rigid muscles. As for the aunt, as a captain's widow, she had not felt it necessary to betray any extraordinary emotions in ascending the plank, unless, indeed, it might be those of delight on finding her foot once more ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... morning. Mr. Armstrong said, that he hoped the measles would be fully out by the evening, and he thought she would then be better." After John had finished delivering his message, he stood still and seemed hesitating whether to go or remain. Mr. Martin at last observed this, and asked him if he had any thing more to say. "Why, yes, Sir, if I thought that it would be right to tell you what I have heard; but as it was only Peggy Oliphant that told me, I am afraid ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... me of vanity for indulging in these quotations; he will see readily that my desire is to let the young man paint his own portrait, and I hope he will catch glimpses as I seem to do of an earnest spirit, a sort of protestant Father Gogarty, hesitating on the brink of his lake. "There is a lake in every man's heart"—but I must not quote my own writings. If I misinterpret him ... the reader will be able to judge, having the letter before him. But if my view of him ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... the block of flats which towered up where the pavement turned at right angles. The light from the hall shone out and made a patch of yellow about his feet. He noticed presently that the girl he was watching turned her head and looked back, almost as if she were hesitating. Then she walked on resolutely, and he stepped in ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... at great expense from one end of the country to the other, and the sound of their voices rarely fell on any but friendly and sympathetic ears. Selwyn sent men into his units to personally persuade each of the one thousand hesitating voters to support the ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... you,' he said, as the little girl crossed the threshold, and shutting the door, stood with her back against it, and her hands behind her. 'What is it?' he asked, as he saw her hesitating. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... nations, it is but childhood, compared with what she would be capable of arriving at, had she, as she ought to have, the legislative powers in her own hands. England is, at this time, proudly coveting what would do her no good, were she to accomplish it; and the Continent hesitating on a matter, which will be her final ruin if neglected. It is the commerce and not the conquest of America, by which England is to be benefited, and that would in a great measure continue, were the countries as independant of each other as France and Spain; ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... although the thoroughfare might have been originally an encroachment, it had become public property by the lapse of time, and by prescriptive right, and that he should compel the king to re-open it. He brought his suit, without hesitating, into a court of justice, and gained ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... laid the mask to one side and extended his left hand to Eleanore, and then, hesitating at first, he gave Gertrude his right hand ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... everything under the guidance of its own will, and nothing unexpected will befall it, but whatever may be done by it will turn out well, and that, too, readily and easily, without the doer having recourse to any underhand devices: for slow and hesitating purpose. You may, then, boldly declare that the highest good is singleness of mind: for where agreement and unity are, there must the virtues be: it is the vices that are ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... themselves in a dilemma. Papirius warned them not to sanction so flagrant a breach of military discipline, nor to lessen the majesty of the office of dictator, and they found themselves hesitating between their duty to support the absolute power of the dictator and their abhorrence of an exercise of this power that must shock the feelings of the whole Roman people. The people themselves relieved their tribunes from this difficulty. They hastily met in assembly, and ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... tripped along the floor of the apartment with a light, though hesitating, step; and a cheek crimsoned at her own purpose; and gliding to the chair of the sleeper, dropped a kiss upon his lips as light as if a rose leaf had fallen on them. The slumbers must have been slight which such a touch could dispel, and the dreams ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... hesitating, looking down and picking at the splinters on the gate post. Neither was Bannon quick to speak. He did not want to question her about the visit, for he saw that it was hard for her to talk about it. Finally she straightened up ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... Government as a departure from the letter and spirit of the treaty." Mr. Fish went still farther: "In the President's opinion, such a course on his party might justify the British Government in remonstrating, and possibly in hesitating as to its future relations to the Commission." The rebuke was not too severe, because if the matter was to be left to the judgment of the people of Canada, it would have been far wiser to remand the negotiation originally to the authorities of the Dominion, with whom ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... arose and drew his sword, paced toward the gate, and then suddenly stopped short. All wondered what had happened to cause his hesitating thus, and the Asturian maid expressed her wonder aloud. Don Quixote was not long about the answer. He replied at once that this was no business for him; they had best call his squire. It was for Sancho, he said, that he reserved the task and joy of fighting ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... that pass by night over the moon. ALMORAN took no notice of his confusion; but that he might more effectually conceal his sentiments and prevent suspicion, he suddenly adverted to another subject, while HAMET was hesitating what to reply. By this artifice HAMET was deceived; and concluded, that whatever ALMORAN had heard of ALMEIDA, had passed slightly over his mind, and was remembered but by chance; he, therefore, quickly recovered that ease and chearfulness, ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... mildly heroic, which is not wholly disagreeable either. Very few men are afraid of death in the abstract. Very few men believe in hell, or are tortured by their consciences. They are doubtful about after-death, hesitating between a belief in eternal oblivion and a belief in a new life under the same management as the present; and neither prospect fills them with terror. If only one's "people" would be sensible, one would ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... ventured to wander from the board. Several times drinks were served, but Hampton contented himself with a gulp of water, always gripping an unlighted cigar between his teeth. He was playing now with apparent recklessness, never hesitating over a card, his eye as watchful as that of a hawk, his betting quick, confident, audacious. The contagion of his spirit seemed to affect the others, to force them into desperate wagers, and thrill the lookers-on. The perspiration was beading ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... informed that the Holy Synod has been appealed to, more than once, to induce it to cast its influence into the balance with that of the scientists and the governmental authorities, who have been discussing the matter for years past, and hesitating over the probable consequences of action—a case of peasant joining hands with the rulers of Russia, once more like Mr. Tchelisheff and the Emperor Nicholas—or the people of the United States and the President—to secure a ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... on the water as though hesitating. Gavrilo lay flat on the bottom of the boat, covering his face with his hands, and Tchelkache prodded him with his oar, hissing furiously, but ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... heroic sentiments struggling within him, with no outlet but a hesitating advancing of the theory that "if we didn't get rain before long, the country'd be awful dry." Small wonder that he burst out in the bull-pen one night with "I wish the ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... the creek bridge and the old fort beyond. She had been over that path once in broad daylight, and it made her shudder to think she must now feel her way there alone through the dark. The growing fear of it got upon her nerves as she stood hesitating; then, almost angry with herself, she advanced swiftly down toward the distant glowing lights of the Gayety. It was just beyond there that the alley turned off toward the foothills, a mere thread of a path wandering amid a maze of unlighted tents and disreputable ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... peered out and seen nothing but its tower, framed in the square of the half-opened window, while, with the heroic scruples of a traveller setting forth for unknown climes, or of a desperate wretch hesitating on the verge of self-destruction, faint with emotion, I explored, across the bounds of my own experience, an untrodden path which, I believed, might lead me to my death, even—until passion spent itself and left me shuddering ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... general meaning, wholesale, in the course of the European concert. But bruttino is a soothing diminutive, a diminutive that forbears to express contempt, a diminutive that implies innocence, and is, moreover, guarded by a hesitating adverb, shrugging in the rear—"rather than not." "Rather ugly than not, and ugly in a little way that we need say few words about—the fewer the better;" nay, this paraphrase cannot achieve the homely Italian quality whereby the printed and condemnatory criticism is ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... Vassily, and he took the horse's head. "What a sowing, Konstantin Dmitrievitch," he said, hesitating; "first rate. Only it's a work to get about! You drag a ton of earth on ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... from Montezuma to the Cacique, setting forth the anger of the Emperor, and demanding instant reparation and tribute for the disloyalty of the Totonacs in having entertained the invaders. The fearful and hesitating Totonacs—it was but natural—would have appeased their anger; but under the instigation of Cortes these Aztec tax-collectors were seized and imprisoned. Characteristic of the Spaniard of those days was the act of double-dealing ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... Priscilla was hesitating whether to begin to unpack her trunk or not when a light knock was heard at her door. She said "Come in," and two girls burst rather noisily ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... — N. irresolution, infirmity of purpose, indecision; indetermination, undetermination|!; unsettlement; uncertainty &c. 475; demur, suspense; hesitating &c. v., hesitation, hesitancy; vacillation; changeableness &c. 149; fluctuation; alternation &c. (oscillation) 314; caprice &c. 608. fickleness, levity, legerete[Fr]; pliancy &c. (softness) 324; weakness; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... she said, hesitating; "but it is only big enough to hold me. However, if you will promise to make no remarks, and to 'make believe,' as the children say, that the place is six times as large as it is, I will, for once take you to it. I ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... the daisies came slowly towards her, hesitating, making a shy bright little cotillion on the dark clear water. Their gay bright candour moved her so much as they came near, that she ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... pomps should be perplexing to some by the different requirements of different stations in life, there is surely less difficulty of the same kind in relation to its vanities. But while the "weak in faith" are hesitating and trembling at the thought of all the opposition and sacrifices a self-denying course of conduct must, under any circumstances, involve, they are still further discouraged by finding that some whom they are accustomed to respect and admire have ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... room of the "Excelsior Magazine" began to creak painfully under the hesitating pressure of an uncertain and unfamiliar hand. This continued until with a start of irritation the editor faced directly about, throwing his leg over the arm of his chair with a certain youthful dexterity. With one hand gripping its back, the other still ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... am told and informed, Mr. Pleydell,' answered Sir Robert, still hesitating, 'that he does not mean to abide by this name of Brown, but is to set up a claim to the estate of Ellangowan, under the name ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... in arms. On the 18th day of March, 1821, he was the first to proclaim the plan of Iguala in the Plaza of Vera Cruz. This promptness of Santa Anna in proclaiming the independence determined many who were hesitating in dread of a bombardment from Spanish forces in the Castle of San Juan de Ulua; and this important step it was which first brought him prominently into notice. As a consequence of this political movement, Santa Anna was appointed second ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... know," said Snooks, in a hesitating voice; "it may be true. I shouldn't wonder—he's just the sort ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... sprawling in a chair, and Barclay said as he helped the elder man squeeze into it, "Don't forget to speak to Molly, Colonel," and then ushered him to the door. For a moment Colonel Culpepper stood at the bottom of the stairs, partly hesitating to go into the windy street, and partly trying to think of some way in which he could get the subject on his mind before his daughter in the right way. Then as he stood on the threshold with his nose in the storm, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... I am," was the hesitating answer, "the main trouble being that we have been suffering for the last few days from a dreadful scare; but then we hain't been injured in any way, thanks be to ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... embroidered white satin negligee, a pair of white satin bed-slippers, and a nightgown that was a mere wisp of sheer silk and lace; then drew forth three trunk-checks, and a bundle an inch thick of crisp, new bank-notes, and pulled one out, blushing and hesitating. ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... of the Three Chapters had its echoes in Africa, and the deacon Ferrand, a learned theologian, represented a very wide feeling when, in his Defensio, he deprecated any condemnation of the dead theologians; and in Facundus, Bishop of Hermiane, the unhappy hesitating pope Vigilius found an adviser who, if anyone, might have given him firmness. In the result, the emperor, by the pen at least as much as the sword, overpowered resistance, and Africa accepted the decisions of Constantinople. Reparatus, Bishop of Carthage, who resisted, was deposed, Liberatus ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... Senna (in a low hesitating voice). Almost. I have charged each patient with three attendances daily. Even when you only dropped in for a cup of tea and a chat. (Passionately.) I felt ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 11, 1893 • Various
... Mosha," Alex Kronberg cried, pulling a large satiny invincible from his waistcoat pocket and thrusting it at his uncle. For one hesitating minute the old man looked from Alex to the cigar, but at last its glossy perfection ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... in sight. It was deserted. Without hesitating, the little band moved towards the palisade. In a short space of time the dangerous zone was passed. Not a shot had been fired. When the cart reached the palisade, it stopped. Neb remained at the onagas' heads to hold them. The ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... he said, in a hesitating way. "It's true enough. Davenport's dead as mutton, and Stephenson and Coyne are down in their bunks. But it's Mr. Holgate commands here. I'll call him." He went forward and whistled, and presently two other men approached, one of whom ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... withheld an unreserved admission, but "should it turn out that the commander was wrong in assuming the vessel to be a man-of-war, the German Government will not fail to draw the consequences resulting therefrom." This hesitating and qualified acknowledgment was accepted as about as near to a confession of guilt as Germany was then capable ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... turned the limp, dog's-eared pages until they had found the place. Manders cleared his throat unreservedly and then looked up with an expression of ebbing patience, as the door opened again. This time there was no knock, and Lady Barbara walked in after hesitating for a moment on the threshold to identify Eric. She was wearing a black dress with a transparent film of grey hanging from the shoulders, a black hat shaped like a butterfly's wings with her hair visible through the spider's ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... no companion, goes among the company. It would seem that curiosity and opportunity have never brought her there before. She has the air of being a little troubled by the sight, and, as she goes the length of the tables, it is with a hesitating step and an uneasy manner. At length she comes to the refectory of the boys. They are so much less popular than the girls that it is bare of visitors when she looks in at ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... an hour ago she had been feeling ridiculously happy, comfortably assured in her own mind that this tall, rather exquisite foreigner and the woman whose presence in her home had occasioned so much bitter heart-burning were only hesitating, as it were, on the brink of matrimony. And now—now she did not know what to think! Miss Vallincourt was treating Davilof with an airy negligence that to June's honest and candid soul seemed altogether ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... went on, hesitating, and coloring with embarrassment, "and I saw the baby-hands clutch ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... be good,—very good, indeed," said she, dropping her knitting, and hesitating a moment before she continued; "only—only, Gilbert, I didn't expect you ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... to force a way into the depths of her eyes with his; but he might as well have attacked the sun; so he stood in a confusion of not very well defined feelings, undecided, hesitating, half expecting that there would be some laughable turn to ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... of her husband wandered towards the piano. She saw their direction. Her own eyes fell to the floor, and she stood silent for some moments—silent, but hurriedly thoughtful. Then looking up, she said, in a hesitating voice— ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... As Sprigg stood hesitating whether to turn in or not, Meg came up behind him, and with a gentle push of the nose against his back, said: "There's your bed, and there are your bedfellows. So in with you, my stout one, and make yourself comfortable." ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... talked over the old plans for redress of grievances, and a constitutional union with the mother country. With little or no belief in the possibility of either, they stood shivering on the banks of the Rubicon, that mythical river of irretrievable self-committal, hesitating to enter its turbid waters. A few of the bolder "shepherds of the people" tried to urge them onward; but no one was bold enough to dash in first and lead them through. Paine seized the opportunity. He had a mind whose eye always ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... canal, or chasm, which separated the parties. He carried a small white flag and a bag containing presents. Innocent-looking and defenceless though he was, however, the Eskimos approached him with hesitating and slow steps, regarding every motion of the interpreter with suspicion, and frequently stooping to thrust their hands into their boots, in which they ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... into which they had gone, whose doors were so contrived, that upon closing they could not be opened from either side, without the key. The archbishop being with the gonfalonier, under pretense of having something to communicate on the part of the pope, addressed him in such an incoherent and hesitating manner, that the gonfalonier at once suspected him, and rushing out of the chamber to call assistance, found Jacopo di Poggio, whom he seized by the hair of the head, and gave into the custody of his attendants. The Signory hearing the tumult, snatched such arms as they could at the moment obtain, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... party of six men was organized in the month of October, and they tramped through the woods for days, with a couple of dogs, but the trail of the animal could not be found. They finally gave up the hunt, the most tired and disgusted not hesitating to declare they did not believe a bear had been seen in the ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... conceive no purpose in seeking to becloud this matter except the purpose of weakening the hands of the Government and making the part which the United States is to play in this great struggle for human liberty an inefficient and hesitating part. ...
— In Our First Year of the War - Messages and Addresses to the Congress and the People, - March 5, 1917 to January 6, 1918 • Woodrow Wilson
... days, Judge Hollenback," said Mrs. Tresslyn suavely. "She does feel, I've no doubt, that it would be a tax on her strength and nerves. In a few days, I'm sure, she will feel differently." She thought she had sensed Anne's reason for hesitating. Mrs. Tresslyn had been speechless with dismay—or perhaps it was indignation—up to this moment. She had had a hard ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... people say it was a real full-blown organ," explained Sigmund, in a thick, hesitating voice, "and some say it was nothing better than a bag-pipe—oh, dear! how my head does ache—and there are people who say it was a kettle-drum—nothing more nor less; and Brunken is going to show that not one of them knew ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... the young Father came out in his black cassock, and taking up his vestments which lay upon the altar-steps, he proceeded with the utmost nonchalance to put them on, not hesitating to display a long rent in his surplice, ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... hesitating feet Ward left the two women and swung into his saddle. "I guess I'll send Gage back, anyhow," ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... characters. Romantic love was to be left out and friendship to take its place. But could anything worth while have been done with the heroics of friendship after 'Don Carlos'? On the whole one must regard it as a great good fortune for the German drama that, when Schiller was hesitating in 1796 between 'Wallenstein' and 'The Knights of Malta', the former carried the day. As for the pseudo-antique chorus, the best that he could do with that, by way of an experiment, was done later in 'The Bride ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... gentleman sees a lady alone hesitating at a bad crossing, or leaving a carriage at an awkward place, he may offer his hand to assist her in crossing or alighting, raise his hat, bow, and pass on. A lady may, with perfect propriety, accept such assistance from a stranger, thanking ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... situation. It was he who managed the hesitating soldiers and the hesitating townsmen. At five in the morning Romeuf and Baillon arrived, with Lafayette's order, and the decree of the sovereign Assembly. There was no more illusion then about pursuing the journey, and all the king's hope was that he might gain time ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... taunting "Dance, freshy!" of the seniors, and felt the mighty rush of the freshman hosts; since the "rah, rah, rah, Landers!" had shook the old amphitheatre and the dozens of welcoming hands had greeted him; and then—the darkness—the hesitating leave-taking of the building, and the lingering walk across the deserted campus toward his room—the walk he knew so well he would take no more. A brief time of waiting—a blank—and then the bitter, thumping ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... watch-dogs, quieted or distracted, their attentive scent preoccupied by something else. The vast silence has returned, less reassuring, ready to break, perhaps, because beasts are watching. And, at a low command from Itchoua, the men begin again their march, slower and more hesitating, in the night of the plain, a little bent, a little lowered on their legs, like wild ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... pulled down over the front window, but the lamp threw a shadow on it, plain as a photograph. It was the shadow of the old man, sitting there with his arms flung out across the table, and his head bowed down on them. I was just hesitating, whether to knock or to slip away, when I heard him groan, and sort of cry out, 'Oh, my Danny! My Danny! If only you could have ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the matter, and thereupon Pecuchet, having first taken the precaution to shut the door, explained in a hesitating manner that he was affected ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... was the essential story of a crime and its punishment. He thus brought to the Elizabethan stage the classical theme of retribution. In his Spanish Tragedy, a murder is avenged under the direction of a ghost, by a hesitating and soliloquizing protagonist, who is driven through doubt and speculation almost to madness, and then to craft, with which he outwits the wily villain and brings all the leading dramatis ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... mutely by rising in her place. The wind had moulded her light-colored veil close to her half-defined features, to the outline of her cheeks and low-knotted hair; her form, which was youthful and slender, was swathed in a clinging raw-silk dust-cloak. As she stood, hesitating before summoning her cramped limbs to her service, she might have suggested some half-evolved conception of doubting young womanhood emerging from the sculptor's clay. Personality, as yet, she had none; but all that could be seen of ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... wife is rubbing her eyes and hesitating a bit, th' man aatside rings sich a clash of bells on th' front door, as brought th' good man aat on th' floor in ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... Girl realized that she was face to face with a mystery, but what that mystery was she could not even surmise, nor would she for some time to come. She determined to act, however, and that, if possible, without alarming her companions. Hesitating but a moment, Harriet stepped out boldly and started up the bar to meet the mysterious strangers with ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... Keep for thine own the armour thou didst delight in; and I restore thee, if that matters aught at all, to the ghosts and ashes of thy parents. Yet thou shalt have this sad comfort in thy piteous death, thou fallest by great Aeneas' hand.' Then, chiding his hesitating comrades, he lifts him from the ground, dabbling ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... words, all the rows and rows of houses and streets, Miss Rottenmeier and Tinette rose before Heidi's eyes. Hesitating a little, she said: "I should like it better if you would come to see ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... was the hesitating answer. "Yes," the lad added, as the fresh air cleared his head. "I'll be all right pretty soon. Have ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... straw hat and fanned his face with it, while Lydia leaned her head against the door frame and closed her eyes. Presently she heard the trampling of feet going by, but she did not open her eyes till the feet paused in a hesitating way, and a voice asked her grandfather, in the firm, neat tone which she had heard summer boarders from Boston use, "Is the young lady ill?" She now looked up, and blushed like fire to see two handsome young men ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... senior Colonel, and would have taken the command had he come up. This statement he made to a gentleman several years after the battle took place. He said also to the same person, that when he found them hesitating in the presence of the enemy, he "burst into a passion," called them cowards, and dashed into the river as before narrated. If this account be true, it may somewhat palliate, but certainly not justify ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... life and lilt went out of them, and they were again maundering and futile things, getting in one another's way, stumbling and shuffling through the darkness, hesitating to grasp ropes, and, when they did take hold, invariably taking hold of the wrong rope first. Skulkers there were among them, too; and once, from for'ard of the 'midship house, I heard smacks, and ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... and stood hesitating in some embarrassment. "I'll tell you what I could do, Channing," he said, "I could take you on as a stoker, or steward, say. They're always deserting and mutinying; I have to carry a gun on me to make them mind. How would you like that? Forty ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... savage would have appeared unaccountable; for there could be no doubt of his desire to slay the fair youth—still less doubt of his ability to dart his formidable spear with precision. Nevertheless, there was good reason for his hesitating; for young Henry Stuart was well known, alike by settlers and savages, as possessing the swiftest foot, the strongest arm, and the boldest heart in the island, and Keona was not celebrated for the ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... hesitating Where to fix your final claim, Don't you see our boiler heating, With a more effectual flame!—When the steam comes on like thunder, And the wheels begin to play, Must you not be torn asunder, And ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... San. Deign to go into service at the pleasure quarter. Cho[u]bei is skilful. In seven days these wounds can be healed. Twenty ryo[u] secured, the paper is taken up, the robbery of the seal is never discovered. We can laugh at Kwaiba's anger. All is for the Tamiya." He noted that O'Iwa was hesitating—"It is but as a pledge. The money is advanced on the person of O'Iwa San. A week, ten days, and other sources of loan will be discovered. This is the only measure Cho[u]bei can suggest. He has no means of ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... surface of the water, there was no general desire, as there had been when she emerged into Lake Shiver, to rush upon the upper deck. Instead of that, the occupants gathered together and looked at each other in a hesitating way, as if they were afraid to go out and see whether they were really in an open sea, or lying in some small ice-locked body ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... found himself in serious plight, there being no suitable refuge just at hand. Those trees which were big enough had had no branches spared by the fire. He had to run some distance. Just as he was hesitating as to what he should do, and looking for a rock or stump behind which he might hide while he reloaded his gun, the moose caught sight of him, forgot about Lije, and came charging through the weeds. Sandy had no more time for hesitation. He dropped ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... all stared in silence at the marvelous picture. As before, Wade Ruggles was the first to come to himself, but when he spoke, it was in an awed, hesitating whisper: ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... wood, sent back captain Smith to the right of the cavalry, which was at a considerable distance, to put the British horse in motion. We shall not pretend to determine whether the commander of such an important body may be excusable for hesitating, when he received contradictory orders at the same time, especially when both orders run counter to his own judgment, whether in that case it is allowable for him to suspend the operation for a few minutes, in order to consult in person the commander-in-chief about a step of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the successful angler little Benjie, who had been my guide and tutor in that gentle art, as you have learned from my former letters. I called—I whistled—the rascal recognized me, and, starting like a guilty thing, seemed hesitating whether to approach or to run away; and when he determined on the former, it was to assail me with a loud, clamorous, and exaggerated report of the anxiety of all at the Shepherd's Bush for my personal safety; how my landlady had wept, how Sam ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... head began to swim until I fell forward once again. Jesus Christ—I didn't know what to do. I thought of looking at my watch, but I hadn't the courage at first. Besides, I felt the seconds would slip by while I was hesitating and so I'd gain at least a little time. I counted the seconds—one, two, three ... four ... five ... six ... my head dropped forward and I nearly fell over. I looked at my watch—fourteen minutes had gone, nearly a quarter of an hour! ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... concerning life and the worth of life—he learns unwillingly to believe that it is his right and even his duty to obtain this verdict, and he has to seek his way to the right and the belief only through the most extensive (perhaps disturbing and destroying) experiences, often hesitating, doubting, and dumbfounded. In fact, the philosopher has long been mistaken and confused by the multitude, either with the scientific man and ideal scholar, or with the religiously elevated, desensualized, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... this thing? Who had sought, with such patient cunning, to upset those evidential principles by which blind Justice gropes her hesitating way to Truth? In concocting his masterpiece of malignant ingenuity the murderer had worked alone. His only accomplice—apart from the after-hand of Fate—was a piece of automatic mechanism which had done his bidding ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... desultory and useless reading, till he had run through libraries of volumes which he forgot even to their title-pages. Rather by instinct than by guidance, he turned to writing, and his professors or tutors occasionally gave his English composition a hesitating approval; but in that branch, as in all the rest, even when he made a long struggle for recognition, he never convinced his teachers that his abilities, at their best, warranted placing him on the rank-list, among the first third of his class. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... right to do so, for peace and its conditions were now in his grasp. Alexander and Frederick William felt this, and hence they were under the necessity of making advances to the conqueror; they were obliged to sacrifice their pride and to conciliate their powerful enemy. Frederick William was still hesitating. The tears of his wife, the prayers and remonstrances of Hardenberg restrained him; he was unwilling to listen to the urgent appeals of Generals von Koeckeritz and Zastrow, and of Field-Marshal von Kalkreuth, who, now that Dantzic had fallen, believed unconditional submission to ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... his practice as an argument against the preaching he had lately been indulging in, in opposition to Daniel; but Daniel was too far gone in his Hollands-and-water to do more than enunciate his own opinions, which he did with hesitating and laboured distinctness in ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... mercury in the thermometer. The night is dying, the day is not yet born. All nature feels the influence of that hour. Then bad dreams come, then infants wake and call, then memories of those who are lost to us arise, then the hesitating soul often takes its plunge into the depths of the Unknown. It is not wonderful, therefore, that on this occasion the wheels of Time drave heavily for me. I knew that the morning was at hand by many signs. The sleeping bearers turned and muttered in their sleep, a distant lion ceased its roaring ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... circumstances of the conference, Geronte protests that he recollects nothing of it; he feels certain he could not have given more than twenty crowns to Lisette; as to Crispin, he had never heard of him. The answer is always, "C'est votre lethargie." While perplexed and hesitating, the old man discovers that a large sum in notes has been abstracted from his hoard. Ergaste had secured them as an alleviation in case of the worst, and had placed them in the hands of Isabelle. She promises ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... cloak, with thick wadding and a strong lining incapable of wearing out. He became more lively, and even his character grew firmer, like that of a man who has made up his mind, and set himself a goal. From his face and gait, doubt and indecision, all hesitating and wavering traits disappeared of themselves. Fire gleamed in his eyes, and occasionally the boldest and most daring ideas flitted through his mind; why not, for instance, have marten fur on the collar? The thought of this almost made him absent-minded. ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... she came?" the other continued. "I will tell you. I followed my wife to the Milan—I thought it might be worth while. I saw her enter the lift and come up to your room. While I was hesitating as to what to do, I met Flossie. Devilish clever idea of mine! I determined to kill two birds with one stone. I told her you'd been enquiring for her—that you were alone in your rooms and would like to see ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... particularly pleasing to the two friends, whose chances of escape had sunk to below zero. But the "Albatross" had slackened speed as though hesitating to leave Africa behind. Was Robur thinking of going back? No; but his attention had been particularly attracted to the country ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... he, "but I'm afraid I should show myself such a duffer. I used to be a pretty fair trout-fisher when I was a lad," he went on to say; and then it suddenly occurred to him that the offer of her companionship ought not to be received in this hesitating fashion. "But I shall be delighted to try my hand, if you will let me; and of course you must see that I don't disturb the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black |
