"Falter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thee! So I do! I pity the dumb victim at the altar— But does the robed priest for his pity falter? I'd rack thee, though I knew A thousand lives were perishing in thine— What were ten thousand to ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... in his grace, in his dignity, in his tenderness, that Evander felt his heart in his mouth and he tried not to falter ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... seemed to falter and hesitate. The pilot cut off his motor, but too soon. Dick rushed his craft on, passed the other, and then, seeing that he had the advantage, he turned off his power, and volplaned to the landing spot just about fifteen seconds in advance of his ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... longs, more than ever, that eloquence and inspiration were his to employ in the healing of the man who has raised himself almost from the dead. But he can only falter something about the inscrutable designs of Providence, and not a sparrow falling to the ground unnoticed. And he expresses, somewhat tritely, the hope that Saxham's friend was prepared to meet ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... them; but I know not any tone So fit as thine to falter forth a sorrow; Dost think men would go mad without a moan, If they knew any way to borrow A pathos like ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... 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
... 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
... not surrender; there were devotions, Count Hamilcar appeared at breakfast, pale and weary, but his conversation with the Professor did not falter. They spoke of the yellow race, and, as if even that were not sufficiently remote, of the Bismarck Archipelago. Embarrassed silence burdened the remaining company. Egon's and Moritz's places were vacant, for at the news of Billy's disappearance they had ridden away and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... blood in the count's body seemed rushing to his heart. He trembled. The ingenuous smile on his friend's countenance, and his features so sweetly marked with frankness, made his resolution falter. ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... on the sun at midsummer, Which pours from the firmament riches untold,— personified goodness; For lights are the good, radiant, resplendent, but the evil are darkness. Constantly rising the sun groweth weary; the good also falter, Giddy with walking precipitous heights; sighing they downward Sink to the land of the shades,—down to Hel. That is of Balder The funeral pile. Glitner, the castle of Peace, is there; seated Within it was Forse'te',* scales in ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... smiled cheerfully, confidently. He had never heard her whine, had never seen her falter save ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... to make use of them at the right moment. If the supreme question should arise of submitting to rebellion or of crushing it in a common ruin with the wrong that engendered it, we believe neither the Government nor the people would falter. The time for answering that question may be nearer than we dream; but meanwhile we would not hasten what would at best be a terrible necessity, and justifiable only as such. We believe this war is to prepare the way for the extinction of Slavery by the action of economical causes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... 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
... since he had stood against the closed door of the Tavern office and seen Judge Maynard turn and falter before his unsuspected presence—days and days since he had stood there and watched that round moon-like face flush heavily with the first shock of surprise, and realized that the startled light in the shifty eyes of Boltonwood's most prominent citizen was part ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... looking at him narrowly. His features did not flush, nor did his cold eyes falter. And yet, in spite of the long habit of guardedness which now stood him in such good stead, there was a consciousness about him, like an atmosphere, which told her that her ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... 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 buy ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... Ordinarily he would fight desperately against even temporary detention. That he was ready to submit unprotestingly now, argued an acquiescence in some agreement into which he and the other suspects had entered for mutual safety and protection. Under pressure of third degree methods Collins might falter, but in the end his natural suspicion and dislike for the police, combined with the advice which his lawyer had imparted to him, would prevail over the best efforts of ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... the music, as it softly floats along— Ah! the soul-entrancing music of sweet Lula Johnson's song! If my feet shall ever falter, it shall cheer me on my way; Ay, sustain and give me comfort,—make my feeble spirit gay. All we need to have, my brothers, in our war of peace 'gainst strife, Is the cadence of sweet music sprinkled in to sweeten life; It will ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... my 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
... her senses came back to her so that she could grasp one of the wires. Hand over hand she was able to pull herself slowly to the nearest pole, where she rested before again making the trial. This time she did not falter, but when she was picked up by the rescuers at the farthest pole toward safety she was limp from nervous ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... 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 of Christian burial ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... of a mother's fate; And she would read them o'er and o'er, Pondering, as she sate, Over their dear astrology, Which she had conned and conned before, Deeming she needs must read aright 19 What was writ so passing bright. And yet, alas! she knew not why. Her voice would falter in its song, And tears would slide from out her eye, Silent, as they were doing ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... same thing with me," rejoined Darrin. "You just keep your eye on me, Dan! Do you see me shaking? Do you hear my voice falter? See me ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... of maist these days—that it would be a sair thing and a tragic thing if the spirit that filled the world during the war should falter the noo. We've suffered sae much—we've given sae much of our best. We maun gain a' that we can in return. And the way has been pointed tae us. It is but for ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... falter. In the twinkling of an eye she had dashed into the burning room, had caught Stella from her bed, the others from their chairs, and with all four hugged tight to her heart was making for the door. Ah! a spark fell on the white apron, on the holland frock! Her rapid movement fanned ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... drew back from the expression of the legless man, in whose face it was as if all the fires of hell had suddenly burst into flame. The unshaven man covered the breast of his threadbare coat with outstretched hands as if to shield himself from some suddenly bared weapon. His eyes blinked, but did not falter. ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... have forgotten their old playmate; but I am sure if there be any children in his parish, over the sea, they love our cousin the curate, and watch eagerly for his coming. Does his step falter now, I wonder; is that long fair hair gray; is that laugh as musical in those distant homes as it used to be in our nursery; has England among all her great and good men any man so noble ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... 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
... glances meet, And falter; falls your golden hair Against my cheek; your bosom sweet Is heaving. Down the field, your Queen Rides slow, her soldiery all between, And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... lagged slowly came back. His face was stamped with quivering resolution. He did not falter. He had made up his mind to take his punishment. And mark you, the punishment was not for the original offence, but for the offence of running away. And in this, that tribal chieftain but behaved as behaves the exalted society in which he lived. We punish our criminals, and ...
— The Road • Jack London
... was Jimmy Wallace himself. He released, too, a little sigh of relief when he saw her off in her stride again after that momentary falter. But he hardly looked at the stage after that; stared absently at his program instead, and, presently, availed himself of the dramatic critic's license ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... "Nay, never falter; no great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty. No good is certain but the steadfast mind, The undivided will to seek the good: 'T is that compels the elements and wrings A human music from the indifferent ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... with responsibility during the reading of the chapter, but when she began to speak her voice did not falter. Connie had nine years of good ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... when they are injured, returning to an understanding on a favourable opportunity: in fact, they are neither intoxicated by their success in war, nor disposed to take an injury for the sake of the delightful tranquillity of peace. Indeed, to falter for the sake of such delights is, if you remain inactive, the quickest way of losing the sweets of repose to which you cling; while to conceive extravagant pretensions from success in war is to forget how hollow is the confidence ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... reason to despise me! But he shall have reason no longer. He will come back, and find me worthy of you; and all will be forgotten. Again I say it, I accept your quest, for life and death. So help me God above, as I will not fail or falter, till I have won justice for you ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... orator was saying, with a wave of the roll of paper and a jerk of the chin, "to conclude, we are banded together to wage a war against our old tyrant—a war of equity and right. Oh, my sisters, do not let us falter, do not let us return the sword to the scabbard until we have cleaved our way to that goal toward which the eyes of suffering womanhood have been drawn since the gospel of equal rights for both ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... critical year in the defense effort of the whole free world. If we falter we can lose all the gains we have made. If we drive ahead, with courage and vigor and determination, we can by the end of 1952 be in a position of much greater security. The way will be dangerous for the years ahead, but if we put forth our best efforts this year—and next year—we can be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... 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 ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... a little ready money, and then halting. In trade as in love, to doubt,—or rather, to seem to doubt,—is to be lost. When you order goods, do so as though the bank were at your back. Look your victim full in the face, and write down your long numbers without a falter in your pen. And should there seem a hesitation on his part, do not affect to understand it. When the articles are secured, you give your bill at six months' date; then your credit at your bankers,—your discount system,—commences. ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... something happened to interfere, events began to move rapidly. The Tory Party, largely, I believe, through political considerations, had unalterably taken sides with Ulster. The Liberal Party were irresolute, wavering, pusillanimous. Mr Redmond's followers began to be uneasy—they commenced to falter in their blind faith that they had only to trust Asquith ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... Truth, that I may behold things earthly as they are, without veil and without mask, without human trappings and empty adornment, and that in the silent peace of truth I may feel and recognize Thee. Let me not falter, nor slide away from the great end of knowing Thee. Let not the joys, or honors, or vanities of the world enfeeble and darken my spirit; let me ever feel that I can only perceive and know Thee in so far as mine is a living ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... and saying before he said anything else: "May I smoke?" She met it, for encouragement, with her "My dear!" again, and then, while he struck his match, she had just another minute to be nervous—a minute that she made use of, however, not in the least to falter, but to reiterate with a high ring, a ring that might, for all she cared, reach the pair inside: "Father, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... me press thee Close to my yearning heart, Ah! once more softly bless thee Ere we for ever part! I adjure thee not to falter In the trial now so nigh, But, as victim on the altar, ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... special spiritual powers which under such conditions are granted to it. 'I should commend to them that will successfully philosophise the belief and endeavour after a certain principle more noble and inward than reason itself, and without which reason will falter, or at least reach but to mean and frivolous things. I have a sense of something in me while I thus speak, which I must confess is of so retruse a nature that I want a name for it, unless I should adventure to term it Divine sagacity, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... 'I denude myself, I am not to be trusted with the price of a fare. Take it, keep it for me, squander it on deleterious candy, throw it in the deepest of the river—I will homologate your action. Save me from that part of myself which I disown. If you see me falter, do not hesitate; if necessary, wreck the train! I speak, of course, by a parable. Any extremity were better than for ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the hut; and, all the night through, the slightest moan from me found him alert to give me drink or shift me to an easier posture. Our total solitude seemed from the first to breed a certain good-fellowship between us: neither next day nor for many days did he remit or falter in his care for me. But his manner, though not ungentle, was taciturn. He seemed to carry about a weight on his mind; his brow wore a constant frown, vexed and unhappy. Once or twice I caught him talking ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... Real Lady, or the Ladylike Lady, or the Titled Lady, the portraits of whom—one or other of them—sweep in curves about their folio pages; and, while they fascinate you, make you feel that you would falter on the threshold of matrimony if only because they couldn't possibly take nourishment. Would not the discomfort of meals eaten with a companion who could swallow nothing justify a ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... mistake that," he declared. "Sometimes one may lose one's way, and one may even falter if the path is rugged. ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... must 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
... covert and started again, although he felt that he was growing weaker. Such intense exertion, under such conditions, was bound to tell even upon a frame like his, but he would not let himself falter, passing from island to island, resting a little at every one, bearing toward the southeast, and intending to enter the forest about a mile from the fire on that side. Meanwhile, the chill of the deadly cold ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sufferer groan even as I moved about the kitchen, putting on my coat and lighting the lantern. It was about one o'clock of the morning, and the wind was cold as I picked my way through the mud to the barn. The thought of the long miles to town made me shiver but as the son of a soldier I could not falter in ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... speeches. I make a point of going to the morning service on the day which, happily still, lies 'tween Saturday and Monday, and I don't know anything more conducive to the preparation of impromptus than a good sermon read out for space of twenty minutes; not more, or your wit begins to falter and you repeat yourself; just twenty minutes. A moderately comfortable pew, a voice not too loud in the pulpit, a fairly full congregation, and a general sense that you're doing the right thing and setting an example to your neighbours. Such circumstances preceding ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... falter, Before God's altar Rehearse their paeans of unceasing praise; Their theme the boundless love By which God rules above, Mysteriously engrafted On grace divine, and wafted Into every soul ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... barest falter in her voice, and something glistened on her eyelashes. . . . Ah! why could not the veil have remained before my eyes and let me gone in darkness? Suddenly I was looking across the chasm of years. There was a young girl in white, a table upon which stood a pitcher. ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... the lovely moonlight, pursuing these remembrances and these thoughts. A new ardor burned in me. "No!" I said to myself. "Neither relations nor friends shall prevail on me to falter and fail in my husband's cause. The assertion of his innocence is the work of my life; ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... parents' final appeal to her to return to them. She had cast in her lot with me. "The rest can be left to time," said I to myself. And, reviewing all that had happened, I let a wild hope send tenacious roots deep into me. How often ignorance is a blessing; how often knowledge would make the step falter and the ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... them. The thing was to escape, not to take note of the pursuers; and it was only Biddy, looking over her shoulder for Monny, who even saw that they were followed. She cried out to her friend to hurry, that some one was coming, that they must get to the gate or all would be ended; then feeling Mabel falter, she held her more tightly and ran ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... deep in his heart, though he may not realize to whom he prays. There was never more occasion for one than to-night, Rose. I know that the Great Healer is nearer to you than to me. Ask Him that my hand may not falter." ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... are once ordered to advance, you will never turn back. If you will each make a resolution to conquer or die, you will not only conquer, but our death list will not be nearly so heavy as if you at any time falter." ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... he returns the cup to Gibich's daughter, rest upon her, it is, as Hagen had foretold, as if he had never before beheld a woman. The inflammable heart which suffocated him of old at sight of Bruennhilde asleep, now makes his voice falter with instantaneous passion as he exclaims: "You, whose beauty dazzles like lightning, wherefore do you drop your eyes before me?" And when shyly she looks up: "Ha, fairest woman, hide your glance! Its beam scorches the ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... one—many thanks." With which words he clapped the much-tried friend upon his head, and with another movement that might have been a bow, turned short round and strode away. And as he went, despite the careless swing of his shoulder, his legs seemed to falter somewhat in their stride and once I thought he staggered; yet, as I watched, half minded to follow after him, he settled his hat more firmly with a light tap upon the crown and, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his threadbare coat, fell to whistling lustily, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... that boat were full of nerve. Not once did they falter while shells and shot whistled and burst over their heads, beyond them and ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... 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 ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... almost beside us. Lightly though distinctly a hand passed over the door, as if fumbling for the latch. This was the intense moment. Had the person paused or hesitated an instant, I think it would have killed us both. But no, he did not falter. Steadily on, the step, guided by the hand, went as it had come, and as I stood, not daring to move, I heard it receding in the distance of the great house. Then all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... 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 ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... feeling of being alone, of wanting some one at hand to depend upon, to look to. It is true that in case of real danger none such could be a real protection,—and yet not so neither, for strength and decision can live and make live where a moment's faltering will kill, and weakness must often falter of necessity. "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth" to his people; she thought of that, and yet she feared, for his ways are often what we do not like. A few moments of sick-heartedness and trembling,—and then Fleda mentally folded her arms ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... more look at the silvery sea: One thought of the lark in its musical glee; One breath of the sweet breeze, balmy and free; One prayer from two hearts that falter; And Lo! in reply to a mortal's nod, From the gibbet-tree dangle two pieces of clod, Their souls standing face-to-face with their God, Each wearing ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... sent the whole pile flying. Let him wander blindly in the dust of imaginings rather than be tortured by the grim austerity of ordered facts. More than this, there was one most comfortable memory to which he desperately clung—that falter in her voice when she had said "You understand?" Whenever, during that evening, doubt stirred and bade him recognise himself for a fool, George flattened the ugly spectre with the arm he contrived out ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... Zwingli falter in the path, which he had marked out for himself. Though his faith continued firm and strong till the hour of his death, still there lay also in his character a spirit of worldly prudence, which rendered intolerable ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... is right, as God is God; And right the day will win. To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin." ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... 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
... wall to wall and from tower to tower, he and his followers made a heroic defense. The Spanish chroniclers say that when this hero, whose exploits recall the half-mythical legends of the early Roman Republic, when men were as demi-gods, saw one of his men falter, he {101} stabbed him and threw his body upon the Spaniards. At last he stood alone upon the last tower. The assailants offered him quarter, which he disdained. Shouting his war-cry of defiance, he dashed his sole remaining weapon in the faces of the escaladers and then hurled himself bodily upon ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... minutes; but it seemed like an hour to the watchers, for Peggy's face grew more and more agonised, she seemed on the verge of suffocation, and could neither speak nor endure anyone to approach within yards of her mad career. Presently, however, she began to falter, to draw her breath in longer gasps, and as she did so there emerged from her lips a series of loud whooping sounds, like the crowing of a cock, or the noise made by a child in the convulsions of whooping-cough. The air was making ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... to exercise all her powers of self-control to restrain an exclamation of dismay. It was indeed more than dismay; she was absolutely terrified by the Marquis de Valorsay's unexpected declaration, and she could only falter: "Monsieur! monsieur!" ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... House of Commons—compare with that of the more august assemblage. Nine-tenths of the Victorian members possess at least the gift of the gab. In the excitement of the moment, grammar goes to the winds, and h 's fall thick as leaves in Vallombrosa, but they neither hesitate nor falter in their speech, and are nearly all possessed of a good deal of useful practical information. Their behaviour is certainly open to exception, but so is that of the House of Commons. The only difference is, that in Melbourne bad behaviour is almost the rule, while at St. ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... us build upon Him immutability and unchangeableness. If we have a Rock on which to build our confidence, let us see that the confidence which we build upon it is rocklike too. If we have a God that cannot lie, let us grasp His faithful word with an affiance that cannot falter. If we have a Truth in the heavens, absolute and immutable, on which to anchor our hopes, let us see to it that our hopes, anchored thereon, are sure and steadfast. What a shame it would be that we should bring the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... you must believe; There is one language never can deceive The lover knew it when the maiden smiled; The mother knows it when she clasps her child; Voices may falter, trembling lips turn pale, Words grope and stumble; this will tell their tale Shorn of all rhetoric, bare of all pretence, But radiant, warm, with Nature's eloquence. Look in our eyes! Your welcome waits ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and taste which led to the recent criticisms of Mr. 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 ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... was the braver man it had been hard to tell. Neither flinched. Eddring returned a gaze as direct as that which he received. The florid face back of the barrel held a gleam of half-admiration at witnessing his deliberation. The claim agent's eye did not falter. ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... true, that he entered into the undertaking with a conviction that the cause could never prosper, he was the last man that should have been the general of an army whose ardour, when not engaged in action, he invariably restrained. All contending opinions seem to hesitate and to falter when they relate to the retreat from Derby, the grand error of the enterprise; the fatal step, when the tide served, and the wind was propitious, and an opportunity never to be regained, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... up a dozen fares with a steady hand. The temptation was over. Six more strokes—then nine without a falter. He even imagined the bell rang more distinctly than usual, even encouragingly. The car stopped. Jim flung the door open with a triumphant sweep of his arm. He felt ready to face the world. But the baby—his ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... never," he falter'd, "I know, Reach'd the heart of Matilda." "Matilda? oh no! But reflect! when such thoughts do not come of themselves To the heart of a woman neglected, like elves That seek lonely places,—there rarely is wanting Some voice at ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... such opportunities, as they come, and the main road of the task is marked out; shock is minimized, if not eliminated, mutual confidence is engendered, and a priceless reward may be won. But if at that first question we falter, quibble, blush, lie, jest, or repel, we have entered the wrong road which leads eternally astray. Let no question ever be either ignored or neglected, least of all repelled. It is the golden opportunity for parent, teacher, or friend. To guarantee ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... They finally came in hand- in-hand. Then they made use of their war clubs. At this 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 ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... traditional policy of non-interference in European disputes was submitted so unexpectedly to the fierce test of Right versus Expediency. And how splendidly did President, Senator, Congress and the People respond to the test! Never for one instant did America's clear judgment falter. The Hun was guilty, and must be punished. The only issue to be solved was whether France, Britain, Italy and Russia should convict and brand the felon unaided, or the mighty power of the Western World should join hands with the avengers of outraged law. Well, a purblind Germany settled ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... that they might seem to be merely ranging about the country and hunting. When their messenger reached Charon, and told him that they were on their way, Charon did not, even now that the danger was close to him, falter in his determination, but acted like an honourable man, and received them into his house. But one Hipposthenides, not a bad man, but one who loved his country and favoured the exiles, yet proved wanting in that audacity which this emergency, a hazardous one indeed, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... dim with snow, The light flakes falter and fall slow; Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale, Silently drops a silvery veil; The far-off mountain's misty form Is entering now a tent of storm; And all the valley is shut in By flickering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd.... Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose to-morrow the ground ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... no wealth, nor any pride of power, Thy life is offered on affection's altar. Small sacrifices claim thee, hour by hour, Yet on the tedious path thou dost not falter. ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... so great, and burdens so crushing, that I was almost ready to falter. My greatest anxiety was to guide my dear children aright. The four older ones had resolved to follow the dear Redeemer, but the slippery paths of youth were theirs to walk in. The consideration of these multiform cares at one ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... including the farming and the professional elements, volunteered for military service. It was not long before they experienced the disappointment and demoralization of camp life. The letters written by many of these soldiers show that they did not falter at active campaigning. The prospect, however, of remaining in camp with insufficient rations, and (to use a modern expressive word) graft on every hand, completely disheartened and disgusted many of them. Many having influence with members of Congress, contrived to get discharges; others ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... ate up the energies of the men. As if by agreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed. The volleys directed against them had had a seeming windlike effect. The regiment snorted and blew. Among some stolid trees it began to falter and hesitate. The men, staring intently, began to wait for some of the distant walls of smoke to move and disclose to them the scene. Since much of their strength and their breath had vanished, they returned to caution. They ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... established by the sword—having in constant observation this almost universal hospitality to the solemn nonsense of hereditary rank and unearned distinction, my faith in practical realization of republican ideals is small, and I falter in the work of their maintenance in the interest of a people for whom they are too good. Seeing that we are immune to none of the evils besetting monarchies, excepting those for which we secretly yearn; that inequality ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... Thee, dear Master, Though the road be rough and steep, Thou wilt hold me lest I falter, Thy strong ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... now concocting for Swann's benefit, to give her that pained expression, that plaintive voice, which seemed to falter beneath the effort that she was forcing herself to make, and to plead for pardon? He had an idea that it was not merely the truth about what had occurred that afternoon that she was endeavouring to hide from him, but something ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... don't or if we do. Fate to our deserts is true; If we fail, or falter not, Every life deserves his lot; Every human, small or great, Buys with current coin his fate; What's the odds to me and you, If we ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... don't you guys leave me alone?" Beginning to falter in the heat, they dripped perspiration. "You could die in ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins
... 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 ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... soothed, and encouraged her father by her caresses, till he mounted his mule to return to the castle at dinner-time, and she promised to come early in the afternoon to follow up the stroke he was to give. She had never seen him falter before,—he had followed out his policy with a clear head and unsparing hand,—but now that Berenger's character was better known to him, and the crisis long delayed had come so suddenly before his eyes, his whole powers seemed to ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... urgent the need be, you'll find him, Ready to help, nor will dizziness blind him; He'll give the ether and never once falter, Say the last rites like a priest at the altar; Gentle and kind with the weak and the weary, Which is proved now and then when his keen eye grows teary; Facing all things in life's curious plan— That is the way of the ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... spite, murmurs at no misfortune. From every blow of evil she recovers with a gentle patience that is infinitely pathetic. Passionate and acutely sensitive, she yet seems never to think of antagonising her affliction or to falter in her unconscious fortitude. She has no reproach—but only a grieved submission—for the husband who has wronged her by his suspicions and has doomed her to death. She thinks only of him, not of herself, when she beholds him, as she supposes, dead at her side; but even then ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... mind, and his struggles against fearful odds, not for selfish ends, but for his country's independence. Did Wallace give up the fight, or ever think of giving up? Never! It was death or victory. Bruce and the spider! Did Bruce falter? Never! Neither would he. "Scots wa hae," "Let us do or die," implanted before his teens, has pulled many a Scottish boy through the crises of life when all was dark, as it will pull others yet to come. Altho Burns and ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... at least will understand me. Does not your heart throb, in the presence of budding or blooming womanhood, sometimes as if it "were ready to crack" with its own excess of strain? What if instead of throbbing it should falter, flutter, and stop as if never to beat again? You, young woman, who with ready belief and tender sympathy will look upon these pages, if they are ever spread before you, know what it is when your breast heaves with uncontrollable emotion and the grip of the bodice seems unendurable ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a brief and soldierly leave-taking, and then Marcus was hurrying forward with his guide, who began at once to falter out hurriedly his apologies for his former treatment of ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... Imperial Guard marched up the hill of St. Jean.... Unscared by the thunder of the artillery, which hurled death from the English line, the dark rolling column pressed on and up the hill. It seemed almost to crest the eminence, when it began to wave and falter. Then it stopped, still facing the shot. Then at last the English troops rushed from the post from which no enemy had been able to dislodge them, and the Guard turned ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... for the woman he had chosen Gustave Lenoble never wavered. He worked for her, he endured for her, he hoped against hope for her sake; and it was only when bodily strength failed that this nameless foot-soldier began to droop and falter in life's bitter battle. Things had gone ill with him. He had tried his fate as an advocate in Paris, in Caen, in Rouen—but clients would not come. He had been a clerk, now in one counting-house, now in ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... elfishly, and trippingly—for very joy it made one laugh. The tear rolled down Joyce's face, as the smile replaced it, and dropped upon the thin cheek of the baby. He did not flinch, and the staring eyes did not falter, but something drew the mother's attention. As the final tripping notes died away, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... fluttering of the fan falter and stop. A light foot went pattering up the stairway and a door ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... and smite the foe! And falter not, I pray; For by the grace of God, I trow, The town is ours ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... thou ale, thou drink delicious, Let the drinkers not be moody! Urge the people on to singing, Let them shout, with mouth all golden, Till our lords shall wonder at it, And our ladies ponder o'er it, For the songs already falter, And the joyous tongues are silenced. 270 When the ale is ill-concocted, And bad drink is set before us, Then the minstrels fail in singing, And the best of songs they sing not, And our cherished guests are silent, And the cuckoos ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... stern gaze did not falter, but compelled Penelope to go back to the couch, where almost immediately her tragic ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... establish them as an Affiliated Species ... and that would settle everything the way they would want it settled, without trouble. Some of them believed me. They decided to wait until I could talk to you. If it works out, fine! If it doesn't"—she felt her voice falter for an instant—"they're going to cut ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... gave a caw which he intended to be a sympathetic one, but there was a little falter in it, which, had he been a human being instead of a bird, might have been mistaken for a smothered laugh. The birds now rose on the wing, and together flew homewards. While passing the lake a boat and the sound of oars arrested their attention. To watch it as ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... 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; ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... are many of these, even the most purely and highly intellectual, in which it is essential to success—essential simply as a means, material, but none the less imperative, to enable the mind to do its work. Year by year, almost day by day, we see men (and women) falter and fail in the midst of their labors; ... and all for want of a little bodily stamina—a little bodily power and bodily capacity for the endurance of fatigue, or protracted unrest, or ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... shadows, had peered into her father's gate. With the first sound of his voice, she had entered in, had knelt before a shrine whereon, wrapped in fire, a Secret lay. Ever since she had needed to guard that shrine, not, indeed, for fear that the light would falter, but rather that it might not leap up, and lay waste her being. As one guards a flame, so Ume-ko, with silence and prayer and self-enforced tranquillity, guarded the sacred spark from winds of passion. Each day at dawn, and again at twilight of each day, it ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... 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 your companies and inspire them ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... with a slight falter of embarrassment, and Trenor, turning abruptly, fixed on her ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... virtue. There is no courtesan, no matter how low she has fallen, who cannot find a dupe ready to defend against the world an honour of which no vestige remains. A man who doubts the virtue of the most virtuous woman, who shows himself inexorably severe when he discovers the lightest inclination to falter in one whose conduct has hitherto been above reproach, will stoop and pick up out of the gutter a blighted and tarnished reputation and protect and defend it against all slights, and devote his life to the attempt to restore lustre to the unclean thing dulled by the touch of many fingers. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Federal reinforcements had made their presence felt, was watching the progress of the action on the left. Suddenly, to his astonishment and wrath, he saw the lines of his old brigade falter and fall back. Galloping to the spot he imperatively ordered Garnett to hold his ground, and then turned to restore the fight. Seizing a drummer by the shoulder, he dragged him to a rise of ground, in full view of the troops, and bade him in curt, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... harrowing shape, when they think of loved ones left helpless and destitute behind them. Riches cannot remove the pang of bereavement, but alas! for 'the comfortless troubles of the needy, and because of the deep sighing of the poor.' And yet the brave fellows never hang back and never falter. There ought to be, there is amongst them, a ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... towering above all heads, in ridiculous red and blue regimentals, but with a look of savage dignity upon him that keeps every one from laughing. The murmur of admiration that passed along the thronged gallery leaped up into a shout in the bosom of Palmyre. Oh, Bras-Coupe—heroic soul! She would not falter. She would let the silly priest say his say—then her cunning should help her not to be his wife, yet to show his mighty arm ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... any sense of pain, As it had taken life away before, Choked all the syllables that in my throat Strove to uprise, laden with mournful thanks, From my full heart: and ever since that hour, My voice hath somewhat falter'd—and what wonder That when hope died, part of her eloquence Died with her? He, the blissful lover, too, From his great hoard of happiness distill'd Some drops of solace; like a vain rich man, That, having always prosper'd in the world, Folding his ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... suffer woes which 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 ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... prayed for strength to do what she felt duty sternly dictated; but, though her will did not falter her heart bled, as she wrote a few lines thanking her benefactress for the affection that had brightened and warmed her whole lonely life, and assuring her that the reasons which induced her to leave Le ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... though he feared neither God nor hell; yet again, at times, his soul is even drowned with terrors. If one knew the wicked, when they are under warm convic-tions, then the bed shakes on which they be; 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. O! none can imagine what fearful plights a wicked man is in at times!-(Bunyan's Desires of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... up her mind that it was right and wise to let Ronnie go, Helen did not falter. She immediately took control of all necessary arrangements. Nothing was forgotten. Ronnie's outfit was managed with as little trouble to himself as possible. They dealt together, in a gay morning at the ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... as this 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 new, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... now. I must put away my dolls and air-castles. The time had come, it appeared, for me to assume a woman's burdens, among which often is an expedient marriage. I could no longer offer my tender years as an excuse for side-stepping a big opportunity. I musn't falter. The moment had arrived. I accepted Breck, and down underneath a pile of stockings in the back of my lowest bureau drawer I hid a little velvet-lined jewel-box, inside of which there lay an enormous diamond solitaire—promise of my brilliant return ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... to keep you then? Did I say one word to hold you back?" (Fay's heart swelled as she wrote those words. She saw, bathed in a new light, her own courage and uprightness in the past. She realised her extraordinary strength of character. She had not faltered then.) "I did not falter then. I will not do so now, though this time is harder than the first." (It certainly was.) "You have to come to my little party on Thursday with your chief. I cannot speak to you then. I am closely watched. When the others have gone come back through the gardens. The door ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... but already he had begun to pant and falter, when he perceived looming upon his left the ruins of that ancient castle which had so attracted him on his first visit. On that occasion, it had made merely an aesthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he saw in ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... her resolution would falter, Teresa drew her writing-desk towards her, and wrote a note so rapidly, and with so unsteady a hand, that there was little resemblance to her usual writing, and then sought for sleep-but in vain-and at the earliest possible hour she despatched ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... here this evening to tell you something that will alter your opinion of me so effectually that nothing hereafter can reinstate me in your mind." He spoke slowly and deliberately, without tremor or falter. Whatever of struggle lay behind his words, it lay with the past. It was evident as he stood there in the pretty, luxurious room, that he possessed a purpose, and that he held to it without thought of a ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... only falter; and he pressed on gaily: "Try it, now do try it—I assure you there'll be no interest to pay, and no conditions attached. And promise to let me ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... with a faint cry of joy, and taking her hand bent over it with old-fashioned grace and kissed it. His fingers were as cold as ice, and his lips burned like fire, but Virginia did not falter, as he led her across the dusky room. On the faded green tapestry were broidered little huntsmen. They blew their tasseled horns and with their tiny hands waved to her to go back. "Go back! little Virginia," they cried, "go back!" but the ghost clutched her hand ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... deeper into the jungle Kirby pushed, and never for a moment did his companions falter. But the way was not so easy now, for nerves were jaded, muscles sore, and no human will could have been powerful enough to cast aside the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... water without, waste of the water within, Lights overhead and lights underneath seem doubtfully dreaming Whether the day be done, whether the night may begin. Far and afar and farther again they falter and hover, Warm on the water and deep in the sky and pale on the cloud: Colder again and slowly remoter, afraid to recover Breath, yet fain to revive, as it seems, from the skirt of the shroud. Faintly the heartbeats shorten and pause of ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... poison. Amidst the dwellers of the threshold is ONE, too, surpassing in malignity and hatred all her tribe,—one whose eyes have paralyzed the bravest, and whose power increases over the spirit precisely in proportion to its fear. Does thy courage falter?" ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and some who love her dearly can hardly restrain a flood of tears, for never for an instant, from the first word to the last, do her eyes, glorious in their trust and faith, exquisite in hope and love and tenderness, falter from their fond, loyal gaze up into his. There is uncontrollable recourse to handkerchiefs, a rustle, and sensation throughout the crowded ranks of society as the last solemn word of her troth is spoken, and Blake thanks heaven that the organ tones grow perceptibly louder and more triumphant, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... to Peter Ruff. He took hold of the lapel of the other's coat with his left hand, and his right hand was clenched. But Peter Ruff did not falter. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... all things issues from the original womb, For Nature works with a master hand in her own inner depths; She is art, alive and gifted with a splendid mind. Which fashions its own material, not that of others, And does not falter or doubt, but all by itself Lightly and surely, as fire burns and sparkles. Easily and widely, as light spreads everywhere, Never scattering its forces, but stable, quiet, and at one, Orders and disposes ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... makes me falter In writing of this wicked brute; Although he has escaped the halter, He wears ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... off, and then ran their boats ashore and fired them. They had but one chance, and that a desperate one, to bear down with reckless speed on the oncoming ships and ram them. Failing to do this, and beginning to falter, the ships came among them like dogs among a flock of sheep, willing enough to spare, had they understood the weakness of their foes, but thinking themselves to be in conflict with formidable iron-clad rams, an impression the Confederates ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... flutter of nervous excitement as she hastened about the room, donning her few 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
... nay, St. Augustine was one of the prime oracles of Antiquity; here then Antiquity was deciding against itself. What a light was hereby thrown upon every controversy in the Church! not that, for the moment, the multitude may not falter in their judgment,—not that, in the Arian hurricane, Sees more than can be numbered did not bend before its fury, and fall off from St. Athanasius,—not that the crowd of Oriental Bishops did not need to be sustained ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... of a shunting train, the tiny clink-clink-clink of the wagons blown between the wind, the light of Beldover-edge twinkling upon the blackness of the hill opposite, the glow of the furnaces along the railway to the right, their steps began to falter. They would soon come out of the darkness into the lights. It was like turning back. It was unfulfilment. Two quivering, unwilling creatures, they lingered on the edge of the darkness, peering out at the lights and the machine-glimmer beyond. They could not ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... 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
... people, they so uniformly favor education? Why, if they must err, do they err so pertinaciously in one direction? How does it happen, that, summon as many witnesses as you please, and cross-question them as severely as you can, they never falter in this testimony, that, where intelligence abounds, there physical vigor does much more abound? that, where education is broad and generous, there the years ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a purer brighter presence gained my side — 'Heed him not! there's truth and friendship in this wondrous world,' she cried, And of those who cleave to virtue in their climbing for renown, Only they who faint or falter from the height are shaken down. At a cynic's baneful teaching let your lip in scorn be curled! 'Brotherhood and Love and Honour!' is the motto for ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... back to where he had left Helen and arrived just in time to see the girl fire her revolver at a figure that dashed toward the house. The man did not falter. Apparently the girl's aim had been bad. The man dashed to the very side of the house and took his stand ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... 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 ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... husband's side. But the menacing stillness of her visitors, and their bloody heads and blankets, now fully revealed by the blaze of the fire, seemed of such evil omen, that the good woman was evidently startled. Her step, at first quick and confident, began to falter, and with an involuntary shudder she approached her husband, who had resumed his seat. A minute passed in gloomy silence. Then the Indian again raised his head, but without looking up, and spoke in a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... "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 ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... quite possible that before actual illumination, the student may get repeated "flashes of light" from a higher world. These he should receive gratefully. Even these can make him a witness of the spiritual realms. Yet he must not falter should this never be vouchsafed him during his entire period of preparation, and should its consequent duration seem all too long to him. Indeed, those who yield to impatience "because they can as yet see nothing," have not yet acquired the ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... not falter in my purpose. Mr. Fleisch called to see me the following day and laid out an elaborate course of study. He was to come twice a week to examine me and give me suggestions, but he said that my progress was mainly dependent on my own exertions. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... not," replied the other, "as long as I have a prospect of large profits; why should I falter or hesitate at so slight ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... weariness, pain, disease, hunger, he lies down to die—when the death-gurgle is in the throat, and the eye swims beneath the last dull film—when remembrance peoples the chamber with Hell, and his cowardice would falter forth its dastard recantation to ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that of the sanctity of monarchical rule. If the League of Berlin could be committed to some enterprise hostile to monarchical power, and could be charged with an alliance with rebellion, Frederick William would probably falter in his resolutions, and a resort to arms, for which, however, Austria was well prepared, would ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... undertaken. Frieda sat quite near her, and watched her pretty bright movements with gentle interest, maintaining a silence meanwhile only surpassed in completeness by Dot's. Hannah rattled on, but there was a hollowness in the rattle that made Catherine's hostess heart falter. She was never fluent, herself. Her gentle art consisted in making her guests entertain themselves and ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... with a lurking Adder, Whose double tongue may with a mortall touch Throw death vpon thy Soueraignes Enemies. Mock not my sencelesse Coniuration, Lords; This Earth shall haue a feeling, and these Stones Proue armed Souldiers, ere her Natiue King Shall falter vnder foule Rebellious Armes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Tweksbury saw resemblance to no one she remembered, so she concluded she must be like the father, physically, whom they must all ignore absolutely. Try as she valiantly did, the old lady felt her quick-beating heart falter before Joan's earnest, searching gaze. It was a relief to turn to Nancy and permit her eyes to dim ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... revile it; and how they will fight with each other, and pour out their furious invective and sarcasm and vituperation, and scourge one another with their fiery tongues, as they now do, when some one of the party appears to falter. If there were not something truly good in connection with slavery amid all its evils, I think such ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... moments before I could overcome my surprise enough to falter out, "You know my language? How? ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... fever-stricken victims of the South and were determined to make the most of their opportunity. But the open country once reached we lengthened out our steps and struck into a six-mile gait. Soon my companion began to falter and fall behind. But I could not afford to wait, telling him I presumed he was all right, but I could not run any risks, I stood him up by a tree and taking his gun, marched off a couple hundred yards, then laying it down I shouted to him to come on, and, setting off at the top of my speed, saw ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... and comedian, or true man and no pretender, his eyes did not falter. They were absorbed, as if in eager ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
