"Hesitancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... girl to cross the gardens and after hesitation knock at the door. She wants to know what has delayed her boy. She is all in a flutter on account of the overdue appointment to go to a party together. The scene of the pretty hesitancy on the step, her knocking, and the final impatient tapping with her foot is one of the best illustrations of the intimate mood in photoplay episodes. On the girl's entrance the uncle overwhelms her and the boy by saying ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... Chester followed him. Hal mounted the steps without hesitancy and turned the knob of the door. The door opened and the lad stepped inside, where he halted with a cry of surprise. Chester ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... said, with hesitancy and an entire change of tone and manner, "I am afeerd I ain't goin' to be able to pay you that little amount I owe you, but if you can give me ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... we hesitated a moment at the offer of our friend, a hesitancy we amused him by explaining as, presently, conscience-clear, we rattled with him through the hills. He was an interesting talker, a human-hearted, keen-minded man, and he had many more topics as well ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... leave him then, and he had a foot retired, preparing to re-enter his room, but there was a hesitancy in her manner that told him she had something more to say. She bit her nether lip—the orchards of Cammercy, he told himself, never bred a cherry a thousandth part so rich and so inviting, even to look at in candle-light; a shy dubiety hovered round her eyes. ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... hesitancy in her answer to the abrupt question. Piers, preoccupied as he was, could not but remark Mrs. Hannaford's constraint, almost confusion. At once it struck him that Daniel had been borrowing money of her, and the thought aroused strong indignation. His own hundred ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... he, with a little hesitancy over the unfamiliar term, "is well. Cannot you come to see us before that dreadful reception through which I am to be dragged? I'd like you to know Edith in a different way from ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... firesides from invasion and our national honor from disgrace. I would most earnestly recommend to Congress to abstain from all appropriations for objects not absolutely necessary; but I take upon myself, without a moment of hesitancy, all the responsibility of recommending the increase and prompt equipment of that gallant Navy which has lighted up every sea with its victories and spread an imperishable glory over ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Tyler • John Tyler
... The stranger appeared to think that amusing. Vye reddened, but he was also more than a little surprised that the man in the worn space uniform had read hesitancy right. Someone out of the Starfall should not be too particular about employment, and he could not tell ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... 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
... the throes of the conflict, I was constrained to speak and write of the Salvation Army's activities in the frightful struggle. Now that all is over and I reflect upon the price the nations have paid I realize much hesitancy in so doing. ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... in the dark, or a night under Garvey's roof. The former 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
... warnings, selfish forgetfulness, and the knowledge of an unconscious but irremediable wrong frightened and bewildered her; she hid her face and shrunk back trembling with remorse and shame. Moor, seeing in her agitation only maiden happiness or hesitancy, accepted and enjoyed a blissful moment while he waited her reply. It was so long in coming that he gently tried to draw her hands away and look into her face, whispering like one scarcely ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... Wild, and, after that notorious miser had enough recovered from the fear created by the presence to understand what it said to him, he realized that it was telling him of something that in life it had buried at the foot of the Old Elm. After much hesitancy Mike set forth with his ghostly guide, for he would have risked his soul for money, but on arriving at his destination he was startled to find himself alone. Nothing daunted, he set down his lantern and began to dig. Though he turned up many ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... with me?" Even in the growing dusk I could mark a red flush mount into the clear cheeks at this insistent question, and for an instant her eyes wavered. But she possessed the courage of pride, and her hesitancy was short. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... Louis Philippe was tottering, and, with the exception of the Duke of Modena, the princelings of Italy snatched the plank of safety of a statute with the alacrity of drowning men. In this crisis Charles Albert thought of abdication. Besides the known causes of his hesitancy, there was one then unknown: the formal engagement, invented by Metternich and forced upon him by his uncle Charles Felix, to govern the country as he found it governed. He called the members of the royal family together and informed them that if there must be a constitution ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... royal 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, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... 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
... the amount of labour she can yet perform; and, after much manifest hesitancy, she is knocked down to Romescos for the sum of two hundred and seventy dollars. "There! 'tain't a bad price for ye, nohow!" says the vender, laconically. "Get down, old woman." Rachel moves to the steps, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... our train going south, but west. "My poor Paris!" exclaimed a French lady. It was not for themselves these people were sorry. The common sort of people in the train were sorry for Paris, for all their unlucky fellows. The train moved with hesitancy for hours. During one long pause we listened to a cannonade. One burst of sound seemed very close. A young English girl, sitting in a corner with her infant, abruptly handed the child to her husband. She rummaged in a travelling case with the haste of incipient panic. She produced a spirit-lamp, ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... Brilliana went on, still with that curious hesitancy that sat so strangely upon her. "We have shared a siege. I have a secret to ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... left, and Stafford had adopted that. There had been no hesitancy on the manager's part; he must protect the Two Diamond property. Sentiment had no place in the situation whatever. Therefore toward Ferguson's movements Stafford adopted an air of studied indifference, not doubting, from what he had seen of the man, that he would eventually ride ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... who, from having used various forms of medicated bougies—having had sounds, catheters and bougies roughly passed upon them by unskillful persons—or merely from an indistinct belief, based upon hearsay or tradition, feel some hesitancy about passing anything into the organ for fear that it may do harm, cause pain, or give ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... great foible was an apparent inability to arrive at an early decision on any question: it was really a desire to weigh carefully all sides of a question before expressing his opinion. This hesitancy was expressed in the formula "I doubt," which became the subject of frequent jests among the members of ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... ought to be fatal to that measure, even if no charter at all could be set up against it. Only a sovereign reason, paramount to all forms of legislation and administration, should dictate." In this way, just a hundred years ago, the opportune reticence, the politic hesitancy of European statesmanship, was at last broken down; and the principle gained ground, that a nation can never abandon its fate to an authority it cannot control. The Americans placed it at the foundation of their new government. They did more; for having ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... only meant that he would not be in haste to declare himself. Of a certainty there was conflict between his ambition and his love, but she recognised her power over him and exulted in it. She had observed his hesitancy this evening, before he rose to accompany her from the house; her heart laughed within her as the desire drew him. And henceforth such meetings would be frequent, with each one her influence would increase. How kindly fate had dealt with her in bringing ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... the ways of every 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 ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... merchants appealed to their friends. "Yes, Bill," wrote John Andrews to his brother-in-law in Philadelphia, "nothing will save us but an entire stoppage of trade, both to England and the West Indies.... The least hesitancy on your part to the Southerd, and the matter ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... 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 ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... to that effect was dispatched on the evening of July 30th, but the General in command of the Third Army Corps desired to wait for the arrival of the Fourth and its baggage train. In spite of this hesitancy the Second Army was ordered to proceed towards the Saar, where the French were showing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... the ultimate outcome of the 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 ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... that slight touch of hesitancy, as if the son were not quite sure of the father and wished to make ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... an even chance that the wrong thing 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
... the vast majority of practical biologists answer without hesitancy, No, we have no facts to justify such a conclusion. Prof. Huxley shall represent them. He says: "The properties of living matter distinguish it absolutely from all other kinds of things;" and, he continues, "the present state of our ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... up-stairs. Then came the soft, quick pitapat of her tiny feet along the hall and the frou-frou of the skirts,—never yet could he hear it without a little thrill of passionate delight. He half turned in readiness to welcome her, his love, his wife; then came her pause at the door,—a new, an unknown hesitancy, for from the first he had taught her that she alone could never be unwelcome, undesired, no matter what his occupation in the sanctum, and Jack's heart stood still while hers was throbbing heavily. Could she have heard? Could she have suspected? ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... a doctor's visit. Still, for two days she hesitated to make her call, feeling a strange repugnance towards such a step. For this she could give herself no reasons. It was the doctor himself who inspired her with this hesitancy; one morning she met him, and shrunk from his notice as though she were a child. At this excess of timidity she was much annoyed. Her quiet, upright nature protested against the uneasiness which was taking possession ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... more than his hesitancy to fire the shot at Chattanooga. He had traveled miles to do it, and at the last minute his courage oozed out. The same thing happened in Chicago. He stood at Hotel La Salle with murder in his heart, but hesitated until it was ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... echoed the word, "To-morrow!" as 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 ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... 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 the time ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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 terribly afraid of being disliked. And the moment ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... 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 for any peace ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... began to speak of books, reaching out with a delicate hesitancy, as if she feared that she might lead into waters too deep for him to follow. He quickly relieved her of all danger of embarrassment on that head by telling her of some books which he had not read, but wished to read, holding to the ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... 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 put ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... time Ben was tramping up the outside stairs, supporting the woman as before. Now he pushed his way into the outer room of the mill-house, the woman following with some hesitancy. At the appearance of their late victim the regulars fell back as though ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... 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 ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... similar experience has been mine ever since. I am still always nervous before a lecture, and feel miserable and ill-assured, but, once on my feet, I am at my ease, and not once on the platform after the lecture has commenced have I experienced the painful feeling of hesitancy and "fear of the sound of my own voice" of which I have often heard ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... David Kent; the man I have been trying to discover deep down under the rubbish of ill-temper and hesitancy and—yes, I will say it—of sentiment. Have you learned your ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... 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 ...
— 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
... expected to receive praises by the basketful, was astounded at this tone! It was therefore, with great hesitancy that ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... have opposed the movement in its initial stages. Even the man who was subsequently won over to the capitalist interest hesitated long before taking the formidable step: It was believed, however, that the hesitancy of Marcus Octavius was due more to his personal regard for Tiberius than to respect for the people's wishes.[353] The tribune who was to scotch the obnoxious measure was an excellent instrument for a dignified opposition. He was grave and discreet, a personal ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... 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 well as usual. The truth is, I had secured a passage to Liverpool in the steamer which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... 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 what ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... 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 ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... stability of all internal affairs was assured. Such occasional misunderstandings as might crop up among the Powers could, they imagined, always be smoothed over by manifestations of goodwill and timely concessions. Fitfulness and hesitancy marked every attempt made by Germany's rivals to push their trade or extend their political relations ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... merely because the suggestions hitherto advanced are inconveniently various. Thus Verville finds the Nessus shirt a symbol of retribution, where Buelg, with rather wide divergence, would have it represent the dangerous gift of genius. Then it may be remembered that Dr. Codman says, without any hesitancy, of Mother Sereda: "This Mother Middle is the world generally (an obvious anagram of Erda es), and this Sereda rules not merely the middle of the working-days but the midst of everything. She is the factor of middleness, of mediocrity, of an avoidance of extremes, of the eternal compromise ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... like a sun-god with his flying yellow locks and glorious symmetry of body, and the pas de deux between him and Magda was a thing to marvel at—sweeping through the whole gamut of love's emotion, from the first shy, delicate hesitancy of worshipping boy and girl to the rapturous ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... feeling that she had acted according to her best light. She was a faithful disciple of every cause she espoused, and scrupulously exact in obeying even its implied provisions. In this there was no hesitancy. No matter who was offended, or what sacrifices to herself it involved, the law, the strict letter of the law, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... healed, with the loss of the tip and parts of the alae, leaving the septum somewhat exposed. On January 10th the lines of demarcation were distinct and deep on all four limbs, though the patient, seconded by his wife, at first obstinately opposed operative interference; on January 13th, after a little hesitancy, the man consented to an amputation of the arms. This was successfully carried out on both forearms, at the middle third, the patient losing hardly any blood and complaining of little pain. The great relief afforded by this operation so changed ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... coat of mail that another has worn,[108] fierceness, cruelty, villifying, pointing out the faults of others, thoughts entirely devoted to worldly affairs, anxiety, animosity, reviling of others, false speech, false or vain gifts, hesitancy and doubt, boastfulness of speech, dispraise and praise, laudation, prowess, defiance, attendance (as on the sick and the weak), obedience (to the commands of preceptors and parents), service or ministrations, harbouring of thirst or desire, cleverness or dexterity of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... a good many years. Representing a neighboring State, as he did in the Senate, I became very intimate with him, and never had the slightest hesitancy in seeking his advice when I was in doubt concerning any legal or ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... armful, together with some tender creepers of blackberry vine. We chatted of the place, of the people, and I found that my companion had a keen sense of humor. As we neared the house, after a moment's hesitancy, I asked him to come and rest on the little porch, where a couple of splint rockers and a palm-leaf fan invited one to comfort and coolness. He accepted the invitation with alacrity, though he chose to sit on the wooden steps, while I tilted lazily back and ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... unfortunate accident due to a broken iron, a chaos of half-baked ideas had come pouring through the breach. If I said that my labors of ten years had been useless or that the fruition of John Benham's ideals for his son were still in doubt I should be putting the matter too strongly, but I have no hesitancy in confessing that the appearance of the girl had at least put them in jeopardy. She had turned his mind into a direction which I had carefully avoided. He must think now and ask questions that I could not be ready to answer. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... 