"Falter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... given him a hint of it; and to encourage them, rode through their ranks and spoke cheerfully to them, and used what arguments he thought proper to settle their minds. I remembered a saying which I heard old Marshal Gustavus Horn speak in Germany, "If you find your men falter, or in doubt, never suffer them to halt, but keep them advancing; for while they are going forward, it ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... night was spent in burrows dug in the snow. Their supply of venison ran out, and a day was lost while Pete hunted and killed a deer, and cooked strips of its flesh, to be seasoned with the very last of their salt and pepper, and kept in his knapsack. But even Marion did not lose courage or once falter, though many times her heart was in her mouth and a cold sweat on her forehead as they passed some formidable and ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... voice rang confidently. None of the halting weakness remained that had made it falter once when Mardonius asked him, "Will your Hellenes fight?" He spoke as might one returned crowned with ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... or when they feel in themselves as if death was coming as a tempest, to steal them away from their enjoyments, and lusts, and delights; then the bed shakes on which they lie, then the proud tongue doth falter in their mouth, and their knees knock one against another; then their conscience stares, and roars, and tears, and arraigns them before God's judgment-seat, or threatens to follow them down to hell, and there to wreck its fury on them, for all the abuses and affronts this wicked wretch offered ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... would advise you to do is what I would unhesitatingly do myself were I in your predicament, what I would even join you in doing were I younger by thirty years than I happen to be, and had no wife or family to think about and make me falter and lose courage on the brink of every extra hazardous adventure; and it is this. I would recommend you to draw the whole of your money out of the bank, buy a good wagon and a team of salted oxen, invest about twenty pounds in beads, copper wire, and Kafir 'truck' generally, lay out the ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... detective's vigorous ring, the door was opened by a short, stocky man, at sight of whom the Doctor gave a start of surprise, but did not falter. The man was clad in the white coat of a hospital attendant, beneath which the great, bunchy muscles of his shoulders and upper arms were ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... sedition from within as well as conquest from without a nation may only defend itself through the activities of its government, which provides the indispensable instruments of common action. Let it fail or falter and the great majority, undecided about what to do, lukewarm and busy elsewhere, ceases to be a corps and disintegrates into dust. Of the two governments around which the nation might have rallied, the first one, after July 14, 1789, lies prostrate on the ground where it slowly crumbles ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... for the purpose of giving him a fair start along a new line of endeavour we resort to the distinctly obvious, and then announce that he brushed away the tears and laughed as gaily as any of them over the surprises that followed the one which momentarily caused him to falter. He was not given to looking upon the dark side of things. Even as he sat there at the head of the long table, he jocosely remarked to Diggs that he would have to borrow a saw from the janitor the next day and reduce the size of his board by five feet at least. Moreover, he could practice ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... may have proved false and treacherous; our fondest desires, perchance, have faded, and sorrows may encompass us about;—yet above us the voice of Hope crieth aloud, "Press on!"—through tears and the cross must thou win the crown; be patient, trustful, in every duty and grief; "press on," and falter not; and its words linger like the music of a remembered dream in our ear, until, at the borders of the grave, we lay down the burden of our sinfulness and care, and, through the open gate of death, pass onward to that world where hope shall be exchanged for sight, and we, with unveiled ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... passion is launched without effect, a horrible blankness faces the passionate one. The men seeing Colina falter breathed more freely. They ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... debating, she did not know. When the gray dawn broke, she rose up calmly and seated herself at her writing-table. She wrote steadily for some time without erasing a single word. She addressed the envelope without a falter over ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... years Bring forth, and shadow from us all we know. Falter alike great oath and steeled resolve; And none shall say of aught, 'This may not be.' Lo! I myself, but yesterday so strong, As new-dipt steel am weak and all unsexed By yonder woman: yea I mourn for them, Widow and orphan, left amid their foes. But I will ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... perhaps ten days or more, since time measurement had lost its meaning, Cal lived among the colonists, watched their complete retrogression into a state of unawareness. Even the speech which they had retained seemed now to thin and falter as the simplifying of their idea-content no longer ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... time the Squawkihows summoned to their aid their reserved company, which they kept in the rear. The young women came on the flank of the Senecas' ranks, and beat them with clubs, which made the Senecas falter for a while. Finally they called on their reserved warriors, who made a desperate charge on the enemy and made them retreat. The Senecas began taking prisoners. They tied their hands behind them to trees. In this way they took a great many prisoners, particularly the females. ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... evident that his determination made her falter, and seeing this he followed up his advantage and so far improved it that at last, after a few more arguments, she rose slowly and picked up ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... frequent, that reluctance was counted as weakness. She knew her uncle and aunt would never believe that aught but compulsion had bound her to the rude outlaw, and her habit of submission was so strong that, only when her aunt was actually rising to go and consult her gossip, she found breath to falter, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bed which she occupied was concealed by curtains. Whether she were there, I did not stop to examine. I cannot recollect that any tokens were given of wakefulness or alarm. It was not till I reached the door of her own apartment that my heart began to falter. ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... Hope thinks infinite; 570 To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; 575 This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... any misguided person making friendly advances to one of these horned demons, I should cry, "Whoa!" as Cassandra did to the wood horse of the Greeks, and probably with the same result. They would not falter until they had gathered bitter experience ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... consisted of a comfortable bed, a table with some books on it, three chairs, a small looking-glass on the wall, a guitar and some articles of men's clothing hanging here and there. A heap of dull embers smouldered in the fireplace. Alice did not falter at the threshold, but promptly entered ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... ever-changing ideals play in our lives we shall never know, but certainly the part is not an insignificant one. And happy the youth who is able to look into the future and see himself approximating some worthy ideal. He has caught a vision which will never allow him to lag or falter in the pursuit of the flying goal which points the direction ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... oppression had driven them to revolt, when the solemn farce of trying them for a crime which posterity will account a virtue had terminated, and when the verdict of "guilty" had gladdened the hearts of their accusers. The circumstances under which they spoke might well cause a bold man to falter. They were about parting for ever from all that makes life dear to man; and, for some of them, the sentence; which was to cut short the thread of their existence, to consign them to a bloody and ignominious death, to leave their bodies mutilated corpses, from which the rights ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... of the missionary, Oowikapun asked for the privilege of saying a few words. At first he seemed to falter a little, but soon he rose above all fear, and most blessedly and convincingly did he talk. We need not go over it again; it was the story of his life, as it has been recorded in these chapters. Because of the words and resolves of Astumastao, he said, he had ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... beauty, your heroism and all the rest of it? Suppose I, with nothing but such sentimental stuff to stand between these muscles of mine and those papers which you have about you, and which I want and mean to have: suppose I, with the prize within my grasp, were to falter and sneak away with my hands empty; or, what would be worse, cover up my weakness by playing the magnanimous hero, and sparing you the violence I dared not use, would you not despise me from the depths of your woman's soul? Would any ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... lack of fine array Best fits a sacrificial altar; Her man to-morrow joins the fray, And yet she does not falter; Simple her gown, but still we see The ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... indeed making a masterful climb. But at last he halted; and then, a moment later, he climbed desperately. The girl on the ground saw him falter, and knew that he was becoming faint-hearted. To encourage him, she lifted a voice broken ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... the moving years; Youth's colour dies, the fervid morning glow Is gone from off the foreland; slow, slow, Even slower than the fount of human tears To empty, the consuming shadow nears That Time is casting on the worldly show Of pomp and glory. But falter not;—below That thought is based a ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... may be undertaken in the interest of true progress, as well as that of honest inquiry. For what so frequently checks progress, causes its advocates to falter, and produces what we call a reaction towards the old doctrines, as something shallow in the reform itself? Christians have relapsed into Judaism, Protestants into Romanism, Unitarians into Orthodoxy—because something true and good in the old system had dropped out of the ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... man hath nowhere to lay his head." The noblest thing He ever did was this—to walk from the house of Pilate to the crest of Calvary, with the cross upon His back and the railing mob behind Him and before, and never once to falter and complain. Hated and hooted by the multitudes who at one time followed Him gladly, deserted even by the twelve who had pledged to Him their lives, misunderstood, despised, condemned, spat upon—a ...
— Heroes in Peace - The 6th William Penn Lecture, May 9, 1920 • John Haynes Holmes
... furniture—and I, why sometimes I think I hate him. But, oh! my dear, if you'd seen my Father's face; seen the dawning of a wonderful hope. . . . I just couldn't think of anything except him—and so I went on lying, and I didn't falter. Gradually he straightened up; twenty years seemed to slip from him . ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... that, as soon as we got to the bottom of the declivity, we would reach one of those rivers which, as I had told the men, emptied themselves from the west coast of Madagascar into the Mozambique Channel—buoying up their drooping energies whenever they appeared to falter on their toilsome way by holding out this dream to them, for I believed in it ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Irish boy is on the shore, He'll help to crush the stranger; He'll sweep them hence for evermore, And free thy land from danger. And then he'll pray to God above, That his courage ne'er shall falter, To guard him to the land he loves— To Ireland ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... Enid heard the clashing of his fall, Suddenly came, and at his side all pale Dismounting, loosed the fastenings of his arms, Nor let her true hand falter, nor blue eye Moisten, till she had lighted on his wound, And tearing off her veil of faded silk Had bared her forehead to the blistering sun, And swathed the hurt that drain'd her dear lord's life. Then ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... that I should shrink or falter, But just go on, Doing my work, nor change, nor seek to alter Aught that is gone; But rise and move and love and smile and pray ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... worst sinks of intemperance in the city, give them the sanction of the Law, and let them run to overflowing. But shut up the gilded apartments where youth takes its first draught, and respectability just begins to falter from its level. Close the ample doors through which enters the long train of those who stumble to destruction and reel into quick graves, and let the flood overwhelm only the maimed and battered conscripts that remain. Besides, it is better to see vice as it ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... modestly Angus repeated the above story, not once did he falter or trip. He showed me the letter from his uncle, he pointed out the condition of his eyes and the scars on his face; with some demur he accepted my half-crown, saying that he did not ask for anything, and that all he wanted was to ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... at what happened then. He saw Jeanne falter for a moment. He noticed that she was now dressed like the others about her, and that Pierre, who stood at her shoulder, was no longer the fine gentleman of the rock. The half-breed bent over her, ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... the horrible suspicion lurking in the corner of her mind made her voice falter just a little, and some of the girls drew ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... returning late from a lodge meeting which had wound up with a little supper in the banquet hall, felt a queer stir through his members to see the Higgins place alter its usually placid countenance, falter, turn half round, and get down on its knees with an apparently disastrous collapse of its four walls and of everything within them. The short wide windows narrowed and lengthened with an effect of bodily agony ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... sector. Large segments of the population, especially those living in urban areas, continue to depend on humanitarian aid to meet basic food requirements. Unemployment remains a severe problem accounting for approximately one-fifth of the work force. Growth is expected to continue in 1995, but could falter if Albania becomes involved in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, workers' remittances from Greece are reduced, or foreign ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... ignoramus who didn't know any better than to ride in the elevator when she was bound only for the third floor. "Third floor," continues muttering the elevator man. At last there is no one left in the elevator but the muttering man and me. "Well," I falter, chewing weakly on my Black Jack, "What ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... thoughts. Curled within their minds, like an endless scroll, are the marvellous scriptures of millenniums, and yet their brain-surfaces are fresh for earth's newest concept.... What are they whispering? Their voices falter with emotion over vague bits of dreaming. They ask no greater stimulus to fly to the uttermost bounds of their limitations—than each other and the night. Reason dawns upon their stammered expressions, and farther they fly—thrilling like young ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... is God and right is right, Right the day shall win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin." ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... something so manly and straightforward in his tone and manner that she could not choose but allow him to sit down beside her, although she did falter out something about the propriety of talking on her uncle's business affairs with ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... [-them-] {him} to the pyre. They had torn out the tongue of the Transgressor, so that they could speak no longer. The Transgressor were young and tall. They had hair of gold and eyes blue as morning. They walked to the pyre, and their step did not falter. And of all the faces on that square, of all the faces which shrieked and screamed and spat curses upon them, [-their-] {theirs} was the calmest ...
— Anthem • Ayn Rand
... natural, and infinitely more welcome, that what you have acted by me; and that with a premeditation and contrivance worthy only of that single heart which now, base as well as ungrateful as thou art, seems to quake within thee.—And well may'st thou quake; well may'st thou tremble, and falter, and hesitate, as thou dost, when thou reflectest upon what I have suffered for thy sake, and upon the returns thou ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the queen, whose anxiety grew greater every moment. "On your brow I read despair—your lips falter ere you announce some terrible tidings—your hands tremble. Oh, my God! my God! ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he thought, "thou art too weak To try the Kills and drown, or falter, The while from shore their marksmen seek My heart. (Once o'er the Chesapeake I paddled oarless.) Lest the halter Be mine, I ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... on the hill Is dowie now and sad; The breezes whisper round me still, I 've lost my Highland lad. Upon Culloden's fatal heath, He spake o' me, they said, And falter'd, wi' his dying ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... he "are you sure not to falter, but to go vigorously to work, to serve the queen bravely, and give her such joys in her castle of Gallardin that she may hold on for ever to this master staff, like a drowning sailor to ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Bloody Assize, that they had lost heart. Few people joined him; and he began to think of returning, and publishing the invitation he had received from those lords, as his justification for having come at all. At this crisis, some of the gentry joined him; the Royal army began to falter; an engagement was signed, by which all who set their hand to it declared that they would support one another in defence of the laws and liberties of the three Kingdoms, of the Protestant religion, ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... bitterest enemy. Daumon, concealed behind the window curtain, had watched his approach, and it was with the same air of deference that he had welcomed the Marquis, as he took care to call him; but he affected to be so overcome by the honor of this visit that he could only falter out,— ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... question,' I insisted, for I was still filled with wonder at the great throng surging past us, whose purpose never seemed to change or falter. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... a ring of hoofs outside, but no one looked round, and none came in. A shadow fell across the open door. At a Dominus Vobiscum you might have seen the ministrant falter; there might have been a second or two of check in his chant, but he mastered it without effort, and turned again with displayed hands to his affair. The choir of white hoods, however, watched the shadow ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... cherished the hope that Ronald, if captured, would declare his innocence and gladly respond to his overture of help. But, instead of doing so, Ronald had taken up an attitude which was suspicious in the highest degree, and one which caused the detective to falter in his belief that the Glenthorpe murder case was a much deeper mystery than the police imagined. Ronald's attitude, by its accordance with the facts previously known or believed about the case, belittled the ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... she whispered. "Stumble not nor falter on the way. Thou carriest the Light of all the world, the Hope of every heart upon thy ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... they falter, Thy hand hath struck them down. Their woof the Parcae alter, Beware thy mother's frown! What such as I in glory Compared with such as thee? Would, in the conflict gory, That I had died ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of this court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day. This court was not created by the Constitution for such purposes. Higher and graver trusts have been confided to it, and it must not falter in the ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... married, Garth; and then—" Jane paused; and the man who knelt beside her, held his breath to listen—"and then," continued Jane in a low tender voice, which gathered in depth of sacred mystery, yet did not falter—"then it will be my highest joy, to be always with my husband, ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... go afterwards to the one who offered the prayer and put to him the question, "Did you receive what you asked? Were you baptized with the Holy Spirit?" it is quite likely that he would hesitate and falter and say, "I hope so"; but there is none of this indefiniteness in the Bible. The Bible is clear as day on this, as on every other point. It sets forth an experience so definite and so real, that one may know whether ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... think not of me. Do not fear or falter; I shall not. I would rather die a hundred deaths than see you the wife of such a ruffian. Let ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... to falter for a moment. She looked speculatively at the indignant old face opposite, then made a vague little gesture toward her hair, and dropped her eyes. "No," she said softly. "Don't—please." She raised her eyes once more and looked ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... smile seemed to linger on her face. Never more would Hatty mourn over her faults and shortcomings; never more would morbid fears torment and harass her weary mind; never more would she plead for forgiveness, nor falter underneath her life's burden, for, as Maguire says, "To those doubting ones earth was a night season of gloom and darkness, and in the borderland they saw the dawn of day; and when the summons comes they are glad to bid farewell to the night that is past, and to welcome with joy and singing ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... rough soldier with tenderest care closed the eyes of a brother in arms amidst the tempest and the stir of battle; and above it all, Cronje, the Boer general, must have smiled grimly, for well he knew that where the Highland Brigade had failed all the world might falter. All day long the battle raged; scarcely could we see the foe—all that met our eyes was the rocky heights that spoke with tongues of flame whenever our troops drew near. We could not reach their lines; it was murder, grim and ghastly, to send ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... again, it was drill, plain, simple drill. I must not falter in saying that I think the management of the traffic—as the phrase goes— to be distinctly illuminating and wonderful. The police were not ruffled and exasperated. They were as peaceful as two cows ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... is a Northern fruit. I am often asked in effect, What raspberries do you recommend for the Gulf States? I suppose my best reply would be, What oranges do you think best adapted to New York? Most of the foreign kinds falter and fail in New Jersey and Southern Pennsylvania; the Cuthbert and its class can be grown much further south, while the Turner and the ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... paths like these they go That scale the heights of immortality, Unreached by those that falter ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... fireside and for home, For heritage, for altar; And, by the God of yon blue dome, Not one of us shall falter! ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... did not falter nor her eyes droop. Curiously regarding him, she seemed immersed in the solution of the problem as he had ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... our virtues Lie in the interpretation of the time: And power, unto itself most commendable, Hath not a tomb so evident as a cheer To extol what it hath done. One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail. Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine, Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan! is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... colour. Yet Christine held in her hand the very proof of such thoughts, and, what was more, knew herself to be obsessed by them when darkness took the land. For a moment even now, looking out at the brilliant sunshine, she was conscious of a falter in her soul, a moment of horrible loneliness, a groping-out for some human being stronger than herself of whom to take counsel. A thought of Saltire flashed across her. He looked strong and sane, kind and chivalrous. But could he be trusted? Had she not already learned in the ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... in the direction of the river, but toward the forest beyond Kedsty's bungalow. Not for an instant did she falter in that drenched and impenetrable darkness. There was something imperative in the clasp of her fingers, even though they tightened perceptibly when the thunder crashed. They gave Kent the conviction that there was no doubt in her mind as to the point she was striving for. He took ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... greatness of our beloved state, in those historical qualities that outlast the ages, from the fact that she is not tempted by her extent of territory, salubrity of climate, fertility of soil, or by the presence and promise of any natural source of wealth, to falter in her devotion to learning and liberty. And I anticipate for Massachusetts a career of influence beneficial to all, whether disputed or accepted, when I reflect that, with less good fortune in the presence ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... verified the truth and reality of the teaching and experience I have recorded in this volume. All these years, with their months, weeks, and days have passed by, and have found me continually rejoicing in the work of the Lord—often wearied in it, but never of it—often tempted to falter, but al ways enabled to persevere. I have seen many rise and start well, who have collapsed or retired; many who have blazed like a meteor for a short time, and ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... for a distant corner and turned into the street. For a moment it seemed to falter. Then its speed was changed clumsily, and it began to grind its way in our direction. My heart began to beat violently. Again the speed was changed, and the rising snarl choked to give way to a metallic murmur, which was rapidly approaching. I could hardly breathe.... Then the ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... back to his place at the table, still laughing in apparent enjoyment of the jest he had just heard. He saw McKeever's ferretlike glance of interrogation and distrust—a thief's distrust of an honest man—but Ronicky's good nature did not falter in outward seeming for an instant. He swept up his hand, bet a hundred, with apparently foolish recklessness, on three sevens, and then had to ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... not curse you. But singing — My singing fatefully ringing Till startled and dumb You falter, the sum Of your crime shall reveal — This do I prophesy . . . O Heart wrung dry, Awake! Startle the world with thy cry: Ethiopia shall not ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... even when unable to reach it. We have so much to distract us in this world that we do not realise how truly and deeply, if not always warmly and consciously, we love Christ. But I believe that this love is the strongest principle in every regenerate soul. It may slumber for a time, it may falter, it may freeze nearly to death; but sooner or later it will declare itself as the ruling passion. You should regard all your discontent with yourself as negative devotion, for that it really is. Madame Guyon said boldly, but truly, "O mon Dieu, plutot pecheur que superbe," and that is the ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... me falter In writing of this wicked brute; Although he has escaped the halter, He wears for life a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... were like other folk; And, when Platonic flights were over, The tutor turn'd a mortal lover! So tender of the young and fair! It show'd a true paternal care— Five thousand guineas in her purse! The doctor might have fancied worse.— Hardly at length he silence broke, And falter'd every word he spoke; Interpreting her complaisance, Just as a man sans consequence. She rallied well, he always knew: Her manner now was something new; And what she spoke was in an air As serious as a tragic player. But those ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... and swaying and swinging, like blossoms that bend to the breezes or showers, Now wantonly winding, they flash, now they falter, and, lingering, languish in radiant choir; Their jewel-girt arms and warm, wavering, lily-long fingers enchant through melodious hours, Eyes ravished with rapture, celestially panting, what passionate ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu
... the piece the flying fingers began to falter. No doubt the intense gaze he was bending on the top of her head confused her. At any rate she broke ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... that afterward crowds of votaries will daily frequent her shrine. The Brahmans compliment her on her heroism. (Sometimes drugs are administered to stifle her fears.) She knows, too, that it is useless to falter at the last moment, as a change of heart would be an eternal disgrace, not only to herself but to her relatives, who, therefore, stand around with sabres and rifles to intimidate her. In short, with satanic ingenuity, every possible appeal is made ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... as the king should falter, the Commons would grow bold. The House immediately began to attack Laud and Strafford in their speeches. It is the theory of the British Constitution that the king can do no wrong; whatever criminality at any time attaches to the acts of his administration, ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... not the altar With gloom in thy soul; Nor let thy feet falter, From terror's control! God loves not the sadness Of fear and mistrust; Oh serve him with gladness— The ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... vows ye've sworn At holy Becket's altar— Remember all the ills ye've borne, And scorn'd to shrink or falter— Remember every laurel'd field, Which saw the Crescent waving— Remember when compell'd to yield, Uncounted numbers braving: Remember these, remember too The cause ye strive for, ever; The Cross! the Holy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... fingers upon the keys. Facing me was the Ary Scheffer portrait of Chopin, and without knowing why I began the weaving Prelude in D-major. My insides shook like a bowl of jelly; yet I was outwardly as calm as the growing grass. My hands did not falter and the music seemed to ooze from my wrists. I had not studied in vain Thalberg's Art of Singing on the Piano. I finished. There was a murmur; ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... the swaying sailor, now in the last extremity of weakness, and ready to drop like a winter leaf. Valjean (for it is he) oscillates violently to and fro while the throng below watch breathlessly. His peril is incredible, but his is a bravery which does not falter, and a skill which equals bravery. Valjean is swayed in the wind as the swaying sailor, until he catches him in his arm, makes him fast to the rope, clambers up, reaches the yard, hauls up the sailor, and carries him to a place of safety. And the throng below, breathless ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... gray to the lips, but his nerve did not falter. "It had to come some time. And it was Luck ought to have done it too." He waved aside Sweeney, who was holding a flask to his lips. "What's the ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... into an error against which I warned the reader,—of making an entity of a conception. People are patient or impatient, but not necessarily throughout. There are men and women who fuss and fume over trifles who never falter or fret when their larger purposes are blocked or deferred. Some cannot stand detail who plan wisely and with patience. Vice versa, there are meticulous folk, little people, whose petty obstacles are met with patience and cheerfulness, who revel ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... have this opportunity of detecting him in the midst of his fancied security. Do you know this, Sir, this pocket-book?'—'Yes, Sir,' returned he, with a face of impenetrable assurance, 'that pocket-book is mine, and I am glad you have found it.'—'And do you know,' cried I, 'this letter? Nay, never falter man; but look me full in the face: I say, do you know this letter?'—'That letter,' returned he, 'yes, it was I that wrote that letter.'—'And how could you,' said I, 'so basely, so ungratefully presume to write this letter?'—'And how came you,' replied he, with looks of unparallelled effrontery, ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... hear that Anthony, though he did shirk the welcome on the quay, behaved admirably, with the simplicity of a man who has no small meannesses and makes no mean reservations. His eyes did not flinch and his tongue did not falter. He was, I have it on the best authority, admirable in his earnestness, in his sincerity and also in his restraint. He was perfect. Nevertheless the vital force of his unknown individuality addressing him so familiarly was enough to fluster ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... comedian, or true man and no pretender, his eyes did not falter. They were absorbed, as if in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... come back! Come swift, O sweet; why falter so? Come! Come! What thing has crossed your track I kneel to all the gods I know. O come, my manly Idaho! Great Spirit, what is this I dread? Why there is blood! the wave is red! That wrinkled Chief, outstripped in race, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... death because forgotten by her friends—must not die! In my heart some warm thing she had waked there with her magic breathed, moved, sprang into complete life. I could not see her die! I must get into that place that I saw was doomed, even as I now saw two of the great ships above falter in flight, turn and slide downward at increasing speed. The concussion had broken them, perhaps destroyed the life within them. I realized that in a short time the same thing was going to happen to the headquarters ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... With the crying blood of millions We have written deep her name In the Book of all the Ages; With the lilies in the valley, With the roses by the Mersey, With the golden flower of Jersey We have crowned her smooth young temples. Where her footsteps cease to falter Golden grain will greet the morning, Where her chariot descends Shall be broken down the altars Of the gods of dark disturbance. Nevermore shall men know suffering, Nevermore shall women wailing Shake to grief the God of Heaven. From ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... up!" howled the excited little man, growing still worse, as the colonel seemed to shrink and falter. "Why, I can lick you in a fraction of no time! You've been making lots of fighting talk, and now it's my turn. Get up ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... and sickened for the love which is their rightful food;—with senses bleared and deadened, she had heard them piteously wailing but for a morsel of that bread of life without which even the footsteps of the self-reliant, the strong and brave of heart, faint and falter by the way, and she had cruelly denied them that precious nutriment; she had given them life, but had robbed them of all that makes life endurable. Life's duties unfulfilled, life's high and holy aims trampled under the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... trackless sea, Though I be lone and weary, Lead on, I'll follow thee. The bleeding feet of martyr Thy toilsome road have trod; But fires of human passion May lead the way to God. Then, though my feet should falter, While I thy beams can see, Though I be lone and weary, Lead on, I'll follow thee. Though loving friends forsake me Or plead with me in tears, Though angry foes may threaten To shake my soul with fears, Still to my high allegiance I must not faithless be, Through life or death, forever ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... not intend my voice to falter, but it did: more, I think, through the agitation of late delight than in any spasm of present fear. Still there certainly was something in M. Paul's anger—a kind of passion of emotion—that specially tended to draw tears. I was not unhappy, nor ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... solemn. "And now, candidate, you are about to be escorted forth where the elusive cigar-butt lurks in the gutter and scraps of paper litter the pavement. As an exponent of this particular brand of discipline you will see that no small item escapes you. Should you be so remiss, or should you falter in doing your full duty, you will be returned at once to this room, where retribution waits with heavy hands. Ho, Worthy Buddies! Invest the candidate with the sacred insignia ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... will you give me a drop o' milk for this child?" And under the military gaze of the high officer, too! Something awful should have happened. The engines ought to have stopped. The woman ought to have been ordered out to instant execution. The engines did seem to falter for a moment. But the high officer grimly smiled, and they went on again. "Give me yer mug, mother," said the cook. And the untidy woman went off with ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... characteristic of him, swept off his hat, and made a low, deferential bow; but when he straightened himself up, and began to say the complimentary things and poetical phrases he had put together for the occasion at the cafe the night before, the lurid look of the Russian made his tongue falter; and Tenise, who had never seen a woman of this sort before, laughed a nervous, half-frightened little laugh, and clung closer to her lover than before. The wife was even more forbidding than she had imagined. Valdoreme shuddered slightly when she saw this intimate movement ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... the men who chase the roe, Whose footsteps never falter, Who bring with them, where'er they go, A smack of old SIR WALTER. Of such as he, the men sublime Who lead their troops victorious, Whose deeds go down to ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... sensitive cells in the head received the signals from the visor-screens and the radio-speakers the arms shot about the key-boards and pressed the proper buttons just as our men are doing now. The work of the world went on, without a falter, with only the master machine to direct it. Yet a year ago, when I first spoke to you of the idea, you told me ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... evening fireside meetings with the doctor's lovely daughter, once such unalloyed delight, were now only a keenly pleasing pain? Why did his face burn and his heart beat and his voice falter when obliged to speak to her? Why could he no longer talk of her to his mother, or write of her to his friend, Herbert Greyson? Above all, why had his favorite day dream of having his dear friends, Herbert and Clara married together, grown so abhorrent ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... was fired just as the fox sprang up the slight embankment on which, as is usual, the line of fence was placed. For an instant he seemed to falter, then leaped the top rail, and disappeared beyond ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting, Came to the gates of sleep. Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep, Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling: The gates of sleep fell a-trembling Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter yes, Shaken with happiness: The gates of ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... requirements of masquerade, yet Keith noted with appreciation that she became perceptibly cooler as the moment of departure approached. With cheeks aflame and eyes sparkling, yet speaking with a voice revealing no falter, she pressed his arm and declared herself prepared for the ordeal. The face under the shadow of the mantilla was so arch and piquant, Keith could not ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... that it would attract the attention of the Indian and give him a better chance of escape. The savage passed heedlessly by it. Morgan then threw his shot pouch and coat in the way, to tempt the Indian to a momentary delay. It was equally vain,—his pursuer did not falter for an instant. He now had recourse to another expedient to save himself from captivity or death. Arriving at the summit of the hill up which he had directed his steps, he halted; and, as if some men were approaching from the other side, called aloud, "come on, come on; here ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... Jefferson's oratory on the Actor's Home occasion. Mr. Jefferson, happening by mistake to pass over one of the many names of benefactors, and, presto! there were a dozen listeners, malice-prompted, eager to ascribe to this falter of an old man's memory every meager and jealous motive. An intricate and, of a necessity, a somewhat didactic argument, delivered in the open air, does not become the simplest of tasks in the hands of an old gentleman who has turned his back upon the fourscore mark. He was brave and ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... senate-house; if my words reveal learning, I beg you to regard them as though you were reading them in the public library. Would that I could find words enough to do justice to the magnitude of this assembly and did not falter just when I would be most eloquent. But the old saying is true, that heaven never blesses any man with unmixed and flawless prosperity; even in the keenest joys there is ever some slight undertone of grief, some blend of gall and honey; there is no rose without a ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... the "Bertha Millner" falter in her race. Like an unbitted horse, all restraint shaken off, she ran free toward the ocean as to her pasture-land. She came nearer, nearer, rising and rolling with the seas, her bowsprit held due west, pointing like a finger out to sea, to ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... right is right, since God is God; And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin! ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... should drown any portion of the delightful sound: He was almost angry with me because I did not experience the impressions he did. So powerful was the effect produced upon him by the sound of these bells that his voice would falter as he said, "Ah! that reminds me of the first years I spent at Brienne! I was then happy!" When the bells ceased he would resume the course of his speculations, carry himself into futurity, place a crown on his head; and ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... destructive fire with repeating carbines; and at the same time the batteries of horse-artillery, under Captain Robinson, joining in the contest, belched forth shot and shell with fatal effect. The galling fire caused the enemy to falter, and while still wavering Wilson rallied his men, and turning some of them against the right flank of the Confederates, broke their line, and compelled them to withdraw for security behind the heavy works thrown up for the defense of the city ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... struggle I've ever had—to stand out against him in such a thing," Tillie continued; "but I will not be weak, I will not! I have studied and worked all these years in the hope of a year at the Normal—with Miss Margaret. And I won't falter now!" ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills 5 The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... first convinced him that he was in love. You cannot open your lips to speak against him, who has impressed your heart. You will inwardly, although not probably in words, defend him from the attacks of others. To blush and falter under such circumstances would indicate love, much more ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... forget her, since there was written in her face loveliness so perfect, that time could only brighten it in my memory. Again she blushed, and cast upon me such a bewitching look that it almost made me falter in my resolution to leave her behind. And my faltering increased as her warm hand pressed mine, and the words, "Will you write to me, and give relief to one whose thoughts will follow you?" hung tremblingly upon her lips. But ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... surprised me. On one very steep pitch, for instance, I saw before me two logs across the path, two feet and more in diameter, and what was worse, not two feet apart. How the brown cob meant to get over I could not guess; but as he seemed not to falter or turn tail, as an English horse would have done, I laid the reins on his neck and watched his legs. To my astonishment, he lifted a fore-leg out of the abyss of mud, put it between the logs, where I expected to hear it snap; clawed in front, and shuffled behind; put the other over the second log, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... thy beauty far outshineth them; The tinsel they are, thou the living gem. Great gift of Gods! Shall flowers of earth despise Those flowers of heaven—thy tresses, and thine eyes? Away with gloom I let no ill-boding make My heart to falter, or my hand to shake. One hour is all I crave. If that be long, Sweet lips beguile it with ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... thou soon," she said, "Who wouldst not hear the rede I read For thine and not for my sake, sped In vain as waters heavenward shed From springs that falter and depart Earthward. God bids not thee believe Truth, and the web thy life must weave For even this sword to close and cleave Hangs ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... we reduce St. Johns, and as it is our first real battle you must each be responsible for your men. Don't let any falter. At the first sign of retreat, unless I order it, shoot the leader; that will prevent the others from running. It is harsh, but necessary. Now remember that our country depends on us for victory. We must prove ourselves worthy. Address ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... later, if contemporary newspaper reports can be trusted, the number had swelled to seven. The editor began to appreciate the difficulty and danger of the situation. His courage, however, did not falter. In fact he looked upon himself as manfully standing in the gap for freedom of speech. "These suits," he said "will determine whether an Independent Press is to be protected in the free exercise of honest opinion, ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... but, conceiving he had alarmed the damsel's delicacy by alluding to the enthusiasm of a moment, and the manner in which she had expressed it, he endeavoured to falter forth an apology. His excuses, though he was unable to give them any regular shape, were accepted by his companion, who had indeed suppressed her indignation after its first explosion—"Speak no more on't," she said. "And ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott |
