"Waver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cried. But in the darkness dim Those lineaments did waver and dislimn Like clouds at the sun's waking. Alone I stood; fled was the night, the dream, And o'er the sleeping City's sullen stream ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... exalted in men's eyes and become even with these." Presently, he beheld one of the mountebanks, who was present at the feast, climbing up to the top of a high and towering wall and throwing himself down to the ground and alighting on his feet. Whereupon the waver said to himself, "Needs must I do as this one hath done, for surely I shall not fail of it." So he arose and swarmed upon the wall and casting himself down, broke his neck against the ground and died forthright. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... tins on a stool near the woman. Quinn's glance did not waver, and not a word passed his swollen lips; but his wife snatched up one of the tins ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... Among the Heathen round; to God have brought Dishonour, obloquie, and op't the mouths Of Idolists, and Atheists; have brought scandal To Israel diffidence of God, and doubt In feeble hearts, propense anough before To waver, or fall off and joyn with Idols: Which is my chief affliction, shame and sorrow, The anguish of my Soul, that suffers not Mine eie to harbour sleep, or thoughts to rest. This only hope relieves me, that the strife ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... he sat cross-legged on the ground; and they walked round and round him, inspecting him. Under such conditions no man could be at his best; there was a silly expression on his otherwise attractive face, which, as their attitude toward him seemed to waver between indifference and ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... and wondered what new damage it had done as it receded. As the wind increased toward morning he felt a sickening certainty that the brave little boat was beaten. Somehow she seemed to lose courage, to waver a bit and almost give tip the fight. He watched her miserably as the dismal dawn came up out of the sea. Yet it was not until seven o'clock that the crash came, which shook the passengers out of their berths and filled them with ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... private correspondence he stigmatized the clergy as "the estate by the coldness of which all the others are frozen,"[160] or even as "that which is the ruin of all the rest."[161] But, frightened by the incessant clamor and attacks of his enemies, he began gradually to waver, and presently lost all courage. In the end he yielded so far as to suffer to be published in his name official documents which were intended to overturn from the foundation the very fabric he had been striving to rear. In one of these, a "Synodal Decree" addressed to the faithful of his ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... there was any evident effect; the men from Earth were waiting for that great ship to waver, to wobble from its course. Suddenly Arcot gave a cry of surprise. Startled amazement was written all over his face, as his companions turned in wonderment to see that he was partially visible! The Solarite, too, had become a ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... fear is, that, when she comes to the point, the over-niceness of her principles will make her waver, and want to go back: although her honour is my honour, you know, and mine is her's. If she should, and should I be unable to prevail upon her, all your past services will avail nothing, and she will be lost to me for ever: the prey then of that cursed Solmes, whose vile ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... fancied I felt my horse waver, as though about to fall; but I spoke sharply to him, and he straightened out, just as a bullet whistled by ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... turn, missing nobody. Her clear gaze, the blue eyes black beneath the shadowing thick lashes, met each answering pair of eyes with a steady scrutiny which did not once waver. ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... his life seemed to waver in the balance, but at last he began to mend. His frame, however, had been so shattered that the doctors held out little hope of his ever being anything better than a helpless cripple, so, one day, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... held to be much more probable that this banner, bearing a white cross on a blood-red field, was sent by the Pope to Valdemar as a token of his favor and support, and that its sudden appearance, when the Danes were beginning to waver before the pagan assaults, gave them the spirit that led to victory. The result, in those days of superstition, naturally gave rise to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... and impartial sketch of Stafford's trial will be found in Ranke (B. viii): who deals dispassionately and historically with an event much obscured by declamation in popular narratives. Even in Hallam's hand the balance seems here to waver a little. ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... to waver; in a short time they fled, and the pursuit continued till midnight. That which distinguished this from every preceding action was the order issued by Monk to make no prizes, but to sink or destroy the ships of the enemy. Hence the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... he ceased to try to compel slumber. He lay musing. It is a strange thing to lie musing in the dark. His soul seemed to tug and waver outside his body as he had seen an elephant chained by one leg in a circus tent lean far away from its shackles, and sway and put its trunk forth gropingly. His soul seemed to be under his forehead, pushing at it as against a door. He felt ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... caves were, though he had never seen them; that the good God had provided this means for the constant supply of food for the Indian, and however recklessly the white men might slaughter, they could never exterminate them. When last I saw him, the old man was beginning to waver in this belief, and feared that the "Bad God" had shut the entrances, and ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... his way through the bushes and setting his feet upon the road. He must follow, he must follow. Howsoever steep the hill, he must climb to Bethlehem. But as he went on his way it did not seem steep, and he did not waver or toil as he usually did when walking. He felt no weariness or ache in his limbs, and the high radiance gently lighted the path and dimly revealed that many white flowers he had never seen before ...
— The Little Hunchback Zia • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... continued to lay stress on the resources of diplomacy. He admitted that he had long regarded the possibility of war between England and Russia with the 'utmost incredulity;' but even before Sinope his confidence in a peaceful solution of the difficulty was beginning to waver. He distrusted Lord Stratford, and yet he refused to recall him; he talked about the 'indignity' which Omar Pacha had inflicted on the Czar by his summons to evacuate the Principalities, although nothing could justify the presence of the Russian troops in Moldavia and Wallachia, and they had held ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... he had meant to marry Cecilia Cricklander as an aid to their advancement. He glossed over nothing of his own baseness, but went on to show how, from the moment he had seen her upon that Good Friday at the orchard house, his determination about Cecilia Cricklander had begun to waver, until the night under the tree when passion overcame every barrier and he knew he ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... betrayed the prostration of their spirits. The enemy advancing the more boldly on this account, pushed with their shields, brandished their swords; on the other side the helmets drooped, as the men looked around, and disconcerted they waver, and keep close to the main body. The ensigns at one time standing their ground are deserted by their supporters, at another time they retreat between their respective companies. As yet there was no absolute flight, nor was there victory. The Romans rather covered themselves ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... confidence is not misplaced. Only once did the boy's glance waver, and that was when his eyes sought the window facing Peter's desk. Some egg other than Peter's was nesting on the open ledger spread out on the Receiving Teller's desk—not an ostrich egg of a head at all, but an evenly parted, well-combed, well-slicked ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... grander than they ever possessed; and they would not be halting and belittling themselves with such idiotic stuff and nonsense as their advice to let the amendment go to the electors of the State "on its own merits." But however politicians may waver, our suffrage women must not have a doubt, but must persist in the demand for full recognition in both platforms. We must exact justice and if they do not give it, the curse be on their heads, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... her waver. The first minute she looked at him, the second at Carter. He took no chances on the third. With a quick bound, he was in the buggy ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... Man's jaw dropped a little, but his eyes didn't waver from their Hangdog faces. "Well, I never coaxed a man to stay yet," he stated grimly, "and I'm gittin' too old in the business to start coaxin' now. Dell!" He turned stiffly in his chair so that he faced the open door. "Bring me ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... wild thyme snuggery there We stayed awhile to rest; A bell was calling folk to prayer: One star was in the West: The cottage lights grew far away, The whole sky seemed to waver and sway Above our fragrant nest; And from a distant dreamland moon Once more we heard ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... hoped that she would waver. He had never wanted to come. Left to himself, he and Patch would have walked—elsewhither. Had he not known that Valerie was away, he would have excused himself at breakfast. Not for anything in the world would he have forfeited a chance of meeting ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... months ago, the Trial of the Twenty-two Girondins was the greatest that Fouquier had then done. But here is a still greater to do; a thing which tasks the whole faculty of Fouquier; which makes the very heart of him waver. For it is the voice of Danton that reverberates now from these domes; in passionate words, piercing with their wild sincerity, winged with wrath. Your best Witnesses he shivers into ruin at one stroke. He ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... this way I had maintained my tempi in such a way that I felt no doubt that on my removal all my points would remain firmly established. I found, on the contrary, that no sooner was Dietzsch left to his own resources than everything began to waver; not one tempo, not one nuance was conscientiously and strictly preserved. I then realised the extreme danger in which we were placed. Granted that no one singer was suited to his task, or qualified to achieve it so as to produce a genuine ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... showed him the resolutions which he intended to move, intimating at the same time that he wished Mr. Gallatin to act as secretary. Mr. Gallatin told him that he highly disapproved the resolutions, and had come to oppose both him and Bradford, and therefore did not wish to serve. Marshall seemed to waver; but soon the people met, and Edward Cook of Fayette, who had presided at Braddock's Field, was chosen chairman, with Gallatin for secretary. Bradford opened the proceedings with a summary sketch of the action previously taken, declared the purpose of the ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... astonished at the embarrassment you have hitherto felt, nor at your cautious examination of my opinions, which are better understood the more thoroughly they are examined and compared with those they oppose. It is impossible to annihilate at once deep-rooted prejudices. The mind of man appears to waver in a void when those ideas are attacked on which it has long rested. It finds itself in a new world, wherein all is unknown. Every system of opinion is but the effect of habit. The mind has as great difficulty ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... reinforcements. The main body of the Russian army had to abandon the bank of the Vistula. Three detached corps remained stationed there. The Polish general, Skrzynecki, who had succeeded Prince Radzivil in the command, then took the offensive. He defeated the Russians under Geismas at Waver, and General Rosen at Dembevilkie and Igknie, but then stopped short. In the meanwhile a Polish expedition into Volhynia failed completely. Dvernicki was driven back into Gallicia. Another Polish expedition sent into Lithuania under Vilna ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... chest on its deck seems a vast coffin to be. Yes! 'tween the cradle and coffin, we totter and waver for ever ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... course; he did not waver at all from his old if vague conception of a seat in Parliament as a natural part of the outfit of a powerful country magnate. And in a hundred other ways men should think of him as powerful, and look up to him. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... the Lemnian isle, And over Helen crush'd his poppy crown, Her soft lids waver'd for a little while, Then on her carven bed she laid her down, And Sleep, the comforter of king and clown, Kind Sleep the sweetest, near akin to Death, Held her as close as Death doth men that drown, So close that none might hear her ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... is not my father," he muses, "how glad am I of that! The fresh woodland only begins to please me, the glad daylight to smile to me, now that the offensive wretch is out of my sight!" He drives away the thought of him and lets sweeter reflections gradually absorb him. The leaves rustle and waver; delicate shafts of sunshine drop through them and play over the forest floor. The exquisiteness of the hour, by its natural power over the mood, turns the lonely boy's thoughts toward the only human beings life has so far given him to love,—and in images ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... that trailed through the broken bottles, the old shoes, and the wire fences. Outside these ramparts began the vacuum, white, gray, indigo, florescent, where all the year the sun shines. Not the semblance of any tree dances in the heat; only rocks and lumps of higher sand waver and dissolve and reappear in the shaking crystal of mirage. Not the scar of any river-bed furrows the void. A river there is, flowing somewhere out of the shiny violet mountains to the north, but it dies subterraneously on its way to Sharon, misses the town, and emerges thirty miles south ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... almost every action of men who scarce waver save under her assaults. For reason has been obliged to yield, and the wisest reason takes as her own principles those which the imagination of man has everywhere rashly introduced. [He who would follow reason only would be deemed foolish by the generality of men. We must ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... now began to waver. It occurred to him that should Colonel Clifford die and Walter inherit his estates, he could easily come to terms with the young man so passionately devoted to his daughter. He had only to say: "I can make no allowance at present, but I'll settle my whole fortune upon Mary and her children ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... inexplicable fashion already linked, was strongly moved. Nevertheless she could hardly guess the extremity of the passion that shook him. It was the frenzy of the rider who feels his horse about to fail him within a span of the winning post; of the leader whose men waver at the actual point of victory. But the weakness of dismay was only momentary. Calm and clearness of mind returned with the sense of emergency. He raised his night-glass, with a steady hand this time, and scanned the depth of blackness in front of him: out of it after ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... and the men waver, Capt. Blakely with a cheer called up the boarders of the "Wasp;" and in an instant a stream of shouting sailors, cutlass in hand, was pouring over the hammock-nettings, and driving the foe backward ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... was kept in the Tower. During all that time his cheerful steadfastness did not waver. He wrote long letters to his children, and chiefly to Meg, his best-loved daughter. When pen and ink were taken away from him, he still wrote with coal. In these months he became an old man, bent and crippled with disease. But though his body was feeble his mind was ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... courage—the courage of the heart, which does not reason, which does not waver, which dashes blindly on, like a lightning flash, wherever it hears the cry of a dying man. One of these days I will take you to the exercises of the firemen, and I will point out to you Corporal Robbino; for you would be very glad to know him, ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... day the pseudo-king rode back and forth along his lines. Three of his staff were killed and two horses were shot from beneath him, but from the moment that he appeared the Luthanian line ceased to waver or fall back. The advanced trenches that they had abandoned to the Austrians they took again at the point of the bayonet. Charge after charge they repulsed, and all the time there hovered above the enemy Lutha's sole aeroplane, watching, watching, ever watching for the coming of the ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... search: he grew hot and forgot all fear, except a spasm of terror lest his light should burn low and die out. The bleating had quite ceased now, and there was not even a sigh to guide him; but he knew that near him the lambs must be, and he did not waver nor despair. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... made up. I own that I might have preferred another course, and Heaven knows it is not that I think myself worthy of this; but I have been brought up to this, and I will not waver. It is marked out for me as plainly as your earldom for you, and I will do my duty in it as my appointed calling. There lies my course of honest independence: you call it pride—see what those are who are devoid of it: there lie my means of ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... legions into a dangerous river - on the opposite bank the woods were full of Germans - when there flew out seven great eagles which seemed to marshal the Romans on their way; they did not pause or waver, but disappeared into the forest where the enemy lay concealed. "Forward!" cried Germanicus, with a fine rhetorical inspiration, "Forward! and follow the Roman birds." It would be a very heavy spirit that did not give a leap at such a signal, and a very timorous one that continued ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... handful as they were, the white men have gained the day. Even now, I hardly know how it came about. Never did my countrymen fight more bravely. For hours, the Spaniards stood as a wall which we, in vain, tried to break. Thousands fell on our side, but not for a moment did we waver. Others took their places until, as the hours went on, the Spaniards grew weary, and victory seemed in our grasp. Their horsemen had charged through and through us, but though many chiefs were slain, it mattered little. The ranks closed up, and each time they fell back ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... feebly. He had the part of Ray, Laura's lover, the society individual who was to waver in his thoughts of marrying her, upon finding that she was a waif and ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... particular attention to Moultrie. Early in the forenoon the smoke began to rise from within the walls of Sumter; "the tort was on fire." Shots now rain upon the walls of the burning fort with greater fury than ever. The flag was seen to waver, then slowly bend over the staff and fall. A shout of triumph rent the air from the thousands of spectators on the islands and the mainland. Flags and handkerchiefs waved from the hands of excited throngs in the city, as tokens ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... it? The audacity of the proceeding was sufficient to make the iron will of even Lennox Sanderson waver. And yet, to lose her! Such a contingency was not to be considered. His mind flew backward and forward like a shuttle, he turned the leaves of his book; he smoked, but no light came ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... courts from entertaining any prosecutions for witchcraft. The Parliament protested, and gave people to understand that by this denial of sorcery many other things were put in peril. Any doubting of these lower mysteries would cause many minds to waver from their belief in mysteries of ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... pearls. Mr. Crease half agrees with me, but as he never agrees with any one, on principle, he hates to say so. Mr. Faulkes is wavering. You shall decide; you, I know, are one of those people who never waver." ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... things I have to do with it which ought to be set about immediately. I am sorry to seem importunate, but if by twelve o'clock you have not gone with me to Mr. Torrie, I will go to Messrs. Hope & Waver, who will tell me what I ought to do next, in order to be put in possession. It makes me unhappy to write like this, but I am not a child any longer, and having a man's work to do, I cannot consent to be treated as a child. I will do as I say. I am, dear ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... after this dinner," rejoined Aaron Burr instantly. His eye did not waver as it looked into the other's, but blazed with all the fire of his own soul. "Across the Alleghanies, along the great river, there is a land waiting, ready for strong men. Are we such men, gentlemen? And can we talk freely as such ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... battle-yell. The Border slogan rent the sky! A Home! a Gordon! was the cry: Loud were the clanging blows; Advanced—forced back—now low, now high, The pennon sunk and rose; As bends the barque's mast in the gale, When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail, It waver'd 'mid the foes. No longer Blount the view could bear: 'By heaven and all its saints! I swear, I will not see it lost; Fitz-Eustace, you with Lady Clare May bid your beads, and patter prayer,— ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... was not for long. I cannot say that his courage did not waver for a moment; but if it did, it was, I say, not for long, and when he spoke up it was with a voice as steady as ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... detachment, which was about twice as strong as the last, and the lads fired once more, with the result that two of the attacking party went down; but instead of the rest turning tail in panic and rushing back, they followed their officer a dozen yards farther. Then they began to waver, checked their pace, and stood hesitating; while, in spite of their officer excitedly shouting and waving his sword to make them advance, they came to a stand, with the brave fellow some distance in front, where the lads could hear him shout and rage before making a dash back at the leading ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... the latter talked; his gaze did not waver as Lawler concluded. But a slight stain appeared in his cheeks, which instantly receded, leaving them normal again. But that slight flush betrayed Hatfield to Lawler; it told Lawler that Hatfield knew why there ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... surface had been peeled off everything, leaving only the reality and the instant. It had the look of a vision printed on the dark at night. White and grey and purple figures were scattered on the green, round wicker tables, in the middle the flame of the tea-urn made the air waver like a faulty sheet of glass, a massive green tree stood over them as if it were a moving force held at rest. As she approached, she could hear Evelyn's voice repeating monotonously, "Here then—here—good doggie, ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... of the sky. We forced our horses into the river up to their shoulders, and waited. The cattle half-way across came out all right, but when the mass of more than two hundred reached the loop of the curve, they seemed to waver and crowd up in a bunch. I lost my head and plunged El Mahdi into the river. "Come on," I shouted, ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... instantly turned her head, and looked resolutely in the opposite direction. She felt that the answer to Sir Peter's question belonged to John. Sir Peter saw John waver; he caught his glance at Phyllis; and, like a good campaigner, ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... and polished rock; sometimes he slid ten or twenty paces backward over loose pebbles, and anon sank knee-deep in the snow which here and there filled the hollows; but nothing daunted him or caused him to waver from his purpose. At last he reached a broad sheet of ice with innumerable crevices and chasms, on the further side of which a narrow ridge like the edge of a knife stretched above a wild and lonely valley, the base of which yawned two or three thousand feet below. ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... lullaby, rain on the clover! Tears on the eyelids that waver and weep! Rockaby, lullaby—bending it over! Down on the mother-world, Down on the other world! Sleep, oh sleep! Down ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... children, who fancied she, also, was about to faint as Moses had done, yet she did not fall nor did her gaze waver; and impelled by its sternness to make reply, Monty ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... last day, will call thee to an account for the rescinding his truth, and take vengeance of thee for every falshood thou tellest. I charge thee therefore, as thou wilt answer it to the Great God, the judge of all the earth, that thou do not dare to waver one tittle from the truth, upon any account or pretence whatsoever: For though it were to save thy life, yet the value of thy precious and immortal soul is much greater, than that thou shouldst forfeit it for the saving of ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... he had ruled for years with almost undisputed sway. Not in the least inclined did he feel to give up now, the power which he believed, of right, belonged to him. A sharp retort trembled for a moment on his lips; but he kept back its utterance. He did not, however, waver a single line from his purpose, but rather felt ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... to take from her aunt, whose violent opposition would throw a fearful obstacle in the way. It was easier to avoid than to surmount such a barrier; but if it could not be avoided, it must be surmounted. In that decision she could not waver. ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... evident that the intense earnestness of the lover was exerting powerful influence over the affectionate maiden, for she began to waver. ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... of war, when an action has been joined for a long time, and the lines are locked in fierce conflict, and stragglers are coming in and the wounded drifting away, when the reserves begin to waver here and there, it is on such an occasion that Scottish regiments have so often won distinction; it is on these occasions that you have seen some valiant brigade march straight forward into the battle smoke, ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... imprisonment, fine, disgrace, ruin. How jubilantly some are already rubbing their hands in the bishops' palaces, the parsonages, the sacristies of France! Ah! no stone will be kept unturned to secure a conviction! But Emile Zola does not waver. It may be the truth, the whole truth will only be known to the world in some distant century; but he, anxious to hasten its advent and prevent the irreparable, courageously stakes all that he ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... a slight cry. The form in front of him seemed to waver a moment. Then Tressady himself mounted, caught her, and in another moment, after a few plunges from the excited horse, they were off down Manx Road, followed by a shouting crowd that ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to think, but he had little doubt that the dog was aware of something wrong; so the boy did not waver; his sheep were quiet, he was forced to trust that they should not stray if he left them a little while, and he hesitated not to follow Wolf; though he could not so speedily overcome the difficulties of the way as the ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... hung over the city, soon ending in a settled and heavy rain. This change of weather had an odd effect upon the crowd, the whole of which was at once put into new commotion, and overshadowed by a world of umbrellas. The waver, the jostle, and the hum increased in a tenfold degree. For my own part I did not much regard the rain—the lurking of an old fever in my system rendering the moisture somewhat too dangerously pleasant. Tying ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... this impression and it was made a certainty when he saw the black patch waver upward, stagger ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... grateful eddies sway, Whisper deliciously the trembling flowers: O could I fill thy vacancy as I Am filled with happiness, thou'dst breathe such sounds Their blooms should wane and waver sick for love; Thou'dst utter rarer secrets than are blown With yonder bean-fields' paradisal scents;— These bean-field odours, lightly sweet and faint, That tell of pastures sloping down to streams Murmuring for ever on through sunny lands; Where mountains gleam ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... the hour of conflict drew near' (and this was a conflict to be dreaded even by him'), he began to waver, and to abate much of ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the fire, the French began to waver, and Marlborough gave the order for the great battery of forty guns in the allied centre to advance. These advanced up the hill, passed through the entrenchments, and opened a fire right and left ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... them, if they could see me? I thought of it this morning when I was walking a log without so much as a waver. That phrase relative to walking a chalk-line is weak and inadequate, after a man has tried to work his way along a peeled hemlock. If anyone wants to measure sobriety by word of mouth, there's his standard. It involves the last degree ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... the suburbs. So ended the forty years of Arian domination in Constantinople. But the mob was still Arian, and their stormy demonstrations when the cathedral of the Twelve Apostles was given up to Gregory of Nazianzus were enough to make Theodosius waver. Arian influence was still strong at court, and Arian bishops came flocking to Constantinople. Low as they had fallen, they could still count among them the great name of Ulfilas. But he could give them little help, for though the Goths of Moesia ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... worked closer to the shore. They were watching for a place to land. But because the shadows of twilight were already falling, the forest itself was hardly more vivid to their eyes. Once it seemed to Ben that he saw the underbrush move and waver at the water's edge, and his heart leaped; but whatever stirred kept itself concealed. And now, in the gray of twilight, Ezram saw ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... the torrent swept, That scarce that long and living wall, Their dangerous footing kept. Then rose a warning cry behind, A joyous shout before: "The current's strong—the way is long— They'll never reach the shore! See, see! They stagger in the midst, They waver in their line! Fire on the madmen! break their ranks, And whelm them in ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... ladies most admired by the ancient Romans was Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, a Roman who was condemned by the Emperor Claudius to become his own executioner. Seeing him waver, his wife, who was resolved to be with him in death as in life, took the dagger from his hand, plunged it into her own breast, and with her last strength held it out to him, gasping out, 'It is not painful, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... around him were slain. The result of this battle was that Bocchus became anxious to come to terms. Sulla was sent to arrange them. But Bocchus hated the Romans, while he feared them; and fresh solicitations from Jugurtha made him again waver. [Sidenote: Negotiations of Bocchus with Rome.] Soon afterwards, by permission of Marius, he sent an embassy to Rome. The Senate replied that they excused his past errors, and that he should have the friendship and alliance of Rome when he had earned it. Then ensued ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... concerning or acquiescence in, or non-interference with, their cherished purpose to establish slavery in Kansas. If he had yielded even so much as this, they would gladly have let him go. But never for a moment did he falter, or waver, or equivocate. He refused to make any promise. He stood upon his rights as an American citizen. He was opposed to slavery in Kansas, and intended to oppose it as long as he lived. He came to Kansas to aid in making it a ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... waver, but calmly puffing sway at his long, black cigar he looked blankly into space. Presently a voice outside calling, "Boys!" sounded throughout the room and brought him back to actuality. He sat straight up in his chair while Nick, shifting uneasily ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... David Balfour! I shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be raised; I shall then speak much otherwise from what I do to-day, and far less to your gratification, little as you like it now! Ah, you look white!" cries he. "I have found the key of your impudent heart. You look pale, your eyes waver, Mr. David! You see the grave and the gallows nearer by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Tompkins could not have been more astonished than she was by this speech. Her face became deadly pale; she trembled violently from head to foot, and panted like a frightened hare. To utter a word in reply was impossible. The husband was startled at the effect produced, but did not waver an instant in his purpose. The suddenness of the annunciation had one good effect: it opened the eyes of Mrs. Tompkins completely. The manner of her husband left no doubt upon her mind that all he had said was true—that the house would have to go, spite of all he could do to save it. ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... shall we waver for that cause; for little methinks have we shrunk aback whenas men fell to fight; and naught shall it avail thee to make us afeard,—and for an ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... raise upon the ruins of science and common-sense. Knowledge was to be removed to make way for faith. This task is ambiguous, and the equivocation involved in it is perhaps the deepest of those confusions with which German metaphysics has since struggled, and which have made it waver between the deepest introspection and the dreariest mythology. To substitute faith for knowledge might mean to teach the intellect humility, to make it aware of its theoretic and transitive function as a faculty for hypothesis and rational fiction, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... of her. His eyes, in the mirror, did not meet mine, but were fixed, as on some distant and pleasing prospect, though there was, as always, a slight disdain at his mouth. But the eyes were clear, resolute, and strong, never wavering—and I never saw them waver—yet in them something distant and inscrutable. It was a candid eye, and he was candid in his evil; he made no pretense; and though the means to his ends were wicked, they were never low. Presently, glancing round the room, I saw an easel on which was a canvas. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... than is at present authorizable. After a while he withdrew his eyes from the hill-tops, sighed, as those do whose thoughts have been profoundly absorbed, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. He began to debate within himself—for the mind, unless strictly watched, is apt to waver between light thoughts and grave—whether or no it was worth while to make a second journey into the study after more tobacco. Perhaps Cornelia was within call, and would thus afford a means of cutting the Gordian knot at once. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... stood there staring at it like a man whose senses waver, and who fixes some object to ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Only a few weeks, scarcely more than a fortnight, had passed since Grace had given him that hint; but each day since then had done the work of years. Caught at the rebound indeed, and that so securely and strongly that the man's heart could never waver from ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... on the point of trying to get into touch with his friend Howell, but after Lisette's disclosures, he was very glad that he had not done so. His master-mind worked quickly. He could sum up a situation and act almost instantly where other men would be inclined to waver. But when The Sparrow arrived at a decision it was unalterable. All his associates knew that too well. Some of them called him stubborn, but they had to agree that he was invariably right in ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... clear as thine, But blood and tears have dimmed its shine. I will not tell thee when 't was shred, Nor from what guiltless victim's head,— My brain would turn!—but it shall wave Like plumage on thy helmet brave, Till sun and wind shall bleach the stain, And thou wilt bring it me again. I waver still.—O God! more bright Let reason beam her parting light!— O. by thy knighthood's honored sign, And for thy life preserved by mine, When thou shalt see a darksome man, Who boasts him Chief of Alpine's Clan, With tartars broad and shadowy plume, And hand of blood, and brow ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... lightly as a well-made tulip pirogue, or dug-out, and nothing under heaven is so utterly crank and treacherous. Many an unpremeditated plunge into cold water has one caused me while out fishing or duck-shooting on the mountain-streams of North Georgia. If you dare stand up in one, the least waver from a perfect balance will send the sensitive, skittish thing a rod from under your feet, which of course leaves you standing on the water without the faith to keep you from going under; and usually it is your head that you are standing on. But, to return to our tree, I would like to see its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... rise with her purple favor, Gloweth the cleft with her golden ring, 'Twixt the two brown butterflies waver, Lightly settle, and ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... career came to him, Allen was completely overpowered by his sense of its importance. He blessed books and book agents, since they had been the indirect means to this much-desired end. His chance had come to him just when his optimism had begun to waver, with the hydra's heads multiplying beyond belief; and he proposed to show Alice especially, and Mr. Gorham incidentally, that he was no mere callow youth idly waiting by the wayside. There could be no doubt whatever regarding his intentions, but a captious critic might have ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... as one who on the brink Of a dark river stands and sees The waters flow, the landscape dim Around him waver, wheel, and swim, And, ere he plunges, stops to think Into what whirlpools he may sink; One moment pauses, and no more, Then madly plunges from the shore! Headlong into the mysteries Of life and death I boldly leap, Nor fear the fateful current's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... by force. Kidnapping, most likely, and that would be highly unpleasant, besides putting an end to his usefulness. Clearly he must join the others. The soul of Dickson hungered at the moment for human companionship. He felt that his courage would be sufficient for any team-work, but might waver again if he were left to play a ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... Fox's party; he was assaulted and escaped with difficulty into White's club. Members of Brooks's were believed to be concerned in the outrage, which increased Pitt's growing popularity. The opposition began to waver. On March 1 a fresh address to the king for the removal of the ministers was carried by only twelve votes. George again refused his assent. Fox shrank from attempting the extreme measure of refusing ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... tall and straight, well bundled in furs. She was not pale; her blood was too rich and brilliant for that; but despite a half-smile and the inextinguishable dimples, there was a touch of something appealingly pathetic in the lines of her mouth. She did not waver or hesitate, however, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... identity,'though more than a year had elapsed, came back to me from the Folkestone cliff.' It had been associated in that scene with showy knickerbockers; at present it overflowed more splendidly into a fur-trimmed overcoat. Lord Iffield's presence made me waver an instant before crossing over; and during that instant Flora, blank and undistinguishing, as if she too were after all weary of alternatives, looked straight across at me. I was on the point of raising my hat to her when I observed that her face gave no sign. I was exactly ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... scarcely be said that the consciousness of this attitude of society is favorable to the invert's attainment of a fairly sane and well-balanced state of mind. This is, indeed, one of the great difficulties in his way, and often causes him to waver between extremes of melancholia and egotistic exaltation. We regard all homosexuality with absolute and unmitigated disgust. We have been taught to venerate Alexander the Great, Epaminondas, Socrates, and other antique heroes; ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... results involved in this most important affair, and not shrink from the duties imposed on you, to avoid a few present unpleasant consequences. It is not for me to prescribe rules of conduct to be observed by you, but I must say, that I am surprised that any circumstance should cause you to waver for a moment in reference to your visit to Europe. If you were to decline coming, would not the many on the other side, who are strictly watching your movements, at once say that the whole arrangements are deceptive, and merely designed to make an impression on me for ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... four others that flanked the approach. When the Russian guns had thoroughly cleared the way for an assault, he ordered the bands to play and the two leading regiments to charge up the slope. Keeping his hand firmly on the pulse of the battle, he saw them begin to waver under the deadly fire of the Turks; at once he sent up a rival regiment; the new mass carried on the charge until it too threatened to die away. The fourth regiment struggled up into that wreath of death, and with ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... slightly upward, apparently staring at the deck above him. But the gaze was without intelligence; and the fellow appeared to be quite unconscious of his surroundings, for he took no notice whatever of Leslie's entrance; nor did the eyes waver in the least when the latter spoke to him, Leslie laid his hand upon the forehead of his late antagonist, and found it cool to the touch, although clammy with perspiration. Then he laid his fingers upon the man's wrist, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... resolved to spend the day in seeking salvation; and the manner in which they made known this purpose to their teacher, and carried it out, has been already related. (See p. 116). From that day, she never seemed to waver. As soon as she found peace for herself, she sought to make others acquainted with her Saviour; not forgetting, however, that prayer of the Psalmist, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts. See ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... Littleton children, having the bathing facilities of the rich, if not on so gorgeous a scale, were a really trim, decent lot to-day, and their merry voices reached Nate Tierney, going rapidly along the street, outside, making him waver, hesitate, then turn in, with a smile on his honest face. He was a favorite with the younglings. With cries of "Nate! Nate!" "Hello, Nate!" "Be on my side, Nate!" they surrounded him, and dragged him into their game of Indian-and-white man, a ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... "I waver between hope and fear of paying my court to you. I hope it might still be at Berneck," this evening,—"if you could contrive a road into the Nurnberg Highway again; avoiding Baireuth: otherwise I dare not go. The Bearer, who is Captain Knobelsdorf [excellent ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... hardly been broken. The blackened grass, the blasted vine, have not grown green again. No new buds are swelling, as after a late frost in spring. Instead, the old leaves on the limbs rattle and waver down; the cornfield is only an area of stubs and long lines of yellow shocks; and in the corners of the meadow fence stand clumps of flower-stalks,—joe-pye-weed, boneset, goldenrod,—bare and already bleaching; and deep within their matted shade, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... time our eyes met fully. I do not know what I felt when I saw him look at me as unrecognizingly as if I had been a wooden doll in a shop window. Was he looking past me? No. His eyes met mine direct—glance for glance; not a sign, not a quiver of the mouth, not a waver of the eyelids. I heard no more of the overture. When he was playing, and so occupied with his music, I surveyed him surreptitiously; when he was not playing, I kept my eyes fixed firmly upon my play-bill. I did not know whether ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... Mr. Curtis's methods was their perfect simplicity and directness. He believed absolutely in the final outcome of his proposition: where others saw mist and failure ahead, he saw clear weather and the port of success. Never did he waver: never did he deflect from his course. He knew no path save the direct one that led straight to success, and, through his eyes, he made Bok see it with equal clarity until Bok wondered why others could not see it. But they could not. Cyrus Curtis would never be able, they said, to come ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... reading the poems, consider the justice or injustice of Mr. Aiken's criticism: "It is a sort of absolute poetry, a poetry of detached waver and brilliance, a beautiful flowering of language alone—a parthenogenesis, as if language were fertilized by itself rather than by thought or feeling. Remove the magic of phrase and sound and there ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... I see Ludar so noble a man as during those gloomy months. Never once did he waver in his loyalty to his father; never once did he suffer a word to be said to rebuke the old man's harshness; never once did he complain if more than a common soldier's hardships, with a common soldier's fare, fell to his lot; never once would ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... in which his purpose seemed to waver and die in his clouded brain. A great hope sprang up in my heart, which was hammering furiously. If I could divert his fuddled thoughts and get him back to shore while the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... see it fulfilled. She became so possessed with this matter that I began to lose faith in her two prophecies of her early death—and, of course, when I found that faith wavering I encouraged it to waver ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... firm in her sinful purpose, until she reached the corner which brought her in sight of the window where Fanny was impatiently watching for her. The sight of that bright, joyous face, as it looked from the window, anxious for the expected sight of her letter, made Julia for a moment waver. She thought how gentle and loving Fanny had always been to her and involuntarily her hand sought the letter which lay like a crushing weight in her pocket. It was half drawn from its hiding place when the spirit of evil which seemed ever to ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... waver between vulgarity on the one hand, artificiality or eccentricity on the other. It is an alternation of evils. The best writing must always possess both Dignity and Familiarity, otherwise it can never touch ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... narrow-minded girl may be. Then we have the two brothers, John and Adrian Mowbray. John is the hard-working, vigorous clergyman, who is impatient of all theories, brings his faith to the test of action, not of intellect, lives what he believes, and has no sympathy for those who waver or question—a thoroughly admirable, practical, and extremely irritating man. Adrian is the fascinating dilettante, the philosophic doubter, a sort of romantic rationalist with a taste for art. Of course, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... "King Dhritarashtra whose knowledge only was his eyes, on hearing these words of his son and recollecting everything that Kanika had, said unto him, became afflicted with sorrow, and his mind also thereupon began to waver. Then Duryodhana and Karna, and Sakuni, the son of Suvala, and Duhsasana as their fourth, held a consultation together. Prince Duryodhana said unto Dhritarashtra, 'Send, O father, by some clever contrivance, the Pandavas to the town of Varanavata. We shall then have no fear of them.' Dhritarashtra, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... eyes waver to him again, and the FAUN vanishes. She turns again to look at the boulder; there is nothing there; a little shiver of wind blows some petals off the trees. She catches one of them, and turning quickly, goes ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... actions, in the particular usage of such things as they know certainly, in their general kind, to be agreeable to truth and righteousness. Such Christians are impeded by the ceremonies from going on in their Christian course so fast as otherwise they would, if not also made to waver or stumble. And thus are they properly scandalised according to my fifth proposition. Si quis nostra culpa vel impingit, vel abducitur a recto cursu, vel tardatur, cum dicimur offendere, saith Calvin.(423) Porro scandalum est dictum vel factum quo impeditur evangelii cursus, cujus ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... pernicious, deleterious, baneful, noxious. Have, possess, own, hold. Headstrong, wayward, wilful, perverse, froward. Help (noun), aid, assistance, succor. Help (verb), assist, aid, succor, abet, second, support, befriend. Hesitate, falter, vacillate, waver. Hide, conceal, secrete. High, tall, lofty, elevated, towering. Hint, intimate, insinuate. Hopeful, expectant, sanguine, optimistic, confident. Hopeless, despairing, disconsolate, desperate. Holy, sacred, hallowed, sanctified, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... having told me that he had himself been several times the bearer of gold and silver to the goldsmiths of Nice, Aix, and Avignon, which had been transmuted by Delisle from lead and iron, I began to waver a little in my opinions respecting him. I afterwards met Delisle at the house of one of my friends. To please me, the family asked Delisle to operate before me, to which he immediately consented. I offered him ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... mused, "My plans That soar, to earth may fall, 10 Let once my army-leader Lannes Waver at yonder wall"— Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping; nor bridle drew 15 Until he reached ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... hastily thrown up. Their fire was reserved till the Spaniards got close to them; then from each battery the iron shower went forth, sweeping through the ranks of the Spanish troops. I could see them waver and attempt to turn back; but urged on by their officers, they again advanced. A portion attempted to storm the heights on which the cannon were posted; but thousands of Indians were behind the batteries, and they were ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... mood changed. She saw the assailants waver and fall back; the attack grew languid, and Dunois talked of sounding the retreat. Upon this she got to her feet, and scrambled somehow on her horse. "Rest a little," she implored the generals about her, "eat something, refresh yourselves: and ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... frightfully positive. In spite of his courage, Croustillac felt his determination waver; the punishment with which they threatened him was fearful. Monmouth was then undoubtedly in safety; the adventurer thought that he had already done much for the duke and for the duchess. He was about to yield to the fear ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... already known and faith in one God, Creator and Father of all things, must go hand in hand. Education and civilization will do much for the ignorant inaka or boors, but for the cultured whose minds waver and whose feet flounder, as well as for the unlearned and priest-ridden, there is no surer help and healing than that faith in the Heavenly Father which gives the unifying thought to him who ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... into the darkness, as pale things waver down into deep water, and as soon as she disappeared my sense of humour returned. The episode appeared more clearly, as a flirtation with an enigmatic, but decidedly charming, chance travelling companion. The girl was a riddle, and a riddle once guessed ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... certain, certain, assured. cesser, to cease. chacun, each. chagrin, m., grief, gloom. Chalde, f., Chaldaea. Chalden, m., Chaldee. chaleur, f., heat, warmth. chambre, f., chamber, room. champ, m., field. chanceler, to stagger, waver. chant, m., song. chanter, to sing. chaque, each, every, charmant, delightful. charmer, to charm, soothe. chasser, to chase, drive away. chtier, to chastise, punish. chtiment, m., punishment. chef, m., chief. chemin, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine |