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, were people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, and ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... The fumes of whisky were on his lips at such times. His slow, deliberate ways were even slower, even more deliberate. Liquor did not affect his legs. He walked as soberly as any man. There was no hesitancy, no faltering, in his muscular movements. The whisky went to his brain, making his eyes heavy-lidded and the cloudiness of them more cloudy. Not that he was flighty, nor quick, nor irritable. On the contrary, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... was strongly against success. Reckless audacity, coupled with rare good fortune, might result in our return with the prisoner sought, but it was far more likely that we would be the ones captured, if we escaped with our lives. Yet this knowledge caused no hesitancy on my part; I was trained to obedience, and deep down in my heart welcomed the opportunity. The excitement appealed to me, and the knowledge that this service was to be performed directly under the eye of the great General of the West, was in itself an inspiration. If I lived to come back ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... There was no 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 bars to ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... 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 for some fifteen minutes. He was spending his vacation ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... diffident; they were sad and they were merry; they were faltering and they were enthusiastic. Some were there freely, splendidly, exultantly; more were there because some force greater than themselves impelled them. Through bewilderment and hesitancy and doubt, they saw the lights of the future shining, and they fixed their eyes upon the amber lanterns as upon the visible symbols of their faith; they marched and marched. They were the members of a new revolution, and, as ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... same glance apprised him of an English ensign, union down, tattered and frayed to half its size, at the end of the standing spanker-gaff, with the halyards made fast high on the royal-backstay, above the reach of bungling blind fingers. Tom Plate was coming aft with none of the hesitancy of the blind, and squinting aloft at the damaged distress-signal. He secured another ensign—American—from the flag-locker in the booby-hatch, mounted the rail, and hoisted it, union down, in place of the other. Then he ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... nephews devoured their food. Coyotes in midwinter could not have been more starved. Without comment she offered them the remaining fried cakes, and between them they took it all. She offered the second helping of coffee, which they accepted without hesitancy. Filling their cups, she placed her empty coffeepot ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... council, if inference and conclusion are checked by reference to well-settled principles and fortified by knowledge of the experience of ages upon whose broad bases those principles rest. Pottering over mechanical details doubtless has its place, but it tends to foster a hesitancy of action which wastes time more valuable ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... exercise. It seemed to me he rather enjoyed returning the salutes with the greatest punctilio and flourish. On our way we came to one of the capital's most famous taverns and I thought I detected a hesitancy in his stride. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... roaming over the room, rested at last upon the face of Max Errington, and with the recollection of Diana's hesitancy at the beginning of the song a brief smile ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... thank you, Mr. Van Berg, and should I ever need the services of a gentleman,"—she laid a slight emphasis upon the term—"I shall, without any hesitancy, turn to you. But I have long since learned to be my own protectress, as, after all, one must be, situated as ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... the 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 ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... 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 ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... an 'oak,' wasn't it? I thought that you meant that I was tough," he laughed. "The idea of you leaning on any one is funny, Rose." Then he added, with some hesitancy, "I've been thinking ... Would you like to go over there, too, Rose? I could take you ... that is, I am quite sure that I could arrange for you to do so, not as a Red Cross nurse, of course, for they have to be graduates; but as a volunteer helper in one of ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... outside the door, and still I hesitated. To some who read, my hesitancy may brand me childishly timid; but I, who had met many of the dreadful creatures of Dr. Fu-Manchu, had good reason to fear whomsoever or whatsoever rapped at midnight upon my door. Was I likely to forget the great half-human ape, ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... 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 ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... 