"Unsteady" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at Sakr-el-Bahr again, his glance now sullen. "I will consider thy words," he announced in a voice that was unsteady. "I would not be unjust, nor steer my course by appearances alone. ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... strides (Simon rather unsteady in his gait, but a wholesome dread of his master sobering him at every step) they are soon within range of the illuminated windows, and now separate to make their entree at doors for big ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... blinding snow which obscured the pathway and grew every moment more impenetrable and harder to face. The whirling flakes circled and danced before his sight, the winding path was well-nigh obliterated, his brain grew dizzy and his feet unsteady, and he felt that without assistance he should never reach his destination in safety. Blind Raoul, though himself tired, and longing for shelter, listened with sympathy to the priest's complaint, and answered, "Father, you know well I am hardly a pious son of the Church; but if the penitent ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... the eighteenth, jump down alone from a threshold in the nineteenth, run nimbly in the twentieth; the younger, on the other hand, could creep alone cleverly at the beginning of the tenth month, even over thresholds, could take the first unsteady steps alone in the thirteenth, and stride securely over the threshold alone in the fifteenth. In spite of this considerable start the younger child was not, by a great deal, so far advanced in articulation, in repeating ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... entered, there was one guest somewhat overcome with liquor, and slumbering with his chair tipped against one of the marble tables. In the course of a quarter of an hour, he roused himself (a plain, middle-aged man), and went out with rather an unsteady step, and a hot, red face. One or two others were smoking, and looking over the papers, or glancing at a play-bill. From the centre of the ceiling descended a branch with two gas-burners, which sufficiently illuminated every corner of ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... replied Grogan, again picking his words with care, "but it gives the whole city an unsteady feeling. People won't invest their money. If I were in your place, my ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... part of this, had the disadvantage of heaviness, besides their rounded forms which prevented their being placed with a flat side downwards on a shelf or convenient horizontal surface without some unsteady rolling; also being often studded with brass nails like a coffin, a very grave objection (diagram 4). The leather cases which require the instrument to be placed in sideways have the advantage ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... and marvelled what should so much discompose the girl. And Christina was conscious of his gaze - saw it, perhaps, with the dainty plaything of an ear that peeped among her ringlets; she was conscious of changing colour, conscious of her unsteady breath. Like a creature tracked, run down, surrounded, she sought in a dozen ways to give herself a countenance. She used her handkerchief - it was a really fine one - then she desisted in a panic: "He would only think I was too warm." She took ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ah me! this weary heart hath striven With vanity, and with a wild desire! How long, and yet how long, must this frail bark be driven, While these unsteady, fitful hope-lights ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... is mistaken,' he said in an unsteady voice, 'I do not only attack women; I am not a great admirer ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... and the walls about him seemed to flicker and grow unsteady,—"Maria, I dare say it's no time to say the word just now, but if you could feel ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... There are four lights in Mr. Scalper's room. Mild, balmy weather with prospects of an earthquake, which may be held in check by walking with extreme caution. Two Chinamen have just passed—mandarins, I presume. Their walk was unsteady, but their faces so ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... from them. Meeting the second officer he inquired about the captain, and was informed that he had just gone down to see Alfred. Nearing the companionway he met the captain and Alfred, the latter looking somewhat pale, and rather weak or unsteady in his walk. ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... and to gather together his hat and gloves and walking-cane. Then he made a movement to go, but half-way to the door stopped irresolutely. I thought he was about to speak again, but after a pause of a second or two he went on, opened the door with an unsteady hand, and went out without closing it behind him. The man I had told to wait outside must have been upon the watch, for I heard his voice at the very instant at which Brunow set foot ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... us waiting three or four hours," interposed Miss Alice; "and when he came out, he couldn't have been more unsteady if he had ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... she was more calm. She condescended to reason, to expostulate. She carefully shunned the mention of atrocious charges. She dwelt only on the proofs which your past life and your own confessions had afforded of unsteady courage and unwarrantable principles; your treatment of the Woodbury girl; your correspondence with Thomson; your ignoble sloth; your dependence ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... the train of thought into which I fell might unsteady my nerves, I fully determined to keep my mind in a fit state to cope with whatever of marvellous the advancing night might bring forth. I roused myself; laid the letters on the table; stirred up the fire, which was still bright and cheering; and opened my volume of Macaulay. ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... to his dress—halte la! No. I would keep my own dress, come what might. M. Paul might storm, might rage: I would keep my own dress. I said so, with a voice as resolute in intent, as it was low, and perhaps unsteady in utterance. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... their work began, there was an end of reading. It was too anxious a business to admit of any division of attention. The gilt edges must be exactly even, the sides must go exactly together, the bottoms must be exactly flat; or they would be deformed and unsteady. Jane was the only one careful enough to undertake this most difficult part of the business, and she bestowed great pains upon it. In general, she completely succeeded; but it was a work of time, and the fortnight of her holidays ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau
... the planks. You can scarcely stand upright beneath the decaying ceiling. Worn boards and ragged walls, and the rusty ribs fallen from the fireplace, are all that meet your eyes, but I see a round, unsteady, waxcloth-covered table, with four books lying at equal distances on it. There are six prim chairs, two of them not to be sat upon, backed against the walls, and between the window and the fireplace a chest of drawers, with a snowy coverlet. On the ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie
... "L" together, and he was wondering what he should say to Mrs. Bowse when he saw his companion fumbling under his coat at the back as though he was in search of something. His hands being unsteady, it took him some moments to get at what he wanted. He evidently had a belt or a hidden pocket. He got something out and stopped under a street light to show it to Tembarom. His hands still shook when he held them out, and his look was a curious, puzzled, ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... understanding what has been premised in the plainest terms I could think of. Take here an abstract of what has been said:—There are spiritual substances, minds, or human souls, which will or excite ideas in themselves at pleasure; but these are faint, weak, and unsteady in respect of others they perceive by sense—which, being impressed upon them according to certain rules or laws of nature, speak themselves the effects of a mind more powerful and wise than human spirits. These latter are said to have more REALITY in them than the former:—by which ...
— A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • George Berkeley
... appearance. She looked like one shattered by long and severe illness; her eyes were restless and distressed, her hair thrust back as if it oppressed her temples, her manner startled and over-wrought, her hand hot and unsteady—her whole air that of one totally unequal to the task before her. He apologized for having taken her by surprise, and asked for her brother. She answered, that he was busy at Mr. Bramshaw's, and she did not know when he would ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hour he handled his little vessel in the intricate and narrow channel with careless certitude, as if every stone, every grain of sand upon the treacherous bottom had been plainly disclosed to his sight. He handled her in the fitful and unsteady breeze with a matter-of-fact audacity that made Shaw, forward at his station, gasp in sheer alarm. When heading toward the inshore shoals the brig was never put round till the quick, loud cries of the leadsmen ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... should cease; the distinction of Englishman and Norman be heard no more. Next he expatiated on the grievances of the former reigns, and promised to redress them all. Lastly, he spoke of his brother Robert, whose dissoluteness, whose inactivity, whose unsteady temper, nay, whose very virtues, threatened nothing but ruin to any country which he should govern. The people received this popular harangue, delivered by a prince whose person was full of grace and majesty, with shouts of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... "United Provinces of Central America," as they came forth from under the rule of Spain, seen fit to abstain from following in the unsteady footsteps of Mexico up to the time of the accession of Diaz to power, had they done nothing more than develop their natural wealth and utilize their admirable geographical situation, they might have become prosperous and kept their corporate name. As it was, their history for ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... friends, he resolved to write his last wishes. For years his intention had been to leave his entire fortune to his brother-in-law. He, therefore, made a rough draft of his will in that sense, with a pen at first rather unsteady, then quite firm. His will completed, he had courage enough to write two letters, addressed the one to that brother-in-law, the other to his sister. When he had finished his work the hands of the clock pointed ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... his supporters, and took an unsteady step forward, his fingers fumbling stiffly with the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... imbibing alcohol, his body shrunk up like the embryos displayed in glass jars in chemical laboratories. When he approached a window you could see through his ribs, so skinny had he become. Those who knew his age, only forty years just gone, shuddered when he passed by, bent and unsteady, looking as old as the streets themselves. And the trembling of his hands increased, the right one danced to such an extent, that sometimes he had to take his glass between both fists to carry it to his lips. Oh! that cursed trembling! It was the only thing ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... gained by a measure which broke up the unity of the state; which subjected the magistrates to a controlling authority unsteady in its action and dependent on all the passions of the moment; which in the hour of peril might have brought the administration to a dead-lock at the bidding of any one of the opposition chiefs elevated to the rival throne; and which, by investing all the magistrates with co-ordinate jurisdiction ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... railing of the steps, for he was a little unsteady. "What—what are you doing here?" he managed ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... of laborers fears the effect of long hours of freedom from toil. He has prophesied that such hours would be spent in dissipations. He feared that as a result his laborers would enter their shops with unsteady hands and sleepy brains. That such results are all too often due to freedom from toil, no one would deny. That they are not necessary will also be admitted. One of the problems of the American people as a whole, and of employers of labor in particular, is to train up the rising generations ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... only stare at her, dumfounded; he lifted an unsteady hand toward her appealingly. Her manner underwent an April change. She drew back lightly; he was favored with the most delicious low ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... for a moment, fixing his unsteady eyes straight upon his adversary's cards. Then he suddenly sprang up with a wild laugh, and left the tent ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... through the firm frost-work which had been gradually gathering for years round their hearts, I cannot tell; but true it is that as the sister spinsters sat there, with the faint and feeble flame struggling up from the small fire, and the light from the one tall candle flickering and growing unsteady as it flashed upon the two thin, sharp faces close beside it, while the antique furniture looked more grotesque and grim than ever in the deep shadow, and the never-wearying clock still ticked calmly on, regardless alike of the contending ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... {then} the Silver Age succeeded, inferior to {that of} gold, but more precious than {that of} yellow brass. Jupiter shortened the duration of the former spring, and divided the year into four periods by means of winters, and summers, and unsteady autumns, and short springs. Then, for the first time, did the parched air glow with sultry heat, and the ice, bound up by the winds, was pendant. Then, for the first time, did men enter houses; {those} houses ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... something of other races," interposed Piers, lifting his glass with unsteady hand, "and I don't think we've any right to ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... all alight with happiness, more bright than in all his life his face had ever been before. He took Geoff by the shoulders with a sort of tender roughness, which was almost like an embrace. "Is that you, my old boy?" he said, with an unsteady laugh, pushing him into his mother's arms. And then there was some crying and kissing, and Geoff heard it said that they had thought it better so, to avoid all fuss and trouble, and that it had taken place in town five days ago. To him no further explanations were made, but he seemed to understand ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... quick intuitions and unsteady logic, may keep the intuitions and gain a firmness which makes it more than transiently stimulating. The emotional mind has its charm, especially if its emotions ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... accomplished: its object was not out of reach; the means for reaching it were not inadequate. It may be, that the moment for its execution was ill chosen; that the progress of it was sometimes too precipitate, at other times unsteady; but on these points facts will speak sufficiently: it ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... applied his shoulders to it; but it was of no avail, the terrible brute dashed in head foremost, and tumbled in the room with Boone and the fragments of the door. The two foes rose and stared at each other; Boone had nothing left but his knife, but Bruin was tottering and unsteady, and Boone felt that the match was more ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... sweet, Justin," sighed Sir Richard, smiling upon his adopted son, and putting forth an unsteady hand to stroke the white, drawn face. "It had been sweet. It is sweet to hear that ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... moment, about a dozen of the men still on their feet; but in the instant of their paralyzed dismay, two things struck them; two furies ... Dick Morrell, tottering on unsteady feet, brandishing a razor-tipped lance full ten feet long. He came upon the men from the flank, shouting; and Joel, when he saw his brother fall, left his shelter in the galley door and swept upon them. The fat cook, with the knife, fought nobly ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... were told to call Sir Pitt and the household to prayers. Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler, the canaries, Mr. Crawley's man, three other men, smelling very much of the stable, and four women, one of whom, I remarked, was very much overdressed, and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a fletcher makes straight his arrow, a wise man makes straight his trembling and unsteady thought, which is difficult to guard, difficult to ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... slowly advancing toward the orifice of the cup, down which they disappear, never to return. Flying insects of every kind are equally drawn to the plant; and directly they taste the fluid, they act very curiously. After feeding upon the secretions for two or three minutes they become quite stupid, unsteady on their feet, and while trying to pass their legs over their wings to clear them, they ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... well into the open, and it was impossible, even by the most careful stalking, to get nearer than a small patch of tall grass about 175 yards away. I put up my rifle to shoot, but found that the front sight was most unsteady, for I was wet to the skin and shaking all over with cold. Half expecting to miss, I pressed the trigger, and was not greatly surprised to see my bullet splash in the marsh just over the bear's head. He saw the bullet strike on the other side, and now came in our direction, but Stereke, breaking ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... overpowered with felicity, and pressed my lips to them without saying a word. I heard the step of the boatmen, who came to tell us that the lake was calm, and that there was but just sufficient daylight left to cross over to the Savoy shore. We rose to follow them, with unsteady steps, as if intoxicated with joy. Oh, who can describe what I experienced, as I felt the weight of her pliant but exhausted frame hanging delightfully on my arm, as though she wished to feel, and make ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... was not to be outdone, anyhow in will to attempt, whatever her achievement might lack. Nan looked up from the sea with a kind of mocking admiration at the little figure poised on the high shelf of rock, slightly unsteady about the knees, slightly blue about the lips, thin white arms ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... his shoulders contemptuously. 'I have, in any case, to thank you,' he articulated at last in an unsteady voice 'that even in my present humble condition you recognise that I am a gentleman—un galant'uomo! In that way you have shown yourself to be a real galant'uomo. But ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... particularly frightful, when they fall upon this sex. For an affectation of knowledge, or a forwardness of character, seems to be much more disgusting among women than among men. It may be observed also, that an unsteady or romantic spirit or a wonder-loving or flighty imagination, can never qualify a woman for domestic duties, or make her a sedate and prudent wife. Nor can a relaxed morality qualify her for the discharge of her duty as a parent in the ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... rate, and mixing in politics. Sometimes he collected bills for the tradesmen of the town, and in this way he had been useful to Mace. Most of the time, however, he hung around the village tavern. He looked now to Frank as if he had just come from that favorite resort of his. There was an unsteady gravity in the way that he poked an impressive finger at Frank as he ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... were unsteady and slow; their heads were bowed, but not with grief, for, to say the truth, they did not fully comprehend ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... laughter, and how they exchanged winks with grinning elders! Not a single obscure allusion to filth was lost upon them, and they took more and more drink under pressure of the secret excitement until many of them were unsteady and incoherent. I think I should shoot a boy of mine if I found him enjoying such a foul entertainment. It was leze-Humanity. The orgie rattled on, to the joy of all the steaming, soddened company, and I am not able to guess where some of the songs and recitations ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... rather he, was dressed in dried banana leaves: long tufts of grass hung from her head over her face and shoulders; and in her mouth she carried a lighted bundle of dry coco-nut fibre, which emitted clouds of smoke. With an unsteady rickety gait the beldame hobbled after her rapidly retreating son, who turned round from time to time, skipping and posturing derisively as if to taunt her, and then hurrying away again westward. Thus the two ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... in seeing any cheerful, light-hearted animal reduced to silence and depression. To watch a barking, worrying, jovial puppy suddenly desist from parachute expeditions on unsteady legs, and from shaking imaginary rats, and creep, tail close at home, overcome by affliction, into obscurity, is a sad sight. Mr. Alwynn felt much the same kind of pity for Dare as he glanced at him, resignedly blighted, handsomely forlorn, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... years we bore the name of "The Man of the Mountains;" and, though no great linguists, we hope that we know somewhat more than the vocabulary of the languages of calm and storm. Remember that we are now at Ambleside—and one week's residence there may let you into some of the secrets of the unsteady Cabinet of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... as a watched person will, and presently woke and rolled to his feet with a torrent of the foulest language. He was three-parts drunk. He watched us for a moment suspiciously, and then gave a bolt. How he accomplished it I don't know, for he was very unsteady on his feet; but he got to the wall, and dropped over it into the road, and was out of sight before we could get there. He evidently had some dim idea that he had ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... with an unsteady hand, and unconsciously had blown it out himself. She restrained Claude by a look, and patiently taking the rushlight from Grio, she re-lit it and set it on the table for ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... hall, the front office door is kicked open joyous, and in comes a tall, light-haired, blue-eyed young gent, with his face well pinked up and his hat on the back of his head. He's arm in arm with a shrimpy, Frenchy lookin' party wearin' a silk lid and a frock coat. They pushes unsteady through Eggy's illustrious ancestor bunch and comes to parade rest in the ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... produced its effect. I saw that Ijurra knew the man who addressed him. His dark countenance turned suddenly pale, and then became mottled with livid spots, while his eyes scintillated, and rolled about in the unsteady glances of terror. He made no reply beyond the ejaculation "Demonio!" which seemed involuntarily to escape him. He appeared unable to reply; surprise and fright ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... the "culture of the indiwidool" was a personal hobby of Mr. Tappan, and promiscuous schools his abomination. Had not his own son, Peter Stuyvesant Tappan, been reared upon unsteady legs to magnificent physical and intellectual manhood ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... myself of it. A year ago, I could not have answered for the life of the prisoners; now I believe them to be in safety. But how much is there yet to teach these simple children of nature, who listen only to her voice, and yield to every impression! Their first impulse is good, but they are so unsteady that affection may suddenly change to hatred; they are inclined to theft, violent in their anger, yet generous and affectionate. You will see an instance of this in the abode where a woman, more unfortunate than your wife, since she ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... to be even unkind," said the Count in an unsteady voice. This time it was Vjera who took his hand ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... spoke the speed of the boat increased and its progress made it more unsteady, necessitating his steadying himself by gripping Fitz by the collar as he stood up, shading his eyes and keeping a sharp ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... Desgrais with a bitter smile, "and hear how it all came about. Well then, I was standing near the Louvre on the watch for these devils who mock me, and my heart was on fire with fury. Then there came a figure close past me without noticing me, walking with unsteady steps and looking behind him. By the faint moonlight I saw that it was Marquis de la Fare. I was not surprised to see him; I knew where he was stealing to. But he had not gone more than ten or twelve paces past me when a man ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... she broke in, with the same repressed anger. "Cease vilifying the man I love. All your aspersions, your wordy accusations will not shake my faith in him. Mon Dieu," she cried, with an unsteady attempt at laughter, looking under her lashes and tilting her little white round chin at Mr. Hobson, who, now seated upon a large stone, and with an obtrusive quid of tobacco bulging in an imperfectly shorn ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... lived; or, better still, the world of Boston, of which she heard through Mrs. Wealthy Brooks, whose nephew Claude often came to visit her in Edgewood. Life on a farm a mile and a half distant from post-office and stores; life in the house with Rufus, who was rumored to be somewhat wild and unsteady,—this prospect seemed a trifle dull and uneventful to the trivial part of her, though to the better part it was enough. The better part of her loved Stephen Waterman, dimly feeling the richness of his nature, the tenderness of his affection, the strength of his character. Rose was not destitute ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unsteady laugh. She knew well that her age was plainly written beneath her eyes, at the corners of her mouth, under her chin, at the roots of the hair above her ears, and in her cold, confident gaze. Youth! ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... haversack, and was fumbling in it with unsteady hands. At last he found that which he sought. It was wrapped in a silk scarf that must have come from Cashmere to Moscow, and from Moscow in his haversack with pieces of horseflesh and muddy roots ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... the halfway of the meal, a gorgeous popinjay—he was a governor of an out-province driven into the capital by a rebellion in his own lands—this gorgeous fop, I say, walked up between the groups of feasters with flushed face and unsteady gait, and did obeisance before the divan. "Most astounding Empress," cried he, "fairest among the Goddesses, Queen regnant of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... place, the human factor always plays its part in battle. Troops lacking in discipline are liable to panic in face of a sudden disaster, and even the best troops are liable to become unsteady ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... at gray dawn, the party was about to disperse; and at the moment a ragpicker, with a gray beard, was wandering up and down before the restaurant, raking with his hook in the refuse that awaited the public sweepers. In closing his purse, with an unsteady hand, Camors let fall a shining louis d'or, which rolled into the mud on the sidewalk. The ragpicker looked up ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... small of stock. Eye too far from rear sight. The gun is turned (canted) to the right. The sharp point of the elbow is resting on the knee which has a tendency to make the position an unsteady one. ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... wives and mothers. Sick at heart I went to my home and wept for American womanhood. But the sun rose as usual, and the world still revolved. I went to the police-court—all was quiet. I passed to the county-court, and looked over the docket—no new divorce cases met my gaze. With unsteady hand I have opened the morning papers for the past few days, but nothing there betrayed the terrible results of that false step. Oh, women! women! In the days of Indian warfare, the skilled hunter ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... were said offhand and with the license of coffee-house talk at so late an hour. Beau Wilson rose, in a somewhat unsteady attitude, and, turning towards Law, addressed him with a tone which left small option as to ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... commercially. The withdrawing of a million of young men, even for a month every year, from their regular tasks, would not only mean a serious loss to the manufacturing community, but it would be apt to unsettle and unsteady them. Further, it would kindle in this country the one thing I am anxious to avoid—the military spirit. We do not need it, Duchess. We are a peace-loving nation, civilised out of the crude lust ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... gentleman with a large stomach, who breathed loudly through his nose; the book agent with his oval boxes of dried figs and endless thread of talk; a woman with a little boy who wore spectacles and who was continually making unsteady raids upon the water-cooler, and the brakeman and train conductor laughing and chatting ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... accompanies this not uncommon experience of human life, and I found my lack of appreciation of the rapid voyage paralleled by a wicked satisfaction that my mother preferred the brass four-poster, so thoughtfully provided for her by the Cunard Company, to the risks of the unsteady promenade deck. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... to travel too far along with the words, for in the last lines her voice was unsteady and faint. She was fain to make a longer pause than usual to recover herself. But in vain; the tender nerve was touched; there ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and remained silent. He was a joyous, careless, reckless youth, with unsteady character and pursuits, and with something of vague poetry, much of unaccommodating pride about his nature,—one of those youths little likely to do what is called well in the world; not persevering enough ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... grins," remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: "Mon dieu! Mon dieu! ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... Her steps, unsteady at first, grew sure and determined; she drew longer, deeper breaths; the pink of a wild rose flushed her cheeks. But Frederic, plodding abreast, laid his hand ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... only now and then a few words of conversation, reached the coast and embarked on the channel steamer. A fresh wind was blowing, and the craft was shamefully unsteady. ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... first at Ingersoll, then at Mariel's impassive face. "What about Ann?" he asked, and his voice was unsteady. "She knew about it all ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... over the muscles of the limbs. This is plainly seen in the trembling of the hands and the unsteady walking of the drunkard; but is equally true of those who drink only a little now and then. Their nerves are not as strong and wide-awake to control the machinery of the body as they would be if no ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... een poor thing, Are filled wi' tears already; Tha connot even start to sing, Thi voice is soa unsteady. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... to the rose arbour, clutching at the trellis with one unsteady hand, and managing to keep fairly erect, a slightly built, swaying figure, black-haired and hatless. He kept one hand behind him, awkwardly, as a shy boy guards a favourite plaything. He was staring into the crowd in the garden as if he could see through into the ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... an expression of inconsolable sorrow, at once accepted the invitation, and with a lively bound alighted on the deck close to the little mast, which had been set up just in front of Nigel, and to which it held on when the motions of the canoe became unsteady. ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... his feet, staggered to the side of his companion, and steadying himself with the aid of a chair, made futile attempts to raise his comrade to a perpendicular position. His knees bent under him, the chair fell from his unsteady grasp, and murmuring, "We'll pass the bottle round," he lurched forward, and falling across the recumbent Cook, passed from the worship of Bacchus to the arms of ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... matter. Convinced myself, I seek not to convince. There is, however, a remembrance of aerial forms—of spiritual and meaning eyes—of sounds, musical yet sad—a remembrance which will not be excluded; a memory like a shadow—vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like a shadow, too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight of my ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... have been bad," said Urquhart, and the soft tones of his pleasant voice were harsh and unsteady. "Shock, I ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... clear while hot; but upon cooling, are milk-white and enamelled. Some substances give a clear bead when heated and when cold, but appear enamelled when heated intermittingly or with a flame which changes often from oxidation to reduction, or with an unsteady flame produced by too strong a blast. The reason is an incomplete fusion, while from the basic borate compound a part of the base is separated. As the boracic acid is capable of dissolving more in the heat, a bead will be clear while hot, enamelled when cold, ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... I could only get one!" said Charley, looking up eagerly at the screaming birds, at which he had been staring so long, in their varying and crossing flight, that his sight had become hopelessly unsteady. ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... that a wager was laid about the killing of a deer at a great distance, for performance of which Robin offered to lay his head to a sum of money, the advantage of which rash speech the others presently took; the mark being found out, one of them, to make Robin's heart faint, and hand unsteady, when he was about to shoot, urged him with the loss of head if he missed the mark, notwithstanding which, Robin killed the deer, and gave every man his money again, except him who upbraided him with loss of head if he lost the wager; he now said they would drink ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... saw her again: his wife and eldest son tracked him to Breslau, but only in quest of ducats and divorce: the latter of which Maimon conceded after a legal rigmarole. But he took no advantage of his freedom. A home of his own he never possessed, save an occasional garret where he worked at an unsteady table—one leg usually supported by a folio volume—surrounded by the cats and dogs whom he had taken to solacing himself with. And even if lodged in a nobleman's palace, his surroundings were no cleaner. In Amsterdam he drove the Dutch to despair: even German housekeepers ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the Immaterial seized, and clothed with Form. Gazing on his last effort, Leonard felt that there at length spoke forth the poet. It was a work which though as yet but half completed, came from a strong hand; not that shadow trembling on unsteady waters, which is but the pale reflex and imitation of some bright mind, sphered out of reach and afar, but an original substance,—a life, a thing of the Creative Faculty,—breathing back already the breath it had received. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... trellis-work of the gallery, and peered down upon the scene. In the shifting light which the unsteady flames threw across the great cave below he could hardly distinguish one man from another, except where facing the ruddy light the features of this intruder or of that reflected ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... bottle. A doleful wail betrayed her hiding place, and she now emerged with a pair of nutcrackers, ditto of pinched fingers, and an expression of great mental and bodily distress. Her woes vanished instantaneously, however, when the feast was announced, and she performed an unsteady pas seul about the banquet, varied by skirmishes with her long night-gown and darts at any unguarded viand ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... movements, had that in his dark eyes which said plainly that he was wont to supplement the work of his hands with the work of his brain. Both were dressed in the tar-stained and grimy rags of the merchant sailor at sea; and they walked the wet and unsteady deck with no absence of "sea-legs," climbed the poop steps to leeward, as was proper, and approached the captain and first mate at the weather rail. The heavier man touched his cap, but the other merely inclined his head, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... he leaned forward. "Do you mean that Mary has actually, seriously imagined I was interested in Lily Deford?" With a hard grip his hands interclasped as he looked in the dancing flames, and when he next spoke his voice was again unsteady. "It is not given to many men to love as I love Mary. I could speak of this to no one else, for words are not for love like mine. But having known her, having in my life but one thought, one hope—Why didn't you tell her? Why did you let her think ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... To Churchill our unsteady heroine presented one son, and it was through the marriage of the latter that the swift-running blood of Oldfield now courses through the veins of the first Earl of Cadogan's descendants.[A] This son and the one who bore the name of Maynwaring were the only two children credited, ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Lafe's unsteady steps as he tottered toward the lovely girl and blind child. When he was within touching distance, she put the instrument and bow under one arm and took Lafe's hand in hers. Her voice rang out like the tone of ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... was able to partake of coffee; drank two cups feverishly, his hand visibly unsteady; and when his mother pointed out this confirmation of many prophecies that cigarettes would ruin him, he asked if anybody had noticed whether or not it was cloudy outdoors. At that his father looked despondent, for the open windows ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... upon which stood Don Pablo and Guapo, came close to the branch, and the head of the serpent was on a level with their own. Both aimed their blows almost at the same instant; but their footing was unsteady, the boa drew back at the moment, and both missed their aim. The next moment the current had carried them out of reach, and they had no opportunity of striking a ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... her work sharply. Then she saw that the rabbits were racing on ahead, down the trail. For the moment her patience gave way, and she dug her heel hard against Kitty's side and the mare plunged forward. But her gait remained unsteady, and in her agitation she kept changing her stride, and once even tripped and ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... Now it was a square object moving sideways, endways, with neither head nor tail and scarcely visible feet; then an arched bulk rolling against the trunks of the trees and recoiling again, or an upright cylindrical mass, but always oscillating and unsteady, and striking the trees on either hand. The frequent occurrence of the movement suggested the figures of some weird rhythmic dance to music heard by the shape alone. Suddenly it either became motionless ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... rather all that remained of the once witty, talented and handsome Josiah Gough. His face was pale and haggard, and growing premature by age, his wealth of raven hair was unkempt and hung in tangled locks over his forehead, his hand was unsteady and trembling from extreme nervousness, but he was sober enough to comprehend the situation, and to feel a deep sense of remorse and shame, when he gazed upon the weary head from whence he ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... exhorting them, he saw but few that gave much heed to him, and when he ordered them to shout for the battle, he could no longer mistake the despondency of his army, which made but a faint and unsteady noise, while the shout of the enemy was clear and bold. And when they came to the business, the Parthian servants and dependents riding about shot their arrows, and the horsemen in the foremost ranks with their spears drove the Romans close together, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... was brave enough, but the terror of the negroes was catching. He would not have admitted to being afraid, but there was a lump in his throat and his legs felt unsteady. ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... coarse sailor's garb, muffled up for concealment and disguise, placed his arm around Agnes, and his knees were unsteady as he gazed down on the remains and began ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... open. He was sure, too, it would ease his aching head. And so it came about that in ten minutes he was in his hunting-kit, and in ten more he was riding out of his stable-yard with his roan mare 'Matilda' between his knees. He was a little unsteady in his saddle just at first, but the farther he went the better he felt, until by the time he reached the meet his head was almost clear, and there was nothing troubling him except those haunting words of the doctor's about the possibility ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... use it to such excess as this, or indeed in those who may never become intoxicated, the long-continued use of alcohol may produce a slow poisoning and general breaking-down of the whole nervous system, causing in time the hand to tremble, the eye to become bleared and dim, the gait weak and unsteady, the memory uncertain, and ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... the window and saw without seeing, the deputy-sheriff escorting an unsteady prisoner down the street followed by a boisterous crowd. In a way she was dimly conscious that there was something familiar in the prisoner's appearance, but the impression was not strong enough to rouse her from her preoccupation, and she turned to walk the floor without being cognizant of ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... now, and the light from the lanthorn was reflected in a faint, sickly way from the ghostly-looking masses of ice as they threaded their way onward, the guide whispering to them to be silent and careful, as many of the huge pinnacles were unsteady. ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... which would no doubt have afforded most useful and valuable information, had not the burning eloquence of the words or the feverish influence of the wine made that gentleman's hand so extremely unsteady, as to render his writing nearly unintelligible, and his style wholly so. By dint of patient investigation, we have been enabled to trace some characters bearing a faint resemblance to the names of the speakers; and we can only discern ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... road, down which three men were coming in a very unsteady fashion, and shouting as they rolled from side ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head, Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye, And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread, At Christabel she look'd askance!— One moment—and the sight was fled! But Christabel in dizzy trance Stumbling on the unsteady ground Shuddered aloud, with a hissing sound; And Geraldine again turned round, And like a thing, that sought relief, Full of wonder and full of grief, She rolled her large bright eyes ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... love?" quoth he, in voice low and unsteady. Speaking not, she pointed with slender finger down into the placid, stream. Wondering, he bent to look and thus from the stilly water his mirrored image looked back at him; now as he stooped so stooped she, and in this watery ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... distrust; but there are times when the little cloud spreads until it obscures the whole sky. Then I look about me at my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright; others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,—none that have the calm authority of a reasonable soul. I feel as though the animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradation of the Islanders will be played over again on a larger ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... to insult him is to reproach the oak for bearing acorns instead of olives.[135] All this is as wise and humane as words can be so, and it really represents the aim and temper of Helvetius's teaching. Unfortunately for him and for his generation, his grasp was feeble and unsteady. He had not the gift of accurate thinking, and his book is in consequence that which, of all the books of the eighteenth century, unites most of wholesome truth with most of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... Willie's letter before we left the parlor, with a significant word and smile, and was piqued to see that she did not blush,—in fact, became excessively white as she glanced at the writing, and with an unsteady hand put it into her pocket. After lunch she made no motion to look at it, and as I had my own reasons for desiring her to peruse it, I said, 'Miss Francesca, will you not read your letter? that I may know if there is any later news ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... unpleasant varieties to his monotonous tete-a-tetes. Then came the walk, generally to the town to fetch Mr. Wilkins from his office; and once or twice it was pretty evident how he had been employing his hours. One day in particular his walk was so unsteady and his speech so thick, that Ralph could only wonder how it was that Ellinor did not perceive the cause; but she was too openly anxious about the headache of which her father complained to have been at all aware of the previous self-indulgence which ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... arrived within three or four feet of the top, Ned gave the word; and a line of thirty powerful negroes, each armed with a long pike, suddenly arose and, with a yell, threw themselves over the edge and dashed down upon the Spaniards. The latter, struggling to ascend, with unsteady footing on the loose and uneven rocks, were unable for an instant to defend ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... why do you harrow my broken heart with such a picture?" cried Mr Mason, rising and pacing the room with quick unsteady steps, while with both hands on his head he seemed to attempt to crush down the thoughts that ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... cloak; but Schmitz saw the cruel, hard eyes, now dull and fishy from excessive indulgence in New Year's punch. Roth was in a good humor, however, whistling to himself and dragging his sabre at his feet, walking with unsteady gait. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... outdo in that respect our Grand Army of the Potomac,—and no trifling amount of shoe-leather for Uncle Sam. The night was terribly cold, and the wind in gusts swept over the mountain-top with violence sufficient to put the toil-worn man, unsteady under his knapsack, through the facings in short order. Amid stunted pines and sturdy undergrowth, the Regiments in line formed stacks, and the men, debarred fire from the exposed situation, provided what shelter they could, and endeavored to ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... "bow-man" was John Hogan, a young Irishman about my own age, red-headed, but green at the fishing business. John's mother kept a little oasis for thirsty neighbors, in a city adjacent to my home town, and his father was a man of unsteady habits. But John was a good fellow, active and willing, and, though he had not inherited a rugged constitution, he could ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... last, after the final order to sheathe swords had been given. "Break off. No pistol practice to-day. Your hands will be unsteady." ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... come!' cried the unsteady seagull, impatiently waiting, and ever flying round in a circle. 'Follow me into the Scheeren, where thousands of rocky islands, covered with pines and firs, lie along the coasts like flower beds; where the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... inefficients do not alone compose the surplus labor army. There are the skilled but unsteady and unreliable men; and the old men, once skilled, but, with dwindling powers, no longer skilled. {3} And there are good men, too, splendidly skilled and efficient, but thrust out of the employment of dying or disaster-smitten industries. In this connection it is not out of place to note ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... at home." He fumbled in his clothes and found a match. A moment later he struck it, and lighted a tin lamp that hung from the ceiling. In its glow his face was of a strange colour. He had been under strain. The hand that held the burning match was unsteady. "Strange, very strange," he was saying, as if to himself. And then: "Preposterous! I will go back and tell Mukoki. He is shivering. He is afraid. He believes that Tavish is in league with the devil. He says that the dogs know, and that ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... should run parallel, bending neither to the right hand nor to the left. But instead of the firm directness of such a line, our lives show wavering deformity, and are like the tremulous strokes in a child's copy-book. David had the pattern before him, and by its side his unsteady purpose, his passionate lust, had traced this wretched scrawl. The path on which he should have trodden was a straight course to God, unbending like one of these conquering Roman roads, that will turn ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... midnight one of thy strong angels Stems back the waves of earthly influence That shape unsteady continents around me, And they draw off with the devouring gush Of exile billows that have found a home, Leaving me islanded on unseen points, Hanging 'twixt thee and chaos—I have seen Unholy shapes lop off my shining ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... led me up a flight of rickety, wooden steps and into a sepulchral-looking chamber with no other furniture in it save a long, narrow, iron bedstead, a dilapidated washstand, a very unsteady, common deal table, on which was a looking-glass and a collar stud, and a rush-bottomed chair. Setting the candlestick on the dressing-table, and assuring me again that the bed was well aired, my hostess withdrew, observing as she left the room that she would get me a nice breakfast and ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... girl, and not all the king's horses and all the king's men can move her, Jane Vail." They were picking their way through a damp and squalid street and he stooped to set a wailing toddler on its unsteady feet. ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... unsteady hands from mess one night, he collided with a street car, which inevitably turned over the two-wheeled vehicle. Theodore was pitched out, his head striking on the iron ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... a gentle word. He does not berate the Galatians, "I marvel that ye are so unsteady, unfaithful." He says, "I marvel that ye are so soon removed." He does not address them as evildoers. He speaks to them as people who have suffered great loss. He condemns those who removed them rather than the Galatians. At the same time he gently reproves them for ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... as was the intellectual ability of its author—so great as to extort our profoundest, though it may be reluctant admiration—there are nevertheless moments in which it appears that his movement is becoming wavering and unsteady—that he is failing to handle his ponderous weapon with self-balanced power. This is particularly the case in that point at which he is passing from the consideration of pure force to the unavoidable consideration of visible ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the door again and retraced his steps slowly. When he repassed Crawley's room he stopped and listened. Not a sound except the bird's song. His heart beat so quickly that it was like to choke him, and he grew quite giddy. "Crawley!" he said in an unsteady voice, for though he saw the room was empty he had an insane fancy that he might be there, invisible, or that this mist before his eyes might prevent his seeing him. Then he mastered his apprehensions ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... relation. With this they contrasted what we, after them, call the phenomena, the appearances, the manifold aspects, constantly shifting with the shifting points of view of the observer or many observers of it, inconstant, unsteady, superficial, mirrored through the senses and imagination, multiplied and distorted in divergent and changing opinions, or misrepresented and even caricatured in the turbid medium of ordinary speech, like a clouded image on the broken waters of a rushing ...
— Progress and History • Various
... Mrs. Stuart rose, and, staggering from the room, hastened with a quick, unsteady step toward her ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... emerged from the narrow doorway of the little building alone. She was reading a letter, and she groped slowly across the sidewalk to the wagon, where she stood till she had finished it. Even at that distance Henley could see that she was pale, and he fancied that her hand and step were unsteady as she mounted to the spring seat and reached for the reins. Henley receded farther into the store, actuated by a vague intuition that she might not care to be seen, and he was glad that he had not intruded upon her, for, as she drove past the store, she did ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... the hotel in the town. She did not start and breathe quickly at sight of me as she had with Grindhusen, and that could only mean she was not displeased at seeing me again! So I thought to myself, and was glad to think so. But why had she not left off that unsteady glance, that flutter of the eyes, she had fallen into of late? If I were the Captain, now, I would speak to her about it. And her complexion, too, was not what it had been. There were some curious little spots about the temples. But ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... was striking eleven as old Tabaret, after shaking hands with Noel, left his house, still bewildered by what he had just heard. Obliged to restrain himself at the time, he now fully appreciated his liberty of action. It was with an unsteady gait that he took his first steps in the street, like the toper, who, after being shut up in a warm room, suddenly goes out into the open air. He was beaming with pleasure, but at the same time felt rather giddy, from that rapid succession of unexpected revelations, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... into a sullen silence, and no sound was heard but the unsteady rumble of the wheels, the creak of an ungreased axle, and the occasional crack of a whip. Clouds of dust arose and were whipped by the stray winds into the faces of the travelers, the fine particles burning like hot ashes. The train moved ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... a few men of weak character, and unsteady principles, who remain in office because they fear to resign; with a few, and but very few, ignorant fanatics, who really imagine they are free because they can molest and destroy with impunity all they have hitherto been ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... assuming a ragged and corny appearance. Your cock and hens should be as near two years old as possible. Hens will lay at a year old, but the eggs are always insignificant in size, and the layers giddy and unsteady sitters. The hen-bird is in her prime for breeding at three years old, and will continue so, under favourable circumstances, for two years longer; after which she will decline. Crowing hens, and those that have large combs, are generally looked on with mistrust; ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Lennox, their swords, which had been blessed by the abbot at the altar, slung round their necks, they advanced up the hall. There was a glow on the cheek of the young Alan, in which pride and modesty were mingled; his step at first was unsteady, and his lip was seen to quiver from very bashfulness, as he first glanced round the hall and felt that every eye was turned towards him; but when that glance met his mother's fixed on him, and breathing that might of love which filled her heart, all boyish tremors ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... had won a hundred thousand florins? If so, what more did I need to win? I grasped the banknotes, stuffed them into my pockets, raked in the gold without counting it, and started to leave the Casino. As I passed through the salons people smiled to see my bulging pockets and unsteady gait, for the weight which I was carrying must have amounted to half a pood! Several hands I saw stretched out in my direction, and as I passed I filled them with all the money that I could grasp in my own. At length two Jews stopped me ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... her resolution would falter, Teresa drew her writing-desk towards her, and wrote a note so rapidly, and with so unsteady a hand, that there was little resemblance to her usual writing, and then sought for sleep-but in vain-and at the earliest possible hour she despatched a ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... stare at her, dumfounded. He lifted an unsteady hand toward her appealingly. But the manner of the lady, as she saw the truth, underwent an April change. She drew back lightly; he was favored with the most delicious, low laugh he had ever heard, and, by some magic ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... and the most appreciative critic. In despite of his rare occasional spurts or outbreaks of self-assertion or of satire, he seems to stand before us a man of gentle, modest, shiftless, and careless nature, irritable and placable, eager and unsteady, full of excitable kindliness and deficient in strenuous principle; loving the art which he professionally followed, and enjoying the work which he occasionally neglected. There is no unpoetic note in his best poetry such as there ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... not that cover on straight? Did you not receive orders that these—" and as Lawrence had not the slightest idea what "these" were, he substituted a loud hiccough for the unknown name, and contented himself with pointing with an unsteady hand. "Did you not understand these had to be perfectly concealed? Now that one is not perfectly concealed, for I can see perfectly what it is, so take that cover off and put it on straight. And be quick about it or I ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... of severe illness. When the physician took his leave the pastor followed him into the yard, where they had a long consultation. The pastor was anxiously seeking advice. Three drinks made his head swim, and the problem was how he could make more than three calls and not become unsteady. The doctor gave directions and Dr. Prime said that neither the minister nor the physician thought of the simple ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... could not mount or dismount without assistance. On the upward slope, where the road climbs through a rocky gorge, the fugitive gained ground. Out on the open road again, within sight of Cauro, the count's horse showed signs of distress, but gained visibly. The count was unsteady in the saddle, riding heedlessly. In an instant de Vasselot saw the danger. His father was dropping with fatigue, and might at any ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... participation, but continued to drink bottle after bottle, with as little regard for Mr. Mowbray's grave looks, as if they had been carousing at the Mowbray Arms, instead of the Mowbray mansion-house. Midnight at length released him, when, with an unsteady step, he sought his own apartment; cursing himself and his companions, consigning his own person with all dispatch to his bed, and bequeathing those of the company to as many mosses and quagmires, as could be found betwixt ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... seem to shape Themselves to living giants; lifting high Their frowning foreheads, crowned with fiery crowns. As lower sank the sun towards the sea, Gloomier did they grow, with their white hair And lifted spears, walking with mighty steps The creaking floor of the unsteady deep.— Nodding defiantly at one another— Meeting, with crashing spears and splintered shields, With hoarse cries, breast to breast, in angry strife; Their armor shivered at their feet, the sea Broken beneath their tread and shuddering At the ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... pulls us one way—identity of English speech, with consequent openness to English ideas, pulls us the other. Pictures preach one thing, books another. Our boy who has worked in Paris comes home to try to realize Ruskin. Both influences are too new, and our art is as yet too unsteady, for any one to guess as to the ultimate result. One thing only can be unreservedly inculcated: Let us shun self-analyzation, self-consciousness, morbidness, affectation, attitudinizing. Let us look ahead as little as possible, keeping our eyes on our brushes and on the world ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... and in spite of the unsteady position of the topmost Goats, and the uncomfortable shaking of the lower ones, the wooden bars were at length sawn through, and the glass carefully gathered together by the Lieutenant in his ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... its whole aim in the achievement of an objective beauty and should demand of the artist perfect self-control and self-repression. For such an art personal emotion was proclaimed a hindrance, as it might dim the artist's vision or make his hand unsteady. Those who viewed art in this way, while they turned frankly away from the earlier Romanticists, yet agreed with them in their concern for form, and applied themselves to carrying still farther the technical ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield |
