"Wavering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stalactites resembling great organ-pipes, altars, mutilated statues, hideous monsters carved in stone, and even a complete pagoda, which, however, occupied but a very small space in the vast enclosure. Fancy such a scene in an appropriate setting, the whole lit up with a dim and wavering light, and you can perhaps form some idea how it struck me when it first burst ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... refreshing wind would blow, the air being as fickle as the rain; and now and then we would see a slender column of dust, a thousand or two feet high, marching across the desert, apparently not more than two feet in diameter, and wavering like the threads of moisture that tried in vain to reach the earth as rain. Of life there was not much to be seen in our desert route. In the first day we encountered no habitation except the ranch-house mentioned, and saw no human being; and ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... of grave crisis; upon the events of the next few minutes would hang the issue of a hard-fought battle. Already at one end of the line the troops seemed to be wavering. Was it ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... rails side by side to protect his body from the cold ground, lay down upon them and threw a cloak over himself. Now he relaxed or rather collapsed completely. The tension that had kept him up so long was gone, and he felt that he could not have risen from the rails had he wished. He saw wavering fires and dusky figures beside them, but sleep came in a few minutes to ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was precious to me; she allowed me to retain my erroneous belief that my son, had he lived, would have enjoyed the blessing of her affection. As a fact, she had not given it to him,—could not have given it,—though she owns that her mind, not her heart, was wavering. Had she married him, other motives than love would have influenced her choice. So death has saved my dear boy from a cruel disappointment or a worse mistake, and her from a great danger. Had he lived, he must have had many hours of wretchedness, either ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... he stands hesitating; in his mind a conflict of emotions—a struggle between filial affection and selfish desire. Thus wavering, a word would decide him to turn back for Godalming and home. But there is no one to speak that word, while the next wave of thought surging upward brings vividly before him the sea with all its wonders—a vision too bright, too fascinating, to be resisted by a boy, ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... Nicky's grip on the bomb relaxed. It fell from his hand. Davidge swiped at it wildly, smacked it, and knocked it out of bounds beyond the deck. Then Davidge's hundred-and-eighty-pound weight smote the light and wickery frame of Nicky and sent him collapsing backward, staggering, wavering, till he, ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... higher Orders wavering and undecided, the leaders of the Revolution advanced still further in their requirements, and at last demanded that all classes alike, the Priests and the Women not excepted, should do homage to Colour by submitting to ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... in the ceremonies with which the coronation was celebrated. The astute young king, who in his priestly character had penetrated many state secrets, advanced to greet him, and with the double purpose of procuring the adherence and testing the fidelity of this discontented and wavering son of his stanch old champion, the Duke Somdetch Ong Yai, appointed him on the spot to the command of the army, under the title of Phya ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... teacher, who, they believed, had been sent to them from heaven. I heard even, that some had commenced a new chronology from the date of my arrival. All this pleased me only so much the more, as formerly in Nazar I had been abused for my imprudence and wavering judgment, and in Martinia despised and commiserated for my ignorance. True, indeed, is the old proverb; that among the blind the one-eyed rules. I had now come to a land, where with little understanding, I could raise ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... brigand-infested roads and trails, she traversed France to the court of Chinon. Convincing Charles VII of her divine vocation; throwing herself into the war; rallying the people to her standard; wounded in battle yet never wavering; animating veteran soldiers; bearing the brunt of the attack and shielding with her stainless bosom the heart ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... of the drawing-room doors opened and old Morestal appeared on his wife's arm. Dressed in a pair of trousers and a waistcoat, bare-headed, tangle-haired, with a handkerchief fastened round his neck, he staggered on his wavering legs. Nevertheless, a sort of gladness, like an ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... anything to warrant your theory, Mr. Hastings. I merely made fun of her wavering after she'd once said she'd confront Berne Webster again with ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... questioned their authority. Hildebrand boasts (Ep. vii, 23) that, when William of Normandy sent envoys to ask Pope Alexander to sanction his unscrupulous invasion of England, and the Papal Court was itself too sensible of the enormity to give its sanction, he (Hildebrand) overbore the wavering Pope and forced him to bless the enterprise; and, when he had in his turn mounted the Papal throne, he vehemently claimed that his action had made England a fief for ever of the Holy See! Gregory ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... after he was persuaded that he would have to submit, the recollections of the glory they had shared together, and of their happy days, and the grief and suffering the parting would cause, filled him with remorse and pity, and then would come a period of wavering which exasperated his family and the upholders of the stability of the Empire. At last he saw clearly that it was an imperative duty that must ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... headlong down to the bottom, produced in George a sudden attack of vertigo. The whole landscape appeared to rock to and fro; the ledge upon which he was standing seemed to sway suddenly forward over the abyss and threaten to launch him into space; he felt himself wavering upon the very brink, and an almost uncontrollable impulse seized him to spring off and take that terrible downward flight. Another glance downward, and the impulse became irresistible. He drew back a step, braced himself for the terrible leap, flung his arms above his ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... recantation, averring that she was unaware of the contents or full significance of the document, which certainly is not the very brief writing to which she set her mark. Her voices recalled her to her duty, for them she went to the stake, and if there was a moment of wavering on the day of her doom, her belief in the objective reality of the phenomena remained firm, and she recovered her faith in ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... The first point to be decided was the beauty of the kites. Lemon had his horn, which was to be used as a signal. He blew three shrill blasts. At the sound of the third, up they all flew, some starting rapidly upwards; others wavering about before ascending; a few refusing to mount altogether beyond a few yards off the ground. However, the greater number mounted rapidly, their brilliant colours flashing in the sunbeams. The spectators clapped their ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... now, oscillating from side to side. The hole seemed to travel in a wavering loop, dipping lower, swinging up ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer
... put it into the basket on his arm. His gray beard almost touched the ground as he crept onward. Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure. She wondered what sort of herbs they were which the old man was so sedulous to gather. Would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs of species hitherto ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which hurt one or two of Lambert's troopers; but the orders were that the general fire should be reserved till the musketeers should see the pikemen already within push of the enemy. Then it was not necessary. Lambert's men had been wavering all the while; his troopers now turned the noses of their pistols downwards; one troop came off entire to Ingoldsby; the rest broke up and fled. But Lambert himself was Ingoldsby's mark. Dashing up to him, pistol in hand, he claimed him as his prisoner. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... man doubt, I shall desire him to make a brief survey of the world, as [176] Cyprian adviseth Donat, "supposing himself to be transported to the top of some high mountain, and thence to behold the tumults and chances of this wavering world, he cannot choose but either laugh at, or pity it." S. Hierom out of a strong imagination, being in the wilderness, conceived with himself, that he then saw them dancing in Rome; and if thou shalt either conceive, or climb to see, thou shalt soon ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... everybody's horror: "No; altered, all that; under pain of death, your Oath to Russia still valid!" Which for the next ten days, or till his new proclamation, made such a Konigsberg of it as may be imagined. The sight of those Letters is understood to have turned the scale; which had hung wavering till July 22d in the Czarina's mind. "Can it be good," she might privately think withal, "to begin our reign by kindling a foolish War again?" How Friedrich received the news of July 9th, and into what a crisis it threw him, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Without wavering or pausing, straight he walked. Monmouth seemed turned to stone; I could see his face set and rigid, although light failed me to catch that look in the eyes by which you may best know a man's mood. Not a sound or a motion came from Carford. Barbara herself was stiff and still, her regard bent ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... the little creatures that have many legs had spread their gauze wings easily on the air, as a man rests his elbows on a balcony and gave jubilant, ceremonial praises to the sun, or else they moved together on the air in wavering dances intricate and swift, or turned aside to avoid the onrush of some drop of water that a breeze had shaken from a jungle orchid, chilling the air and driving it before it, as it fell whirring in its rush to the earth; but all the while they sang triumphantly. "For the day ...
— Tales of Three Hemispheres • Lord Dunsany
... Who but himself could undergo that great trial, and hardship, and self-denial, and firm purpose, never wavering, never sinking for a moment, keeping his grasp on life like one who holds up by main force a sinking and drowning friend?—how could a woman do it! He must then give up the thought. There was a choice,—friendship, and the love of woman,—the long life of immortality. ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... saw, when he had lighted the candle which stood on the table by his bed, was the barely furnished room which, even in this poor and wavering light, had so cheerful and ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... was somewhere about eleven o'clock. The night was intensely still, without a zephyr stirring among the trees, and of that wavering darkness caused by a half-clouded moon. On the black and green water close to the bank rocked a light birch-bark canoe, a ticklish craft, which a puff might overturn. The young man who had urged the necessity for silence was groping ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... appearing before her, of our protector with his air of authority, of the policeman, who, contrary to instructions, introduced himself at the open door, Mrs Ragg rose with a wavering cry that was like a whine, from her seat. She sucked in her cheeks till they met, and with her claw-like hands grabbed her shabby frock where it loosely ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... to the world of his readers. There was a strong belief in Melmotte. The clubs thought that he would be returned for Westminster. The dukes and duchesses feted him. The city,—even the city was showing a wavering disposition to come round. Bishops begged for his name on the list of promoters of their pet schemes. Royalty without stint was to dine at his table. Melmotte himself was to sit at the right hand of the brother ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... foot of the Taurus range, from the sources of the Supnat to those of the Bitlis-tchai, and he held the passes leading to the banks of the Arzania, in Kirruri and Gilzan, while the extensive country of Nairi had sworn him allegiance. Towards the south-east the wavering tribes, which alternately gave their adherence to Assur or Babylon according to circumstances, had ranged themselves on his side, and formed a large frontier province beyond the borders of his hereditary kingdom, between the Lesser Zab and the Turnat. But, despite repeated ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... their willing surrender to the people, on every occasion when the demand has been, even as little insistent as the German demand has been. In the case of Frederick William IV, his claim, at least in words, upon his divine rights as a sovereign was the mark of a wavering confidence in himself. He was not satisfied with a rational sanction for his authority, but was forever assuring his subjects that God had pronounced for him; much as men of low intelligence attempt to add vigor to their statements by an oath. "I hold my crown," ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... technique indescribable, and one no longer listened to the piano, but to one of those instruments of Eastern origin in which glass and metal are extensively used. The quality of tone emanating from the piano was brittle, so to speak; in a word, sounded so thin, sharp, and at times so wavering as to suggest the idea that it might at any moment break. And then it made me indescribably nervous to see his talon-like fingers threading their way through the mazes of the concerto, which was a tax on any player, and though the three piano parts were but faintly ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... would be thrown out during the very first burst, and glad to find his way dismounted to a village alehouse for a pail of meal and water. Hedges, trees, groves, gardens, orchards, woods, farm-houses, huts, halls, mansions, palaces, spires, steeples, towers, and temples, all go wavering by, each demigod seeing, or seeing them not, as his winged steed skims or labours along, to the swelling or sinking music, now loud as a near regimental band, now faint as an echo. Far and wide over the country are dispersed the scarlet runners—and a hundred villages ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... shoulders and wonder where the money was to come from. Meanwhile he knew that his partners were anxious. They had been strong, and had endured the evil times for years without wavering, but now were compelled to obtain a credit more and more extended, in the hope of tiding themselves over the ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... you will not go with me, but that you shall live on to die the greatest of deaths far away from here, and because of another woman. It seems that, as I lay in the dark of this cave, I saw you, Umslopogaas, a great man, gaunt and grey, stricken to the death, and the axe Groan-maker wavering aloft, and many a man dead upon a white and shimmering way, and about you the fair faces of white women; and you had a hole in your forehead, husband, on the ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... too. At the words, she trembled violently all over once more, but with an effort restrained herself. Their looks met in a searching glance. Hilda's air was proud and fearless: in Sebastian's, I fancied I detected, after a second, just a tinge of wavering. ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... into the classroom. A faint light came in from the street, but not enough to allow her to distinguish objects clearly. Indeed, it cast such wavering, ghostly shadows that the total darkness ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... carried into the walled-up room above, but the link which would have fixed the identity of the person so carrying her was gone from my chain of evidence for ever. She who should have had the greatest interest in establishing this evidence was leaning on the arm of Miss Porter and directing, with wavering finger and a wild air, the movements of the men, who, in a frenzy caught from her own, dug here and dug there as ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... your patience have its full effect, That you may be entire, without defect. If any of you lack wisdom, let him cry To God, and he will give it lib'rally, And not upbraid. But let him ask in faith, Not wavering, for he that wavereth, Unto a wave o' th' sea I will compare, Driv'n with the wind and tossed here and there. For let not such a man himself deceive, To think that he shall from the Lord receive. A double-minded man most ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... mounted this masonry and clung to the iron bars, as the crowd was driven back from the street by the outriders. Before Benton's eyes the whole mass of humanity swam in a blur of confusion and vertigo. The passing files of blue and red soldiery seemed wavering figures mounted on reeling horses. The King's carriage swung into view and a crescendo of cheering ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... with a lurid glare. Bold as the British sailors were, they could advance no farther under so terrible a fire. Two of the barges were shot to pieces, leaving their crews struggling in the water. A ceaseless hail of grape and canister spread death and wounds broadcast among the enemy; and, after wavering a moment, they turned and fled to their ships. Cochrane, seeing his plan for taking the American positions by assault thus frustrated, redoubled the fury of his fire; hoping that, when daybreak made visible the distant shore, nothing but a heap of ruins ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... plunged. Upon his very flanks was the fire and about him all the stinging danger from the half-crazed hunters. He lunged forward, slipped upon the smooth glacial floor beneath him, tried to turn again to meet his thronging foes and face the ring of flame, and then, wavering, floundering, moving wonderfully for a creature of his vast size, but uncertain as to foothold, he was driven to the very crest of the ledge, and, scrambling vainly, carrying away an avalanche of ice, snow and shrubs, went crashing to his death, ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... pleasant conceited Comedie," published in 1595, is a dramatized old wife's story told to three erring fancies, Frolic, Antic and Fantastic, quite in the style of a fairy tale, "always wavering in the peculiar twilight, between profound sense and nonsense, between childish play and matured humor." Two brothers who have lost their sisters appear, and then an insolent giant, swaggering with a double-edged sword and attended by an enamored ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... it be with all who like William Penn, know in whom they trust, if they persevere like him without wavering. ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... mountains, red coral zoophytes, etc., and appears to give little weight to the real and natural reason which came under our American's notice. On one occasion the diver observed, while under sea, that the curious wavering shadows, which cross the lustrous golden floor like Frauenhofer's lines on the spectrum, began to change and lose themselves. A purple glory of intermingled colors darkened the violet curtains of the sea-chambers, reddening all glints and tinges with an angry fire. Instead ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... intervening hollows and ascend the height, facing the sheets of flame which burst from the Rebel works. They fire as they advance. It is not a rush and a hurrah, but a steady movement. Men begin to drop from the line, but there is no wavering. They who never before heard the sounds of battle stand like veterans. The Rebel line in front of them extends farther than their own. The Forty-fifth Illinois goes to the support of Wallace. The Rebels ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... typewriter money. There was no escape. He chanced to be at the Echo offices that day with copy for the next issue of his paper and was still rebelliously wavering over the loss of his typewriter when the door of Mr. Carter's private room opened and the great man himself appeared, ushering out a visitor. Glancing about on his return from the elevator his eye ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... brilliant point, growing in size and radiance until the whole flood is illumined. There is an exquisite hush of a moment. The sun has risen and kindled its reflection in the gold. The music describes better than words the spreading of tremulous light down through the deep. Through the wavering ripples of water and light cuts the bright call of the gold, the call to wake up and behold. Again and again it rings, regularly a golden voice. The Rhine-daughters have quickly forgotten their victim. They begin their blissful circumswimming of their ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... he seith / who that is inconsta[n]te A waueryng eye / glydyng sodeynly [Sidenote: an inconstant man with a wavering eye and a wandering foot] Fro place to place / & a foot varia[n]te 108 That in no place / abydeth stably These ben [th]^e signes / the wiseman seith sikerly Of suche a wight / as is vnmanerly nyce And is ful likely disposid vnto vyce 112 ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... it close, and took the hint, to discover that in a line with his head was some filigree stonework, pierced with small apertures, the front doubtless of the marble tomb in the church above, for through them he could see the pale moon rays wavering on the pavement of the choir. As he looked the priest at his ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... army upon Loxa threw the wavering Boabdil el Chico into one of his usual dilemmas, and he was greatly perplexed between his oath of allegiance to the Spanish sovereigns and his sense of duty to his subjects. His doubts were determined by the sight of the enemy glittering ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... consists of weak-bodied, large-winged insects, with an irregular wavering flight, and which, when resting on foliage, often expand the wings, which the species of the other sections rarely or never do. They are the most conspicuous ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... point, he looked into the glare. Wavering light and wavering shade flickered fast over the Roman profile, flowed fitfully—fitfully as his thoughts. Now his thoughts pursued architectural dreams, and now he thought of himself, of his unhappy youth, of how he had been misunderstood, of his solitary life; a bitter, unsatisfactory life, ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... a pillar, and watched the light wavering along the length of the church, and up the steps into the choir, until it was intercepted by some screen or other furniture, which only allowed the reflection to be seen on the piers and roof. Not many minutes had passed before Worby reappeared at the ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... a dream, foretells that wavering judgment in some vital matter may cause you great distress and money loss. To be able to read them, your success in overcoming ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... dressing room in front of his table, he thought of creating a new bouquet; and he was overcome by that moment of wavering confidence familiar to writers when, after months of inaction, they prepare for ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... renewed force. For years he had looked at all earthly good through the medium of a philosophy which taught him that it, without exception, contained within itself the seeds of bitterness, and was altogether worthless and impermanent; but now to his wavering faith the sweet delights of home and love, the charms of wealth and power, began to show themselves in a different light, and glow again with attractive colours. He doubted, and agonized in his doubt; but as the sun set, the religious side of his nature had won the victory, and seems to have ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... But that her heart was not in the denial was also evident in the glance from her glorious dark starry eyes. These glances—veritable lightning flashes coming through her pronounced reserve—finished entirely any wavering there might be in my own purpose. I was aware now to the full that my heart was quite subjugated. I knew that I was in love—veritably so much in love as to feel that without this woman, be she what she might, by my side my future must be ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... country. From the darkness ahead a lantern waved at us and the train stopped with a jerk at a little wayside station, a tiny box of an affair. A tall, solid figure, wearing a spiked helmet and grey military great-coat, stood in solitary grandeur in the centre of the little platform, the wavering rays of a flickering gas lamp reflected ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... of the weather bulwarks, for the wind appeared to be composed of pen-knives and needles. Our third gun thundered forth, and shook the lightship from stem to stern; but the rocket struck the rigging, and made a low, wavering flight. Another was therefore sent up; but it had scarcely cut its bright line across the sky, when we observed the answering signal—a ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... wavering Bishop of Trent, undecided which side to favor, "'t is death for you to cross the Brenner. From Innspruck down to Botzen the troops of Otho of Brunswick line the mountain ways, and the Guelf himself, so say my coursermen, is speeding on to ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... to instruct him, in case he be ignorant; to reprove him, in case he transgress; to correct him, if he hath need of it; to confirm him, if he be wavering. It is profitable for doctrine, and all this in a very righteous way—that the poor soul may not only be helped, but thoroughly furnished, not only to some, but to all good works. And when Paul would counsel Timothy to stick close to the things ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... solemnly to pledge himself to obey the orders of government, every where, and against every person, without limitation or restriction.—Count Mansfeld, now "factotum at Brussels," had taken the oath with great fervor. So had Aerachot, Berlaymont, Meghem, and, after a little wavering, Egmont. Orange spurned the proposition. He had taken oaths enough which he had never broken, nor intended now to break: He was ready still to do every thing conducive to the real interest of the monarch. Who dared do more was no true servant to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... strength going from her—it seemed as though he were drawing her soul out from her body—and then, just as sheer consciousness itself was wavering, he took his mouth from hers, and she could see his face, white and strained, ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... would have recovered his liberty; but the council with the prince decided[a] that it was more for the royal interest to sail to the month of the river, where they long continued to solicit by letters the wavering disposition of the parliament and the city. While Hamilton advanced, there seemed a prospect of success; the destruction of his army extinguished their hopes. The king, by a private message, suggested that before their departure from the coast, ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... of his theories that erroneous ideas always yield in the end to facts. He believed that Charles Albert's support could be secured if he were fully persuaded that the interests of his dynasty were not imperilled. He was not afraid, as others were, that even after the first surrender the wavering mind of the king would make retrogression probable; he understood that, if reforms were more difficult to obtain in Piedmont than elsewhere, they would be more durable when obtained. At last a concession ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... My gaze was wavering from the rug by now. Little wonder, was it? "I meant it all right," I got out after a while. "Do you want to hear me say my little speech over again?" Was it possible that, after all, Natica Drayton had really decided to toss Jack over, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... part of the hearers we must consider whether those who hear the disputation are instructed and firm in the faith, or simple and wavering. As to those who are well instructed and firm in the faith, there can be no danger in disputing about the faith in their presence. But as to simple-minded people, we must make a distinction; because either they are provoked and molested by unbelievers, for instance, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... many a wavering line Torn from the dear fat soil of champaigns hopefully tilled, Torn from the motherly bowl, the homely spoon, To jest at famine.... Over an empty platter affect the merrily filled; Die, if the multiple hazards ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... kept her word. For days and nights her husband remained unconscious, wavering between life and death. The faithful woman, as indifferent to the tumult and havoc in the city as if it were in another land, sat beside him and furthered all efforts in ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... four-legged crawling beasts that could not stand erect. Everything had an unreality to it and Jason found it hard to think. He should not stop, that he was sure of, but what else could he do? There was a flickering in the darkness, a wavering light coming towards them. Jason could say nothing, but he heard Mikah cry out ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... goes out by the hall door. ERHART stands for a moment as though wavering; then he ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... to the walls furnished the light, wavering but brilliant. There were tables and rude seats, fashioned from the same prismatic stones which covered the column in the lake, and from their surfaces a thousand points of color ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... only," said Mrs. Rodney, beginning to sniffle. She looked up and smiled wanly through her tears. "You know what I mean. My grammar is terrible when I'm nervous." She pulled at her handkerchief for a wavering moment. "Do you think I'd better speak to Edith? We may be able to ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... a flash, with a startled exclamation and an instinctive movement as if to shield herself from unbidden gaze. Her lips parted and her heart pounded like a hammer. Standing in the doorway was Randolph Shaw, his figure looming up like a monstrous, wavering genie in the uncertain light from the shaking lantern. His right hand was to his brow and his eyes were wide with incredulous joy. She noticed that the left sleeve of his dinner jacket hung limp, and that the arm was in a ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... white and shining beauty that had turned the pleasant garden into a place of magic and enchantment. The corners of Janet's mouth lifted suddenly. How absurd people were! The fat Hodges boy and his motorcycle! Did they all regard her as an amiable lunatic—even little, lovely, friendly Rosemary, wavering sleepily at her side? It really was maddening. But she felt, amazingly enough, suddenly quiet and joyous and indifferent—and passionately glad that the wanderer from the skies had won safely through and was speeding home. Home! Oh, it was a crying pity that it ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... he serves for his beloved, without impatience and without wavering. His father-in-law, crafty like himself, and disposed, like him, to consider legitimate this means to an end, deceives him, and so repays him for what he has done to his brother. Jacob finds in his arms a wife whom he does not ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... much conversation, as we were compelled in most places to follow him in Indian file. Now and then he had to use his hatchet to clear the path, and we very frequently had to force our way by pressing aside the branches which met in front of us. Still he went on without wavering for a moment, or appearing doubtful of the direction he should take. After going on some way further, he again stopped, and pointed to a tree, the branch of which rose a few feet off. I knew by the way True barked that some creature was there; and looking ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... and many tried to hide their faces, lest they should be known again. The tide of human beings divided before the swiftly riding women, as the cloud-bank splits before the northwest wind in winter, and the white mare sped like a ray of light between long wavering lines of ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... hands in agony, for the small limbs started at that hiss. And as when above a pile of smouldering wood countless eddies of smoke roll up mingled with soot, and one ever springs up quickly after another, rising aloft from beneath in wavering wreaths; so at that time did that monster roll his countless coils covered with hard dry scales. And as he writhed, the maiden came before his eyes, with sweet voice calling to her aid sleep, highest of gods, to charm the monster; and she cried to the queen of the underworld, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... effect is not one of a steady repetition of a single tone, but rather that there seems to be an almost imperceptible rising and falling of the voice. The primitive savage is unable to sing a tone clearly and cleanly, the pitch invariably wavering. From this almost imperceptible rising and falling of the voice above and below one tone we are able to gauge more or less the state of civilization of the nation to which the song belongs. This phrase-tone corresponds, therefore, to the sentence-word, ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... study of the De Natura Deorum. A brief and graceful introduction gives an account of the scene of the dialogue. The narrator, with his two friends, Octavius and Caecilius, the former a Christian, the latter a somewhat wavering adherent of the old faith, are taking a walk on the beach near Ostia on a beautiful autumn morning, watching the little waves lapping on the sand, and boys playing duck-and-drake with pieces of tile, when ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... queer and fantastic shadows of objects, which certainly had no material counterparts in the moon-kissed sward of the rich, ripe meadows, rose to greet us, and filled the lane with their black-and-white wavering, ethereal forms. The evening was one of wonders for which I had no name—wonders associated with an iciness that was far from agreeable. I was not at all sure which I liked best—the black, Stygian, tree-lined part of the road we had just left, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... curled lazily upward from the tip of the cigarette. Jimmie Dale's eyes fastened mechanically on the twisting, wavering spiral, followed it mechanically as it rose and spread out into filmy, undulating, fantastic shapes—and the strong, square jaw set suddenly hard. It was not so very strange that those words should have come back to him to-night! Things were "warm" now—and ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... rising, and blew in fitful gusts, rustling the branches of the trees, and causing a loose rose-branch to tap carelessly against the window panes. It sounded like the knock of someone anxious to come in. The candles flickered and guttered in the draught; the wavering light cast strange shadows over the dead man's face. You might have thought that his features moved from time to time; that now he frowned at the intruders, and now he smiled at ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... her. She cannot explain the wondrous force that will direct Blossom and Darkie into the old lane, and guide them along its folds to the white gate down by the byre. But where she cannot trace she trusts. And all day long she clings to her sunny faith without wavering. She never doubts for a moment that the cows will ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... was she who said: "But—" and paused uncertainly. I could see she was wavering, and I massed my horse, foot, and dragoons for ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... Over the million intricate threads of life wavering and crossing, In the midst of problems we know not, tangling, perplexing, ensnaring, Rises one white ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... then remains for me but to return to that obscurity from whence I have emerged—had I found you barely leaning to the side of virtue, I had arguments to urge that might have fixed a wavering purpose; but I find you resolute, hardened and determined in guilt, and I leave you ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... him and taking his arm started down the walk with him. He took off his hat to her also, and walked with wavering dignity, setting his steps as if his legs were not long enough to reach the walk, so that each step ended with a decided thump. Kate could see the neighbours watching at their windows, and her own children playing on the roof of the woodshed. When the children saw their parents, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... know nothing of geography, history, or morals, except by learning them from the Bible. Geography, history, and other worldly sciences, lie beyond question. As to morals, I had been exceedingly inconsistent and wavering in my theory and in its application; but it now glared upon me, that if man had no independent power of judging, it would have been venial to think Barabbas more virtuous than Jesus. The hearers of Christ or ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... first time a baffled woman had told him that she would kill herself. He had always accepted his kinship with her, but even in her trouble it was part of her consciousness that he now lumped her with a mixed group of female figures, a little wavering and dim, who were associated in his memory with 'scenes,' with importunities and bothers. It is apt to be the disadvantage of women, on occasions of measuring their strength with men, that they may ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... the boy meant, and the lad tossed knife and scabbard over the heads of the crowd to the grass, and slid down the pole. And in the fight that followed, the mountain boy fought with a calm, half-smiling ferocity that made the wavering freshmen instinctively surge behind him as a leader, and the onlooking foot-ball coach quickly mark him for his own. Even at the first foot-ball "rally," where he learned the college yells, Jason had been singled ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... hour's time the 800 troops marched in from Egmont Castle and Egmont Abbey, where they had been quartered while the citizens were wavering between resistance and submission. Four of the citizens, who had already been told off for the purpose, met them at the gate and allotted them quarters in the various houses. Governor Sonoy was already in deliberation with the six men chosen by the townspeople ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... great relief, the dying sunset, wavering into crimson and purple, from its first glory of liquid gold, attracted her aunt's attention, and Miss O'Donoghue went over to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... her father had left her, Ghismonda, wavering not a jot in her stern resolve, had sent for poisonous herbs and roots, and therefrom had distilled a water, to have it ready for use, if that which she apprehended should come to pass. And when the servant appeared with the Prince's present and message, she took the cup unblenchingly, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the first verse and chorus. In the middle of the latter, so moved was he by the sentiment of it, his voice broke and he had to stop. Tears stood in his eyes and he wiped them away. A moment or two later he was able to go through it without wavering and I thought it charming for the type of thing it was intended to be. Later on (the following spring) I was literally astonished to see how, after those various efforts usually made by popular music publishers to make a song "go"—advertising it in the Clipper and ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... and eyes ringed with tattooing. Over their heads the torches flared, held by breathless onlookers. The candlenuts, threaded on long spines of cocoanut-leaves, blazed only a few seconds, but each dying one lit the one beneath as it sputtered out, and the scores of strings shed a continuous though wavering light upon the shining ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... close together, meditative and silent, their eyes roaming idly over the courtyard. The big bonfire burned brightly, and a wavering splash of light lay on the dark earth at their feet, while the lazy smoke wreathed itself slowly in gleaming coils amongst the black boughs of the trees. They could see Lakamba, who had returned ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... was brought up, "and," she says, "gospel liberty prevailed to such an extent, that even poor I was enabled to open my lips in a few words." She neglected to say that these few words introduced the subject to the meetings, and produced such deep feeling that many hitherto wavering ones ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... their wiles," laughed the bey, setting down his drained cup with a wavering hand. "They are never for the husbands, those old nurses—we will have no old trot's ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... no conscious wavering in his purpose. But from much dwelling upon the thought, from much effort rather to put it away, his desire only to see her grew stronger day by day. He had no fear. He longed to test himself. He was sure that he would be impassive, and be all the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... has settled our minds, which have been long wavering about future plans, and we leave this for Menaggio, Hotel Vittoria, on Thursday next, 6th. [He did not ultimately leave till ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... staircase. The old man motioned to the youth to precede him, nor dared he refuse, though feeling as though he would have given the world for the very smallest relic of the very smallest saint. The distorted shadows of the twain, dancing on stair and wall with the wavering lamp-shine, seemed phantoms capering in an infernal revel, and he glanced back ever and anon weening to see himself dogged by some frightful monster, but he saw only the silver hair and sable velvet of the dignified ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... during the troubled period which followed would be to write the history of Tuscany during that period. The general progress of affairs was precisely that which history has had so often to recount. The sovereign, frightened, obstinate, and little able to appreciate the forces opposed to him, was wavering, fickle, timid, yet stubborn, and, above all, untrustworthy. The people were bent on pushing matters to extremes to which those who had so far been their leaders were unwilling to go, and, as usual, the best of those leaders were shunted from the road, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... just how he suffered would be dear; To know if any human eyes were near To whom he could intrust his wavering gaze, Until it settled firm ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... the Commander-in-Chief of the militia of that part of Ohio. He was a hero of the War of 1812, and, as I remember, a gallant and fine-looking old gentleman. The regiment—so called—without guns, uniform, or anything proper for a soldier, was with some difficulty formed into line, but a wavering line, across the public square at Mansfield and along East and West Market streets, when, by some misunderstanding of orders, the right of the regiment marched to the right, and the left to the left. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... as a fortune book, looking to that which first cast up to them, or to impressions borne in upon their minds from such and such places of Scripture as Divine responses, without a due search of them as the Lord hath commanded. And many wavering and unstable souls have been seduced unto damnable and pernicious heresies, as Quakers, and delirious delusions, as those that followed John Gib. All which have been breaches of Covenant, as well as of Divine commands. Yea, even to ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... strange thing to remember—a weird and unearthly bit of living—that war-ruined church, strewn with straw, the wounded wrapped like mummies in dark blankets, their white bandages making high spots in the wavering, irregular lights of lanterns and pocket flashes moving about. I sat on the pavement by his side, hand in hand. A big crucifix hung above, and the Christ seemed to ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... the fight, and showered blows as only Roland could, driving the foe before him. But, alas! the heathen hosts were thick as the sands of their native deserts, and thousands upon thousands came to reinforce their wavering ranks. Then Roland cried,— ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... His light, smoky and wavering, cast black shadows on the walls of the passage as he moved. The air seemed heavy, laden with some strange drug; the house was still, with the stillness which precedes horror. Not many men of his time, suspecting what he suspected, would have opened that door, or at that hour of the night would have ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman |
