"Waver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thoughts, my dear marquis, of paying a visit to your court, to your lady, and to your friends this winter, but waver on account of an expedition into Canada, friendship induces me to tell you, that I do not conceive that the prospect of such an operation is so favourable at this time, as to cause you to change your views. Many circumstances and events must conspire to render an enterprise of this kind practicable ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... with a wide yaw to starboard which the rudder was powerless to check, swooped down sidewise into the hollow, rolling heavily to port and pointing her boom high up into the gale. When I saw the dark outline of the leech of the mainsail waver for an instant, flap once or twice, and then suddenly collapse, I knew what was coming, and shouting at the top of my voice, "Look out Heck! She'll jibe!" I instinctively threw myself into the bottom of the boat to escape the boom. With a quick, sudden rush, ending in a great ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Miss Hollyhock? Why, lassie, you look pale. Your eyes waver. I don't like ye to look so white in the complexion. What may ye be wantin' wi' me, ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... not rest. Again he fell into a dream. This time the picture was very real. The big balloon had been finished and launched. A thrill ran through him as he felt the monster craft poise and waver and then slowly rise above the corral. He could hear the cheers of those gathered about. But in the midst of them be heard the sudden crack of a revolver. Jack Jellup had put a bullet through the silken bulk of the bag. The cold perspiration broke ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... date are lost in obscurity. Even of "orthodox" theologians few, with any claims to scholarship, now hold that these Gospels, as they stand, were written by the persons whose names they bear. They wander and waver in a thick fog. See Milman's "History of Christianity," vol. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... up at the branches, and down to the water at their feet; and now it seemed to them as though the Tree had verily growth in it, for they beheld its roots, that they went out from the mound or islet of earth into the water, and spread abroad therein, and seemed to waver about. So they walked around the Tree, and looked up at the shields that hung on its branches, but saw no blazon that they knew, though they were many and diverse; and the armour also and weapons ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... this most important affair, and not shrink from the duties imposed on you, to avoid a few present unpleasant consequences. It is not for me to prescribe rules of conduct to be observed by you, but I must say, that I am surprised that any circumstance should cause you to waver for a moment in reference to your visit to Europe. If you were to decline coming, would not the many on the other side, who are strictly watching your movements, at once say that the whole arrangements are deceptive, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... the trail, beaten and rutted, stretched interminably, losing itself in the darkness before it slipped over the rounded margin of the world. As darkness increased, the trail seemed to waver before their eyes like a gray scarf that the wind stirs on the ground. On either side of it, the nature of the country varied with strange abruptness, now an unbroken stretch of dead sage-brush showing like isolated tufts in a gigantic clothes-brush—suddenly, ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... be done, Saxham?" Julius stumbles up. The fires that burned in him a few moments ago are quenched; his slack hand trembles irresolutely at his beautiful weak mouth, and his deer-like eyes waver. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... wonder where she is. [She looks through a bull's-eye window.] Why, there she stands, talking with a man. Her loving glance does not waver, and she gazes as if she would drink him in. I imagine he must be the man who wishes to make her free. Well, let her stay, let her stay. Never interrupt anybody's happiness. ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... leaving only the reality and the instant. It had the look of a vision printed on the dark at night. White and grey and purple figures were scattered on the green, round wicker tables, in the middle the flame of the tea-urn made the air waver like a faulty sheet of glass, a massive green tree stood over them as if it were a moving force held at rest. As she approached, she could hear Evelyn's voice repeating monotonously, "Here then—here—good doggie, come here"; for a moment nothing seemed to happen; it all stood still, and then ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... takes personal command. He sends a shower of grape and cannister against a column of French veterans, but they never waver. Reserves, suddenly called for, pour a fierce charge against the advancing French, rending them asunder. The attack is closely followed up and the French are driven down the hill. Elsewhere in the field the battle still rages. Bluecher continues his attack on Napoleon's right and forces it back. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... work will be postponed, till at last it is too late, and the Hun has got through, and raided the trench. If you hesitate or ask advice you are lost. You have to make up your mind in an instant, and to stand by it. If you waver your men will never have ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... her head in reluctant assent. Her figure seemed to waver as with faintness, but when Stuart reached out his arms to catch her, she stepped back ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... hero hesitated it was not for long. I cannot say that his courage did not waver for a moment; but if it did, it was, I say, not for long, and when he spoke up it was with a voice ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... commenced to waver. No one knew whose turn to be hanged would come next. Emboldened by their fatal success, accusers whispered of people in high places as leagued with the Evil One. An Andover minister narrowly escaped death. The Beverly minister, Hale, one of the most active in denouncing witches, was aghast ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... that of physical weakness; confronted in this way with the problem of fraternity, he did not waver any longer. On the threshold of safety, he turned straight back into the jaws of destruction. He had not emerged from that darkness and depth of earth, to descend into a lower profundity and a denser darkness ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... our senses and to keep away From headlong heights and places to be shunned Of a like peril, and to seek with speed Their opposites! Again, as in a building, If the first plumb-line be askew, and if The square deceiving swerve from lines exact, And if the level waver but the least In any part, the whole construction then Must turn out faulty—shelving and askew, Leaning to back and front, incongruous, That now some portions seem about to fall, And falls the whole ere long—betrayed indeed By first deceiving estimates: ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... that he could not answer, could not tell her why Consuello lived in the city, but it did not cause him to waver. Consuello's words, "Why must we always impute a misconceived motive?" the question she had asked when they had discussed those who doubted Gibson's sincerity, and his answer, "Because deceit has its place in the human heart, I suppose," came back to him. He ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... he mused, "My plans That soar, to earth may fall, 10 Let once my army-leader Lannes Waver at yonder wall"— Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping; nor bridle drew 15 Until he reached ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... open the door, and led in the stranger by the hand. At the first glance Phoebe saw an elderly man, in an old-fashioned dressing gown, with grey hair, almost white, of an unusual length. The expression of his countenance seemed to waver, glimmer, and nearly to die away, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... that slave in her arms, and claim him for at least a friend and brother, began to wonder whether she might not really be innocent. She had confessed to nothing—she had asserted her blamelessness—she had never been known to waver from the truth; might she not have been able to explain her actions? With his regret for having, in such hasty passion, so compromised her before the world that no explanation could henceforth shield her ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Pitt passes the bounds even of the immorality of a sick-room. The illness began with a chill due to his own imprudence; but he used its later developments to extort a promise which otherwise would never have been forthcoming. Nothing but the crisis in the King's illness led Pitt to waver. For at the end of February he authorized Castlereagh to send to Cornwallis at Dublin a declaration intended to reassure the Irish Catholics. It pointed out that the majority of the Cabinet had resigned owing to the impossibility of carrying Catholic Emancipation at the present ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... above, Death struck his victims down, Guiltless such blow, while all the crime was heaped Upon the Roman spear. In line oblique Behind the standards Caesar in reserve Had placed some companies of foot, in fear The foremost ranks might waver. These at his word, No trumpet sounding, break upon the ranks Of Magnus' horsemen where they rode at large Flanking the battle. They, unshamed of fear And careless of the fray, when first a steed Pierced through by javelin spurned with sounding ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... Trial of the Twenty-two Girondins was the greatest that Fouquier had then done. But here is a still greater to do; a thing which tasks the whole faculty of Fouquier; which makes the very heart of him waver. For it is the voice of Danton that reverberates now from these domes; in passionate words, piercing with their wild sincerity, winged with wrath. Your best Witnesses he shivers into ruin at one stroke. He demands that the Committee-men themselves ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... to him, and to satisfy his boyish idea of justice played "We shall Meet, but We shall Miss Him," because it was Miss Morgan's favorite. While he played the Jew's-harp his tree friends flung ribald remarks at him. But when Bud began to waver his hand for a tremulo upon the mouth-organ as he played "Marsa's in de Col', Col' Groun'," a peace fell upon the company, and they sat quietly and heard his repertoire,—"Ol' Shadey," "May, Dearest May," "Lilly Dale," "Dey Stole My Chile Away," "Ol' Nicodemus," "Sleeping, I Dream, ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... shine. I will not tell thee when 't was shred, Nor from what guiltless victim's head,— My brain would turn!—but it shall wave Like plumage on thy helmet brave, Till sun and wind shall bleach the stain, And thou wilt bring it me again. I waver still.—O God! more bright Let reason beam her parting light!— O. by thy knighthood's honored sign, And for thy life preserved by mine, When thou shalt see a darksome man, Who boasts him Chief of Alpine's Clan, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... surversxi. Watery akva. Water-closet necesejo. Water-colour akvopentrajxo. Waterfall akvofalo. Water-spout trombo. Water-tank akvujo. Watering-pot versxilo. Waterproof nepenetrebla. Wave ondo. Wave agiti, svingeti. Wavelet ondeto. Waver sxanceligxi, sxanceli. Wax (bees) vakso. Wax (shoemaker's) pecxo. Wax, sealing sigelvakso. Wax candle vakskandelo. Way (road) vojo. Way (sea) marrodo. Way (manner) kutimo, maniero. Way, Milky lakta vojo. Way, in that tiel, tiamaniere. Way out (exit) eliro. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... resolution. For to her gentle soul, unused to action, shrinking from violence, whose strength was the gift of the ages, passed into it against her very nature, the resolution she had formed was full of pain. Yet painful, even terrible in its demand for action, it did not waver, but shone like a star behind the dark and heavy clouds. In Margery Pendyce (who had been a Totteridge) there was no irascible and acrid "people's blood," no fierce misgivings, no ill-digested beer and cider—it was pure claret in her veins—she had nothing thick and angry ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... he mused, "My plans That soar, to earth may fall, Let once my army-leader Lannes Waver at yonder wall,—" Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping: nor bridle drew ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... account for the rescinding his truth, and take vengeance of thee for every falshood thou tellest. I charge thee therefore, as thou wilt answer it to the Great God, the judge of all the earth, that thou do not dare to waver one tittle from the truth, upon any account or pretence whatsoever: For though it were to save thy life, yet the value of thy precious and immortal soul is much greater, than that thou shouldst forfeit it for the saving of any the most precious outward ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... little gun, my lad. Let me give you a word in season. Never hold a pistol to a man unless you mean to shoot. If your eyes waver you had better ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... was your duty. You've kept your word to th' law, an' I believe you'll keep your word with me. If I say the word that'll save us now will you go back to headquarters an' report me dead?" For a full half minute their eyes did not waver. ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... execute all that you order me for the service of our Master, if I had been at full liberty so to do; you must have no doubt about it, because my inclination and my duty agree perfectly well. All the advantages that I am offered did not for a moment cause me to waver, but, in short, sir, I could not go to Paris, and I shall be happy to go and meet you by the route you travel. I shall be well pleased to find landed the people you state will be there; in case they may have the commission you speak of in your two letters, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... little scale at the corner of the instrument board. He saw the little ebon needle waver, leave the mark designated "Pygmy Planet Normal" and start ...
— The Pygmy Planet • John Stewart Williamson
... inevitably. The fault was in him entirely; it was his own grievous fault. The familiar words of the office of confession made him beat his breast, and fall in prayer before the crucifix which seemed to waver in the flickering candlelight. He repeated petition after petition. He would not allow himself to think. It was his to obey, not to question. He would regain his old tranquillity, his old docility. He would submit passively. It was his own ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... not one to fear the truth," she answered, quickly. "I come of a family of questioners. It's only now and then that I waver—for a moment. My husband said he would come back to me if he could, and I've been half hoping—not really expecting ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... acquaintance with Mr. Blaine was but slight, I had always felt strong admiration and deep attachment for him. As Secretary of State, during a part of my residence in Berlin, he had stood by me in a contest regarding the double standard of value in which I had feared that he might waver; and, far more than all this, his general political course had caused me, as it had caused myriads of others, to ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... low, and his shot was answered by a fresh outburst of yells of pain and rage. Suddenly the palisade began to waver, then it slowly fell over, as a stream of blue-clothed figures darted from its insufficient shelter. The dacoits did not make either for the door of the hut nor for the jungle they had left. The pagoda was the nearest cover to them, and they raced for it ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... as to the use of alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and drugs (such as opium), and also as to sexual matters. To secure such information is extremely difficult, and the help of a close friend or companion will be necessary. After the mind begins to waver many a patient plunges into dissipation, though formerly a model ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... said Phil bitterly, and put his arm around the quiet girl standing next to him. Together, a silent little group, they watched the spot of orange die to a pin-point; watched it waver, twinkle, ever growing smaller.... And then ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... an outlaw this is the law, That men him take and bind; Without pitie, hanged to be, And waver with the wind. If I had need (as God forbid!) What socours could ye find? Forsooth, I trow, ye and your bow For fear would draw behind: And no marvel; for little avail Were in your counsel then: Wherefore I will to the green-wood ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... had youth no chains of fear should bind me; I'd brave the heights which older men must shun. I'd leave the well-worn lanes of life behind me, And seek to do what men have never done. Rich prizes wait for those who do not waver; The world needs men to battle for the truth. It calls each hour for stronger hearts and braver. This is the age for those ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... village. It smelt of burning, like a gipsy camp. The road seemed to waver in the flickering of the flames, the wind howled in ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... besides putting an end to his usefulness. Clearly he must join the others. The soul of Dickson hungered at the moment for human companionship. He felt that his courage would be sufficient for any team-work, but might waver again if he were left to play a ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... alert, so that when, rounding a corner, he perceived entering the main road from a side-street in front of him a small knot of pedestrians, he did not waver, but was seized with a keen spasm of presence of mind. Without pausing in his stride, he pointed excitedly before him, and at the same moment shouted the words, 'La! La! ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... hanging dull black cloth about the dead. Lustreless black cloth Which chokes the radiance of the moonlight And puts out the little moving shadows of leaves. Tap! Tap! The knocking makes the candles quaver, And the long black hangings waver Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap! In the ears which do not heed. Tap! Tap! Above the eyelids which do not flicker. Tap! Tap! Over the hands which do not stir. Chiselled like a cameo of white agate against the hangings, Struck to brilliance by the falling moonlight, A face! Sharp as a frozen flame, Beautiful ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... terrible days for Daisy, but she never flinched from her post, and stood resolutely between the sick man and that other one in the corner until the latter seemed to waver a little; his shadow was not so black, his presence so all-pervading, and there was hope for Tom. His reason came back at last, and the fever left him, but weak as a child, with no power to move even his poor wasted hands ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... he ceased to try to compel slumber. He lay musing. It is a strange thing to lie musing in the dark. His soul seemed to tug and waver outside his body as he had seen an elephant chained by one leg in a circus tent lean far away from its shackles, and sway and put its trunk forth gropingly. His soul seemed to be under his forehead, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... has never found herself placed in such circumstances, nor has any of her race before her, every cocoon, under normal conditions, being protected by a surrounding wall. No matter: despite the profound difference in the surfaces, the insect does not waver. Warned by a special sense, an undecipherable riddle to ourselves, it knows that the object of its search lies hidden under this unfamiliar casing. The sense of smell has already been shown to be out of the question; that of sight is ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... said that the consciousness of this attitude of society is favorable to the invert's attainment of a fairly sane and well-balanced state of mind. This is, indeed, one of the great difficulties in his way, and often causes him to waver between extremes of melancholia and egotistic exaltation. We regard all homosexuality with absolute and unmitigated disgust. We have been taught to venerate Alexander the Great, Epaminondas, Socrates, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... as the righteous begin to waver and wickedness gains ground, God raises Noah to exhort to repentance and to be for his descendants a perpetual example, whose faith and diligent, patient devotion to teaching, his offspring might admire and imitate. A great miracle is it and a case of illustrious faith, that Noah, having heard ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... those who chose to be traitors. If they go to ruin, is not the parole board responsible? On the other hand, who shall blame the convict if he accedes to the bargain? The alternative presented to him is one which might cause even virtue to waver, and convicts are not supposed to be virtuous, especially when such an example as this action of the board is set them. The alternative is liberty, or continued incarceration with the strong probability of increased severity of treatment, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... softly—"that there is more than a fate in these things. I had misgivings from the first; I knew that it was wrong; but not till now have I seen how wrong it was! And I want you to be sure that this is final—that I shall never waver again." ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... names of old; A center'd, glory-circled memory, And a peculiar treasure, brooking not Exchange or currency; and in that hour A hope flow'd round me, like a golden mist Charm'd amid eddies of melodious airs, A moment, ere the onward whirlwind shatter it, Waver'd and floated—which was less than Hope, Because it lack'd the power of perfect Hope; But which was more and higher than all Hope, Because all other Hope hath lower aim; Even that this name to which her seraph lips Did lend such gentle utterance, this one name In some obscure hereafter, might ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Age, illness, too much wear and tear, a half-formed paralysis, may bring any of us to this pass. But while we can think and maintain the rights of our own individuality against every human combination, let us not forget to caution all who are disposed to waver that there is a cowardice which is criminal, and a longing for rest which it is baseness to indulge. God help him, over whose dead soul in his living body must be uttered the ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Mr. Bamberger feebly. He had the part of Ray, Laura's lover, the society individual who was to waver in his thoughts of marrying her, upon finding that she was a waif and a nobody ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... you that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for the defense of American liberty, may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support I ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... understand this, and doubted whether her grandfather would allow her to go. Oliver had then to explain that the old chief was not her grandfather; possibly, that he or his followers had murdered their parents, though for some reason he had saved her life. This seemed to make her waver; she promised Oliver that she ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... his self-denial, all his many and prolonged efforts to conceal his love, had been of no avail. He cursed his folly and imprudence, while wondering how it was possible that the story should have got abroad. He did not waver in his determination to hide his inclinations, to destroy the impression he had so unwillingly produced. The first means he found in his way seemed the best. To marry Donna Tullia at once, before the story of his affection ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... the words, I saw Mr. Tawnish's blade waver aimlessly; Raikes saw it too, and drove in a lightning thrust. There was a sharp clash of meeting steel, a flurry of blades, and Sir Harry Raikes staggered back, his eyes wide and staring, threw up his arms, and pitching forward, ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... were four others that flanked the approach. When the Russian guns had thoroughly cleared the way for an assault, he ordered the bands to play and the two leading regiments to charge up the slope. Keeping his hand firmly on the pulse of the battle, he saw them begin to waver under the deadly fire of the Turks; at once he sent up a rival regiment; the new mass carried on the charge until it too threatened to die away. The fourth regiment struggled up into that wreath of death, and ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... idea is poisonous to the true feeling and conception of love, which should be cherished in every child by every mother. Mother should take pains to make the child feel,—and she should take pains to make father do so, too,—that no matter what it does, their love for it will never weaken or waver. It is not enough to assume that this will be taken for granted—it should be confided to the child, at opportune moments, as the most sacred of secrets, the holiest of promises. And no time is more opportune for the telling of it—no time ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... the morning he felt his eyes shrinking from the effort to read anything; how the light of a candle appeared like a spectrum of various colours; how, little by little, darkness crept over the left eye; and objects beheld by the right seemed to waver to and fro; how this was accompanied by a kind of dizziness and heaviness which weighed upon him throughout the afternoon. "Yet the darkness which is perpetually before me seems always nearer to a whitish than to a blackish, and such that, when the ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... decrees of Jefferson Davis, criticised by many friends at home, and contemptuously received by brother officers at headquarters, in the field, in the trenches, and at the mess table; yet, you did not waver in your fidelity to principle or in your heroic leadership of those whose valor was denied until it was ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... the gaiety and utter content that possessed them all three? What pen describe all Hermione's glowing beauty, or how her blue eyes, meeting eyes of grey would, for no perceptible reason, grow sweetly troubled, waver in their glance, and veil themselves beneath sudden, down-drooping lashes? What mere words could ever describe all the subtle, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... and the men waver, Capt. Blakely with a cheer called up the boarders of the "Wasp;" and in an instant a stream of shouting sailors, cutlass in hand, was pouring over the hammock-nettings, and driving the foe backward on his own decks. The British still fought stubbornly; but their numbers were terribly ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... foretelling the future—tales similar to those related of the Covenanter Alexander Peden in Scotland, or of the seventeenth-century Mayo peasant Red Brian Carabine.[4] He died in or about the year A.D. 555 (the annalists waver between 552 and 557); and the Annals of Clonmacnois tell us that he began to prophesy in 550. As Ciaran is said to have died in 548, the statement that Becc mac De foretold his coming is anachronistic. The prophecy here attributed to him does not appear in the list of prognostications ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... before her, Irene could never say that Penelope had expressed anything of the sort. Her manner was affectionate, almost caressing; she declared that she felt a sisterly interest in her. This was genuine enough. I am not sure that Mrs. Bartlett Glow did not sometimes waver in her purpose when she was in the immediate influence of the girl's genuine charm, and felt how sincere she was. She even went so far as to wish to herself that Irene had been ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... presently be in some abode—she did not know what— where she could have full personal liberty, and her present confinement being her own choice made it much less dignified, and this caused her to waver about throwing off life and captivity together. The moment never came when she was ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... at a rate that would have to be measured in millions of miles per second." DuQuesne, watching the other narrowly as he made this startling announcement and remembering the effect of a similar one upon Perkins, saw with approval that the coffee-cup in midair did not pause or waver in its course. Loring noted the bouquet of his beverage and took an appreciative ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... dark room with her torch while Prosper stood in the doorway. She lighted the candles: he could see how deliberately she did it, without waver or tremor. His own heart thumping at such a rate, it was astounding to him to watch. Then she beat out the torch on the hearth, and waited. Three strides brought him into the middle of the room, but the look of her stopped him there. She ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... waver again. And Aurelia Dart said — she's that girl with the beautiful arms, you know, who plays the harp and always has a man or two to carry it about wherever she goes — somebody else's husband, if she can ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... great figure to me. Count on my highest appreciation, my devotion. You'll give me satisfaction—if that has any weight with you." After which, as Paul appeared still to waver, his host added: "Do you remember what you said to ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... to show that I, the disgraced and the deceased Fibble, would, from the confines of the silent tomb, beg forgiveness for my criminal indiscretion. I shall write all! My tears descending as I write bedew the sheet, and beneath my swimming eyes the lines waver, but in haste I write on, lest the slayer find me before ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... quite confused, and began to waver between hate, contempt, and pity. Was it really these poor doomed wretches who had robbed him of his livelihood? Could men so miscalculate the size of things, as to strike because an inoffensive individual was making complete caring-tools all by himself, and yet not strike, nor ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... when we say that a man assents to what is false and does not doubt it, we do not say that he is certain, but merely that he does not doubt, that is to say, that he assents to what is false, because there are no causes sufficient to make his imagination waver. Although, therefore, a man may be supposed to adhere to what is false, we shall never on that account say that he is certain. For by certitude we understand something positive, and not the privation of doubt; but by the privation of certitude ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... political event, the death of the Emperor, will have a softening influence on my personal fate, remains questionable. In a few weeks I shall have direct news. Whatever it may turn out to be, I cannot waver or hesitate. To you, dearest Richard, remains cordially ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... And bullets thick did fly; Then did our valiant soldiers Charge on most furiously: Which made the Spaniards waver, They thought it best to flee: They feared the stout behaviour Of brave ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... tree,[30] but was in an open piece of ground, cheering on his men, when he was shot. He stayed with them until the line was formed, and then walked back to camp unassisted, giving his gun to a man who was near him. His men, who were drawn up on the high ground skirting Crooked Run,[31] began to waver, but were rallied by Fleming, whose division had been attacked almost simultaneously, until he too was struck down by a bullet. The line then gave way, except that some of Fleming's men still held their own on the left in a patch of rugged ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... waver. So surely as I live I shall go. It might have been otherwise, but you decided it yourself. An hour ago you held my destiny in your hands; now it is fixed. I should have gone six years since had I not indulged a lingering hope ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... patriot and, at the same time, a cosmopolitan who has probably travelled more extensively abroad than any other of his fellow-countrymen. After becoming a Catholic at the age of twenty, he spent a year in monasteries abroad, but had already begun to waver in his Catholicism when he first visited America, where he stayed from 1927 to 1930. During those years he became more and more radical in his social beliefs. Already in his first year there, he ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... "our William" must be bolstered up; lest "waverers" should waver off to the ranks of the "Constitutionalists," and the "great Liberal party" come to grief at the ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that, when she comes to the point, the over-niceness of her principles will make her waver, and want to go back: although her honour is my honour, you know, and mine is her's. If she should, and should I be unable to prevail upon her, all your past services will avail nothing, and she will be lost to me for ever: the prey ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... dear old friend," said Paul. "I've got down to bed-rock to-night. I have a deep and loyal affection for Jane. I shan't waver in it all my life long. I'll soon find my carrot, as she calls it—it will be England's greatness. She is the woman that will help me on my path. I've finished with illusions for ever and ever. Jane is the bravest and grandest of realities. To-night's work has taught me ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... is not always enough. Except in the very simplest sentences there are generally several arrangements which are grammatically possible; and, though all save one may be absurd in meaning, the reader may waver for a moment before the absurdity strikes him. Some artificial aid is thus needed to prevent him from thinking of any arrangement but the right one. There is no fault, for instance, to be found with the arrangement of the following words, yet, printed ...
— "Stops" - Or How to Punctuate. A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students • Paul Allardyce
... he spoke, then it was with apparent irrelevance that he said: "I'm sorry you and he didn't have a good talk. 'Bob' asked him to see you—sent him there a-purpose." The sight of Gray's smiling, eager, uncomprehending face caused the old man's steady gaze to waver. He cleared his throat. "Buddy's a ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... choramengro kaums to chore a covva when the snow is apre the puvius, he jals yeck piro, palewavescro. If you chiv tutes piros pal-o- the-waver—your kusto piro kaired bongo, jallin' with it a rikkorus, an' the waver piro straightus—your patteran'll dick as if a bongo-herroed mush had been apre the puvius. (I jinned a mush yeckorus that had a dui chokkas kaired with the dui tachabens kaired bongo, to jal a-chorin' with.) ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... own heather we wonn'd together, I and my Willie (O love my love): I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, And flitterbats waver'd alow, above: ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... wine, Gambara seemed less self-centered, talked more, and with great lucidity; he even spoke at last of reading the papers. Andrea could not help quaking at his unexpectedly rapid success; but though his distress made him aware of the strength of his passion, it did not make him waver in ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... back his head, jumps up from his heels. When dreaming, attempts to bite mustache with lower lip. When he sits in a chair places himself sidewise and hangs both arms over back. In walking strikes back part of heel first, and is apt to waver from time to time. Dresses neatly, carries hands in side-pockets only—plays piano constantly, composing as he goes along. During day smokes twenty to thirty cigarettes, cutting them in half for cigarette-holder ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... keenly, but her deep eyes did not waver. "You may have got used to it," he said obstinately, "but I'll wager anything that when you first came you were just ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... Not that he looked at either of us. He smiled only to himself, and to his plateful of meat, and to the small bottle of Bass's pale ale that stood before him—ultimate allowance of one who had erst clashed cymbals in Naxos. This small bottle he eyed often and with enthusiasm, seeming to waver between the rapture of broaching it now and the grandeur of having it to look forward to. It made me unhappy to see what trouble he had in managing his knife and fork. Watts-Dunton told me on another occasion that this infirmity of the ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... she is flung into a loathsome cell, with bread and water for diet, she does not waver a jot in her demeanour of dignity or in her Royal claims. Only when she is charged with being the daughter of a Prague innkeeper does she allow indignation to master her, as she retorts, "I have never been in Prague in my life, and if I knew who had thus slandered me I would scratch his eyes ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... woman of about thirty-five years of age, tall and bony in make, with deep-set eyes, light grey of colour, that seemed now to flash fiercely and now to waver, as though in memory of some great dread. From beneath a coarse woollen cap a wisp of grizzled hair fell across the forehead, where it lay like the forelock of a horse. Indeed, the high cheekbones, scarred ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... pleasant afternoon when I was thus awaiting her in the village. The eternal smile of the Californian summer had begun to waver and grow less fixed; dust lay thick on leaf and blade; the dry hills were clothed in russet leather; the trade winds were shifting to the south with an ominous warm humidity; a few days longer and the rains would be here. It so chanced that ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... coffee; my resolutions waver and dissipate themselves like the steam rising from my cup. I tear the letter open, and find myself in Heaven straightway. And these are the winged ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... bottle and tins on a stool near the woman. Quinn's glance did not waver, and not a word passed his swollen lips; but his wife snatched up one of ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... Doctor looked at him, bit her lip, and then found that her eyes were blurred so that his face seemed to waver and grow dim. And Luck Lindsay, because he saw the tears, laid a hand on her shoulder, and pushed her ever so ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... while I lived, if I deserved of you much or little, when in the world I wrote the lofty verses, move not, but let one of you tell us, where, having lost himself, he went away to die." The greater horn of the ancient flame began to waver, murmuring, even as a flame that the wind wearies. Then moving its tip hither and thither, as it had been the tongue that would speak, it cast forth a voice, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... the journey. Waiting, she stood at the window to look for the postman. Presently she saw him in the distance; he approached quickly, but spent an unendurable minute out of sight in the shop next door. When he emerged Hilda was in anguish. Had he a letter for her? Had he not? He seemed to waver at the gateway, and to decide to enter.... She heard the double blow of his drumstick baton.... Now in a few seconds she would ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... indeterminate, so shadowy and elusive, as to rebuke the analyst who would disengage and expose them. Many of them are simply harmonic hues and half-lights, melodic shreds and fragments, whose substance is as impalpable as mist and whose outlines waver and fade almost before they are perceived. Few of them are clearly and definitely articulated; for the most part they are, as I have called them, mere "sound-wraiths," intentionally suggestive rather than definitive, evocative rather than descriptive. If one ventures ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... accompanied by a gentleman whose identity,'though more than a year had elapsed, came back to me from the Folkestone cliff.' It had been associated in that scene with showy knickerbockers; at present it overflowed more splendidly into a fur-trimmed overcoat. Lord Iffield's presence made me waver an instant before crossing over; and during that instant Flora, blank and undistinguishing, as if she too were after all weary of alternatives, looked straight across at me. I was on the point of raising my hat to her ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... hand, our regiment is made up partly of young men from respectable families, reared under the influences of a pure morality; but they find that the highest standard of morality presented here is much lower than they were wont to have at home, and they soon begin to waver. Thus having lost their first moorings of character, they start downward, and in many instances are ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... father, that you have taken this resolution!" cried the young count joyfully. "Now at last the crisis is upon us—open enmity and a rupture, regardless of consequences! Waver and hesitate no more. The Elector would ruin you; you must ruin him. Nay, look not so amazed and shocked, father! I have long foreseen this moment, and have prepared everything for meeting the emergency with dignity. ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... was about to take from her aunt, whose violent opposition would throw a fearful obstacle in the way. It was easier to avoid than to surmount such a barrier; but if it could not be avoided, it must be surmounted. In that decision she could not waver. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... man, too!—for the balloon is always motionless with reference to the air that surrounds it. What moves is the mass of the atmosphere itself: for instance, one may light a taper in the car, and the flame will not even waver. An aeronaut in Garnerin's balloon would not have suffered in the least from the speed. But then I have no occasion to attempt such velocity; and if I can anchor to some tree, or some favorable inequality of the ground, at night, I shall not fail to do so. Besides, ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... lay stress on the resources of diplomacy. He admitted that he had long regarded the possibility of war between England and Russia with the 'utmost incredulity;' but even before Sinope his confidence in a peaceful solution of the difficulty was beginning to waver. He distrusted Lord Stratford, and yet he refused to recall him; he talked about the 'indignity' which Omar Pacha had inflicted on the Czar by his summons to evacuate the Principalities, although nothing could justify the presence of the Russian troops in Moldavia and Wallachia, and they had ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... "I waver between hope and fear of paying my court to you. I hope it might still be at Berneck," this evening,—"if you could contrive a road into the Nurnberg Highway again; avoiding Baireuth: otherwise I dare not go. The Bearer, who is Captain Knobelsdorf [excellent judicious man, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... over the level. At times a huge black-and-yellow bee hummed past, leaving a trail of faint sound that seemed to linger like a perfume. At times the landscape, that was so changeless, would seem to waver a little, to shift confusedly like things seen through running water. And all the while the meadow scents and the many-colored butterflies rose straight up on the moveless air, and brooded or dropped back ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... lectern, and looking across the valley, stood a very old man in a black robe that fell as straight as the cliffs around him, but whose white hair and weak voice seemed alike to waver in the wind. He was evidently reading some daily lesson as part of his religious exercises. ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... feeble infant wail was heard from one after another amid weeping and sobbing. Surely the angelic host had songs of praise while, in that holy stillness, these young men had a sight of themselves. Oh, pray on that our faith waver not, for we believe we ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... right, Roger. Mere handful as they were, the white men have gained the day. Even now, I hardly know how it came about. Never did my countrymen fight more bravely. For hours, the Spaniards stood as a wall which we, in vain, tried to break. Thousands fell on our side, but not for a moment did we waver. Others took their places until, as the hours went on, the Spaniards grew weary, and victory seemed in our grasp. Their horsemen had charged through and through us, but though many chiefs were slain, it mattered little. The ranks closed up, and each time they fell back on their infantry, having ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... and gazed at him with all his eyes. Perhaps there was a film upon his sight, but the outlines of the newcomer seemed to change and waver like those of the idols in the wavering candlelight of the shop: and at times he thought he knew him; and at times he thought he bore a likeness to himself; and always, like a lump of living terror, there ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... field. The dominant mind loses its elasticity: it fails to appreciate real values under changed conditions. Victory has become to it not so much a struggle as a habit. Then follows the decline. The judgment begins to waver or go astray out of a kind of self-worship, which makes the satisfaction of self, and not the realisation of what is possible, the dominant object in every transaction. There will be plenty of money to back this delusion for a time, and plenty ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... you weigh 'gainst love That's true? Tell me with what you'd turn the scale? Yea, make the index waver? Wealth? A feather! Rank? Tinsel against bullion in the balance! The love of kindred? That to set 'gainst love! Friendship comes nearest to't; but put it in, Friendship will kick the beam!—weigh nothing 'gainst it! Weigh ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... declaring himself only set at liberty by his father's death, appeared at Sutton, Cecily did not waver, and her parents upheld her decision, that it would be a sin to unite herself to an irreligious man, and that the absence of principle which he had shown made it impossible ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that cosy little room, and with those two new friends, it did not seem so absolutely impossible; but when Kitty's thoughts flew to Miss Pidsley, the bare, unhomelike room downstairs, and the dreary road outside, her mind began to waver, and ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Dawson. My limbs are on the rack, and my soul shivers in me, till this night's business be complete. Tell me thy thoughts: is Bates determined? or does he waver? ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... air, which for centuries had been forming a solid coating. I remained in a kneeling position for several moments, catching my breath and regaining strength. I feared to move, lest the thin layer upon which I rested would once more give way beneath me. It appeared to waver, as did everything else around me. After a short rest, I carefully arose to a standing position, and then observed that I was located in a sort of a pit, surrounded by rocks of various shapes and sizes. As I cautiously climbed upward, each one of them ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... two! We'd chummed over a baby, which for women is like what taking a drink together is for men. The admirable dragon in the blue dress didn't waver a bit because her superior spoke pleasantly to me. ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... he had no musical ability, but Aunt Faith stood by him, and even encouraged his spasmodic attempts to find the tune. His favorite air was "Nelly Bly." On this he would progress satisfactorily until he came to "Hi," when he was sure to waver. "Hi," E flat; "Hi," E natural; "Hi," F natural; and finally, when all within hearing were driven nearly to frenzy, out would come the missing F sharp, and the tune go on ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... were falling and those who were left began to waver. "Steady, men! Don't flinch," came the shout again. "Ah-hah, you would, would ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... you waver and wipe your brow and draw in your breath quickly and wait six and one fifth seconds before answering 'violin' when I gave ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... these." Presently, he beheld one of the mountebanks, who was present at the feast, climbing up to the top of a high and towering wall and throwing himself down to the ground and alighting on his feet. Whereupon the waver said to himself, "Needs must I do as this one hath done, for surely I shall not fail of it." So he arose and swarmed upon the wall and casting himself down, broke his neck against the ground and died forthright. "Now I tell thee this that thou sayst get thy living by what way thou knowest ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... more valiantly faced poverty than Elizabeth Delavie, had she alone been concerned. Cavalier and Jacobite blood was in her veins, and her unselfish character had been trained by a staunch and self-devoted mother. But her father's age and Eugene's youth made her waver. She might work her fingers to the bone, and live on oatmeal, to give her father the comforts he required; but to have Eugene brought down from his natural station was more than she could endure. His welfare must ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... people, and they knew what they wanted to do. But could it be right for anyone to drink? As in the case of suicide, Samuel found his moral convictions beginning to waver. Perhaps it was that drink did not affect these higher beings as it did ordinary people! Or perhaps what they drank was something that cheered without inebriating! Certain it was that the servants got drunk; and Samuel had seen that they ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... preternaturally still. A few minutes later, when he struck a match to light his pipe, this impression was vividly confirmed. As is the habit with all woodsmen he watched the match-smoke to detect the direction of the wind. The blue strands, with hardly a waver or tremor, streamed straight up. He was somewhat reassured, however, when he remembered that he had not yet emerged from a great valley between low ranges that ordinarily prevented free ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... conducive to the moral (commanded) purpose, and moreover harmonizing with the theoretical requirement of reason, to assume that existence and to make it the foundation of our further employment of reason, it has itself sprung from the moral disposition of mind; it may therefore at times waver even in the well-disposed, but can ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... burned on a near-by stake and carelessly blew another smoke ring. He was waiting for the gun to waver. ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... waited for that larger share in the government and even in the administration of their country to which the British Parliament had recognised their claim as far back as the Act of 1833, their faith even in the professed purpose of British rule began to waver. At first the leaders of the Indian intelligentsia, some of whom had learned the value of British institutions and of the freedom of British public life, not merely through English literature but through ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... vineyard, endeavoring, after my old stage fashion, to assume as thoroughly as possible the character which I was representing. Before I had retained the constrained attitude and fixed immovable gaze for more than a short time, my eyes grew dim, the wall I was glaring at seemed to waver about before me, I turned sick, a cold perspiration broke out on my forehead, my ears buzzed, my knees trembled, my heart throbbed, and I suppose I was not far from a fainting fit. I sat abruptly down on the platform, and called my friendly artist to my assistance, describing to him my sensations, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... letter again, and this time slowly. The handwriting was large, clear, and determined, but here and there it seemed to waver, a word turned down. He fancied he detected ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens |
