"Hesitancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thoughts flashed across his mind almost in an instant; there was no hesitancy, no waste of time. His eager eyes searched the narrow confines of the stateroom for some possible weapon with which to assail the door. The stout stool alone seemed available. Swinging this over his ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... be avoided no less than undue temerity. Where a change appears, after proper consideration, to be indicated, no hesitancy is justified in abandoning the original plan. Blind adherence to plan is to be condemned no less than unwarranted departures from predetermined procedure. Obstinate insistence on the use of a certain method, to the exclusion ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... was evidently that of a colored man, and Hesden had no apprehension or hesitancy in complying with the request. In fact, his position as a recognized friend of the colored race had made such appeals to his kindness and protection by no means unusual. He rose at once, and stepped out upon the porch. He was absent for a little while, and when he returned ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... in the throes of the conflict, I was constrained to speak and write of the Salvation Army's activities in the frightful struggle. Now that all is over and I reflect upon the price the nations have paid I realize much hesitancy in so doing. ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... September, 1890, I left for Tuskegee. When I reached there, although I was a young man, I could not tell what county I lived in, in answer to Mr. Washington's question. I was admitted, after some hesitancy on the part of Principal Washington, and sent to the farm to work for one year in the daytime and to attend school ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... some Byzantine traits in your national character and for the formlessness and hesitancy which I, at least, seem to detect in the demeanour of many individual Anglo-Saxons. They realize that their traditional upbringing is opposed to truth. It gives them a sense of insecurity. It makes them shy and awkward. Poise! That is what ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... ball which feels it moves others, but which does not feel that it is moved. What we call decision is an idea which decides us because it exercises more power over us than the others do; what we term deliberation is a hesitancy between two or three ideas which at the moment have equal force; what we name volition is an idea, and what we call will is our understanding applied to facts. We do not want to fight; we conceive the idea of fighting and the idea carries us away; ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... Jack Carleton, convinced from the hesitancy shown at first by Deerfoot, that he really wished the blanket, "if you are so desirous of saving Otto from a flogging, it can be easily done. When we take back the colt and Mr. Relstaub asks for the blanket, ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... college, he and his brother, with their young companions, owing to their living by rule, first won the name of "Methodists," amid sneers and persecutions, his mother cheered him on. At that juncture, subsequently, when he was in a state of hesitancy as to entering the holy ministry, and his father had encouraged the idea of delay, his mother said, "The sooner you are a deacon the better"—and broke the spell of what might have been a fatal backwardness. On that evening, ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... asked, and after a moment's hesitancy Maddy replied: "I don't believe grandma would mind my telling you, though she don't talk about it much. I only knew it a little while ago. He was disappointed once. He loved a girl very much, and she made ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... in a sudden frenzy of defiance. He had frightened her—yes, he had frightened her—but he should see how little he had gained by that. She took a taste of the liquid, then paused, again assailed by a curious hesitancy. Had her father really meant her to take ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... regular breakfast hour rather than earlier. And, as sometimes happens, dinner seemed to follow close on the heels of breakfast, and directly after dinner, came Lucy Haines. Lucy's manner of accepting a kindness always betrayed a little hesitancy, as if her independent spirit dreaded the possibility of incurring too heavy a weight of obligation. But usually after a little time in Peggy's society, that air of constraint ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... and shakes fastidiously one of its soft paws. Probably, in the woman's case, this came of the fact that things kept pricking and tickling her soles as she proceeded. Also, her knees, I could see, were trembling, and her step had in it a certain hesitancy, a certain lack ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... said Mrs. Frank Garrison, bravely, yet with a trifle less confidence of manner, with indeed a faint symptom of hesitancy, "is Miss Amy Lawrence," and in extending her little hand to take that of the most retiring of the three girls, only the finger tips and thumb seemed to touch. Miss Lawrence came quickly forward, and waiting for no description, ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... direction, his gaze fixed upon the trim, slender figure in blue. He now saw that her dark eyes were filled with a soft seriousness that belied her brave smile; a delicate pink had come into her clear, high-bred face; the hesitancy of the gentlewoman enveloped her with a mantle that shielded her from any suspicion of boldness. Brock struggled to his feet, amazement written ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... of Pantaloon in "Les Fourberies" been other than that of a blundering, timid old idiot, Binet would have ruined it by his apprehensions. As it was, those very apprehensions, magnifying as they did the hesitancy and bewilderment that were the essence of his part, contributed to the success. And a success it proved that more than justified all the heralding of which ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... done more than is usually compassed within a doctor's visit. Still, for two days she hesitated to make her call, feeling a strange repugnance towards such a step. For this she could give herself no reasons. It was the doctor himself who inspired her with this hesitancy; one morning she met him, and shrunk from his notice as though she were a child. At this excess of timidity she was much annoyed. Her quiet, upright nature protested against the uneasiness which was taking possession of her. She decided, therefore, to go and thank ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... walls, and such sweet songs were sung As, echoing out of very long ago, Had called me from the house of Life, I know. So fair their raiment shone I looked in shame On the unlovely garb in which I came; Then straightway at my hesitancy mocked: "It is my father's house!" I said and knocked; And the door opened. To the shining crowd Tattered and dark I entered, like a cloud, Seeing no face but his; to him I crept, And "Father!" I cried, and clasped his knees, and wept. Ah, ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... prompt ratification, that part of the Treaty which related to a League of Nations met a variety of opposing forces. Some of them were based on personal, political and partisan considerations, and some of them founded upon a sincere hesitancy about adventuring into new and untried fields of international effort. In the main, party lines were somewhat strictly drawn in the Senate, the Democrats favoring and the Republicans opposing ratification of the treaty as it stood.[12] ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... disappointment, Mr. Dimmerly mumbled grace, and still Hemstead did not appear. For some reason she did not like to ask where he was, and was provoked at herself because of her hesitancy. The others, who knew of his departure, supposed she was aware of it also. At last her curiosity gained the mastery, and she asked her aunt with an indifference, not so well assumed but that her color heightened a little, "Where ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... success. Reckless audacity, coupled with rare good fortune, might result in our return with the prisoner sought, but it was far more likely that we would be the ones captured, if we escaped with our lives. Yet this knowledge caused no hesitancy on my part; I was trained to obedience, and deep down in my heart welcomed the opportunity. The excitement appealed to me, and the knowledge that this service was to be performed directly under the eye of the great General of the West, was in itself an inspiration. If I lived to ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... natural color. The proprietors will mail to anyone who sends name and address, a free trial package of the remedy so that all may test it for themselves. As it is a pure vegetable product you need have no hesitancy in using it freely, as it cannot harm the most tender scalp. Write to-day to the Altenheim Medical Dispensary, 3156 Foso Building, Cincinnati, Ohio, enclosing a 2-cent stamp to cover postage, and they will forward the free trial package ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... insisted upon being himself bitten. To this experiment the charlatan was extremely averse, offering strenuous objections, and finally conveyed a point blank refusal. But Mr. Drummond's demands becoming more imperative, and observing that his hesitancy impressed the audience as a tacit acknowledgment of the allegations, he finally consented, and placed in the hands of the magistrate a tiger snake, which he deemed least dangerous, and which instantly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... father of one child could pass on his characteristics to offspring by other fathers, lingered in biological teaching until the very recent discoveries of the physical basis of heredity in the chromosomes. Law-making was also influenced by the idea of woman as property. For a long time there was a hesitancy to prohibit wife-beating on account of the feeling that the wife was the husband's possession, to be dealt with as he desired. The laws of coverture also perpetuated the old property taboos, and gave to the husband the right to ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... entered and who had no immediate duty to perform were standing or seated around the room, but all observing profound silence. For a moment or two no sound was heard but the scratching of the captain's pen. Then, with some embarrassment and hesitancy, he laid it ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... movements were very suggestive, for there was a furtive, peculiar action on the part of the one in front, who was evidently uneasy, and kept on looking behind him and to right and left, as if in search of danger or a way of escape, and in both a peculiar hesitancy that ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... of so many friends we had counted on, the bickerings which arose among the Confederates when we met just now at the Isthmus, the slackness of all Spartans save Leonidas in preparing for war, the hesitancy of Corcyra in joining us. Thebes is Medizing, Crete is Medizing, so is Argos. Thessaly is wavering. I can almost name the princes and great nobles over Hellas who are clutching at Persian money. O Father Zeus," wound up the Athenian, "if there is not some master-spirit ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... outgrown calico dress she wore was now halfway to her knees, its sleeves exposed some inches of sunburned wrists, and the scanty waist disclosed a rapidly rounding form. Young womanhood was upon her, unknown to her, and but now discovered by Luther Hansen. For the first time Luther felt the hesitancy of a youth in the presence of ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... in his office usually makes the biggest mistake in supposing that he is a great deal smarter than the men he sells. Because he is a peg higher in trade, as jobber, importer, or manufacturer, he imagines he is also greater in ability, and he has no hesitancy in advising these poor devils about their business. I was selling scythes several years ago, and worked for just such a man as I have been describing. He was a good mechanic, but pig-headed; goods must be made and finished a certain way, because that was the way they had been made for thirty years. ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... by the lower corner, between your thumb and forefinger, so that you may be sure not to touch the sight of the picture; hold it to the light, and tell me if you recognise the face." M. Godin did as directed and replied without hesitancy: "It is a picture of M. Latour." "Good," rejoined Maitland, taking back the negative and passing him the letter; "now tell me if you recognise that signature." M. Godin looked sharply at the letter, holding it open between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... I mention without hesitancy these consequences of the abandonment of opium, from the belief that any person really in earnest in his desire to relinquish the habit will be more likely to persevere by knowing at the start exactly what obstacles he may meet in his progress toward perfect recovery, than by having it gradually ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... all his obvious depression, there was no failing noticeable in his conversational powers. There was the same backwardness and hesitancy which in his best days it was hard for him to overcome, so that talking with him was almost like love-making, and his shy, beautiful soul had to be wooed from its bashful prudency like an unschooled maiden. The calm despondency ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... knowingness, and kindliness on her face. Eleanore fell on her knees, threw her arms around Gertrude's neck, and kissed her passionately. Gertrude reached out her left hand to Daniel; he gave her his right hand with some hesitancy. Jordan was radiant with joy: "It is so good, children, to see that you all love each other, so good," ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... spoke one word of love to the schoolmistress in the course of these pleasant walks. It seemed to me that we talked of everything but love on that particular morning. There was, perhaps, a little more timidity and hesitancy on my part than I have commonly shown among our people at the boarding-house. In fact, I considered myself the master at the breakfast-table; but, somehow, I could not command myself just then so well as usual. The truth is, I had secured a passage to Liverpool in the steamer which was to leave ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... drank about a great stone which served them for a table. Being thirsty, he asked and was readily accorded hospitality, and these five fell into amicable discourse. One fellow asked his name and business in those parts, and the Prince gave each without hesitancy as he reached for the bottle, and afterward dropped it just in time to catch, cannily, with his naked left hand, the knife-blade with which the rascal had dug at the unguarded ribs. The Prince was astounded, but he was never a subtle man: here were four knaves who, for reasons unexplained—but ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... frou-frou of the skirts,—never yet could he hear it without a little thrill of passionate delight. He half turned in readiness to welcome her, his love, his wife; then came her pause at the door,—a new, an unknown hesitancy, for from the first he had taught her that she alone could never be unwelcome, undesired, no matter what his occupation in the sanctum, and Jack's heart stood still while hers was throbbing heavily. Could she ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... We have no hesitancy in pronouncing this powerful story one of the most impressive studies of our highly nervous American life that has been published in a long while. It is written with enormous vitality and emotional energy. The grip it takes on one intensifies as ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... her lips again and again the assurance that she loved him and him alone. What these scenes cost Julia's own fine sense of delicacy and dignity, only Julia knew. They left her with a vague feeling of shame, a consciousness of compromise. For a day or two after such an episode a new hesitancy would mark her manner, a certain lack of confidence lend pathos to the sweetness of ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... hesitancy about thrusting himself into the circle of young dancers, and shunning the table of drinkers; and yet he longed for a drink; but his mouth watered still more for a kiss from the beautiful Magdalene, and this he might so easily have, if it would only occur to her to invite him to ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... unsympathetic members of the board hesitated to protest, and no colleague of Tiberius is known to have opposed the movement in its initial stages. Even the man who was subsequently won over to the capitalist interest hesitated long before taking the formidable step: It was believed, however, that the hesitancy of Marcus Octavius was due more to his personal regard for Tiberius than to respect for the people's wishes.[353] The tribune who was to scotch the obnoxious measure was an excellent instrument for a dignified opposition. He was grave and discreet, a personal friend and intimate of ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... you kindly give in The Healthy Life magazine some suggestions as to the best method to follow in a case of stammering (slight) in a boy of ten or eleven years who has been rather left to himself, the hesitancy in speech being ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... him some particular description of the place, from the confidence he had always used in speaking of it. So now we had cast anchor, and were well on our way shoreward in the boat before I could be certain what manner of trees clothed this Gulf: but Morales never showed doubt or hesitancy; and being landed, led us straight up the beach and above the tide-mark to the foot of a low cliff, where was a small pebbled mound and a plain cross of wood. And kneeling beside them I prayed for the souls' rest of that lamentable pair, and so took seizin of ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... least one of the male passengers, must be the last to quit the ship. That was the code of all true sailor-men—the women first, then the male passengers and crew followed by the officers, beginning at the junior in rank. There could be room for no hesitancy or dispute—it was just a sailor-like way of doing one's duty, in the simple faith that the recording angel ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... he had closed the door they stood side by side, she pressing close to him. She shivered the length of her slight frame. The hesitancy which had come to him with the first impress of the ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... indemnify the owners reasonably, since the latter were entirely innocent and had depended upon the usual rights and immunities of neutral shippers in time of war. The fact was pointed out that the situation was causing an uncertainty and hesitancy in business circles which was detrimental to all American interests. Although a number of the consignments were being delivered at Delagoa Bay, presumably by English ships, it was alleged that the seizures and ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell
... who, from having used various forms of medicated bougies—having had sounds, catheters and bougies roughly passed upon them by unskillful persons—or merely from an indistinct belief, based upon hearsay or tradition, feel some hesitancy about passing anything into the organ for fear that it may do harm, cause pain, or give rise ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... their strength. Still Pizarro loitered behind; still Almagro expressed his decided reluctance to advance before Pizarro's arrival. To add to De Soto's embarrassments, he declared that De Soto was acting without authority and in direct opposition to the orders of his superior. After a little hesitancy De Soto resolved to take the responsibility and to advance. He ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... of a Puritan maid, and dressed the part, from her severe little toque, her prim white dress reaching to her ankles, to her sturdy boots. Her blue eyes were already growing big at Marjory's hesitancy at answering so simple a question. She had been here once with Aunt Kitty—they had stopped at the Hotel d'Angleterre. Marjory ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... a crime," and yet this law remained upon the statute books of the State long after it had ceased to be in accord with the feelings and practices of the community and was only repealed in 1834.[298] The hesitancy of the legislators of the different free States to pass express acts of abolition and thus formally to pronounce slavery illegal may have been due in part to the fact that slavery was sanctioned to a certain extent by the constitution ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... brought his palms together in great satisfaction; but, to his astonishment, when he looked at Nora he saw hesitancy plainly written in her beautiful face; indeed, there was more than hesitancy; refusal of the offer trembled upon her lips. But this was only for an instant; a sudden rush of excitement seemed to possess her, and she held out her hand ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... we began washing the blood from their wounds, Murden joined us. He looked astonished to think that we took so much interest in the men, and after a moment's hesitancy, said,— ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... fact that he was given abundant opportunity to examine the floor of the box, but not until after the dangerous nails had been clinched. His long continued avoidance of the experiment boxes and his still more persistent hesitancy in entering them, coupled with his almost ludicrous efforts to see beneath the floor through the holes cut for the staples on the doors, gave me the impression of superstitious fear of the unseen. As I watched ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... feel that the hour has yet come that will render it safe for the Government to take that step.' I am willing to believe that something of this kind weighs in the mind of the President and the Cabinet, and that there is some ground for hesitancy as a mere matter of political expediency." This admirable and discriminating support of the President finds another capital illustration in weighty words of his in answer to animadversions of Prof. Francis W. Newman, of England, directed against Mr. Lincoln. Says Garrison: "In no instance, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... the room was in an uproar. But the magistrates did not lose their heads. To the bailie in especial the affair had a suspicious look. He had heard the devil "speak worse Latin than a boy of the fourth class," he had noted the mother superior's hesitancy in pronouncing Grandier's name, and he was well aware that deadly enmity had long existed between Grandier and Mignon. So he placed little faith in the latter's protestation that the naming of his rival had taken ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... an unexpected question. Themar flushed uncomfortably. Carl had a way of reading between the lines that was exceedingly disconcerting. His information, he said at length after an interval of marked hesitancy, had been too meager. He had listened at the door once when the Baron had spoken of Miss Westfall to his secretary. A housemaid had frightened him away and he had bolted upstairs—to attend to something ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... women, holding such a view, have no hesitancy in expressing it in the presence of their children, if it so happens that they are old enough to be sitting ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... out to help her, slipped through the gap so nimbly that it was evident that she had not long ceased surmounting such obstacles in her games with Mary. As swift as the wind she came down on her feet, holding out her arms to rush at Paula; but she suddenly let them fall in visible hesitancy, and drew back a step. Paula, however, saw her embarrassment; she drew the girl to her, kissed her forehead, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... nod; and on this he turned to an adjacent door, opened it gently, whipped out his flash-lamp, and passed through. Without sign of hesitancy, she followed; and like two shadows they dogged the dancing spot-light of the flash-lamp, through a linen-closet and service-room, down a shallow well threaded by a spiral of iron steps and, by way of the long corridor linking the kitchen-offices, to a stout door secured ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... William Hinkley, he attended her back to the village. Their progress was marked by coldness on the one hand, and decided sadness on the other. The conversation was carried on in monosyllables only, on the part of Margaret, while timidity and a painful hesitancy marked the language of her attendant. But a single passage may be remembered of all that was said between the two, ere they separated at the door of ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... did not know the full extent of his plans and were impatient to see the result of their—to them—successful labours. They could not understand this halt, and grumbled under their breath at the strange hesitancy of their young leader. But everything had gone so well under his guidance that none of them dared to express his discontent aloud, and Max was left to put the finishing touch upon ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... always felt that if the merits of a good bill were properly explained to a legislature committee, there will be no hesitancy in having it favorably reported out and finally passed. I believe the legislature of 1919 took this view of the tree planting bill introduced by myself, as it was passed by both the Senate and the House, and later received the signature of Governor Sleeper, thus making it ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... continued, "that Karamaneh's room is directly below your own. In the event of any outcry, you would be sooner upon the scene than I should, for instance, because I sleep on the opposite side of the ship. This circumstance I take to be the explanation of the wireless message, which, because of its hesitancy (a piece of ingenuity very characteristic of the group), led to your being awakened and invited up to the Marconi deck; in short, it gave the would-be assassin a better chance of escaping ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... at the same time resented, the tribute he paid Braceway through his hesitancy. The man was a clever detective and, if left to dominate Greenleaf unopposed, might easily focus attention on a new theory of the crime. Not that this could result in the acquittal of the negro; but it might deprive him, Bristow, of the credit ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... said Angela, lifting her face slowly from Mrs. Luttrell's shoulder. "He must not feel that he has lost a home, must he, mother?" She pronounced the title which Mrs. Luttrell had begged her to bestow, still with a certain diffidence and hesitancy; but Mrs. Luttrell's brow smoothed when she ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... burden,—I had gathered such an enormous armful, together with some tender creepers of blackberry vine. We chatted of the place, of the people, and I found that my companion had a keen sense of humor. As we neared the house, after a moment's hesitancy, I asked him to come and rest on the little porch, where a couple of splint rockers and a palm-leaf fan invited one to comfort and coolness. He accepted the invitation with alacrity, though he chose to sit on the wooden steps, while I tilted lazily back ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... job in my employ." (The old fox had not the slightest idea such a contretemps was possible, but in order to play safe he considered it good policy to hearten Ole for the fray.) "Should he defeat you, captain, I have no hesitancy in saying to you now that such a misfortune would have a most disastrous effect on your future in my employ. You know me. When I order a job done, I want it done, and I want it done well. Understand! I don't want you to maim ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... recovered from his hesitancy now. But he spoke with an unnatural rapidity as though he were afraid of breaking down altogether if he stopped a moment to reflect upon himself ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... Campbell a good many times that evening and during the better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be in Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to hear, the soft fall and hesitancy of Faith's voice at the last word. Yet they hardly told of the struggle it had cost. How the word thrilled him she did not know,—the persons living from whom he ever had that name were now so few, that there was a strange mingling with the exquisite pleasure of hearing it from her lips,—a ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... the Spanish quarters, even if compulsory, had less in it to strike the natives than is commonly believed. It was a re-installation in old quarters, and therefore the 'Tlatocan (Council of Chiefs) itself felt no hesitancy in meeting there again, until the real nature of the dangerous visitors was ascertained, when the council gradually withdrew from the snare, leaving the unfortunate 'chief of men' in Spanish hands." [Footnote: 12 Annual Report of ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... furtive movement, he no longer showed any hesitancy as to his course of action; but at once declared his willingness, as well as his determination, to abide by the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... voice that she was in earnest, and kissing her hand he walked rapidly away, his love increasing in intensity with each step he took. He had not expected anything like hesitancy. Everyone else had met his advances at least halfway, and Maude's indecision made him feel more ardent than ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... that he possessed—which, by the way, was not a great deal—to be able to assure himself that there was any hesitancy or bashfulness in the glance which met his own. But Winsome's eyes were as clearly and frankly blue as if God had made them new that morning. At least Ralph looked upon their Sabbath peace and gave thanks, finding ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... the work which Helen had resumed—not crocheting, nor yet embroidery, but the very homely work of darning Uncle Ephraim's socks, a task which Helen always did, and on that particular night. Helen knew it was not delicate employment and there was a moment's hesitancy as she wondered what Mark would think—then with a grim delight in letting him see that she did not care, she resumed her darning needle, and as a kind of penance of the flash of pride in which she had indulged, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Wyoming, the writer prides himself on being able to distinguish drinkable water from the salty or alkaline article almost as far as it can be seen, and a stream about which the least suspicion is entertained is invariably tasted with gingerly hesitancy to begin with. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... long before Anne slept that night, but yet though restless she was not wholly miserable. Neither was she perplexed. Her duty lay before her clearly defined, and she meant to fulfil it. Those few words with Lucas Errol had decided her beyond all hesitancy, so completely was she in sympathy with this strong friend of hers. Perhaps her wavering had only been the result of a moment's weakness, following upon sudden strain. But the strain had slackened, and the weakness was over. She knew that even Nap had ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... maid looked up at the captain with some surprise and no little hesitancy. She evidently feared either that the rooms would not be suitable for the applicant or that the applicant would not be suitable for the rooms. She admitted him, however, and, leading him up-stairs, ushered him into the parlour of ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... had said it out. But there was something else surely goading the girl than mere intolerance of the family tradition. The hesitancy, the moral doubt of her conversation with Langham, seemed to have vanished wholly in a ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ask himself if it were possible of accomplishment. He had flung hesitancy away, to make room for the ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... had hesitancy about leaving are patients who pay me nothing. It is not in the least a ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... think," and the speaker's hesitancy was not by any means unobserved by his friend, "for report affirmed, that Miss Wiltshire was the lady to whom you intended to ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... door, and still I hesitated. To some who read, my hesitancy may brand me childishly timid; but I, who had met many of the dreadful creatures of Dr. Fu-Manchu, had good reason to fear whomsoever or whatsoever rapped at midnight upon my door. Was I likely to forget the great half-human ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... belief that a woman always knows, instinctively, when a man is going to propose to her. She cannot be taken unawares; her flutter, her surprise, her hesitancy are assumed as being artistically suitable, but her unpreparedness is never bona fide. If this be the true psychology of the matter then Esther's case was the exception which proves the rule. No warning came to her, no intuition. She was still looking at the minister with that warm expression ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... the break again, pretending a hesitancy that he enjoyed immensely. He reached under the lower wire, neck outstretched, and nibbled at a bunch of ripe grass. There was plenty of grass within easier reach, but he wanted the unattainable. ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... curiosity of a Paris idler, when a young man came out of the house. As the light of the street lamp fell full on the face of the first comer, it will not seem surprising that, in spite of the darkness, this young man went towards the passer-by, though with the hesitancy that is usual when we have any fear of making a ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... no hesitancy, no looks of concern or anxiety, but when the signal to advance inshore appeared on the "New York," at six bells (seven o'clock), there was a feeling of relief that the time of ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... hesitated a moment at the offer of our friend, a hesitancy we amused him by explaining as, presently, conscience-clear, we rattled with him through the hills. He was an interesting talker, a human-hearted, keen-minded man, and he had many more topics as well as potatoes. Besides, he was not ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... expert and tireless that in giving lessons to my soldier pupil I no longer found it necessary to use the ladder, but swung from the grating, easing first one arm and then the other through the long lesson. One night after he had gone through his sword manual without hesitancy, much ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... time without the consent of both parties. It is argued that people who meet in a drawing-room as fellow-guests are introduced, by that mere fact, sufficiently for the social purposes of the hour; and they may engage in conversation, if they choose, without the least hesitancy; both understanding that this interchange involves no acquaintance beyond the present occasion. By this arrangement an awkward silence is averted, and it certainly seems as if the chief argument in favor of "introducing people" is met; since, with "the roof" as ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... experiment and practice. If we fail, then even the knowledge of our attempt will die with us. For this, and all else which may come, I believe we are prepared!" He paused. No one spoke, but we all bowed our heads gravely in acquiescence. He resumed, but with a certain hesitancy: ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... hesitancy, I yielded to a desire to appear in a visible form before an assembled company of Muteite philosophers who were gathered in one of the under-surface halls of architectural ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... Instead of hesitancy, which Shirley half expected, the girl's face flushed with quickened interest, and her eyes sparkled with enjoyment as he unfolded the situation. At the mention of Grimsby, Holloway grunted with disgust—it may have been a variety of professional jealousy. Who knows? However, the problem ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... stated here that the trust comprehends the spread of the doctrines you advocate, but it does not pretend to guide or direct you in the handling of the funds. Mr. Thorpe trusts you to be governed by the dictates of your own honour. I have no hesitancy in saying that I protested against this extraordinary way of creating a trust, declaring to him that I thought he was doing wrong in placing you in such a position,—that is to say, it was wrong of him to put temptation in your way. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... averse to the exercise. It seemed to me he rather enjoyed returning the salutes with the greatest punctilio and flourish. On our way we came to one of the capital's most famous taverns and I thought I detected a hesitancy in ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... irresolution, infirmity of purpose, indecision; indetermination, undetermination|!; unsettlement; uncertainty &c. 475; demur, suspense; hesitating &c. v., hesitation, hesitancy; vacillation; changeableness &c. 149; fluctuation; alternation &c. (oscillation) 314; caprice &c. 608. fickleness, levity, legerete[Fr]; pliancy &c. (softness) 324; weakness; timidity &c. 860; cowardice &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... hesitancy, then Aunt Mildred placed her hand on the board, and said: "Some one has always to be the fool for ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... was haranguing with all his recuperated might against the sinister menace to the liberties of a people who had freed themselves of one despotism so dearly; and even Randolph, with characteristic hesitancy when approaching a point, was deficient in enthusiasm, although he intimated that he should vote for the unconditional adoption of the Constitution he had refused to sign. He and Marshall were Madison's only assistants of importance against ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... of mail that another has worn,[108] fierceness, cruelty, villifying, pointing out the faults of others, thoughts entirely devoted to worldly affairs, anxiety, animosity, reviling of others, false speech, false or vain gifts, hesitancy and doubt, boastfulness of speech, dispraise and praise, laudation, prowess, defiance, attendance (as on the sick and the weak), obedience (to the commands of preceptors and parents), service or ministrations, harbouring of thirst or desire, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... outward sign of any hesitancy or doubt whatever in the movements of either vessel. The frigate had borne away into our wake the moment that we had borne away, and was now foaming along after us in gallant style, with studding-sails set on both sides, from the royals down; and was of course coming ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... an outrage, as the deliberate violation of British territory by these savages, should remain unpunished, "Forward Policy" or no "Forward Policy," was of course impossible. Yet the vacillation and hesitancy which the Government of India had displayed in the matter of the Bunerwals, and the shocking and disgraceful desertion of the forts in the Khyber Pass, were so fresh in all men's minds, that the order to advance against the Mohmands was received with feelings of the greatest relief throughout ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... broken by the wild clamour of a loon, far down on the lake. As the distant cry shrilled up the mountainside, the white bull stirred, shook his antlers, and blew loudly through his nostril. It was a note of challenge—but in it the bear divined a growing hesitancy. Perhaps, after all, this fight, which had gone so sorely against him, might not have to be fought out! He dropped, whirled about so quietly one could hardly follow the motion—and in a flash was up again on his haunches, right paw uplifted, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... standing beneath, marked her hesitancy, and watched her slow progress down the terraces and into the park. This nocturnal enterprise on her part was rather perplexing, and he was in two minds whether or not to cross the room and consult with Furneaux, when the latter suddenly withdrew ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... to that effect was dispatched on the evening of July 30th, but the General in command of the Third Army Corps desired to wait for the arrival of the Fourth and its baggage train. In spite of this hesitancy the Second Army was ordered to proceed towards the Saar, where the French ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... with the cold, glittering Avelin, there was a grass-grown track, and an ancient, broken-backed bridge. There were few passers on the high-road, none on this deserted way; but the girl in all her loneliness shrank back into the shadow. In these minutes she endured the bitter mistrust, the sore hesitancy, of awaiting on a ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... enough she knew that something weighed on Olive's mind to bring her there at that time. So Olive told her story, without a blush or hesitancy, from the beginning down to the receipt of the letter; and as Mrs. Dering watched her face in the pale light, so clearly expressing its dislike to any lover, and its rapt devotion to her art, she knew well enough what the ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... satisfaction, and without further hesitancy passed out into the yard. He had yet a good deal to say to Mademoiselle, but he could not bring himself to speak to her before her mother, particularly as he realised how much the Marquise might be opposed to him. He opened ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini |
