"Irresolution" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of what a man is to do, is Honourable; as being the contempt of small difficulties, and dangers. And Irresolution, Dishonourable; as a signe of too much valuing of little impediments, and little advantages: For when a man has weighed things as long as the time permits, and resolves not, the difference of weight is but little; and therefore ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... the boats is neither an easy nor hopeful alternative, seeming little better than that of a drowning man catching at straws. Still, though desperate, it is their only chance, and with not a moment to be wasted in irresolution. Luckily the Calypso's crew is a well-disciplined one, every hand on board having served in her for years. The only two boats left them—the gig and pinnace—are therefore let down to the water, without damage to either, and, by like dexterous management, ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... reading the message, Gwen retraces her steps. Outside old Mrs. Picture's door comes a moment of irresolution, but she quashes it and goes on. Old Maisie is not in bed yet—has not really left that tempting fireside. She becomes conscious of a stir in the house, following on a bell that she had supposed to be only a belated absentee. She opens her ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... him wavers; his love for Beatrice is too delicately tinted, and he is suffered to break down with an infirmity of conscience alien to such a nature. On the other hand the uneasy vacillations of Giacomo, and the irresolution, born of feminine weakness and want of fibre, in Lucrezia, serve to throw the firm will of Beatrice into prominent relief; while her innocence, sustained through extraordinary suffering in circumstances of exceptional horror—the innocence of a noble nature thrust by no act of its own but ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... the lady was perhaps not the only member of that company who was startled, but she was startled more than the others, sometimes rising from the sofa and standing with clasped hands, the authentic portrait of terror and irresolution. It was no more than natural that Haberton should at these times reseat her with infinite tenderness, assuring her of her safety and regretting her peril in the same breath. It was perhaps right that he should finally possess himself of her gloved hand and a seat beside her on the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... that she could have overcome that irresolution. . . . But she was not going to make things too easy for him—her ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... general diffusion of science has, in some degree, enlightened the minds of all men; and has cleared such, as have any influence upon the progress of manners and society, from a thousand unworthy pre-possessions. The dissipation and luxury that reign uncontrouled have spread effiminacy and irresolution every where.—The grand defection of the United States of America from the mother country, is one of the most interesting events, that has engaged the attention of Europe for centuries. And the number of extraordinary geniuses that have distinguished themselves ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... the anti-Federal side, and of course should stand upon no other ground than any other Federal character[1] well supported; and when I should become a mark for the shafts of envenomed malice and the basest calumny to fire at,—when I should be charged not only with irresolution but with concealed ambition, which waits only an occasion to blaze out, and, in ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... answer. M. de Guise, who had joined the Count, and was a well-wisher to a rupture, went to Liege to order the levies, Varicarville and I returned to Paris, but I did not care to tell my fellow conspirators of the irresolution of our principal. Some symptoms of it appeared afterwards, but they very ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... surveyed the generation to which he himself belongs, and after having scanned these wide domains of emasculation, these prairies of spiritual sterility, these vast plains of servility and irresolution, he has addressed to himself the questions: How does a whole generation become such? How was it possible to nip in the bud all that was fertile and eminent? And he has painted a picture of the history of the development ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... another shock of cannon shook his chamber, followed immediately by what sounded to him like a derisive blast of fish-horns, there was no more irresolution left in him. Hastily arising and throwing a coat over his shoulders, and dashing a hat over his eyes—the first one that came to hand, and which happened to be a tall beaver—Mr. Perkins, barefoot and in his night-clothes, a not imposing guardian of the peace, ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... this off, and then the huge gaps in the enemy's line exceeded all expectation. In the rear, the ground appeared crowded with wounded men hurrying or being borne from the conflict; while the army, which had just advanced so confidently, now wavered, and then stood still. Seeing the irresolution of the enemy, Wolfe cheered his men to charge. A moment after, a musket-ball struck his wrist. He paused only to wrap his handkerchief round the wound, and again pressed on. He received a second ball in his body, but still continued to issue his orders without evincing any symptom ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... he had good reason to suspect of playing a dastardly game. It was probable, too, that Henshaw had recognized him and might be on the look-out; it would be intensely humiliating to be caught watching. So, turning the pros and cons over in his mind, Gifford walked slowly on in a state of irresolution till he came to a wicket-gate which admitted from the road to a path which ran through ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... wife grew sick at heart, as she saw him follow his companions into a drinking saloon near at hand. Mrs. Harland was by nature a delicate and retiring woman; for a moment she paused; dare she go further? Her irresolution was but momentary, for the momentous consequences at stake gave her a fictitious courage. She quickly approached the door, which at that moment some one in the act of leaving the house threw wide open, and she gained a view of her husband in the act of raising a glass to his lips; but ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... in the Verne drawing-room with the being that he idolized so near him, a deadly struggle was going on within. What a conflict—what doubt, what irresolution! ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our ...
— Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death • Patrick Henry
... .. and after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce the chase, when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating token that they were now at last under the influence of that strange perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive it in the whale, they say he is gallied. The compact martial columns in which they had been hitherto rapidly and steadily swimming, were now broken up in one measureless rout; and like King Porus' elephants ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... rather wandering from the point," he said at last. "What I know of the clergy generally has not taught me to rely upon them for any advice in a difficulty, or any help out of trouble. Once—in a moment of weakness and irresolution—I asked a celebrated preacher what suggestion he could make to a rich man, who, having no heirs, sought a means of disposing of his wealth to the best advantage for others after his ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... Irresolution kept him where he was until Richard had topped the first flight of steps. But then he came down to meet him in too much of a hurry, tripping, blundering the degrees, nodding and poking his head, with hands stretched ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... Ghent. Marshal Vendome pointed out that it was too late, and that although a country so intersected with hedges was unfavourable ground for the army which possessed the larger masses of men, yet that a battle must be fought. This irresolution and dissension on the part of the French generals wasted time, and allowed the allies to push large bodies of troops across the river unmolested. As fast as they got over Marlborough formed them up near Bevere, a village a few hundred ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... endeavoring to look at the ceiling or anywhere but at her. He drew his open hand nervously down his face, which was of unusual gravity even for him. Finally he cast an appealing glance at his wife, who sat with her hands folded on her lap, but her eyes were unrelenting. After a moment's hopeless irresolution Bartlett bent his head over his plate ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... escape from the power of the wicked queen; but the certainty of the queen's bitter revenge if he refused to execute her cruel orders, and the hope of rescuing Blondine at some future day by seeking the aid of some powerful fairy, conquered his irresolution and decided ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... who was innocent. You should remember every day the disgrace of our city of Zurich and seek means to recover our lost honor." Continually and repeatedly were the Bernese captains and the government exhorted to prosecute the war with greater vigor; and when the latter, in order to justify her irresolution, referred to the armed preparations on the Rhine and on her western borders, against which she was obliged to guard, when she communicated the fact that the Archduke Ferdinand had, immediately after receiving the news of the ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... arrived at the head-quarters of the army, which were now at Naumburg, on the Saale. But his presence brought no controlling mind to the direction of affairs. Councils of war held on the two succeeding days only revealed the discord and the irresolution of the military leaders of Prussia. Brunswick, the commander-in-chief, sketched the boldest plans, and shrank from the responsibility of executing them. Hohenlohe, who commanded the left wing, lost no opportunity of opposing his superior; ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... reflection, in England, on reviewing in an elaborate letter the political path he had travelled, indicated both his deep chagrin and his increase of wisdom in the significant words,—"I was obliged to give up, a victim to the bad policy and irresolution ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... dreamer, no enthusiast in the filmy questions of some cloud-land of poetry: the sword of power is in his hand, and the stern teachings of Right and Justice ring through his heart. To such men, Destiny looks for her unfolding. Woe to them, if upon their silence, inaction or irresolution in these great days, the steadfast gaze of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... portray her. You feel sensible of her presence in every line of her speaking. The stipulations with her lover in view of marriage, her fine lady's delicacy, and fine lady's easy evasions of indelicacy, coquettish airs, and playing with irresolution, which in a common maid would be bashfulness, until she submits to 'dwindle into a wife,' as she says, form a picture that lives in the frame, and is in harmony with Mirabel's description ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... having made up his mind that the stronger party was bent on the destruction of the Dantonists, he became fiercer than Billaud himself. It is constantly seen that the waverer, of nervous atrabiliar constitution, no sooner overcomes the agony of irresolution, than he flings himself on his object with a vindictive tenacity that seems to repay him for all the moral humiliation inflicted on him by his stifled doubts. He redeems the slowness of his approach by the fury of his spring. 'Robespierre,' says M. d'Hericault, 'precipitated ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... the party politicians, which threw upon the Abolitionists the duty of fighting slavery as an undemocratic institution. They took up the cause of the negro in a spirit of religious self-consecration. The prevalence of irresolution and timidity in relation to slavery among the leaders of public opinion incited the Abolitionists to a high degree of courage and exclusive devotion; and unfortunately, also, the conciliating attitude of the official leaders encouraged on the part of ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... and look grateful. It would be no fault of hers if she had to strip her fingers for passage-money. Yet the exigency troubled her; it touched her honor, to say nothing of her pride; and, after an unforeseen fit of irresolution, Rachel suddenly determined to tell her husband of her difficulty, making direct appeal to the capricious generosity which had been recalled to her mind as an undeniably redeeming point. It was true that he had given her hearty leave to go to the uttermost ends of the earth, and highly ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... bright-eyed maiden do drop on the bosom of those who pillow her head in the Hour of Dread, they are not tears of sorrow, but flow from an eye, by the command of Him who made it the window of the soul, fated to the weakness of tears, and a heart prone to irresolution and trembling. The Great Waktan Tanka knows that he made her with the heart of a dove, that shakes at the fall of a leaf, and the soul of a song-sparrow, that utters its cry of fear at the fall of a flake of snow. He will not number tears and sighs, and tremblings and faintings, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of waking Alban and putting the question to him. Or again, he tried to creep back to the landing, determined, in his own room, to suffer as best he could the hours of uncertainty. Distressed by irresolution he crossed to the window at last and breathed the cool sweet air of morning as one being a stranger to such a scene at such an hour. The sun had risen by this time and all the landscape stood revealed in ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... of the leading Girondists on that occasion was little to their honour. Of cruelty, indeed, we fully acquit them; but it is impossible to acquit them of criminal irresolution and disingenuousness. They were far, indeed, from thirsting for the blood of Louis: on the contrary, they were most desirous to protect him. But they were afraid that, if they went straight forward to their object, the sincerity of their attachment to republican ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Mr Verloc was not in his usual state, physically and even mentally. A sombre irresolution held him silent for a while. Then he murmured a few ominous generalities on ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... 'scape thine ear; Viewing those lips, thou still may'st make pretence To judge of what she says, and swear 'tis sense: Cloth'd with such grace, with such expression fraught, They move in meaning, and they pause in thought! But dost thou farther watch, with charm'd surprise, The mild irresolution of her eyes, Curious to mark how frequent they repose, In brief eclipse and momentary close— Ah! seest thou not an ambush'd Cupid there, Too tim'rous of his charge, with jealous care Veils and unveils those beams of heav'nly light, Too full, too fatal else, for mortal ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... somewhere, and that a subterranean wife and family would emerge at an unlucky moment, and squat upon that remainder, and defy the world to disturb them. This gave to his plans and dealings in relation to the vicar a character of irresolution and caprice foreign to his character, which was grim and decided enough when his data were clear, and his ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... woman as the most mischievous reading might have done. Lousteau watched the effects of this clever manoeuvre, to seize the moment when his prey, whose readiness to be caught was hidden under the abstraction caused by irresolution, should be ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... residences of the officers—were still on fire. The heat from the burning embers was intense, and as we passed slowly by we viewed, with anger in our hearts, the lamentable results of the timidity and vacillation, the irresolution and culpable ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... a habit of truthfulness and honesty, or of falsehood and dishonor. It will help build up a man or a brute, a hero or a coward. It will brace up resolution until one may almost perform miracles, or it may be dissipated in irresolution and inaction until life is a wreck. It will hold you to your task until you have formed a powerful habit of industry and application, until idleness and inaction are painful, or it will lead you into ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... the same manoeuvre would be repeated, the chimney, as it were, taking its swallows at intervals to prevent choking. It usually took a half-hour or more for the birds all to disappear down its capacious throat. There was always an air of timidity and irresolution about their approach to the chimney, just as there always is about their approach to the dead tree-top from which they procure their twigs for nest-building. Often did I see birds hesitate above the opening and then pass on, apparently as though ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... whatever the errand of this spectator he would have continued along Gissing Street a few paces farther. Then, with calculated innocence, he would have halted halfway up the block that leads to the Wordsworth Avenue "L," and looked backward with carefully simulated irresolution, as though considering some forgotten matter. With apparently unseeing eyes he would have scanned the bright pedestrian, and caught the full impact of her rich blue gaze. He would have seen a small resolute face rather vivacious in effect, yet with a quaint ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... the Algerines for slaves and presents. In 1681 Admiral Herbert, afterwards Lord Torrington, executed various amicable cruises against the Algerines. In 1684 Sir W. Soame with difficulty extorted a salute of twenty-one guns to His Britannic Majesty's flag. And so the weary tale of irresolution and weakness went on. Admiral Keppel's expedition in 1749 is chiefly memorable for the presence of Sir Joshua Reynolds as a guest on board the flagship; and it is possible that two sketches reproduced by Sir ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... Great irresolution was displayed at the injunction, but having consulted the face of Mr. Raikes, one fellow, evidently half overcome by what was put upon him, with the steps of Adam into exile, descended to the gravel, and laid his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... word while he remained so disgracefully bound, but his desire to help the escape of the silver made him depart from this resolution. His wits were very much at work. He detected in Sotillo a certain air of doubt, of irresolution. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... though instigated by different motives, joined to set themselves in a state of hostile opposition to the head of the government; without perceiving, that this inconsiderate, unjust, and ill-timed opposition, would occasion anxiety, mistrust, and irresolution, in the minds of all; and destroy that national harmony, that union of interests, wills, and sentiments, the only source of strength to ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... Those supports were a feint to draw him to your assistance while our main column broke his centre. Yes, you may stare at me, Clarence Brant. You are a good lawyer—they say a dashing fighter, too. I never thought you a coward, even in your irresolution; but you are fighting with men drilled in the art of war and strategy when you were a boy outcast on the plains." She stopped, closed her eyes, and then added, wearily—"But that was yesterday—to-day, ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... them. If, from the fear of uncertain danger, they had permitted themselves such an act of violence, the certain expectation of punishment, and the now urgent necessity of making themselves secure, would plunge them still deeper into guilt. By this brutal act of self-redress, no room was left for irresolution or repentance, and it seemed as if a single crime could be absolved only by a series of violences. As the deed itself could not be undone, nothing was left but to disarm the hand of punishment. Thirty directors were appointed to organise a regular insurrection. They ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... piece of vocal harmony, in which the voices group around those of the two lovers, and all mount up glowingly like a flame on a sacrificial altar;—the heart-rending passage where Lucia's spirit, frantic through woe, rises supreme over native timidity and irresolution, and, with one fierce burst of love and grief, which startles alike tyrant and friend, soars aloft in the terrible, but grand realm of madness;—and the Finale, where the dying Edgardo sighs out that delicious air which has been well styled, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... then, and would be for four-and-twenty hours at the least, by the side of her whom a little time before I would have given years of my life to have been near but for a minute; yet, with an unaccountable irresolution, I still delayed, nay, shrunk from, the long-sought interview. It was not till her father had gone into the little cabin to arrange it for her reception, and had closed the door between us, that I ventured from my hiding-place behind the ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... close together, and between them, on the glare of the white table-cloth, lay a little heap of gold. As they peered at her she saw that both were highly excited, but in Clara it showed like a cold sparkle; in Harry it gloomed like a menace. His hand hovered, clenched, above the money in a panic of irresolution; then, as if with an involuntary relax of nerves, opened and let fall one last piece of gold. Like a flash the whole disappeared in a sweep of Clara's hand. It passed before Flora's eyes like a prestidigitator's trick, so rapid as to seem unreal, and left her staring. Harry gave Clara a look, ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... he had seen the cause to which he had attached himself utterly ruined by the base irresolution of a weak monarch, who had lost his crown by his tyranny, and who had failed to regain it by his courage. In the next place, for his devotion to that cause, he was a banished and an outlawed man, with his life at the mercy ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Pamela! said he, May I just ask after your employment? Don't let me chide my dear girl this day, however. The two parsons will be here to breakfast with us at nine; and yet you are not a bit dressed! Why this absence of mind, and sweet irresolution? ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... pavement we entered what I supposed, correctly, to be Naas. Here I had long since determined my pursuit should cease. I had done enough, and more than enough, to vindicate my fame against any charge of irresolution as to leaving Dublin, and was bethinking me of the various modes of prosecuting my journey on the morrow, when we drew up suddenly at the door of the Swan. The arrival of a chaise and four at a small country town inn, suggests to the various employees therein, any thing ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... occasion. Fire and sword could alone save the royal authority, for all the provinces had "abandoned themselves, body and soul, to the greatest heretic and tyrant that prince ever had for vassal." Unceasing had been the complaints and entreaties of the Captain-General, called forth by the apathy or irresolution of Philip. It was—only by assuring him that the Netherlands actually belonged to Orange, that the monarch could be aroused. "His they are; and none other's," said the Governor, dolefully. The King had accordingly sent back De Billy, Don John's envoy; with decided ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... became a gambler himself, and went on from step to step, never having resolution to say no, till he ruined himself, and planted within him the seeds of disease, which hurried him to a premature grave. He died the miserable victim of his own irresolution. ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... grasp, and men expected that he would prove a powerful Pope; but in those days he had Leo to help him; and Leo, though indolent, was an abler man than his cousin. He planned, and Giulio executed. Obliged to act now for himself, Clement revealed the weakness of his nature. That weakness was irresolution, craft without wisdom, diplomacy without knowledge of men. He raised the storm, and showed himself incapable of guiding it. This is not the place to tell by what a series of crooked schemes and cross purposes he brought upon himself ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... people in this world mixing, apparently, with great spirit and self-esteem in its concerns, who really owe their constant appearance and occasional influence in circles of consideration to no other qualities than their own callous impudence, and the indolence and the irresolution of their victims. They, who at the same time have no delicacy and no shame, count fearful odds; and, much as is murmured about the false estimation of riches, there is little doubt that the parvenus as often owe their advancement in society to their ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... trooping quickly from the left. A motley crew, out for excitement; loafers, artisans, navvies; girls, rough or dubious. All in the mood of hunters, and having tasted blood. They gather round the steps displaying the momentary irresolution and curiosity that follows on a new development of any chase. MORE, on the bottom step, turns and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Irresolution increased the depression of De Vallance; his bodily complaints gained ground, and Jobson too, though still an affectionate, was no longer a cheerful, companion. His spirits sunk while he was with the King in Worcester; he predicted ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Lal Lu, whose quick glance had detected the irresolution of the instant preceding, 'at least, tell me ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... and about the spot for some time, with aimless irresolution, the three men returned to Leamington, told their astonishing story and were afterward taken into custody. But they were of good standing, had always been considered truthful, were sober at the time of the ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... was some difficulty. Their line bent back awkwardly, and when the enemy shelled the houses on the Calonne road, where their right flank rested, they showed signs of withdrawing and leaving our C Company 'in the air.' The Germans quickly benefited by this irresolution, for they commenced to push forward from house to house along the Calonne road, until Baquerolle Farm was in danger of being taken in its rear. The prompt determination of Lodge, the officer I have already mentioned as commanding C Company, served to avert critical consequences. He delivered ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... made a compromise with his own weakness and irresolution. He would not go to Cecil Street, since by so doing he would be offering a tacit insult to the woman he had pledged himself to marry, but he would, he must see Bella, himself unseen and his presence unsuspected, and this he could effect easily ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... and with one bound launched himself upon the log. For a moment he stood cowering on its top, turning his eyes first upon the branches where the boys had taken refuge, and then in the opposite direction, towards the woods. He seemed irresolute as to which course he would take; and this irresolution, so long as it lasted, produced an unpleasant effect upon our young hunters. Should the jaguar also attack them, their destruction might be accounted as certain; for the great cat would either strike them down from their unstable porch, ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. 2. Strike! till the last armed foe expires! 3. You wrong me, Brutus. 4. Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? 5. Why stand we here idle? 6. Give me liberty, or give me death! 7. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. 8. The clouds poured out water, the skies sent out a sound, ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... a worse vice than rashness. He that shoots best may sometimes miss the mark; but he that shoots not at all can never hit it. Irresolution loosens all the joints of a state; like an ague, it shakes not this nor that limb, but all the body is at once in a fit. The irresolute man is lifted from one place to another; so hatcheth nothing, but addles ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... Oswald's natural irresolution had been augmented by misfortune, and he hesitated before entering upon an irrevocable engagement. Although he no longer sought to disguise his affection for Corinne, he did not propose marriage to her. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... heaped fresh turf on the fire, and partly blowing, partly fanning it into a flame, hung a large iron pot I over it, from a hook firmly fixed in the wall. While these preparations were going forward, Owen laid aside his rough outside coat, and going to the door, looked out, as if in irresolution. ...
— Ellen Duncan; And The Proctor's Daughter - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... and irresolute, wavering between the right and the wrong, afraid to take his stand by either, and wishing, if he could, to escape the consequences of both. Other plans, however, were ripening as well as his, under the management of those who were deterred by none of his cowardice or irresolution. The consideration of this brings us to a family discussion; which it becomes our duty to detail before we proceed any further in ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... white-ash, and after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce the chase, when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating token that they were now at last under the influence of that strange perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive it in the whale, they say he is gallied. The compact martial columns in which they had been hitherto rapidly and steadily swimming, were now broken up in one measureless rout; and like King Porus' ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... imperfect knowledge. But he who freely gave us life and reason and all good gifts, needs not that we should remind him of anything; therefore to ask him to give us the thing we desire is to make him like ourselves, and charge him with an oversight; or worse, we attribute weakness and irresolution to him, since the petitioner thinks my importunity to incline ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... Ryder had an odd impression of her irresolution before, with strange eagerness, he swept her into the music. Within the clumsy bulk of her draperies his arm felt the slightness of her young form. She was no more than a child.... No child, either, ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Chatellerault, a passage across the Loire. Rosny undertook Henry III.'s commission. He at the same time received another from Sieur de Brigueux, governor of the little town of Beaugency, who said to him, "I see well, sir, that the king is going the right way to ruin himself by timidity, irresolution, and bad advice, and that necessity will throw us into the hands of the League: for my part, I will never belong to it, and I would rather serve the King of Navarre. Tell him that I hold, at Beaugency, a passage over the Loire, and that if he will be pleased to send to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... cause, maintained heroically in a hundred battles, and overwhelmed at last by the brute violence of the foreign oppressor, was subject enough for him; he would never have marred his epic by sickly irresolution and the struggles of a divided will in the principal characters. Perhaps his mind reverted to his old dreams when he came to describe the pastimes wherewith the rebel angels beguile their ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... strength. He had a shock of coarse black hair, grey eyes and a tired sallow face, as of one habitually overworked and underfed. His jaw was heavy, but loosely put together, so that he presented an air of weakness and irresolution. His lips were thick and pursed in a kind of weary good humour. He wore an old skin shirt and a pair of towlinen pants, which flapped about his bare brown ankles. A fine sawdust coated his hair and shoulders, for he had been working ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... he drew his sword from its scabbard, and flung it into the lake. It went through the air like a stream of lightning, and sank in the flashing waters, which speedily closed over it. All remained standing in irresolution and astonishment, so high was the rank, and so much esteemed was the character, of the culprit, while, at the same time, all were conscious that the consequences of his rash enterprise, considering the views which the King had upon him, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... treat it did not allow of its first sketch being very spontaneous, nor very lucid. Therefore the scene is indecisive, the action almost null, and, consequently, the interest is greatly divided. From the very beginning is betrayed an inherent vice in the first idea, and a kind of irresolution in the manner of conceiving, distributing, and placing it. Some men marching, others standing still, one priming his musket, another loading his, another firing, a drummer who poses for the head while ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... that would not open. Then he achieved a definite idea. Since the door would not open, and since Steward and Kwaque did not return, he would go in search of them. Once with this concept of action clear in his brain, without timidities of hesitation and irresolution, he trotted aft down the long hall. Going around the right angle in which it ended, he encountered a narrow flight of steps. Among many scents, he recognized those of Kwaque and Steward and knew they had ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Surely be had come that road often, or he would not so easily have pursued his way. And now he stood by the edge of a plantation which in some measure protected from trespassers the more private gardens of the Hall, and there he paused, as if a feeling of irresolution had come over him, or it might be, as indeed it seemed from his subsequent conduct, that he had come without any fixed intention, or if with a fixed intention, without any regular plan of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... I let my fatigue and my irresolution and my fear of the ghost get the better of me, and decided to put off till to-morrow what I should have done to-day. If in after years my worst enemy had to confess that what I did I did quickly, it was due to the lesson which this one act ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... Henceforth he must depend entirely upon his own resources, inadequate as they were for the task before him. But upon this phase of the situation he would not allow himself to dwell. Such unprofitable meditation could breed naught but irresolution and be unnerving to both body and mind; if he were to play the coward now he but invited the fate he feared. Courage, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... bitterness, as well as startled by the unexpectedness of the attack, he wrote in the first moments of indignation a full and point-for-point rejoinder, and this he printed in the form of a pamphlet, and had a great number struck off; but with constitutional irresolution (wisely restraining him in this case), he destroyed every copy, and contented himself with writing a temperate letter on the subject to The Athenaeum, December 16, 1871. ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... a Gifted Woman," in Our Old Home (reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly, January, 1863), records Miss Delia Bacon's project for exploring Shakespeare's grave, and the failure of her attempt through the irresolution occasioned by ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby
... one occasion observed that there had existed the same indecision, irresolution, and want of system in the politics of Queen Anne, as at the time he spoke, under the reign of George the Third. "But," added he, "there is nothing new under the sun!"—"No," said George Selwyn, "nor ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... heart of hearts he knew that this being to whom he had trusted his hopes of bliss was no heroine. She was a lovely, loveable girl, nothing more. How would she greet him when they met presently on the tennis lawn? With tears and entreaties, and pretty little deprecating speeches, irresolution, timidity, vacillation, perhaps; hardly with heroic resolve to act ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... door, however, one of the guards placed a lantern on the floor so that the fellow-prisoners might have a chance of seeing each other. Wilhelm beheld, seated on a pallet of straw, a man well past middle-age, his face smooth-shaven and of serious cast, yet having, nevertheless, a trace of irresolution in his weak chin. His costume was that of a mendicant monk, and his face seemed indicative of the severity of monastic rule. There was, however, a serenity of courage in his eye which seemed to betoken that he was a man ready to die for his opinions, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the prestige of Spain which was terrible but by no means beyond remedy. In the eight years which had elapsed since 1588, Spain had been gradually recovering her forces, and endangering the political existence of Protestant Europe more and more. Again and again the irresolution of Elizabeth had been called upon to complete the work of repression, to crush the snake that had been scotched, to strike a blow in Spanish waters from which Spain never would recover. In 1587, and in 1589, schemes for a naval expedition of this kind ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... of his real irresolution and fancy-dalliance for depth of Reserve and for Plan formed within the magic circle of his own inapproachable spirits is very fine; but still it is not tragic—nay scarce obvious enough to be altogether ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... good-for-nothingness; an ossification all over; an oyster-like insensibility to the passing events; a mind-stupor; a brawny defiance to the needles of a thrusting-in conscience? Did you ever have a very bad cold, with a total irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? This has been for many weeks my lot and my excuse. My fingers drag heavily over this paper, and to my thinking it is three-and-twenty furlongs from here to the end of this demi-sheet. I have not a thing to say; nothing is of more importance ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... and, slowly resuming her walk round the room, seemed for a while immersed in anxious thought; when she suddenly paused, and, after a moment of apparent irresolution, stepped to the wall, and gave two or three pulls at the wire connected with the servants' bell in the kitchen. In a few minutes the summons was answered by the appearance of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... losses were often borne with courage. On the other hand, the Russian army quite failed on the offensive, in a certain sense tactically, but essentially owing to the inadequacy of the commanders and the failure of the individuals. The method of conducting the war was quite wrong; indecision and irresolution characterized the Russian officers of every grade, and no personality came forward who ever attempted to rise above mediocrity. It can hardly be presumed that the spirit of Russian generalship has completely ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... she spoke was very low and solemn; but there was no fear or doubt expressed in it, either of him or of his compliance. He sullenly rose up. He stood uncertain, with dogged irresolution upon his face. She waited him there; quietly and patiently waited for his time to move. He had a strange pleasure in making her wait; but at last ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... envoy and some African bishops broke off communion. The Latin bishops rejected it; but the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem gave their adhesion. Justinian summoned Pope Vigilius; and a pitiable example of irresolution he presented when he came. He accepted, rejected, censured, was complacent and hostile in turns. [Sidenote: The Fifth General Council, 553.] At last he agreed to the summoning of a General Council, and Justinian ordered it to meet ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... the sbirri felt ashamed of their irresolution, and, indicating by signs that they would fulfil their compact, they entered the room, accompanied by the two women. As they had said, a ray of moonlight shone through the open window, and brought into prominence the tranquil face of the old man, the sight of whose ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... movement of irresolution among those immediately surrounding the Doge; but the Lady Marina, like one commissioned for a holy ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... is very fine; perhaps it stands next in rank to that of Hamlet. It opens to us the strange secrets of the irresolution and vacillation which have always characterized the men who have been called upon by fate alone to undertake vast achievements. In proof of this, it is well known that Cromwell was anxious to conceal the doubts and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... for he is not the man to give way to long irresolution, and recovering himself, he rides rapidly about, from toldo to toldo, all over the town, at the same time shouting and ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... king, while he and his guards slept soundly under the influence of a spell cast upon them by Medea. The daughters stood by the bedside with their weapons drawn, but hesitated to strike, till Medea chid their irresolution. Then turning away their faces, and giving random blows, they smote him with their weapons. He, starting from his sleep, cried out, "My daughters, what are you doing? Will you kill your father?" Their hearts ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... possibilities of a moment's defection. Then one day he pulls the signal off in sheer bravado—and hastily puts it at danger again. He may have done it once or he may have done it oftener before he was caught in a fatal moment of irresolution. The chances are about even that the engine-driver would be killed. In any case he would be disgraced, for it is easier on the face of it to believe that a man might run past a danger signal in absentmindedness, without noticing it, than that a man should pull off a signal and replace it ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, and The Comedy of Errors, bear many traces of an early origin. The Two Gentlemen of Verona paints the irresolution of love, and its infidelity to friendship, pleasantly enough, but in some degree superficially, we might almost say with the levity of mind which a passion suddenly entertained, and as suddenly given up, presupposes. The faithless lover is at last, on account of a very ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... sustaining myself on my trembling arms, I gazed up at him. He stood very rigid, holding the flask in both hands. Several muskets were discharged together just above, and in the noise of the reports I remember a voice crying urgently over the edge, "Manuel! Manuel!" The shadow of irresolution passed over his features. He hesitated whether to run up the ledge or bolt into the cave. He shouted something. He was not answered, but the yelling and the firing ceased suddenly, as if the Lugarenos had given up and taken to their heels. I became aware of a sort ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... only be gone half an hour." And turning away, left the room. He did not pause until he was in the street. Then a spirit of irresolution came over him, and he said to himself, as ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... foreigners, both in 1775 and in 1854, while in both cases our people were yielding only step by step to the inevitable current which swept events along. It is the penalty of caution, that it sometimes appears, even to itself, like irresolution, or timidity. Not a foolish charge has been brought against Northern energy in this contest, that was not urged equally in the time of the Revolution. The royal troops thought Massachusetts as easy to subdue as the South Carolinians affect to think, and expressed it in almost ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... imagination refused to complete the story. She covered her face with her hands and sought frantically to hide from this loathsome whisper that pressed temptation upon her. Ill and frightened, she lay turning into every posture of defiance and weakness and irresolution, until the daylight was fully come; and then Gaga's voice called feebly from the next room, and she must rise to tend him with something of the guilt of a murderess oppressing her and causing her during the whole talk to keep her ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... and then more slowly as he came nearer to the old quarter in which the Palazzo Macomer was situated. As with all men of such character, his irresolution increased just when he fancied that he was about to do something decisive. He would not have hesitated in the same way, if he had been called upon to face a physical danger; for though he was certainly no hero, he was by no means a physical coward, ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... instrument of Mardonius. And, indeed, from this period the politics of Persia became more and more concentrated in the dark plots of the seraglio. Thus superstition, flattery, ambition, all operating upon him, the irresolution of Xerxes vanished. Artabanus himself affected to be convinced of the expediency of the war; and the only object now remaining to the king and his counsellors was to adapt the preparations to the magnitude of the enterprise. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... juncture Mr. Buchanan confronted a graver responsibility than had ever before been imposed on a President of the United States. It devolved on him to arrest the mad outbreak of the South by judicious firmness, or by irresolution and timidity to plunge the Nation into dangers and horrors, the extent of which was mercifully veiled from the vision of those who were ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... itself were conforming themselves to the acts of excise, a few counties were resolved to frustrate them. It was now perceived that every expectation from the tenderness which had been hitherto pursued was unavailing, and that further delay could only create an opinion of impotency or irresolution in the Government. Legal process was therefore delivered to the marshal against the rioters ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... literary projects than with steady application; nor had poesy, for which Nature peculiarly designed him, sufficient attractions to chain his wavering disposition. It is not certain whether his irresolution arose from the annoyance of importunate debtors, or from an original infirmity of mind, or from these causes united. A popular writer[3] has defended Collins from the charge of irresolution, on the ground that it was but "the vacillations of a mind broken and confounded;" and he urges, that ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... his understanding, but our traitors would never have been able to seduce or shake his fidelity. His head is weak, but his heart is honest. Unfortunately, it is too true that, in turbulent times, irresolution and weakness in a commander or a Minister operate the same, and are ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... evinced a want both of firmness and of sagacity. When the Southern States were on the eve of secession and the temper of the country was on trial, he had, though with honest intentions, shown signs of irresolution and vacillation. When he was betrayed into the ill-advised and abortive peace negotiations with Southern commissioners at Niagara, he had displayed the lack of tact and penetration which made the people ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... has been called a very poetical tree, because it is the only one whose leaves tremble when the wind is apparently calm. It is said, however, to suggest fickleness and caprice, levity and irresolution—a bad character for any tree. The small American aspen, which is quite common, has a smooth, pale-green bark, which gets whitish and rough as the tree grows old. The foliage is thin, but a single leaf will be found, ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... trifle thinner and more nervous, his features a little sharpened, and there was a sprinkling of grey in the black of his hair. For the first time since the conception of her scheme Lady Tamworth experienced a feeling of irresolution. With Fairholm in the flesh before her eyes, the task appeared difficult; its reality pressed in upon her, driving a breach through the flimsy wall of her fancies. She resolved to wait until the shop should ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... "No sense of irresolution or horror appeared to exist in the bosoms of those parents, who deliberately resolved on the deed before the child was born." "The murderous parents often came to their (the missionaries') houses almost before ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Mordred still thundered on in pursuit. Ere long they heard a trumpet sounding in their rear, and King Arthur's men halted for a few minutes, with the half-formed design of facing the foe and selling their lives dearly. While they paused in gloomy irresolution, gazing sternly on the advancing host, whose arms flashed back the rays of the morning sun, a mist rose up between them and their foes. It was a strange shadowy mist, without distinct form, yet ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... had been answered by a similar signal which had fixed the irresolution of the nocturnal seeker, or whether without this aid she saw that she had arrived at the end of her journey, she resolutely drew near to Aramis's shutter, and tapped, at three equal intervals, ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to return. My heart was sorely torn asunder, at one moment by the desire to reach Florence as quickly as I could, and at another by the conviction that I ought to regain France. At last, in order to end the fever of this irresolution, I determined to take the post for Florence. I could not make arrangements with the first postmaster, but persisted in my purpose to press forward and endure an ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... brains of clubland were much exercised in seeking out possible merit where none was very obvious to the naked intelligence, and the house-party at Lady Susan's was possessed by the same uncertainty and irresolution ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki |
