"Quavering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... upon the path which led to the boat-shed, and then an old man, naked but for his titi, or waist-girdle of grass, came out into the moonlight, and greeted us in a quavering, cracked voice. ...
— Pakia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... in another minute Pratt would have gone, too: he was only looking round before locking up for the night. Then these things came—combined in the person of an old man, Antony Bartle, who opened the door, pushed in a queer, wrinkled face, and asked in a quavering voice ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... traitorous tricks. There is but one party in the country, and that is the Union and the War party. Here and there a coward may waver and be frightened at the prospect of a Democratic opposition raising its head successfully to withstand the great onward movement, but his quavering voice will be unheard in the great cry for battle. We have accepted this war with all its fearful risks, and we will abide by it. We will be true to our principle of a united country, we will be true to our word to crush rebellion, and we will be true to our brave soldiers who ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Scotch song. Thinking this rather a strange method of composing the nervous system of a delirious patient, she stood and listened. Up, far up, into the loftiest regions of sound, went Aunt Patty's cracked and quavering voice, and then it came down with a heavy, precipitous fall into a loud grumble and tumble below. She repeated again and again, in a most hilarious tone, ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... them. Up till midnight a sort of religious solemnity prevailed. But at the stroke of twelve all this was changed. Constraint gave way to license; pious hymns were replaced by Bacchanalian ditties, and the shrill quavering notes of the village fiddle hardly rose above the roar of voices that went up from the merry brotherhood of the Green Wolf. Next day, the twenty-fourth of June or Midsummer Day, was celebrated by the same personages with the same noisy gaiety. One of the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... her away toward prison, pulling her unceremoniously out of the lamb's mouth. And then the lamb, instead of following, stood braced on the spot as if unable to comprehend that such a thing was possible. It let out a quavering complaint, a melting infant cry, at which the man stopped and turned his head, and, seeing it standing there and looking ahead in a wooden sort of way, he returned to get it, marching the ewe ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... He went quavering down the road, and Dorcas ran back to the house, elated afresh. An unregarded old man could give him the poor treasure of his affection, quite unasked. Why ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... the owlish, serious-looking coons, and no wonder, since they lie hidden nearly all day in hollow trees and we never had time to hunt them. We often heard their curious, quavering, whinnying cries on still evenings, but only once succeeded in tracing an unfortunate family through our corn-field to their den in a big oak and catching them all. One of our neighbors, Mr. McRath, a Highland Scotchman, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... attract any but the children. Whether it was the pathos of his white hairs, his garb of shreds and patches, or the mild benignity of his eye that moved me, I know not, but among all the Sunday shouters in Hyde Park it seemed to me that that quavering voice of the past ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... suddenly; the colors lowered. She did not heed that, but her old eyes flashed and then filled with tears to see the flag going to salute the soldiers' graves. "Thank ye, boys; thank ye!" she cried, in her quavering voice, and they all cheered her. The cheer went back along the straggling line for old Grandmother Dexter, standing there in her front door between the lilacs. It was one of the ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... glittering air they soar and skim, Whose voices make the emptiness of light A windy palace. Quavering from the brim Of dawn, and bold with song at edge of night, They clutch their leafy pinnacles and sing Scornful of man, and from his toils aloof Whose heart's a haunted woodland whispering; Whose thoughts return on tempest-baffled wing; Who hears the cry of God in everything, ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... of the office and departed in the direction of the Deputy Commissioner’s house. That day at noon I had occasion to go down the blinding hot Mall, and I saw a crooked man crawling along the white dust of the roadside, his hat in his hand, quavering dolorously after the fashion of street-singers at Home. There was not a soul in sight, and he was out of all possible earshot of the houses. And he sang through his nose, turning his ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... And when, at length, the organ-grinder looped the long chain over his arm, slung the organ over his back, and went toiling up the road, with Major Monkey perched on top of the hand-organ, Jolly Robin had a very queer feeling. He flew down and alighted upon Farmer Greene's fence and trilled a quavering good-by. Major Monkey stood up and made a low bow to him. "He's going South, after all!" Jolly Robin said to himself. If that was so, old dog Spot must have been glad of it. Anyhow, he dashed out of the dooryard and ran a little way up the road, growling ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey
... he expresses a pitying contempt for everything that is characteristically English, and for the unfortunate English who are imbued with the prejudices of their native land. He gives a practical expression to his scorn by quavering in a reedy voice, the feeble chansonnettes of an inferior French composer, and by issuing a volume of poems in which the laws of English Grammar are trampled under foot, and the restrictions of English ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... haunted him. With a start he woke, bathed in perspiration, to find that day had broken, and that from the hillside echoed the long-drawn cry: "Far yaud! Far yaud! Bauty!" While, ben the house, he could hear a slow, shuffling step, and a thin old voice quavering: "Hey, Maudge!" ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... the broad expanse of water and began to whistle a low, quavering tune. Trot knew that the whistle meant that Cap'n Bill was thinking, and the old sailor didn't look at the island as much as he looked at the trees upon the bank where they stood. Presently he took from the big pocket of his coat an ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... at all intimate with Field will forget the enjoyment he took in trolling forth, in a quaint, quavering, cracked, but tuneful recitative, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... bombardier's girdle from which hung a small armoury of steel implements and leather scabbards: scissors, spectacle case, a bunch of keys, a button-hook, and other more or less intimidating things. "Jeanne," she called in a quavering voice, and as the bonne appeared, tying her apron-strings, they read the billeting-paper together, the one looking over the shoulder of the other, Madame reading the words as a child reads, and as though she were speaking to herself. The paper shook in her tremulous hands, and I could ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... likeness; the Andalusian character is rich with Oriental traits; the houses, the mode of life, the very atmosphere is Moorish rather than Christian; to this day the peasant at his plough sings the same quavering lament that sang the Moor. And it is to the invaders that Spain as a country owes the magnificence of its golden age: it was contact with them that gave the Spaniards cultivation; it was the conflict of seven hundred years that made them the ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... leaned o'er the edge of the moon And wistfully gazed on the sea Where the Gryxabodill madly whistled a tune To the air of Ti-fol-de-ding-dee. The quavering shriek of the Fliupthecreek Was fitfully wafted afar To the Queen of the Wunks as she powdered her cheek With the ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... do ye, dearie? Well, you jist shall git out," came the rejoinder in a high, quavering voice, and slowly the old woman lifted herself, with many groans and "ouches" ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... my prayers, as gods will hear the dutiful, And brought old age upon you, though you still affect the beautiful. You sport among the boys, and drink and chatter on quite aimlessly; And in your cups with quavering voice ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... up for a long time with intense enjoyment. Obviously he had preserved intact the innocence of mind which is easily amused. But when his hilarity had exhausted itself, he made a professional remark in a self-assertive but quavering voice: ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... Captain's ruddy face. The wax splattered and melted. The Doctor applied it to the cut with deft fingers, and with a strange condescension of manner in one so proud. My heart beat like a bird's, both quick and little; and on a sudden BLUENOSE raised his dripping hands, and in a quavering kind of voice ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... Swedish—cooks of all races minister to their appetites. Whenever a panful of scraps is thrown out from the galley, a flock of gulls may be seen fluttering over their fluent table d'hote. Their shrill, quavering cries of joy and expectancy sound as if the machinery of their emotions were worked by rusty pulleys; their sharp eyes glisten, and their great wings flap and whirl together in a confusion of white and gray. It is said that they do useful service as scavengers ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... ceremony of administering the potion ever vary. Mr. Fentress would first compound two of the celebrated mixtures—one for the Governor, and the other for the General to "sample." Then the Governor would make this little speech in his high, piping, quavering voice: ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... sat outside the lodge in the quiet summer evenings, they and their father would sing together, 'Mother's favourite hymn,' and dear old grandmother would come to the door, and join in a quavering voice in ...
— Poppy's Presents • Mrs O. F. Walton
... Then poor old Richards got up, and his wife rose and stood at his side. Her head was bent down, so that none might see that she was crying. Her husband gave her his arm, and so supporting her, he began to speak in a quavering voice: ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... you, Wealthy Robbins! Come here a minute, my little dear," spoke the lady, in a shrill, quavering voice. And she beckoned to her with a hooked finger like a claw. But Wealthy shrank back, murmuring, "I don't want to," almost under her breath, and nudging with her elbow the nearest girl; "Hannah, Mrs. ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... us false," rejoined the "mates" or rather, the mate, in a voice so high or quavering that for a moment it was difficult for me to repress a smile; although these three years past I rarely ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... then pale again, and she said, but in a quavering voice: And the Black Squire, Arthur, what sayeth he? Said Viridis: He sayeth nought of thee, but that he would hear all the tale of what befell thee in the Black Valley. Sweet friend, said Birdalone, I pray thee of thy kindness and sweetness that thou ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... head above the roof, she uttered a loud quavering cry—the cry of welcome of the Afghan women. The firing without instantly ceased. Again raising the cry, she stepped out on to the roof; and shouted that the English did not want to keep the women, and that the door would be open for them to come out—providing the Afghans promised that no attempt ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... alongside first. Lights were poured on her, and quavering voices asked, "Have you ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... marriages, when garlands, flowers, and confetti are thrown upon the cortege as it passes. The banner and pall are black, with white embroidery, and the members of a red-clothed confraternity attend the funerals, bearing a crucifix and tapers. Many of them are quite old men, and they raise a quavering chant as they climb the steep ascent to the cathedral, which is a late Renaissance building, and not interesting, though finely placed. The campanile is an evident copy of that of S. Mark ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... felt the shoulder heave, as with a long-drawn quavering sigh, then heard the regular though labored breathing of a ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... tingling sense of being haunted. But no! these gracious, silent, waving, weaving shapes are not of the Shadowy Folk, for whose coming the white fires were kindled: a strain of song, full of sweet, clear quavering, like the call of a bird, gushes from some girlish mouth, and fifty ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... up on the Bleachers with 2,000 other Mere Students and lent a quavering Tenor to ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... fear, betraying him. He was pressed; he became incoherent; and then from the jolting litter came a groan. In the instant hubbub and the gathering of the crowd as to a natural signal, the clear-eyed quavering Chancellor heard the catch of the clock before it strikes the hour of doom; and for ten seconds he forgot himself. This shall atone for many sins. He plucked a bearer by the sleeve. 'Bid the Princess flee. All is lost,' he whispered. ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... asked, his voice raised in a high quavering note. He laughed, and his laughter was pitched in the same time-worn key. "That doctor is a blot on the country. When Sir Burnham was alive—and afore he went to Egypt—it was different; although, mind you, it's my belief—oh, ah, it is indeed—that him coming here ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... his course. The hall-door leading to the second story was open and filled with a crowd of frightened, unkempt women and children, who gave way before him. The door of the room opening on the balcony was locked, and, in response to his repeated knockings, a quavering voice asked ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... under the authority of the ancient and holy Seal of Seals," he answered in a quavering voice, touching the little cylinder of white shell which I had noted upon the person of the King, but that now hung from a gold ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... had become so completely possest by the imaginary scenes and characters connected with it, that I seemed to be actually living among them. Everything brought them as it were before my eyes; and as the door of the dining-room opened, I almost expected to hear the feeble voice of Master Silence quavering forth his favorite ditty: ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... he asked in a quavering tone. "Come back from the wars, eh? I suppose you are Terence, though I shouldn't have known you. We will drink your health, though, at supper in whisky punch, if he'll let me have it, for we can't ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... over one another's heads. Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again and again for a certain "August." She wrung her hands in her excitement; at times the man shouted "August!" in a quavering bass voice. "August, here we are over here!" "Oh, where is Gussie?" wailed the woman. "Here, here I am," another voice answered at length; "here I am, I'm all right." "Oh," exclaimed the woman with ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... he knew that Mr. Jack was going, and he had a sudden most urgent longing to go with him, to stay with him, to be with him always. He wanted to cry; he felt dreadfully unhappy, but all of his thanks, his strange desires, that he could bring out was, in a quavering voice, trying hard, you understand, not to cry, "Mr. Jack. Oh! Mr.——" and ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... beseech you to spare me. This is no time for quavering," said the guest. "However, I am proud of your approbation, my old friend; for this young lady do I intend to take to wife. What think you ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... this lay quavering was the plain chant, given more or less badly, as it was moreover given, but yet given, when there was no special ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... thump of horse-hoofs on the turf, and in half a minute they were amidst of a rout of men a-horseback, more than a score, whose armour and weapons gleamed in the moonlight: yet when these riders were gotten there, they were silent, till one said in a quavering voice as if afeard: "Otter, Otter! what is this? A minute ago and we could see the fire, and the tree, and men and horses about them: and now, lo you! there is naught save two great grey stones lying on the grass, and a man's bare bones leaning ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... country where such adventures had taken place—and perhaps some day would be met with by themselves. And at night, when they lay out on their swags under the cool sky, which looked so much farther away than it did in cities, and heard the high quavering hunting-call of the dingo, their thoughts would go, not towards the scenes where they had spent their boyhood, but onwards into ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... Red Lad!" quoth the messenger. "Nay," said the other carle, "draw thy sword and smite the head from him, lord; make sure of him." The knight half-drew his sword from the scabbard; but then stayed his hand and said in a quavering voice: "Nay, nay! let us begone. Dost thou not see? There is one sitting by him!" "It is a bush in the dusk," said the other; "give me thy sword." But the knight for all answer ran swiftly down the ghyll, ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... been feeling kind o' mean this last day or two," confessed Blake. His own once guttural voice was plaintive, as he spoke. It was almost a quavering whine. ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... in the purlieus of Soho. No words of its shabby meanness! But that is our prison-cell In the jail of weary London. Therein for us must dwell The hope of the world that shall be, that rose a glimmering spark As the last thin flame of our pleasure sank quavering in ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... fingers were resting lightly upon the wrist. As the last deep quivering breath expired with a quavering sigh, he laid the limp hand back upon the bed, and then, before he arose, gently closed the stiff eyelids over the staring glassy eyes, and set the gaping jaws back again into a ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... man's quavering old voice came to her through the winding trail of the arroya. It was lifted tunefully insistent in an old-time ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... farther glimmer of more sands beyond them challenged our advance. We had come to a "grapevine ferry." The scow was on the other side, the water too shoal for the horses to swim, and the bottom, most likely, quicksand. Out of the blackness of the opposite shore came a soft, high-pitched, quavering, long-drawn, smothered moan of woe, the call of that snivelling little sinner the screech-owl. Ferry murmured to me to answer it and I sent the same faint horror-stricken tremolo back. Again it came to us, from not farther than one might toss ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... flowered so profusely in the garden at Baker's Farm. But Mrs. Morrison could not for all that dissemble the disappointment and sternness of her heart, and the old lady glanced up at her as she came in with a kind of quavering fearfulness, like that of a little child who is afraid it may be going to be whipped, or of a conscientious dog who ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... his voice quavering, "do me the honor to look in my eyes. Study me from the viewpoint of an honest man. Tell me whether you will believe what I have to say to you. Do not be too quick. Take time ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... she called in a high, quavering voice, "don't shoot the blue jays. It does beat all how right-down destructive all boys are, anyway—shooting poor, harmless little birds for sport." The jays, on hearing the familiar voice of their ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... the edge of the moon And wistfully gazed on the sea Where the Gryxabodill madly whistled a tune To the air of "Ti-fol-de-ding-dee." The quavering shriek of the Fly-up-the-creek Was fitfully wafted afar To the Queen of the Wunks as she powdered her cheek With the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... "that—until one little careless thing he said brought it all back to me in such a flood. It was like drowning. Then you came, and—and——" The quavering, pitiful voice rose to a cry: "Mother, must I tell him everything?" She cowered down in the enfolding arms. "Mother, Mother, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... first introduction to college music and I often bore a quavering tenor as we shouted it out in our freshman enthusiasm. The ridicule, however, was only on the surface; we thoroughly liked and respected the genial poet and it was a great sorrow to us that he resigned during our course, although ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... is held to be evidence of backwoods' manners excusable only in a people so new. In the deep recesses of the Domkirke dark shadows are gathering. The tower clock peals forth. At the last stroke the watchman lifts up his chant in a voice that comes quavering down from ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... not look exactly comfortable, and his voice, how unlike "To that large utterance of the early gods," sounded quavering and querulous. ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... for a full half minute he stood motionless, his arm still extended, his black eyes staring steadily at Rod and Wabigoon who sat as silent as the rocks about them. Then there came to them from a great distance a quavering, thrilling sound, a sound that filled them again with the old horror of the upper chasm—the cry of ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... Mrs. Tinneray's nose, either from cologne inhalings or sunburn, grew suddenly scarlet. However she still regarded the far-off horizons and repeated the last stanza of her hymn, which stanza, sung with much quavering and sighing was a statement to the effect that Mrs. Tinneray would "cling to the old rugged cross." Suddenly, however, she remarked to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of the ensuing winter. Some were nursing mothers, who sheltered themselves and their babes in rude huts where the wind, rain, and snow drove in through yawning fissures which there were no means to close. Others were aged women, who in sore distress sent up their prayers and rolled their quavering hymns to the wintry skies, their only canopy. The story of these hapless families is told in the simple but effective language ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... in a hour ago. It ain't loud, p'r'aps, but it's worriting—very worriting. If 'e wants to dance 'e might move about a bit 'stead o' keeping in one place all the time—'ark!" And she pointed with her quavering finger to a certain part of the ceiling whence came the tramp! tramp! of restless feet; and yet ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... in her soft, yet rather high voice, which seemed suited only to gentle greetings and adieux, or quavering ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... white cap upon his head. The child was singing to the glory of the sunset, or was it to the glory of Amun, "the hidden one," once the local god of Thebes, to whom the grandest temple in the world was dedicated? I listen to the childish, quavering voice, twittering almost like a bird, and one word alone came up to me—the word one hears in Egypt from all the lips that speak and sing: from the Nubians round their fires at night, from the little boatmen of the lower reaches of the Nile, from the Bedouins of the desert, and the donkey boys ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... little afraid, for I know I should fall heavy!" said the Goat-father, in a quavering voice; but he did as he was told, and shutting his eyes firmly, he slipped from the window-sill and fell with a heavy flop into the arms waiting ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... and I saw two or three quick shudders pass over his frame, such as I had not seen since, many a long year before, I witnessed the horrible tortures of a strong man stricken with hydrophobia. Then he asked, in a voice low, quavering ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Gascoyne, in a quavering whisper, and for a moment Myles felt the chill of goose-flesh creep up and down his spine. But ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... Louder rose Kim's quavering howl, till at last he leaped to his feet and staggered off sleepily, while the camp cursed him for waking them. Some twenty yards farther up the line he lay down again, taking care that the whisperers should hear his grunts and groans as he recomposed himself. After a few minutes he rolled towards ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... the dishonor and disgrace to the United States by that basest of all the base pleas of cowardly souls which finds expression in the statement: "Oh, well, anyhow the President kept us out of war!" The people who make this plea assert with quavering voices that they "are behind the President." So they are; well behind him. The farther away from the position of duty and honor and hazard he has backed, the farther behind him these ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... in breathless, quavering rage. His voice is low, with sudden sonorities, like a trumpet that one tries to blow too softly. "By God, let me go, I tell you! Do you think I'm going to stop here? Allons, let me be, or I'll jump over you on ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... spasm she threw the bird into the air, and ran back to the flat, sobbing, "I can't kill it—I can't—there's so much death." Longing to hear the quavering affection of its song once more, but keeping herself from even going to the window, to look for it, with bitter haste she completed her work of getting rid of things—things—things—the things which were stones of an ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... ready, an' we're a' here. Raise the psalm, faither, the sacrament ane," she said faintly—"tak' St. Paul's," and Donald's quavering voice essayed— ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... die of it than break his promise!" The crowd gave way as the broken man they had seen a few days before so jovial and healthful was brought up in a chair to the poll, and said, with his tremulous quavering voice, "I ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... door; standing himself with a hand on the lock; his back is to the room. He speaks in a strange, far-off, quavering voice) ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... groaned within himself at the amount of debt he was incurring, yet he took courage from her kindness to believe she would not be a hard creditor, and, being naturally cheerful, put aside his anxieties and amused himself as well as her with his stories, his quavering songs, his recipes for pot-au-feu, tisane, and pates, at once economical and savory. Never had a leg of lamb or a piece of roast beef gone so far in her domestic experience, a chicken seemed almost to outlive its usefulness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... without thinking of them, that each in his case became a feat. He balanced himself on his legs with conscious craft; he directed carefully his shaking and gnarled hand to his beard in order to stroke it. When he collected his thoughts into a sentence and uttered it in his weak, quavering voice, he did something wonderful; he listened closely, as though to an imperfectly acquired foreign language; and when he was not otherwise employed, he gave attention to the serious business of breathing. He wore a black silk stock, in a style even ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... had proposed the army, and they had drunk deep to their noble selves. A young man of weak expression and quavering legs had proposed "The commerce of Aureataland," coupled with the name of Mr. John Martin, in laudatory but incoherent terms, and I was on my legs replying. Oh, that speech of mine! For discursiveness, for repetition, ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... into the decent privacy of a cupboard, nor is it much more likely to reissue thence than was one of the frail nuns built into the wall in the old times likely to come stepping out again. Bobby has at length ceased to offer me every object which it devolves upon him to hand me, with a quavering voice and a prolonged stammer, since, though I was at first excellently vulnerable by this weapon of offense, I am now becoming hornily hard and indifferent to it. We have stepped over the boundaries of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... but the cold muzzle of the automatic bored into the back of his neck and when he spoke it was in a quavering whine. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... and then at us on the platform, to see whence came this interruption, not set down in the bills. Firmly and irrepressibly the quavering voices sang on, verse after verse; others of the colored people joined in; some whites on the platform began, but I motioned them to silence. I never saw anything so electric; it made all other words cheap; it seemed the choked voice of a race at last unloosed. Nothing could ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... a melancholy failure. Rosie sang in such a dismayed, quavering voice that no one could hear her, and everyone was relieved when she finally broke down and had to leave before the clock in the steeple had a chance to strike more ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... the spirit of our predilection. He has just returned from a concert of fashionable music, where he 'tried to faint, that he might be carried out, but didn't know how to do it,' and was compelled to sit with compressed lips, and listen to 'sounds from flat shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction,' for two long hours. When he gets home, however, he 'feeds fat his grudge' against modern musical affectations. Let us condense a few ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... and stranger, Catholic and Protestant. Mr. Stevenson attended one of these celebrations, and was greatly moved by the sight of the pitiful remnant of aged Indians, sole survivors of Father Serra's once numerous flock, as they lifted their quavering voices in the mass. He expressed much surprise at the clarity of their pronunciation of the Latin, and in his essay on The Old Pacific Capital, he says: "There you may hear God served with perhaps more touching circumstances than ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... and the Lord has found him out through her. He never knew A from B in his life, and never will. But do you want proof of the power of grace to quicken mind, as well as to convert soul? Come with me up the stairs into dear old R.W.'s darksome room, and in the course of our talk you shall hear his quavering voice saying things, quite humbly and naturally, about the glory of his Saviour, and the way of salvation, and the joy and peace of his heart in God, which are not only loving ascriptions but clear and sound divinity. It is ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... tight-packed between a hundred crowded houses, came a wailing, high-pitched solo sung to Siva—the Destroyer. And as it died down to a quavering finish it was followed by a ghoulish laugh that echoed and reechoed ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... Except the really beautiful windows of the choir, which are a study in themselves, there is very little in this interior to hold the mind; one is lost in a pleasant sense of general symmetry. As the traveller was sitting in the nave, a few priests filed into the choir, and began, in quavering voices, to intone their prayers, and in the peacefulness of the church, in the trembling monotony of the weak, old voices, his thoughts wandered to the stirring history which had been lived about the Cathedral, and within its very walls. For ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... he said, in a weak, quavering voice, "you have received my letter, I hope. Here is this person that I wrote about. Her name is Mrs. Dunbar. She is an old dependent. She is mad—ha, ha!—mad. Yes, mad, doctor. She thinks she is my wife. She calls herself Lady Dudleigh. But, doctor, her real name is Mrs. Dunbar. She ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... ranks, and marching, marching, marching, like an endless phalanx of fiery specters, and moving, as I remember, always from east to west. The absolute silence with which these mysterious evolutions were performed and the quavering reflections which were thrown upon the ground increased the awfulness of the exhibition. Occasionally enormous curtains of lambent flame rolled and unrolled with a majestic motion, or were shaken to and fro as if by a mighty, noiseless wind. At times, too, a sudden billowing rush would ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... her trance of terror with a quavering breath. She did not understand what had passed, nor a word of what the labourers had said; and in her belief over the peril escaped, and her utter fatigue, she gave the child to Anastasia, lay back, and closed her eyes. A sudden and blessed ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... both for your information and your advice," answered Grace, with a little quavering laugh, that testified to the extent of the alarm from which the poor girl had been suffering. "As to the latter, however," she continued, "I shall not follow it, for the simple reason that it would be quite impossible for me to sleep, notwithstanding your reassuring statement that all danger ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... his thin, quavering voice—"no doubt Mr. Crow's help would be worth a kernel of corn to anybody who was in trouble. If his advice was good, no one would object to paying for it. And if it proved to be bad, no one would ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... way ahead, immediately behind the coffin, they were chanting a dirge, and Peter Ilitsch's long-drawn, quavering notes filled the air. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... poor man did what he could with the material he had, but the result was something awful. The chorister, a very old man, a hundred I should think, played the harmonium, which was as old as he was. It groaned and wheezed and at times stopped altogether. He started the cantique with a thin quavering voice which was then taken up by the school-children, particularly the boys who roared with juvenile patriotism and energy each time they repeated the last line, "pour notre drapeau, ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... her whole setting and by the perception at the same time, on the observer's part, that this element gained from her, in a manner, for effect and harmony, as much as it gave—her whole attitude had, to his imagination, meanings that hung about it, waiting upon her, hovering, dropping and quavering forth again, like vague faint snatches, mere ghosts of sound, of old-fashioned melancholy music. It was positively well for him, he had his times of reflecting, that he couldn't put it off on Kate and Mrs. ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... of tobacco smoke when Abel entered, and as he paused, in order to distinguish the row of silhouettes nodding against the ruddy square of the fireplace, Adam Doolittle's quavering voice floated to him from a seat in the warmest corner. The old man was now turning ninety, and he had had, on the whole, a fortunate life, though he would have indignantly repudiated the idea. He was a fair type ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... two coaches rolled out of the courtyard of the Tre Croci. As they passed, a window was half-opened on the upper floor, and a head looked out. A line of a song came down, a song sung in a strange quavering voice. It was the catch I had ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... the turn in the road and drew near Aunt Jane's house, I heard her voice, a high, sweet, quavering treble, like the notes of an ancient harpsichord. She was singing a hymn that suited the ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... have forced us into war?" came the quavering voice of Prull, the first Spokesman aside from Dalis to take active part in the discussion. "Then why, if you had the means in the beginning to enforce your will upon us, confer with us ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... four—and a flood of relief swept over him. It was MacDonald. They had used that signal in their hunting, when they had wished to locate each other without frightening game. Always there were three notes in the big gray owl's quavering cry. The fourth was human. He put his hands to his mouth and sent back an answer, emphasizing the fourth note. The light breeze had died down for a moment, and Aldous heard the old mountaineer's reply as it floated faintly back to him through the forest. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... roar—of Case as he admonished his children. "Mon," he would say to a shirking, shrinking coolie second-story man, "mon, do you t'ink dis the time to sleep? What toughts have you in your bosom, dat you delay de Professor's household?" And then a chanty would rise, the voice of the leader quavering with that wild rhythm which had come down to him, a vocal heritage, through centuries of tom-toms and generations of savages striving for emotional expression. But the words were laughable or pathetic. ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... weak, quavering fashion, but with sincere enthusiasm, I tried to celebrate by singing a few bars of the "Star-Spangled Banner" and a little of the "Marseillaise." Dunny was right, however; the conversation had exhausted me. In the midst of my ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... which had been placed over her face. She tried to raise her arms and to draw up her knees, but two dressers restrained her. The heavy air was full of the penetrating smells of carbolic acid and of chloroform. A muffled cry came from under the towel, and then a snatch of a song, sung in a high, quavering, ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was something in the quavering tones of the old fisherman, of the lonely, bereaved old man, that saddened her loving heart. She went to ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... a true-lover's knot, which made all the parish admire. At this part, Anna was seen looking up at the ceiling; but the rest had no eyes but for Mrs Enderby, as she gazed full at the opposite wall, and the shrill, quavering notes of the monotonous air were poured out, and the words were as distinct ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... bread, olives and garlic which they had brought with them, smoking a peculiarly strong and villainous tobacco, and torturing native musical instruments of various kinds. At night a young Turk sang plaintive, quavering laments to the accompaniment of a sort of guitar, some of the others occasionally joining in the mournful chorus. I found my chief recreation, when it grew too dark to read, in watching an Orthodox priest, ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... by the quavering denunciation. Some grinned broadly at one another; others placed their thumbs in their ears and wiggled their fingers. But the old man continued. Finally, two of the foremost spectators, sensing the tiny body crowded ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... stammered, with a trace of resentment in his quavering voice—"it's all very well for people who are used to the filthy beasts; but I tell you, Scarlett, it sickened me. I'm no coward, as men go, but I was afraid—I ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... "Not but what a great deal of nonsense is talked about the usage of rouge, my dear children! There is no harm in supplementing the niggardly gifts of nature. You, for instance, Marie-Anne, would look all the better for a little rouge!" She spoke in a high, quavering voice. ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... piping of a boatswain's whistle at sea in a gale. He has a way of letting it rise as his sentence goes on, or when he is opposed in argument, or wishes to mount above other voices in the conversation, until it dominates everything. Heard in the depths of the woods, quavering aloft, it is felt to be as much a part of nature, an original force, as the northwest wind or the scream of the hen-hawk. When he is pottering about the camp-fire, trying to light his pipe with a twig held in the flame, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... door, but all in vain. At length the sexton, who lived hard by, was roused by the tumult, and, fearful lest thieves or some drunken revelers had made their way into the church, he came to the door, lantern in hand, and cried in a quavering voice: "Who is there?" ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... man with a voice quavering into a shrill treble. "How would he like it himself? Seventy years, boy and man, have I sat here, like my father before me. I've seen yon elm grow from a stick to what she is now. I've buried all my kith and kin ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... leaving the ranch of a sudden lonely and quiet, Tommy poked his head anxiously out through a slit in the canvas bottom of the screen door and began to cry—his poor cracked voice, all broken from calling for help from the coyotes, quavering dismally. In his most raucous tones he continued this lament for his master until at last Hardy gathered him up and held him to ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... was it! She was suffering from an attack of hysterics; and I had to go in and control her a little. She has been subject to these attacks ever since the death of her husband, poor woman," said he, in a quavering voice. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... toothless old folk with faces seamed by years of hard heathen experience. But in their eyes shone a new light, the reflection of the glory that they had seen when the missionary showed them Jesus their Savior. And as they threw their thread their quavering voices crooned the ...
— The Black-Bearded Barbarian (George Leslie Mackay) • Mary Esther Miller MacGregor, AKA Marion Keith
... the passengers gazed absently at the men exchanging the bags of mail. All at once a sound of singing was heard in the distance. It was a woman's voice, old and quavering, and the song was a weird, almost unearthly, chant or dirge in a minor key. Slowly the singer approached the station, and reaching it, mounted the steps of the platform and seated herself on a bench, keeping on, without ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... bottles of liquor in the cabin for his own use. These he shared amongst us; but it was fiery stuff, and even at the first increased rather than allayed our thirst. Most of the crew were lying down now; but one had climbed to the roof of the forecastle, and stood there singing in a weak, quavering voice. Jose spoke to him soothingly; but he only laughed, and continued his weird song. His face haunted me; even when darkness closed like a pall around us I could still see it. He sang on and on in the gloom, ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... jurisdiction of that respectable matron. He was fond of Jane Target, who was just one of those plump apple-cheeked young women whom children love instinctively, and who had a genius for singing ballads of a narrative character, every verse embellished with a curious old-fashioned quavering turn. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... with a stiff salute and a quavering voice, "I'm Private Harry Fisher and this is Private ...
— Sonny • Rick Raphael
... while the bidarka drifted swiftly from her, then raised her voice to a quavering treble. "I am old, Nam-Bok, and soon I shall pass down among the shadows. But I have no wish to go before my time. I am old, Nam-Bok, and ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... arose a strange elricht quavering voice—the voice of those to whom has not been granted their due share of wits. Jock Gordon was famed all over the country for his shrewd replies to those who set their wits in contest with his. Jock is remembered on all Deeside, and even to Nithsdale. He was a man well on in years at this ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... roared Leroux, but in a quavering voice that did not sound like his own. "Get out of the way or I'll smash ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... stump. They were not ten inches long, and had feathery ear-tufts standing up like horns an inch long. One Owl was mottled gray and black; the other was rusty-red; and the toes of both peeped out of holes in their thin stockings. The gray one gave a little quavering wail ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... haste about the departure of the Orientals. And there was a quavering in the manner of the oldest priest—the only one who remained—that seemed born of a ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... Again it came, a quavering squall, apparently much nearer. It was a rather shrill sound, quite unbirdy, and ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and Connie watched the sun set in a blaze of gold behind the snow-capped ridge to the westward. Suddenly both halted in their tracks and glanced into each other's faces. From far behind them, seemingly from the crest of the hill they had left, sounded a cry: "Y-i-i-e-e-o-o-o!" Long-drawn, thin, quavering, it cut the keen air with startling distinctness. Then, as abruptly as it had started, it ceased, and the two stood staring. Swiftly Connie's glance sought the bald crest of the hill that showed distinctly above the topmost patches of timber, as it caught the last rays of ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... Grey walked over to the cabin to administer a rebuke to Maum Winnie. As he drew near the gate the quavering voice of the old woman was heard singing jerkily, and with a ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... resplendent autumn color of pearly beauty. Here — thrilling sound to huntsman — echoes the wild melody of the hound, awakening the solitude with deep-mouthed bay as he pursues the swift career of deer. The quavering note of the loon on the lake, the mournful hoot of the owl at night, with rarer forest voices have also to the lover of nature their peculiar charm, and form the wild language ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... His voice, quavering with fury, awakened the others also out of their sleep; and after he had shortly and severely rebuked them for their laziness, he commissioned Epagathos to give the prefect, Macrinus, immediate orders not to allow the ship ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... any employment —thinking I might very well write some good sermons on honesty, now I had learnt the folly of roguery. Hearing of my purpose the morning I was about to go, Moll takes me aside and asks me in a quavering voice if I knew where Mr. Godwin might be found. This question staggered me a moment, for her husband's name had not been spoken by any of us since the catastrophe, and it came into my mind now that she designed to return ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... was more than willing. And they had no sooner settled themselves among the bare branches of the oak when Simon started to amuse himself by giving his well-known quavering whistle. ...
— The Tale of Master Meadow Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... spines; the dense, sweet fume Of nutty, acrid scent like poison stealing Through his hot blood; the bristling yellow glare Spiking his eyes with fire, till he went reeling, Stifled and blinded, on—and did not care Though he were taken—wandering round and round, 'Jerusalem the Golden' quavering shrill, Changing his tune to 'Tommy Tiddler's Ground': Till, just a lost child on that dazzling hill, Bewildered in a glittering golden maze Of stinging scented fire, he dropped, quite done, A shrivelling wisp within ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... in the analysis of motive are remarkable. The author has a real gift for portraiture. In particular he touches in his minor folk with extraordinarily deft defining lines. Perhaps in general there is a little hesitancy in craftsmanship, a slight quavering between the fashionable modern realism and an older romanticism. But the seriousness of his artistic intention, the solidity of his work (which is by no means to say stodginess, quite the contrary) will commend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... or when the weather is scanned, or an incoming ship is marked. The dunes are but a pallid phantom of land so delicately golden that it is surprising to find it constant. The faint glow of that dilated shore, quavering just above the sea, the sea intensely blue and positive, might wreathe and vanish at any moment in the pour of wind from the Atlantic, whose endless strength easily bears in and over us vast involuted continents of white cloud. The dunes tremble in the broad flood of wind, light, and ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... through a vista of leaning tree, Tressed with long tangles of vines that swept To the face of a river, that answered these With vines in the wave like the vines in the breeze, Till the yearning lips of the ripples crept And kissed them, with quavering ecstasies, ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... was singing like a lark, with a lark's spontaneous delight in singing; with an ease and self-abandonment which charmed eye almost as much as ear. Higher and higher rose the clear, sexless notes, till two of them met and mingled in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that trill was the answer to the quavering, troubled cadences of the first verse; the vindication of the spirit soaring upwards unfettered by the flesh—the pure spirit, not released from the human clay without a fierce struggle. At that moment Desmond loved the singer—the singer who ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... teach them by experience what it feels like, and as a warning to the rest! God help that poor wretch, whoever he may be! What a fearful, awful sound it is! This is getting dreadful," he went on, as another shrill and blood-curdling scream broke on their ears, quavering as it was with the extremity of fearful agony, yet not quite so loud as before, as though the unfortunate ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... after another, until Brownie looked more like a chicken which had been plucked than any thing else. Grace could not keep from laughing at the sight of him; and it was very droll when he popped up on a log, and tried a weak, quavering crow. ...
— The Nursery, No. 165. September, 1880, Vol. 28 - A Monthly Magazine For Youngest Readers • Various
... a beast's hide to his fleshless bones. Bent was his back with load of many days, His eyepits red with rust of ancient tears, His dim orbs blear with rheum, his toothless jaws Wagging with palsy and the fright to see So many and such joy. One skinny hand Clutched a worn staff to prop his quavering limbs, And one was pressed upon the ridge of ribs Whence came in gasps the heavy painful breath. "Alms!" moaned he, "give, good people! for I die Tomorrow or the next day!" then the cough Choked him, but still he stretched his palm, and stood Blinking, and groaning 'mid his spasms, ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... In a minute or two the long lines of kneeling peasants raised a hymn; the sound of it came to us in quavering snatches. Through the aisle formed by their bodies a procession passed the length of the long portico and back to the starting point. First came Swiss Guards in their gay piebald uniforms, carrying ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... in the same shrill quavering notes, again and again, until a violent fit of coughing obliged him to desist, and to pursue in silence, the occupation upon which ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... time of day with a cafe waiter until the latter, with a disconcerting "Voila! Voila!" darted off to attend to a customer, and then strolled through the Porte Notre Dame onto the Quai Sadi-Carnot. There a familiar sound met his ears—the roll of a drum followed by an incantation in a quavering, high-pitched voice. It was the Town Crier, with whom, as with a brother artist, he had picked acquaintance ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... wooeth her, that him is woebegone. He waketh all the night, and all the day, To comb his lockes broad, and make him gay. He wooeth her *by means and by brocage*, *by presents and by agents* And swore he woulde be her owen page. He singeth brokking* as a nightingale. *quavering He sent her piment , mead, and spiced ale, And wafers* piping hot out of the glede**: *cakes **coals And, for she was of town, he proffer'd meed. For some folk will be wonnen for richess, And some for strokes, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer |
