"Hesitancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... FitzGerald's hesitancy about Major Moor's book was typical of the man. I am assured by Mr John Loder of Woodbridge, who knew him well, that it was inordinately difficult to get him to do anything. First he would be delighted with the idea, and ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... PRENTISS:—I find that you have so taken hold of the young ladies of my church that it will be hard for you to relieve yourself of them. They insist on meeting you again. The hesitancy to ask you questions last Thursday was due to the large number present. I have asked only the younger ones to come this week—those who are either "seeking the way," or are just at its beginning. Five of those you addressed last week have announced their purpose ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... of the vaguest. The new possibility was almost unthinkable by him at the moment. He was what was called at Hintock "a solid-going fellow;" he maintained his abeyant mood, not from want of reciprocity, but from a taciturn hesitancy, taught by life ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... taught the vile practice the consequences of which we have endeavored to describe, and who is already in the downward road,—let him resolve now to break the chain of sin, to reform at once, and to renounce his evil practice forever. The least hesitancy, the slightest dalliance with the demon vice, and the poor victim will be lost. Now, this moment, is the time to reform. Seek purity of mind and heart. Banish evil thoughts and shun evil companions; then with earnest prayer ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... every condition of thought and experiment and practice. If we fail, then even the knowledge of our attempt will die with us. For this, and all else which may come, I believe we are prepared!" He paused. No one spoke, but we all bowed our heads gravely in acquiescence. He resumed, but with a certain hesitancy: ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... seemed a direct invitation to catastrophe, if catastrophe there was planned to be. The latter—well, the choice was certainly small. One thing, however, he realised, was plain—he must show neither fear nor hesitancy. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... other points of probable divergence between reader and writer, and indicate more particularly my own doubtful parse and hesitancy over some of these pages. But it is impossible for me to make one to whom I am so deeply indebted an offender for a word or a Scriptural rendering. On the grave and awful themes which she discusses, I have little to say in the way of controversy. I would listen, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Bridget she received a letter from him setting forth the whole affair in a peculiarly vivid light. He said that something would have to be done about Bridget and advised her to come out on the earliest day possible to talk it over with him. He confessed to a hesitancy about discharging the cook, recalling the trouble she had experienced in getting her away from a neighbour in the first place. But Bridget was drinking and quarrelling with Annie and using strong language in the presence of Phoebe. He would have discharged her long ago ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... a second and then clapping his hand to his pocket a smile spread slowly over his face. He followed the two stalwart officers for a few steps and paused irresolutely. Then, without further hesitancy, he walked rapidly to Spring Street and thence to the Hotel Aquidneck, where he entered the telephone booth. When he emerged he paid ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... that she was being swept forward by circumstances hard to combat, and how to resist or whether she could resist, were questions which pressed for an immediate answer. She possessed a temperament which warned her imperatively against this hasty marriage, nor was there any hesitancy in her belief that it would blight her young life beyond remedy. She was not one to moan or weep helplessly very long, however, and the first gust of passion and grief having passed, her mind began to clear and face the situation. Looking ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... a thing to hear, the soft fall and hesitancy of Faith's voice at the last word. Yet they hardly told of the struggle it had cost. How the word thrilled him she did not know,—the persons living from whom he ever had that name were now so few, that there was a strange mingling with the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... easily, and there were many new words in his vocabulary. When he grew excited or enthusiastic, however, he dropped back into the old slurring and the dropping of final consonants. Also, there was an awkward hesitancy, at times, as he essayed the new words he had learned. On the other hand, along with his ease of expression, he displayed a lightness and facetiousness of thought that delighted her. It was his old spirit of humor ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... started when his eyes fell upon the ledger. After a moment's hesitancy he remarked: "Never but in one instance have I seen as fine work. That was the writing of my own dear boy; those capitals are just like his. ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor
... think that way," persisted Governor North, nettled by Morrison's hesitancy in jumping into the ring with his own party, "what ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... this by the lower corner, between your thumb and forefinger, so that you may be sure not to touch the sight of the picture; hold it to the light, and tell me if you recognise the face." M. Godin did as directed and replied without hesitancy: "It is a picture of M. Latour." "Good," rejoined Maitland, taking back the negative and passing him the letter; "now tell me if you recognise that signature." M. Godin looked sharply at the letter, holding it open between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, and read the ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... companionship; the fact that one of Mrs. Browne's maids was of Irish extraction and the other a rosy Swede may have had something to do with their admission into the exclusive set below stairs, but that is outside the question. If the Suffolk maids felt any hesitancy about accepting the hybrid combination as their equals, it was never manifested by word or deed. Even the astute Antoine, who had lived long in the boulevards of Paris, and who therefore knew an American when he saw one at any distance or at ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... hope in her heart that kindled color in her pale cheeks and light in her weary eyes, sped away to the Spragues. There was no tremor in the hand that raised the dragon-headed knocker, nor hesitancy in the voice that bade the servant say that "Miss Boone requested a few moments' ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... feel himself as effect. Try to imagine a billiard ball which feels it moves others, but which does not feel that it is moved. What we call decision is an idea which decides us because it exercises more power over us than the others do; what we term deliberation is a hesitancy between two or three ideas which at the moment have equal force; what we name volition is an idea, and what we call will is our understanding applied to facts. We do not want to fight; we conceive the idea of fighting and the idea carries us away; we do not want to hang ourselves; we have the obsessing ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... all, and showed favoritism or privileges to none. It was through that ungovernable impulse that permeates the body and flows through the hot Southern blood that he so recklessly threw his life away, leading his men to the charge. In a moment of hesitancy among his troops, he felt the supreme responsibility of Leadership, placed himself where danger was greatest, bullets falling thick and fast; thus by the inspiration of his own individual courage, he hoped to carry his men with ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... In the hesitancy at the White House during the last eclipse, in the public distress and the personal grief, Lincoln withheld himself from this debate. No great utterances break the gloom of this period. Nevertheless, what may be considered his reply to Stevens is to be found. Buried in the ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... credit her hesitancy. It was a deceit, he felt, a bit of theatricalism,—the simulated modesty of ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... lies in the proper uprearing of our children. The fact is recognized, but is the duty fulfilled? Do we rear our children as we should? There is but one answer: We fail. Teaching them many things for their good, we yet keep from them ignorantly, foolishly, with a hesitancy and neglect unpardonable—knowledge, the possession of which is essential for ...
— Every Girl's Book • George F. Butler
... matter if I did not feel positive of your success. I am sure the members of the club have the average intelligence, and, seeing that you have charmed us all by your unique performance, you need have no hesitancy in trying your powers before a Halifax audience," ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... answered: "Yes; I know him well. Where did you find him?" and notwithstanding he saw the quiet figure he drew back with an expression of fear and hesitancy. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... remained for some moments in a state of hesitancy, as to whether I should ride forward or go back. A feeling of shame was upon me, and I believe I would have turned my horse and stolen gently away, but just then I saw the fair rider draw forth from her bosom something ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... eyes and looked fixedly at him. This reference to an outbreak of fire I felt sure was made with a purpose. It certainly had the desired effect of removing from our host's manner the last signs of hesitancy. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... still a child, no doubt, but a child ripening into womanhood. She had reached that adorable, uncertain hour when the frolicsome girl changes to a young woman. At that stage of life a bud-like delicacy, a hesitancy of contour that is exquisitely charming, distinguishes young girls. The outlines of womanhood appear amidst girlhood's innocent slimness, and woman shoots forth at first all embarrassment, still retaining much of ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... Sir Charles's hesitancy in regard to two of the questions asked had contained a hint that they might involve intimate personal matters, and Harley was prepared to learn that the source of the distinguished surgeon's dread lay in some unrevealed episode of the past. ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... usual. And so now, on quitting his litter to commence the cause of Milo, at the sight of Pompey, encamped, as it were, with his troops, and seeing arms shining round about the Forum, he was so confounded that he could hardly begin his speech, for the trembling of his body and hesitancy of his tongue; whereas Milo, meantime, was so bold and intrepid in his demeanor, that he disdained either to let his hair grow, or to put on the mourning habit. And this, indeed, seems to have been the principal cause of his condemnation. ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... seemed to him a day lost. He had no doubt now but that he loved his cousin, and the opportunity of telling her so—of profiting by her predisposition of the moment—had passed. She would remember herself, she would remember his weak hesitancy, she would despise him. He rose and walked uneasily up and down. And yet—and it disgusted him with himself still more—he was again conscious of the feeling of relief he had before experienced. A vague formula, "It's better as it ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... suggestive, for there was a furtive, peculiar action on the part of the one in front, who was evidently uneasy, and kept on looking behind him and to right and left, as if in search of danger or a way of escape, and in both a peculiar hesitancy that ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... into that maelstrom of frenzied murder-lust took courage of the highest order. But neither Bohannan nor the Frenchman had even paled. Not one of their men showed any hesitancy whatever. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... back of the settle and paused, looking down at the thick white hair with a curious expression of hesitancy in his eyes. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... painfully in remembrance of what hung upon his movements. With a single sharp word to the sentry at the hatch he swung himself carelessly over the edge, mysteriously disappearing into the gloom beneath. That was no time for hesitancy, and I was already preparing to do likewise, when the guard, a surly-looking brute, promptly inserted the point of his bayonet into my ragged garment, accompanying this kindly act with a stern order to remain where ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... Washington Conference, and still more difficult to know what outcome we ought to desire. I will endeavour to set forth the various factors each in turn, not simplifying the issues, but rather aiming at producing a certain hesitancy which I regard as desirable in dealing with China. I shall consider successively the interests and desires of America, Japan, Russia and China, with an attempt, in each case, to gauge what parts of these various interests and desires are ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... perhaps because I sought to conceal the fact that I was just the tiniest bit provoked. She had said this with a little hesitancy, as if she had been just timidly venturing on deep waters. She looked at me, and I think she sighed again, and immediately asked for my very expert advice about cutting into a piece of very cheap goods that has come from St. John's, and ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... a moment's hesitancy, then Aunt Mildred placed her hand on the board, and said: "Some one has always to be the fool for ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... no hesitancy about thrusting himself into the circle of young dancers, and shunning the table of drinkers; and yet he longed for a drink; but his mouth watered still more for a kiss from the beautiful Magdalene, ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... International Secretary of the Socialist Party.—'The Socialists of the United States would have no hesitancy whatsoever in joining forces with the rest of their countrymen to repel the Bolsheviki who would try to invade our country and force a form of government upon our people which our people were not ready for, ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... mixed up in the documents Ogilvy left with me. I found it on my desk when I was sorting out the papers, and in my capacity of attorney for the N.C.O. I had no hesitancy ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... woman, even if she be completely mistress of herself.... Thus her flights of thought, like carrier-pigeons, never fail to reach their end, although at times they circle and hover as though troubled by some mysterious hesitancy or temptation to turn back from ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... negligence: "Aren't you going to wait till Major du Peuty and Major Brocard arrive?" Guynemer's only answer was to wave towards the sky then freeing itself from its veils of fog as he himself was shaking off his hesitancy, and his friend felt that he must not be urgent. Everybody of late had noticed his nervousness, and Guynemer knew it and resented it; tact was more necessary than ever with him. Let it be remembered that he was the pet, almost the spoiled child, of his service, ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... and let drop no word that would have aroused suspicion as to the truth. With a slight misgiving I presented him to her and was again relieved of fear. She received the introduction in her usual gracious manner, and without the least hesitancy or embarrassment joined in the conversation. An amusing part about the introduction was that I was upon the point of introducing him as "Shiny," and stammered a second or two before I could recall his name. We chatted ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... water was revealed to the eyes of the girls. It was shimmering in the deep shadow of the foliage under which it flowed until it became lost in the shadows of foliage and rocks. Harriet drove her boat in without the least hesitancy. She saw by glancing above her head that there were no heavy limbs of trees hanging over the little waterway. A sounding with the oar developed the fact that there was only about three feet of water ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... such a fervent, and, at the same time, confident manner, the stranger paused a moment as he was turning away; for a short time he seemed engaged in deep thought, which had the effect of totally changing his former, and apparently predetermined course of action. Turning again to Ellen, who saw his hesitancy ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... slight form standing beneath, marked her hesitancy, and watched her slow progress down the terraces and into the park. This nocturnal enterprise on her part was rather perplexing, and he was in two minds whether or not to cross the room and consult with Furneaux, when the ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... direction, his gaze fixed upon the trim, slender figure in blue. He now saw that her dark eyes were filled with a soft seriousness that belied her brave smile; a delicate pink had come into her clear, high-bred face; the hesitancy of the gentlewoman enveloped her with a mantle that shielded her from any suspicion of boldness. Brock struggled to his feet, amazement ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... that you approve of what I did," she said. "I confess I had some hesitancy, but not enough to prevent my carrying out the design. But when the first effort proved without result, I set about making a study of all the Humes in the directory. I had my secretary make me a typed list of them, ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... incorporation of proportional representation into our electoral system. This is most true. One member indeed (Lord Lochee) did not shrink from this conclusion, but his colleagues were unable to report that a case had been made out for the adoption "here and now" of proportional representation. Their hesitancy and the reasons they advanced as justifying it must lead many to a conclusion opposite to their own. They themselves are indeed emphatic in pressing the limitation "here and now" as qualifying their verdict. They wish it to be most distinctly understood that they have no irresistible objection to ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... best, and God's blessing be with you. Much is done for the blackguard poor. Let us remember our own class, and do good while we have opportunity. I hereby authorize you to act in my behalf, and do whatever is to be done without hesitancy." ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... down I said nothing. There was a little thing I noted, however. His hands were trembling, and it was five minutes before he met my inquiring look. This I should not consider worth mentioning if I had not observed the same hesitancy follow the same disappearance up-stairs on the succeeding night. It was the only time in the day when he really left me, and, when he came back, he was not like himself for a good half hour or more. "I will not displease ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... have been fully an hour at it, riding at no mean pace, and with utter disregard of danger. Although I knew little of where we were, and nothing as to the condition of the path we traversed, yet so complete was my confidence in Craig that I felt no hesitancy in blindly following the pace he set. Then a black shape loomed up before us so suddenly that it was only by a quick effort I prevented a collision. Even as I held my horse poised half in air, I perceived it was Craig who blocked ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... trees there were he came without mishap at last to the ornate building concerning the purpose of which he had asked Lu-don only to be put off with the assertion that it was forgotten—nothing strange in itself but given possible importance by the apparent hesitancy of the priest to discuss its use and the impression the ape-man had gained at ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... her back from Mick and the sail. He would have cleared himself, but his legs were somehow mixed up with the foot of the bed, and she occupied his attention too much. The hag raised the lead and rushed, and for the only time in my life I hit a woman. Without hesitancy or compunction, only revolted at the thought of such contact with such matter, I smashed her down. The Boss and Mick freed themselves together and embraced each other willingly. Twinetoes was playing ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... company. It was near the end of the day, when I was almost back to camp, that I saw him coming along the road, with the peculiar swing to his shoulders and arms that, once acquired, never leaves the deep-water sailor; so I had no hesitancy in greeting him after the manner ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... so many friends we had counted on, the bickerings which arose among the Confederates when we met just now at the Isthmus, the slackness of all Spartans save Leonidas in preparing for war, the hesitancy of Corcyra in joining us. Thebes is Medizing, Crete is Medizing, so is Argos. Thessaly is wavering. I can almost name the princes and great nobles over Hellas who are clutching at Persian money. O Father Zeus," wound up the Athenian, "if there is not some master-spirit directing all this villany, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... colonists, which received them, as it were, with open arms and began to cleanse their bodies by removing the paint. In both of these experiments the recognition appeared to be instantaneous; there was no hesitancy whatever. ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... a horse covered with dust and foam, appeared the Roman herald. Without one moment's hesitancy, he saw in Zenobia the Queen, and taking off his helmet, said, 'that Caius Petronius, and Cornelius Varro, ambassadors of Aurelian, were in waiting at the outer gates of the palace, and asked a brief audience of the Queen of Palmyra, upon ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... and what Thea called his timidity in others, his unspent and miraculously preserved youthfulness. Men could never impose upon the doctor, he guessed, but women always could. Fred liked, too, the doctor's manner with Thea, his bashful admiration and the little hesitancy by which he betrayed his consciousness of the change in her. It was just this change that, at present, interested Fred more than anything else. That, he felt, was his "created value," and it was his best chance ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... There was some hesitancy among the American people during the Spanish War. Even the leaders were not ready then. Now the leaders are prepared—for markets, for trade, for investments. They are indifferent to political conquest, but economically they ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... the peril was instant; unused as he was to meeting such emergency, there was neither panic nor hesitancy in his actions. ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... instance—might have noted his hesitancy, might have realized that coming to a place does not imply remaining ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... be defeated or postponed. I then, without preparation, made a long, and as I think, a comprehensive, speech covering the general subject and its principal details. It was the only speech of considerable length that was made in favor of the bill in the Senate. There seemed to be a hesitancy in passing a measure so radical in its character and so destructive to the existing system ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... about Renan, a propos of the volume of "Les Evangiles." He brings out the contradiction between the literary taste of the artist, which is delicate, individual, and true, and the opinions of the critic, which are borrowed, old-fashioned and wavering. This hesitancy of choice between the beautiful and the true, between poetry and prose, between art and learning, is, in fact, characteristic. Renan has a keen love for science, but he has a still keener love for good writing, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as a moment later she confidingly took his arm and strolled toward the library, it was evident that all her flutter and hesitancy, her seeming freedom and mimic show of war, were like those of some bright tropical bird fascinated by a remorseless serpent whose intent eyes and deadly purpose are creating a spell ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... with Wyndham entailed immediate removal from the atmosphere of Theo Desmond, hesitancy might have ended in capitulation. But life-long intimacy with him, as the wife of his closest friend, was unthinkable for a moment; and if by the wildest possibility Paul ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... colleague of Tiberius is known to have opposed the movement in its initial stages. Even the man who was subsequently won over to the capitalist interest hesitated long before taking the formidable step: It was believed, however, that the hesitancy of Marcus Octavius was due more to his personal regard for Tiberius than to respect for the people's wishes.[353] The tribune who was to scotch the obnoxious measure was an excellent instrument for a dignified opposition. He was grave ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... no striking outward sign of distress, and yet here, as in other Lancashire towns, any careful eye may see that there is a visible increase of mendicant stragglers, whose awkward plaintiveness, whose helpless restraint and hesitancy of manner, and whose general appearance, tell at once that they belong to the operative classes now suffering in Lancashire. Beyond this, the sights I first noticed upon the streets, as peculiar to ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... quoting these lines when his wife gave him glimpses of her heart; and at such times he had no hesitancy in deciding that the steps she took were not alone, but the Lord was ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... even as a matter of self-preservation, I do not feel that the hour has yet come that will render it safe for the Government to take that step.' I am willing to believe that something of this kind weighs in the mind of the President and the Cabinet, and that there is some ground for hesitancy as a mere matter of political expediency." This admirable and discriminating support of the President finds another capital illustration in weighty words of his in answer to animadversions of Prof. Francis W. Newman, of England, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... sentiment favorable to prompt ratification, that part of the Treaty which related to a League of Nations met a variety of opposing forces. Some of them were based on personal, political and partisan considerations, and some of them founded upon a sincere hesitancy about adventuring into new and untried fields of international effort. In the main, party lines were somewhat strictly drawn in the Senate, the Democrats favoring and the Republicans opposing ratification of the treaty as it stood.[12] All debates in the Senate relating to the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... Marquis's actions was called in question in the Japanese House of Representatives, the ex- Premier absolutely denied the truth of the statement attributed to him by the Japanese papers, without any show of hesitancy, and thus boldly shirked the responsibility which, in reality, lay on him ... "] Nevertheless, her warning had an unmistakable note about it and occasioned grave anxiety, since the ultimatum of the previous May in connection ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... worried about his position; the orator convinced of the truth of his message worries not as to how it will be received; the machinist sure of his plans hesitates not in the construction of his machinery; the architect assured of his accuracy pushes on his builders without hesitancy or question, fear, or alarm; the engineer knowing his engine and his destination has no heart quiver as he handles the lever. It is the doubter, the unsure, the aimless, the dabbler, the frivolous, the dilettante, the uncertain that worry. ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... he clung capriciously with the silent and apparently causeless obstinacy to which very old persons are subject, and which makes them resemble children. In order to sit down beside the young lady he needed a folding-chair. His slightest movements were marked by the inert heaviness, the stupid hesitancy, which characterize the movements of a paralytic. He sat slowly down upon his chair with great caution, mumbling some unintelligible words. His cracked voice resembled the noise made by a stone falling into a well. The young woman nervously ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... not feel, Tu, dear," she said, "that I have gained absolution for my many deceptions until that very forward Miss King has been talked over into marrying Wei; and I insist, therefore," she added, with an amount of hesitancy which reduced the demand to the level of a plaintive appeal, "that we start to-morrow for Ch'engtu to see the ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... will be done, as well as a probability, falling little short of certainty, that all the ships of the rear will not do the same thing; that is, they will be thrown into confusion with all its dire train of evils, doubt, hesitancy, faltering, and inconsequent action. It is hard work to knit again a shattered line under the unremittent assault of hardened veterans, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... people. We like you. But your Government is not a government of honour. Your honourable men do not seem to get control." You can't measure the damage that this does us. Whatever the United States may propose till this is fixed and forgotten will be regarded with a certain hesitancy. They will not fully trust the honour of our Government. They say, too, "See, you've preached arbitration and you propose peace agreements, and yet you will not arbitrate this: you know you are wrong, and this attitude proves it." Whatever Mr. Hay might or could have done, he made a ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... me, Lady Ogram," said Dyce, in tone of graceful hesitancy. "I feel that it will be a very ill return for all your kindness to rob you of Constance's help and society, which you ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... at times appear to me a foolhardy one, but the confidence of the woman of Bulika, real or simulated, always overcame my hesitancy. The princess's magic, she insisted, would prove powerless against the children; and as to any force she might muster, our animal-allies alone would assure our superiority: she was herself, she said, ready, with a good stick, to encounter any two men of Bulika. She confessed to not a little fear ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... first their successes not to their superior organization, to their better preparation, or to the better discipline and appointment of their armies, but to their very rashness, to their audacity even, and the hesitancy, cautious and deliberation of the government. Napoleon owed his successes as general and civilian far more to the air of power he assumed, and the conviction he produced of his invincibility in the minds of his opponents, than to his civil ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... that that Government does not realize the character of its obligations under that convention. As there is reason to believe, however, that its hesitancy in recognizing them springs, in part at least, from real difficulty in discharging them in connection with its obligations to other governments, the expediency of further forbearance on our part is believed to be ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... yet remain between the natives and settlers and I have no hesitancy in saying that it will increase so long as we treat them kindly, and deal honestly with them. I have been blest in my labors the last year. Much grain has been raised for the Indians. I herewith furnish you the account of Bishop Dame, of ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... Themar flushed uncomfortably. Carl had a way of reading between the lines that was exceedingly disconcerting. His information, he said at length after an interval of marked hesitancy, had been too meager. He had listened at the door once when the Baron had spoken of Miss Westfall to his secretary. A housemaid had frightened him away and he had bolted upstairs—to attend to something else while they were both safely occupied. Rather than work blindly ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... she bade them both a smiling "addio" and left the apartment. When she had gone, and he was left alone with his foundling, the Cardinal stood for a few minutes absorbed in silent meditation, mechanically gathering his robes about him. After a pause of evident hesitancy and trouble, he approached the boy and gently laid a hand upon ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... congruous, so consistent in every detail, came trippingly and without the least hesitancy from her tongue. Andreuccio remembered that his father had indeed lived at Palermo; he knew by his own experience the ways of young folk, how prone they are to love; he saw her melt into tears, he felt her embraces and sisterly kisses; and ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... when Miss Thompson's year was up and the question arose as to her re-engagement, there was considerable hesitancy. But the situation was relieved in a most unexpected fashion. Thaddeus Winslow, first mate on the clipper ship, "Owner's Favorite," at home from a voyage to the Dutch East Indies, fell in love with Miss Floretta, proposed, ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... our choice between medicine, and the curative power of dropping anxiety and letting ourselves get well, there would be no hesitancy, ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... fight, and assumed the offensive without a second's hesitancy. He seemed to have been crouching in the bushes, and calmly awaited the time when the boy should ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... a minute of hesitancy while the men below conferred, the marshal looking contemptuously down upon them, his revolver gleaming ominously in the light. Evidently the group hated to go back ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... he was going to say when he began, and he did not know how he intended to end. He heard with a passionate sense of relief that the door behind them opened, and turned to find that Mrs. Latimer stood upon the threshold as if in hesitancy. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... past emotions was quite swallowed up in the joy of the present. In just what light the maiden regarded him, she made it difficult enough for him to guess. But the interpretation of his own feelings,—this furious throbbing of his heart, the awkward hesitancy of his speech,—was no very difficult matter. When at last he left her, at her mother's door, he made himself an inward promise that this should be the first of many such meetings. And when he reached his own quarters, it was to amaze de Windt by ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... this hour of awful woe—to come in and read it to you all, that you might be influenced to greater zeal and nobler sacrifices in the temperance cause. You know how bright his prospects were a short time ago, but he has been murdered in his prime by whiskey, and I have no hesitancy in saying that the man who was the chief instrument in his destruction is a hotel-keeper in this town who is the strongest opponent of this ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... decrees—namely, that "they shall be given only to citizens; and if he appoints to them his creatures or kinsmen, or those of the auditors or fiscal, or of their wives, the royal Audiencia shall check him without any reserve or hesitancy. The fiscal thereof shall oppose him, and take all possible measures to this end." This should be charged upon the consciences of all; and the government notary should be ordered to put upon all commissions of offices of justice or war, or of encomiendas of Indians, or ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... in a low, lounging chair with a big ostrich feather fan in her hand, and she looked up expectantly into her lover's face. There was nothing else for it, and he took the plunge valiantly—and with precisely the correct amount of maidenly hesitancy, Lady Ethel named a day for their marriage. And then—somehow there seemed nothing more to be said; each ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... always felt that if the merits of a good bill were properly explained to a legislature committee, there will be no hesitancy in having it favorably reported out and finally passed. I believe the legislature of 1919 took this view of the tree planting bill introduced by myself, as it was passed by both the Senate and the House, and later ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... I found words with which to answer. "Impossible!" I burst out, flinging doubt, fear, hesitancy, everything I had hitherto trembled at to the winds. "It was in my nature to take it, worked upon as I was by family affection, the awfulness of our father's approaching death, and a thousand uncanny influences all carefully measured and prepared ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... the analysis of motive are remarkable. The author has a real gift for portraiture. In particular he touches in his minor folk with extraordinarily deft defining lines. Perhaps in general there is a little hesitancy in craftsmanship, a slight quavering between the fashionable modern realism and an older romanticism. But the seriousness of his artistic intention, the solidity of his work (which is by no means to say stodginess, quite the contrary) will commend Mr. AUMONIER to all who ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... the treasure back into his host's hand, at last. "I'd like, please, to look at you," he said. "It won't hurt," he added quickly, instantly conscious of some unspoken hesitancy. ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... assent with another nod; and on this he turned to an adjacent door, opened it gently, whipped out his flash-lamp, and passed through. Without sign of hesitancy, she followed; and like two shadows they dogged the dancing spot-light of the flash-lamp, through a linen-closet and service-room, down a shallow well threaded by a spiral of iron steps and, by way of the long corridor linking the kitchen-offices, ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... word, I almost hesitate to use, yet I am sure I need not here. The hesitancy is because the word and its relationship are spoken of lightly, frivolously, so much, even in good circles. I mean that rare fine word lover. Where two have met, and acquaintance has deepened into friendship, ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... day passed without incident. Mademoiselle's absence continued and I would have questioned the Vicomte concerning it, but a not unnatural hesitancy beset me, and ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... had so long stood forbade constraint, and put at defiance all those formalities which, under other circumstances, might have grown out of the meeting. She advanced without hesitancy, and the hand of her lover grasped that which she extended, his arm passed about her, his lip was fastened to her own without hinderance, and, in that one sweet embrace, in that one moment of blissful forgetfulness, all other of life's circumstances ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... sojourn in Holland was ended in September 1649, in response to an urgent invitation from the studious young Queen Christina of Sweden, who wanted the now famous philosopher as an ornament to her court. After some hesitancy he sailed for Stockholm, where only five months afterward ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... the Chouteaus, the Papins, the Cerres, indeed by nearly every leading citizen of St. Louis, all eagerly vying with one another for the privilege of entertaining General Clarke's brother. I think the captain's hesitancy arose from the feeling that he ought to accept Emile Yosti's or Manuel Lisa's hospitality, since his business was chiefly concerned with them; but with me it was the feeling that it would be intolerable to dwell ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... we had to walk. But the general did not seem at all averse to the exercise. It seemed to me he rather enjoyed returning the salutes with the greatest punctilio and flourish. On our way we came to one of the capital's most famous taverns and I thought I detected a hesitancy ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... surroundings, and the home at Amesbury, an attempt is made to answer such questions as naturally arise in regard to the localities mentioned by Whittier in his ballads of the region. Many anecdotes of the poet and several poems by him are now first published. It is with some hesitancy that I have ventured to add a chapter upon a phase of his character that has never been adequately presented: I refer to his keen sense of humor. It will be understood that none of the impromptu verses I ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... able to distinguish drinkable water from the salty or alkaline article almost as far as it can be seen, and a stream about which the least suspicion is entertained is invariably tasted with gingerly hesitancy to begin with. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... competitive bids; and because George always knew precisely what he wanted, their task of selection became comparatively easy. With every detail of the business he was familiar, from long experience. There was no piece of machinery that he did not know better than its makers. There was never any hesitancy as between rival types or loading down with superfluous gear. His main concern was ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... confident of his ability to convince her of the superior importance of the actuality of what they together might make of the future. He was accustomed to the bending of circumstance to his will; in the end he would prove stronger than any hesitancy she might, perhaps, reveal. His desire to have her had grown to such proportions that he could not, for an instant, think of existence without her as an intimate part. He even mentally determined when he should go to the city, the jeweller's, for the square emerald and flowered pearls. He ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... their own countrymen. Those speaking the same language and coming from the same country are always received kindly and are assisted. A Prussian helps a Prussian, a Saxon a Saxon, etc., etc.; secondly, they have less hesitancy in asking for what they need, being accustomed to it from their own country. There, when a mechanic has learned his trade he goes on his travels, and seldom having money, must beg his way. He is seldom refused his reisepfennig, travelling ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... central square, where the official business was, meanwhile, transacted. His return to the Spanish quarters, even if compulsory, had less in it to strike the natives than is commonly believed. It was a re-installation in old quarters, and therefore the 'Tlatocan (Council of Chiefs) itself felt no hesitancy in meeting there again, until the real nature of the dangerous visitors was ascertained, when the council gradually withdrew from the snare, leaving the unfortunate 'chief of men' in Spanish hands." [Footnote: 12 Annual Report of Peabody Museum, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... as a master of men, brushed this hesitancy aside, and with jovial tact. "A first-rate fellow," he insisted. "One of our best! Only pig-headed, as the best always are. And so, when I offer him a choice of two farms, each better than his present one, he must needs take it into his head that I'm doing him an ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... a penny—it is better to give him a twopence." And then Lamb describes the choice and fragrant drink, Saloop, the delight of the sweep, a basin of which together with a slice of delicate bread and butter will cost but a twopence. As we read the description we have no hesitancy in believing that the "unpennied sweep" frequently became a pennied sweep after the ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... Friendship is not words, but meanings. It is an intelligence above language. One imagines endless conversations with his Friend, in which the tongue shall be loosed, and thoughts be spoken without hesitancy or end; but the experience is commonly far otherwise. Acquaintances may come and go, and have a word ready for every occasion; but what puny word shall he utter whose very breath is thought and meaning? Suppose you go to bid farewell to your Friend who is setting out on ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... hesitancy now. But he spoke with an unnatural rapidity as though he were afraid of breaking down altogether if he stopped a moment to reflect upon himself and ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... There was no hesitancy; for their own sake and for the sake of their commerce, this new pirate must not come to Charles Town harbour, and an expedition of two vessels, heavily armed and well manned and commanded by Mr. ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... had brought rum and sugar with him, and there was hot water enough; but Apollonius, who had never drunk anything strong, declined the grog with thanks. In the meantime the workman had brought clothes. Apollonius assured them that he felt perfectly himself again but that he felt a hesitancy about getting out of bed. Laughingly the old man gave him his clothes. Apollonius had undressed under the bedclothes and in the same way he now dressed beneath them. The councilman turned his back to him and looked laughingly out of the window at storm ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... from under a rock only a few feet away, and a little gleam of satisfaction in her sombre eyes showed that she had found that for which she searched. The angry rattlesnake was coiled to strike, but she approached without hesitancy. Calculating how far it could throw itself, she stood a little beyond its range and for a moment stood watching the glitter of its wicked little eyes, the lightning-like action of its tongue. When she moved, its head followed her, but she dexterously pinned it to the rock with her forked ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... attempting a landing in Holland, were foiled by the difficulties of the coast as much as by the valor of the Dutch fleet. In 1778 the harbor of New York, and with it undisputed control of the Hudson River, would have been lost to the English, who were caught at disadvantage, but for the hesitancy of the French admiral. With that control, New England would have been restored to close and safe communication with New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and this blow, following so closely on Burgoyne's ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... "I have no hesitancy in saying that it is by far the best presentation of this very important subject that I have ever seen. It answers many important questions for which I have seen no answer elsewhere."—Prof. William R. Manning, ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... him into the drawing-room, and had Bertie Patterson make him his tea. She did this very nicely; she helped rather than hindered the effect by her hesitancy and lack of complete confidence. She had never poured tea many times before for a young man—never at all for just such a ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... outside my district," growled the fellow, but I saw that his hesitancy was due to his uncertainty as to whom I really ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... September stillness was in the air, a September purple clothed the distant hills, but to Hilary the glories of the day were as things non-existent. Even the groom at Fairview, who took his horse, glanced back at him with a peculiar expression as he stood for a moment on the steps with a hesitancy the man ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... lifting her face slowly from Mrs. Luttrell's shoulder. "He must not feel that he has lost a home, must he, mother?" She pronounced the title which Mrs. Luttrell had begged her to bestow, still with a certain diffidence and hesitancy; but Mrs. Luttrell's brow smoothed ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... accounts for some Byzantine traits in your national character and for the formlessness and hesitancy which I, at least, seem to detect in the demeanour of many individual Anglo-Saxons. They realize that their traditional upbringing is opposed to truth. It gives them a sense of insecurity. It makes them shy and awkward. Poise! That is ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... peace which have been made by this Government have not been accepted by Mexico. With a view to avoid a protracted war, which hesitancy and delay on our part would be so well calculated to produce, I informed you in my annual message of the 8th December last that the war would "continue to be prosecuted with vigor, as the best means of securing peace," and recommended to your early and favorable ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... is the theory of the possibility of knowledge, and issues from criticism and scepticism. If we revert again to the history of Greek philosophy, we find a first period of enterprising speculation giving place to a second period of hesitancy and doubt. This phase of thought occurs simultaneously with the brilliantly humanistic age of Pericles, and it is undoubtedly true that energy is withdrawn from speculation largely for the sake of expending it in the more lively and engaging pursuits of politics and art. But there are ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... of any hesitancy or doubt whatever in the movements of either vessel. The frigate had borne away into our wake the moment that we had borne away, and was now foaming along after us in gallant style, with studding-sails set on ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... prescribed, and this northwest angle was the commencement. Twenty years only before this (1763) Nova Scotia had been organized as a distinct Province, then including what are now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and this angle was referred to as a boundary without hesitancy or doubt. Indeed, the treaty itself, as if to make assurance doubly sure, fixed it where a due north line from the source of the St. Croix will intersect those highlands which divide the rivers which flow into the river ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... probably it would never so much as be suspected that the negro had been away. Ever since my boyhood I had listened to stories concerning the operation of Underground Railroads by means of which slaves were assisted to freedom, and now felt no hesitancy in confiding these two women to the care of their operators. The only important fact fronting us was that we must act quickly, before Kirby and his aides, armed with legal authority, could ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... candidate for the presidency of the United States delighted an audience of ten thousand or more in the Salt Lake Tabernacle by his remarkable handling of questions and comments thrown at him from that vast audience. There was no hesitancy or uncertainty. He spoke "as one who knew." He was prepared. He had so lived with the questions of the day that they fairly seemed to be part of him. The interesting teacher never teaches all he knows. His ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... questions vaguely referring to the same subject. His jealous devotion to Pierre rebelled against this preference. And Pierre felt as though he could hear him thinking; he guessed and understood, read in his averted eyes and in the hesitancy of his tone, the words which rose to his lips but were not spoken—which the druggist was too timid or too prudent and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... that a careful census taken by the editor of the Cowboy revealed that in the whole of Billings County, which included in its limits at that time a territory the size of Massachusetts, there lived exactly one hundred and twenty-two males and twenty-seven females. There was a certain hesitancy on the part even of the law-abiding to assert too loudly their opposition to the light-triggered elements which were "frisking" their horses and cattle. The "mass meeting" voted, in general, that order was preferable to disorder and adjourned, after ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... friends, what your general or abstract duty is as teachers. Although you have to generate in your pupils a large stock of ideas, any one of which may be inhibitory, yet you must also see to it that no habitual hesitancy or paralysis of the will ensues, and that the pupil still retains his power of vigorous action. Psychology can state your problem in these terms, but you see how impotent she is to furnish the elements ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... uncanny for, with all sweetness and hesitancy, revealing him as stiff and unresponsively complacent. It was impossible for him to talk freely with a person uncongenial to him of the things he felt deeply; and, pertinaciously, over her coffee and cigarettes, it was the deep things that she softly wooed ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... who miss things by vagueness. His yellow-green eyes were blazing when they met hers, and without any words he offered her his arm, foreign fashion, and drew her out on to the broad terrace to a secluded seat he had apparently selected beforehand, as there was no hesitancy in ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the second comes when the bridegroom's eyes are uncovered. They are then to converse with each other, and they must not for a moment relax the talk. Neither has any knowledge of the time that this test must continue. There must be no faltering, or hesitancy. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... no hesitancy now. Rising, he leaned over the table and read the few words the other had spread out for his perusal. Then he slowly rose to his full height, as he answered, with some slight display ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... no hesitancy to taking refuge there because the place belonged to him. Quite recently he had foreclosed, the mortgage which gave him title to the small farm upon which ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... same time disguise his own writing. Even the most skilled forger cannot entirely hide his individuality and is bound to relapse into his habitual ways of forming and connecting letters, words, etc. The employment of extreme care can be detected by signs of hesitancy, the substitution of curves for angles, etc., which appear very plainly when the writing is critically examined with a magnifying glass. When a signature has been forged by means of tracing over the original, the resemblance is often so exact as to deceive even the supposed author. In these ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... Boone was mentioned to Governor Dunmore as precisely the man to meet this exigency. The Governor made application to the practiced hunter, and Boone, without the slightest hesitancy, accepted the perilous office. Indeed he seems to have been entirely unconscious of the heroism he was developing. Never did knight errant of the middle ages undertake an achievement of equal daring; for capture not only was certain death, but death under the most frightful tortures. But ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... makes the biggest mistake in supposing that he is a great deal smarter than the men he sells. Because he is a peg higher in trade, as jobber, importer, or manufacturer, he imagines he is also greater in ability, and he has no hesitancy in advising these poor devils about their business. I was selling scythes several years ago, and worked for just such a man as I have been describing. He was a good mechanic, but pig-headed; goods must be made and finished a certain way, because ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... the negroes of Georgia. Later in life, he heard a great many more of these tales, while traveling through the cotton states, swapping yarns with the negroes after he had gained their confidence. His knowledge of their hesitancy about telling a story and his sympathy with them made it possible for him to hear rare tales when another would probably have found only silence. Sometimes, while waiting for a train, he would saunter up ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... her air of hesitancy. She had, as she was wont to say, talked herself enthusiastic, and in the ardour of her purpose to annihilate the misunderstanding that had troubled her so long she felt herself mistress of ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... shop just in time to find him locking the door. He recognized them immediately, and had no hesitancy in opening up his store again. Phil soon found a rifle to his liking, and Garry replaced the compass that he had dropped when he was lost in the woods; ammunition was also procured, and then Garry purchased a small ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... two weeks," said Martin. "Many things can happen in that time. If I were you, I'd forget that the Judge is on earth. I'll—I'll tell Sayers about this matter," said his benefactor, with the first sign of hesitancy that Jim had ever seen him display. "And in the meantime, I'll do all I can to get that Judge to show some sense. You can be certain of that. Well, may good luck go ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... wait here." He did not want her to hear the stealthy tread of the undertaker's men, to meet the coffin which they were going to bring downstairs and place in the hall. "I will bring him in here. Is there anything you would like me to say to him, my dear?" he asked, and spoke with a certain hesitancy; for as yet he had not spoken of her future, feeling that her grief was too recent, too sacred, to permit of the obtrusion ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... addressing to-night. I chose it after somewhat anxious consideration, because I am aware that the bulk of opinion in the world of science strongly insists upon the finality of the axioms of mathematics, and therefore it was with no little hesitancy that I approached such a subject as this. I am well aware that, in the estimation of most of my learned confreres and fellow-seekers after scientific truth, to suggest those axioms may not embody final and universal truth is, if I may ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... condition of affairs in Scotland in the years immediately prior to this event will be instructive. In 1557, as a result of Knox's rebuke of the Scottish nobles for their hesitancy in forwarding the Reformed faith, the "Confederation of the Lords of the Congregation" was formed, and its members subscribed to the first of the five Covenants that played so important a part in the religious ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston
... bee-houses and stands have been recommended—all so different from what I prefer, that I perhaps ought to feel some hesitancy in offering one so cheap and simple; but as profit is my object, I shall offer no other apology. I have fifteen years' experience to prove its efficacy, and have no fears on this score in recommending it. I make stands in this way: a board about fifteen inches wide is cut off two feet ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... band until it had moved onward, past the spot where he was. Then his eyes fell on the hearse, and he took one eager step forward. Surely that was a familiar sight! The carriages came next, and by that time there was no hesitancy in his mind; for at length he recognized all the solemn import of the procession. It was a funeral, and in funerals Job had often borne a conspicuous part. The band was doubtless his call to duty; and should any one say that ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... hesitancy in saying that Graustark already idolizes this brave American," said Halfont, warmly. "He has won her affection. If the question is placed before the people to-morrow in proper form, I will vouch for it that the whole nation will rise and cry: 'Long live the ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... introduction, Claude felt some hesitancy about presenting himself to these ladies. Perhaps they didn't like Americans; he was always afraid of meeting French people who didn't. It was the same way with most of the fellows in his battalion, he had found; they were ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... addressed one word of love to the schoolmistress in the course of these pleasant walks. It seemed to me that we talked of everything but love on that particular morning. There was, perhaps, a little more timidity and hesitancy on my part than I have commonly shown among our people at the boarding-house. In fact, I considered myself the master at the breakfast-table; but, somehow, I could not command myself just then so ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... so precipitate, my Irene. I love her, but she lacks that prudent hesitancy which so often gives a man ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... to tell me that he had been all winter contemplating this; that he believed they would never again have so good an opportunity to travel in Europe, and that Dr. Willis's hesitancy about Ellen's health had decided the question. He had been planning and deliberating as silently and unsuspectedly as Ellen had done the year before. Never once had it crossed my mind that he desired it, or that it could be. But I found that he had for the ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... only one way in which you could, so far as I know. That was by buying my pet. I—I don't suppose," Hallam continued, with hesitancy, "that there is anything such a—a useless fellow as I could ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... hesitancy on the part of the monkeys. They began leaping from rope to rope, swinging by their tails to facilitate their descent, until finally the whole troop leaped to the top of the cage and swung themselves down the ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... indicative of what was to come. Like Aunt Beckey and Mrs. Clemens, they can now see that Mark was hardly appreciated when he lived here and that the things he did as a boy and was whipped for doing were not all bad after all. So they have been in no hesitancy about drawing out the bad things he did as well as the good in their efforts to get a "Mark Twain story," all incidents being viewed in the light of his present fame, until the volume of "Twainiana" is already considerable and growing in proportion as the "old timers" drop away and the stories ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... the red car two blocks away and arrived on foot at the pretty, three-storied, shingled Berkeley house. For an instant only, he was aware of an inward hesitancy, but the next moment he rang the bell. He knew that what he was doing was in direct violation of her wishes, and that he was setting her a difficult task to receive as a Sunday caller the multimillionaire and notorious Elam Harnish of newspaper ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... the world over, the democracy which was making uncomfortable claims in England itself. The English trading classes resented the shortage of cotton and the high duties which the protectionist North was imposing. With the defeat of the Union forces at Bull Run the prudent hesitancy of aristocrat and merchant in expressing their views disappeared. The responsible statesmen of both countries, especially Lincoln and Lord John Russell, refused to be stampeded, but unfortunately the leading newspapers served them ill. The "Times", with its constant ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... True, in the view of St. Peter's an experienced-looking gentleman in a full-bottomed wig was pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled lady on a camel. But in Venice so many things were happening at once—more, Tony was sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a twelve-month or in Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by their garb, ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... proposes to benefit, he is set upon, mobbed, hustled, mussed and finally ejected from the door with a battered hat and torn coat collar. Every other broking office in the Street has a pictorial caricature hanging over its ticker of his hesitancy and timidity, his rash venture, his silly and short-lived hilarity, his speedy and inevitable ruin, and his final departure, with his face distorted by rage and grief, and ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... Mr. Brady this morning, and examined minutely each shawl. Before leaving the lady said that, at the time when there was a hesitancy about the President issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, she sent to Mrs. Lincoln an ashes-of-rose shawl, which was manufactured in China, forwarded to France, and thence to Mrs. C—, in New York. ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... countrymen as to the relative quality of his magic. Therefore, he objected once more on another ground: "I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." This continued hesitancy put the Lord out of patience; who retorted sharply, "Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams |
