"Haltingly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drew him from his retirement and skilfully elicited his coy principles. It was a cruel performance—a shameless one, had there been any spectator. The one would lay down a fine generous line of policy; the other would beg for a fact in confirmation. The one would haltingly detail some facts; the other would promptly convince him of their falsity. Eventually the victim grew angry and a little frightened. The real Mr. Stocks was a man of business, not above making a deal with an opponent; and for a little the real Mr. Stocks ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... the valley from the south by sinuously following the windings of a rushing, foam-white stream, and for many miles the engines cautiously feel their way among stupendous walls, passing haltingly over bridges hung perilously between perpendicular cliffs by slender iron rods, or creep like mountain-cats from ledge to ledge, so that when they have reached safe harbor beside the little red depot they never fail to pant and wheeze like a tired, gratified ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... strained with concentration. Hanlon probed into the native's mind, wondering if he could follow it. And haltingly at first, but with growing ability as he learned the pattern, he found he could ride along on ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... a freedom of not more than sixteen feet, one end of the chain welded about her ankle, the other set in a staple driven into a log of the wall. She had wrapped the links with cloths to save her flesh, but for all of that protection she walked haltingly, as if ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... he answered haltingly, and when he realized how many times he would have to put her off with words to that same effect, ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... intention of having all the gravity-plates in neutral before abandoning the ship. I seized the controls now. An agony of fear was upon me that the shifting valves would fail. But they did not. The plates slid haltingly, reluctantly. ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... This vital quality in drawing and composition must come from the individual artist himself, and nobody can help him much here. He must ever be on the look out for those visions his imagination stirs within him, and endeavour, however haltingly at first, to give them some sincere expression. Try always when your mind is filled with some pictorial idea to get something put down, a mere fumbled expression possibly, but it may contain the germ. Later on the same idea may occur to you again, only it will be less vague ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... pictures which those crowded twelve hours left registered upon Stephen O'Mara's brain, none proved more enduring than did the change which Garry Devereau's first haltingly weak but very sane greeting wrought in the expression on Fat Joe's pink visage that morning. The banter in Garry's labored words was so characteristic of the mocking spirit of the man who had come back the same inexplicably intimate friend which the boy ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... figure rose, and with creaking, rattling joints stood erect. Pale lights shone in the orbits of the eyes and the sound of harsh automatic breathing came from the mouth and nostrils. Slowly and haltingly the figure advanced toward Thorndyke. The poor fellow tried to wrench himself free from the chair, but he could not stir an inch. On came the figure, its long arms swinging mechanically, and its feet slurring over ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... long months the ex-officer had sought employment, indoor or outdoor, congenial or uncongenial. The quest was vain. Once he had broached the matter haltingly to an influential acquaintance. The latter's reception of his distress had been so startlingly obnoxious that he would have died rather than repeat the venture. Then Smith of Dale's, Old Bond Street—Smith, who had cut his hair since he was a boy, ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... best, and don't name it to me again, please." Then, as both boys looked wonderingly at her, she added haltingly, "I've got enough to werry over—with a sick man here on my hands, an' Uncle ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... the portal, swaying drunkenly. They shuddered at the sight of its face as it crossed toward the fire. It did not walk; it shuffled, haltingly, with flexed knees and hanging shoulders, the strides measuring inches only—a grisly ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... His story haltingly told; his utterance through his torn cheek thick and painful but savagely uncompromising; carrying a physical burden of wounds that would have overwhelmed a lesser man but with a deadly hate showing in his manner, Hawk, from sheer weakness, paused: "I went to my cabin to look for ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... how great this kingship of mine is," he said haltingly. "I know how great it seems. But is it real? It is incredible—dreamlike. Is it real, or is it ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... peasant as he tastes his morning glass of rakia. There is no brilliance but a profound knowledge of human nature in this humorous old Balkan gentleman. It is not by brilliant oratory that he sways the Skup[vs]tina, for he merely thinks aloud; slowly and haltingly, while he caresses his beautiful white beard, the words come out in a very bass voice—it is a grave and confidential talk, although a merry gleam occasionally dances in his eyes. With such homeliness does he talk that he pays ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... some of the grime of months swept out of them. When Ella Volsky came suddenly into the flat, with lips compressed, and a high colour, Rose-Marie had been glowingly conscious of her start of surprise. And when she had said, haltingly, in reference to the hair—"I'll dry it for you, Miss Rose-Marie!" Rose-Marie could have wept with happiness. It was the first time that she had ever heard Ella offer to do anything for ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... (Sir C. Grogram, Devonport) said that...." The words came haltingly to my ears as the man's voice followed the jerks of the little instrument "... the Government obviously could not ... alter its policy at ... eleventh hour ... at dictates of ... quite irresponsible person in one of ... the daily ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... course, for Horace, at first; in fact, during the first evening he could do nothing but sit and admire the pace at which Miss Crisp, followed more haltingly by Booms and Waterford, took down the words of Ivanhoe as fast as Mrs Cruden read them. But, by dint of hard, unsparing practice, he was able, a week later, to make some sort of a show, and as the lessons went on he even had ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... research may add to our environment are not far to seek. They are afforded in abundance by the dramatic achievements of the past century of human progress, in which science has begun painfully and haltingly to creep into its true place and ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... won't, either. Do you know, I was thinking I had to be at the bank at twelve-thirty to let Mr. Perkins go out for something to eat? The millionaire habit isn't so firmly fixed as I supposed." After a moment's pause, in which his growing seriousness changed the atmosphere, he went on, haltingly, uncertain of his position: "The nicest thing about having all this money is that—that—we won't have to deny ourselves anything after this." It did not sound very tactful, now that it was out, and he was compelled to scrutinize rather intently a familiar portrait in order to maintain an ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... was in the usual form, but it was brief. Slowly, almost haltingly, he read, so that the words fell clearly on each ear. This is what ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... Devant," he said at last haltingly; "I suppose all men as old as you are sincere when they try to help us younger chaps by knocking us senseless in an hour of danger. But it's better to let us see and know the danger; we'll recognize it the next time. All I can say is, that I have ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... curious example of the importance of the New York verdict. "Hazel Kirke," which became one of the historic successes of the American stage, tottered along haltingly for weeks in Philadelphia, Washington, and Baltimore. In the Quaker City, "Barbara Fritchie," with Julia Marlowe in the title role, came dangerously near closing because of discouraging business. Yet she came ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... was filled with regret, as he wanted to show Miss Randolph the portraits," haltingly echoed the duchess, but she glanced uneasily at the door. "I was glad he did not see her indisposition—he has a heart as tender as a woman's, and it would have distressed him greatly! I do hope, princess, that you will find ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... dropped several verses, because of their difficulty. Finally he settled on one, because of its shortness. He read its seven words haltingly but carefully. ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... the evening she was waiting for him at the door of the workshop. Then they would take a stroll along the canal, and across the green rampart where the children played. "Oh, Pelle, how I've longed for you to-day!" she would say haltingly. "Now, I've got you, and yet I've still got quite a pain in my breasts; they don't know ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... in his face, and a subdued light shine in his eyes, as he thanked her rather haltingly. The little show of diffidence was very charming. How far removed, how amazingly far removed he was from the average good-looking youth of twenty-four, who was usually so anxious to impress every one with his attributes ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Bruce, haltingly, "but I don't recollect all I said—I was riled.... Shore, though it was the same old argyment thet's been fetchin' us closer an' closer ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... you, to see what is best for you to do." I spoke haltingly. It was difficult to speak at all with her eyes upon me. They were strange eyes for a ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... was cut in a manner unknown to western dressmakers—to Brand she seemed like a wonderful Italian picture of the middle ages stepped bodily from its frame. He lowered his revolver, and took a quick step backward. Then to his surprise, she spoke to him in English, haltingly, but with ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... outward and a grinning apparition appeared in the doorway, carrying a vessel of water and a loaf of bread. It was an old, old negro, and he shuffled forward haltingly. Just outside the door could be seen half a ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... held this dingy little book, honest Puritan eyes studied its ill-expressed words, and sweet Puritan lips sang haltingly but lovingly from its pages. This was "Cicely Morse Her Book" in the year 1710, and bears on many a page her name ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... the knob and kicked. Somebody haltingly crossed the room, the key turned, and Prof. Bennie Hooker opened ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... That's one reason, Tel," the other man continued slowly. With one hand he gestured to the waiter for more beer, the other he waved across his face as if to brush away the music; then he recited, pronouncing the words haltingly: ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... had begun three years before was now at its height. Thousands of cars, for lack of engines to move them, were lying idle on the switches all over the west. Trains swarming with immigrants from every country of the world were haltingly creeping out upon the level lands. Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Scotchmen, Englishmen, and Russians all mingled in this flood of land-seekers rolling toward the sundown plain, where a fat-soiled valley ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... "Nothing—any use—" he began haltingly. Then suddenly the words ceased to come. His lips moved but there was no sound. With an expression of intense surprise he lifted his hand to his head, and swayed ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... go to her own room, and Stuart, now dressed, came slowly and as yet somewhat haltingly down the stairs, holding carefully to the rail. He was setting out to search for Eben Tollman, and to call in medical help. But in the hall he paused, and then, turning on impulse, went slowly ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... summoned one of the Indians to clear away the meal. The brown-skinned, dark-haired man appeared in the entrance of the tent and spoke haltingly in English. ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... professor haltingly, "I can-not believe ... it doesn't seem possible ... me? ... John, does the letter mean that Desire ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... and thinking of her, he had conjured up just such a vision as this—they two walking the deserted deck alone, and she innocently giving him an opening for some low-voiced, tender speech, at which she would start, look at him quickly, and then ask him haltingly if the words had any particular application. And after that—oh, well, all sorts of things might happen. And now the moment had come. It was true that he had always pictured the scene as taking place by moonlight and at present there was a ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse |