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, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... immediately analyzed this extraordinary hesitancy. "Hah!" they paused to scoff, "afraid of your new mittens, ain't you?" Some smaller boys, who were not yet so wise in discerning motives, applauded this attack with unreasonable vehemence. "A-fray-ed of his mit-tens! A-fray-ed of his mit-tens." They sang these lines to cruel and ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... neither their strength nor position. * * * I am very sorry to add that I have seen but little generalship during the campaign. Some of our corps commanders are not fit to be corporals. Lazy and indifferent they will not even ride along their lines, yet without hesitancy they will order us to attack the enemy, no matter what ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... Arsdale dismounted and, after a moment's hesitancy, the other followed her example. The hostess threw open the door and a beautiful, white-ruffed collie rushed to her with barks of joy. She held out a hand to ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... began washing the blood from their wounds, Murden joined us. He looked astonished to think that we took so much interest in the men, and after a moment's hesitancy, said,— ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... my best in aid of mercy," answered Lempriere, looking much relieved by the nature of the request. "If that be all that your Honour hath to ask, I can have no hesitancy in giving a hearty and honest pledge in such behalf. Jersey is no Corsica; and we love not revenge, ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... confusion, a touch of hesitancy, the first sign of anything girlish which Max had seen in this strange creature, made her stop and turn her head away. And, the effort of speaking over, she ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... When we observe in young puppies, shoats, squirrels, seals, grouse, partridges, field-sparrows, starlings, wood-larks, water-wagtails, goldfinches, etc., actions corresponding to these which I have mentioned in children, we have no hesitancy in referring them to the sex ...
— A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes • Sanford Bell
... assure you, and your noble associates, of my lasting gratitude, and feel no hesitancy in expressing the opinion that but for your great skill in treating me, I should have been in my grave. I state for the benefit of all those who may be similarly afflicted that if they will place themselves in your hands, you will ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... always used in speaking of it. So now we had cast anchor, and were well on our way shoreward in the boat before I could be certain what manner of trees clothed this Gulf: but Morales never showed doubt or hesitancy; and being landed, led us straight up the beach and above the tide-mark to the foot of a low cliff, where was a small pebbled mound and a plain cross of wood. And kneeling beside them I prayed for the souls' rest of that lamentable pair, and so took seizin ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... going on as an experiment I have no hesitancy in saying that I can and have put as much active immunity to the blight into the chestnut in five years as nature has been able to place in perhaps four or five thousand years by her usual method. However it is only fair to state that ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... watching them for 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 ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... I think," added the associate editor after some hesitancy, "it's 'Kitty the Cutie.' He's jealous, Hal. And I think he's right. That girl's getting too much ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... 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 skittles with the remaining dock rats. There was surprisingly little noise. No ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... 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 do to earn ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... question. Themar flushed uncomfortably. Carl had a way of reading between the lines that was exceedingly disconcerting. His information, he said at length after an interval of marked hesitancy, had been too meager. He had listened at the door once when the Baron had spoken of Miss Westfall to his secretary. A housemaid had frightened him away and he had bolted upstairs—to attend to something else ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... going away from Pattaquasset, and he lays it to me, mother," she said after some hesitancy again. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... round to the 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
... to you. It is expressly stated here that the trust comprehends the spread of the doctrines you advocate, but it does not pretend to guide or direct you in the handling of the funds. Mr. Thorpe trusts you to be governed by the dictates of your own honour. I have no hesitancy in saying that I protested against this extraordinary way of creating a trust, declaring to him that I thought he was doing wrong in placing you in such a position,—that is to say, it was wrong of him to put ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... 253. HESITANCY IN ATTACKING THE PROBLEM.—The American people have been singularly backward about grappling with the problem of fitting ten million Negro citizens into the fabric of American democracy. One explanation ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... lukewarmness of so many friends we had counted on, the bickerings which arose among the Confederates when we met just now at the Isthmus, the slackness of all Spartans save Leonidas in preparing for war, the hesitancy of Corcyra in joining us. Thebes is Medizing, Crete is Medizing, so is Argos. Thessaly is wavering. I can almost name the princes and great nobles over Hellas who are clutching at Persian money. O Father Zeus," wound up the Athenian, "if there is not some ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... what I see! I'd hate to see what you'll be seeing before long. God help you when you finish!" rather impolitely interrupted the bartender. He waved the mallet and made for the end of the counter with no hesitancy and lots of purpose in his ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... men? Alas, he did not know. Why, then, this hesitancy! Once more he essayed the effort, but a qualm of nausea overwhelmed him. ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... American, as swept on by the current of the nineteenth while yet struggling in the eddies of the fifteenth century,—from this must arise a painful self-consciousness, an almost morbid sense of personality and a moral hesitancy which is fatal to self-confidence. The worlds within and without the Veil of Color are changing, and changing rapidly, but not at the same rate, not in the same way; and this must produce a peculiar wrenching of ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... disappointment, Mr. Dimmerly mumbled grace, and still Hemstead did not appear. For some reason she did not like to ask where he was, and was provoked at herself because of her hesitancy. The others, who knew of his departure, supposed she was aware of it also. At last her curiosity gained the mastery, and she asked her aunt with an indifference, not so well assumed but that her color heightened a ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... thoughts, soul-illumined letters, and photographs that I love to have described again and again. But there is not space to mention all my friends, and indeed there are things about them hidden behind the wings of cherubim, things too sacred to set forth in cold print. It is with hesitancy that I have spoken even ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... duty, but neither callously nor flippantly. The insight and sympathy displayed in 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... 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
... N. irresolution, infirmity of purpose, indecision; indetermination, undetermination|!; unsettlement; uncertainty &c. 475; demur, suspense; hesitating &c. v., hesitation, hesitancy; vacillation; changeableness &c. 149; fluctuation; alternation &c. (oscillation) 314; caprice &c. 608. fickleness, levity, legerete[Fr]; pliancy &c. (softness) 324; weakness; timidity &c. 860; cowardice &c. 862; half measures. waverer, ass between two ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... drizzling, foggy day we passed a milestone on which was lettered, "Four miles to Richmond." It was still "on to Richmond" with us what seemed a long way further, and then came a considerable period of hesitancy, in which the command was drawn up for the final dash. The enemy shelled a field near us vigorously, but fortunately, or unfortunately, the fog was so dense that neither party could make accurate observations or ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... appetite in Jeremy after what he had witnessed that day, but his tall friend ate his supper with a relish and seemed quite elated at the prospect of the voyage to shore. He filled a clay pipe after the meal and smoked meditatively awhile, then addressed the boy with a queer hesitancy. ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... hesitancy, I yielded to a desire to appear in a visible form before an assembled company of Muteite philosophers who were gathered in one of the under-surface halls of architectural ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... look at some business suits," began Theodore, addressing the foremost of them, with a slight touch of hesitancy and embarrassment. It was ...
— Three People • Pansy
... Appeal of Great Fictitious Characters.—But the very greatest characters of fiction are worth everybody's while; and surely the masters need have felt no hesitancy in asking any one to meet Sancho Panza, Robinson Crusoe, Henry Esmond, Jean Valjean, or Terence Mulvaney. In fact, the most amazing thing about a great fictitious figure is the multitude of very different people that the character is capable of interesting. Many ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... 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
... 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 ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... gone. The days are bright, warm, and clear, and every hour tempts me forth to wander about the hills. It is not spring, but the hesitancy that holds before the season changes; yet each day there are new flowers—not our delicate wood flowers, but larger and coarser of fibre, and it adds a charm to them that I do not know their names. The trees are budding, and here ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... face was one not to be forgotten; it indicated sweetness of disposition, benevolence, intelligence, and refinement. His mental operations were not rapid, and it was only by great patience and long continued thought that he achieved his objects. He was not fluent in conversation; his hesitancy of speech, however, was not so great when with friends as with strangers. The tendency of his mind was toward the practical in knowledge; his study was to simplify science, and to make it accessible to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various |
