"Shuffling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his peer," she thought. "He is as handsome as he is intelligent. What a keen eye he has! What clearly-cut, spirited features—thin and serious, but graceful! I do like his face, I do like his aspect, I do like him so much—better than any of those shuffling curates, for ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... satisfied with what Randall chose to tell of himself as a well known "housekeeper" close to the Temple, his wife a "lavender" there, while he himself was attached to the suite of the Archbishop of York. Here alone was there any approach to shuffling, for Master Headley was left to suppose that Randall attended Wolsey in his capacity of king's counsellor, and therefore, having a house of his own, had not been found in the roll of the domestic retainers and servants. He did not think of inquiring ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... consequence." And turning abruptly, Davies went half sliding, half shuffling down the slippery slope, kicked the mud off his boots, and briefly nodding to the sergeant, said "Mount," hoisted himself into saddle, and led his little party silently away. One of the men ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... who has himself been looking out of window; the shuffling of feet ceases, and it is found that after this long consultation the Bench have dismissed both charges. The next case on the list is poaching; and at the call of his name one of the gipsy-looking men advances, and is ordered to stand before that part ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... prisoner lay with his head leaning against it, and for a time the silence was intense. By and by he found that by turning his head so that his ear was placed against the panel of the door, he heard distinctly the footfalls outside, and even a shuffling sound near him, which seemed to indicate that a man was on guard at the other side of the oak. Presently some one approached, and in spite of the low tones used, Wilhelm not only heard what was being said, but recognised the voice of von Brent, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... brutishness by the kind of power that comes of depravity. The small, lean creature, with thin hair and a starved beard, an unwholesome pasty face, worn rather than wrinkled, with red-lidded eyes harnessed with spectacles, shuffling in his gait, and yet meaner in his appearance, realized the type of man that any one would conceive of as likely to be placed in the dock ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... and they passed into the church together. No one followed. Hand in hand they stood before the dismantled chancel. Taffy heard the sound of shuffling feet on the walk outside, and looked up ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Rhetoric at our universities as a class-book. Cheating at cards is a base profession enough, but truly it would be wiser to print a code of gambler's legerdemain, and give that for a class-book, than to make the legerdemain of human speech, and the clever shuffling of the black spots in the human heart, the first study of our politic youth. Again, the Ethics of Aristotle, though containing some shrewd talk, interesting for an old reader, are yet so absurdly illogical and ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Shuffling down the long slope, its tired legs moving automatically, the drooping pony swerved a little and then came to a halt, trembling with fright. Startled out of his unpleasant ruminations, his lips tensing over his teeth in a savage snarl, Calumet Marston swayed ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... heard shuffling slowly off down the passage. In a little while he returns to Smith's door, evidently not satisfied in his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... goes down. A shiver follows the whiskey and a very little of the water follows the shiver. The man goes out with his arms close to his sides, his gait shuffling and his ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... slurring over of the most sinister riddle in the morality of Frederick the Great—these passages are, one must frankly say, disingenuous. But it is, so to speak, a generous disingenuousness; the heat and momentum of sincere admirations, not the shuffling fear and flattery of the constitutional or patriotic historian. It bears most resemblance to the incurable ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... dancing animal that would feel soft if he ran over it; and anything soft underfoot frightens a locomotive as it does an elephant. But the men behind seemed quite calm. The wrecking-crew were climbing carelessly from the caboose to the tender—even jesting with the engineer, for he heard a shuffling of feet among the coal, and the snatch of a song, ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... fact, the bear was shuffling down the hall, his head lolling from side to side, and his red ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... to play, as usual. Will you make the third, Lavvie?" inquired Valentine, shuffling the cards. "It's no use asking Zack; ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... biggest and strongest bird, and he was always shuffling and crowding the others, and clamouring for the most food; and when Mrs. Robin came in with a nice bit of anything, Tip-Top's red mouth opened so wide, and he was so noisy, that one would think the nest was all his. His mother used to correct him for these gluttonous ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... voice had their effect with the angry, pushing, shuffling, elbowing, wailing, weeping crowd, in a pause like the arrest ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... gorilla is that of the apes and the monkeys generally. The big-bellied satyr advances to the assault as it travels, shuffling on all-fours; "rocking" not traversing; bristling the crest, chattering, mowing and displaying the fearful teeth and tusks. Like all the Simiads, this Troglodyte sways the body to and fro, and springs from side to side for the purpose of avoiding the weapon. At times Quasimodo ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... all around. Holding this high above his head, Harry walked about, peering into the darkness, and scanning every nook and corner of the large apartment. But he could see nothing. It was empty. The shuffling noise of his own footsteps as he moved along was the only sound, and no living thing met his eye. It was plain that he was alone, and that no other could be there ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... right guard for three and worked Edwards' end for four more. With seven to go, a forward pass was tried and succeeded for enough to make the distance. Things were waking up now with a vengeance and Amy was no longer demanding action. Instead, he was shuffling around on the edge of his seat, watching events breathlessly. Chambers was down to her opponents' twenty-four yards now, almost under the shadow of the goal and a place-kick would score once ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... shadows move about, And some one seems to overhear our talk. The fire is low; the candles flicker out; The ghosts of former tenants want to walk. Already they are shuffling through the gloom. I felt an old man touch my shoulder-blade; Once he was married here; they love this room, He and his woman and the child they made. Dead, dead, they are, yet some familiar sound, Creeping along the brink of happy life, Revives their memory from ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... he takes at the time; but in taking that part, he is led entirely by headstrong obstinacy, caprice, novelty 'pique, or personal motive of some sort, and not by a steadfast regard for truth or habitual anxiety for what is right uppermost in his mind. He is not a fee'd, time-serving, shuffling advocate (no man could write as he does who did not believe himself sincere); but his understanding is the dupe and slave of his momentary, violent, and irritable humours. He does not adopt an opinion 'deliberately or for money,' yet his conscience is at the mercy of the first provocation ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... he played a polka and four couples danced. The women, as usual, were in their naked feet, and whenever there was a figure for women only there was a curious hush and patter of bare feet, till the heavy pounding and shuffling of the men's boots broke in again. The whirl of music and dancing in this little kitchen stirred me with an extraordinary effect. The kindliness and merrymaking of these islanders, who, one knows, ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... noted theologian. Cf. "On the Clerical Character" in "Political Essays" (Works, III, 276): "This same shuffling divine is the same Dr. Paley, who afterwards employed the whole of his life, and his moderate second-hand abilities, in tampering with religion, morality, and politics,—in trimming between his convenience and his conscience,—in crawling ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... occupied now, shuffling, cutting, and laying out her rows with quick nervous movements of her worn little hands. She glanced once more at her husband as he entered, and then bent over her ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... expected, from the title of this chapter, that I shall introduce a set of ruffians armed with missive weapons; or, having named a trump, a set of gamblers shuffling and dealing out the cards: But whatever veneration I may entertain for these two fag ends of our species, I shall certainly introduce a class of people, which, though of the lower orders, are preferable ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... ran backwards, or else the clock stopped dead. Dusk slipped in between the window bars. The cedars on the lawn became gigantic. They heard the haystacks shuffling out of their tarpaulins. The whole house rose into the air and floated off. Mother, Daddy, Nurses, beds dropped from the windows as it sailed away. All were left behind, forgotten details of some stupid and ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... militia-men, from the chain of outposts along the foothills, who had been warned to keep up a sharp look-out along the road: no villages; no trees; no sound or movement anywhere, save the distorted shadows and rythmical grunting of her doolie-bearers, the soft shuffling of their feet, and the click of hoofs, as Desmond rode at a foot's pace beside his wife, or dismounting, walked and talked with her, his bridle slung ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... rebuilding the edifice after the fire and refitted first the Grand Salle, to-day the famous Salle des Pas Perdus, crowded with the shuffling coming and going crowd of men and women whose business, or no business at all, brings them to this central point for the dissemination of legal gossip. It is a magnificent apartment, and, to no great extent, differs from what it was before ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... risen to a perfect roar as he uttered the last words, and a sort of jack-of-all-trades about the wharf, whose name was Hi Higgins, came shuffling up, asking what ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... key, to which was attached a huge brass tag with serrated edges, from a hook on a board behind the bar—on which were suspended a number of the like—lighted a small kerosene lamp, carrying a single wick, and, shuffling out from behind the counter, said, "Say, Bill, can't you an' Dick carry the gentleman's trunks up to 'thirteen?'" and, as they assented, he gave the lamp and key to one of them and left the room. The two men took a trunk at either end and mounted the stairs, John following, and when the second ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... had uttered his cry of warning without in the least slackening his shuffling trot, and as the lady uttered the single frightened syllable, I saw that one of the poles in the bearer's hands had struck her with such force as to send her ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... did abruptly change her manner. There was in her, as her life had shown, a power of endurance, an ability to sacrifice herself in order to do the thing that seemed necessary, and to do it without shuffling or whining. Whatever else her career had done for her, it undoubtedly had strengthened this part of her nature. And now the result of her training showed. With her superior intelligence for the first time free to make the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... change," he said, and stood shuffling his feet as he waited to be dismissed. I gave him my hand. (O Coralie, you and your bread! ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... I kept as nearly as possible opposite the elevator, so that we might arrive at the foot of the stairs but a moment before Madge and Henry, and we could hear the two fathers shuffling on the street floor, when suddenly, as we reached the third floor, we heard a whisper from Henry in the elevator. The elevator had stuck fast between the third and fourth floors. As with one mind, Lemuel and I seated ourselves on a step and waited until ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... generally held, and the various articles exhibited, damaged and sound, under the shade of some tree in the centre of the town; where an Englishman would be amused to see one of the first merchants shuffling round with a handful of tea, and telling the audience that it is just upon the rise, and recommending that he be allowed to send home a pound ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... head. I had to wait for him to get through, of course. Five long, long minutes he smoothly shuffled away—a pause followed, then something fell with a thump on the floor. I said to myself "There—he is pulling off his boots —thank heavens he is done." Another slight pause—he went to shuffling again! I said to myself, "Is he trying to see what he can do with only one boot on?" Presently came another pause and another thump on the floor. I said "Good, he has pulled off his other boot—NOW he is done." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... whispers, because when they had pulled the bell-knob and the door had swung open, a voice from incalculable altitudes had shouted, "Chi e?" They had answered, as instructed, "Amici," and now they pictured somebody listening to their shuffling ascent. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Cy Bogart. She giggled and bounced when Cy tickled her ear in village love. They strolled with the half-dancing gait of lovers, kicking their feet out sideways or shuffling a dragging jig, and the concrete walk sounded to the broken two-four rhythm. Their voices had a dusky turbulence. Suddenly, to the woman rocking on the porch of the doctor's house, the night came alive, and she felt that everywhere in the darkness panted an ardent quest which she was ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... down the cards he had been shuffling. The statement seemed to warrant his action. He sat back in his chair and bit a chew of tobacco off a black plug. Minky and the others sat round and stared at the little man with ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... in a moment, and Henrietta Vance's brother, standing by the piano, called out, "The next dance will be the first extra," adding immediately, "a waltz." The dance recommenced; in the pauses of the music one heard the rhythmic movement of the feet shuffling regularly ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... mouth, the noise of shuffling feet and the shifting of positions for a bettor view of the prisoner became so loud that the Judge rapped for order, the clerk repeating it with ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... have the regular stunts," said Eleanor. There was a shuffling of chairs and she and Betty and the people who had had toasts slipped back to their own particular crowds, leaving the top of the table for the stunt-doers. It was shockingly late, but they wanted all the old favorites. Who ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... went on, shuffling the cards and stopping to regard the joker attentively (though I am sure she didn't know what card she was looking at), "just chasing around town and doing nothing but square yourself for not playing according to the rules costs money without getting you anywhere. Fifty-five ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... Israel nerved himself to his bitter task; and one evening while Naomi sat with him on the roof while the sun was setting, and there were noises in the streets below of the Jewish people shuffling back into the Mellah, he told her that she was blind. The word made no impression upon her mind at first. She had heard it before, and it had passed her by like a sound that she did not know. She had been born blind, and therefore could not realise what it was to see. To open a way for the awful ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... tense, suffocating hours of the night they heard the sounds of many footsteps shuffling about the outer room; there were hoarse, guttural, subdued good-byes and well-wishes, the creaking of heavy doors and the dropping of bolts. Eventually King, who had been listening alertly, realised that but two of the men remained in the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... were at the Chinaman's legs with erect tails, rubbing their backs against him in feline glee every moment he stopped shuffling over the floor. ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... threadbare. His circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are fond of having a character at your table, and truly he is one." But in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No woman dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without shuffling. "She is plainly related to the L——s, or what does she at their house?" She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something between a gentlewoman ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... the hill to the palaces beside the lake—the palaces to which all France used to troop for pleasure. We moved soddenly at first, shuffling in our steps. But the drums were still rolling out their defiance and the bugles were still blowing. The laziest man in the French Army was doing his utmost to belie his record. The ill-shod, flattened feet took ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... muffled, shuffling sound directly in our front, followed by a strange noise of scraping, as if with a dull knife ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... nothing I desire more to be informed of than of the death of men; that is to say, what words, what countenance, and what face they shew at their death; and in reading of histories, which I so attentively observe. It appeareth by the shuffling and hudling up[Footnote: Collecting] of my examples, I affect[Footnote: Like] no subject so particularly as this. Were I a composer of books, I would keepe a register, commented of the divers deaths, which in teaching ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... the snow is shuffling, Flake after flake down—dealing in despair; The bladeless field, the birdless thicket muffling, But now no more the river's stillness ruffling. Oh, bitter is the sky, and blank its ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... as his wife at the Craig Fernie inn! The terrible caprice of Chance, the merciless irony of Circumstance, could go no further than this. The three had their feet on the brink of the precipice at that moment. And two of them were smiling at an odd coincidence; and one of them was shuffling a pack ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... You surely will not send me thus away! That heav'n, an angel made you, none deny; But still, to what is asked you should reply. Your husband this contrived I plainly see, Who fancies that replies were not to be, Since in our bargain they were never named; For shuffling conduct he was ever famed; But I'll come round him, spite of all his art; I can reply for you, and from the heart, Since I can read your wishes in your eyes; 'Tis thus to say—Good, sir, I would advise That you regard me, not as marble cold; Your various tournaments and actions ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... lost in both courage and physical stature; he slouched along with shuffling step, his head bent and his face pale. Ross was now profoundly sorry for him, so utterly craven and ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... they were sitting in a group before the hotel when a man was seen approaching them with shuffling steps. Uncle John looked at him closely and Mumbles leaped from Patsy's lap and rushed at ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... Josephine was the centre of them. He heard her voice clear and commanding, crying out their names—Tyr, Captain, Bruno, Thor, Wamba—until their number seemed without end; he heard the metallic snap of fangs, quick, panting breaths, the shuffling of padded feet; and then the girl's voice grew more clear, and the sounds less, until he heard nothing but the bated breath of the pack and a ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... when we turn to that political party which is so anxiously shuffling him and his plot out of its way, and looking around for some available slave holder, perhaps, to be its candidate, at least for one who will execute the Fugitive Slave Law, and all those other unjust laws which he took ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... Arthur impatiently. 'I'm patrol-leader, and I give orders. I don't mean to go shuffling over the heath ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... beneath the desk came sounds of gasps, heavy breathing, then shuffling footsteps. Clayton pushed the picture back into place, then took off the skin-painted vest he wore, with the flat box on its inside. He snapped a switch on the side ...
— The Fourth Invasion • Henry Josephs
... are attached to her spines, and marches back to her babies in the cave. "One day," says Plutarch, "when we were all together, we had the chance of seeing this with our own eyes—it looked as if a bunch of grapes was shuffling along the ground, so thickly covered was the ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... was shuffling in our direction. He was a man about fifty years of age, largely made about the shoulders and chest, but stooping a good deal, and limping heavily in one leg. He walked slowly, leaning upon a silver-headed ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... both sides being so dense as to resemble an impenetrable wall or dense hedge. It is necessary to bear this in mind to realise what followed. I had not gone many yards along this track, when I was horrified to see, right in front of me, an enormous alligator! This great reptile was shuffling along down the path towards me, evidently making for the water, and it not only blocked my advance, but also necessitated my immediate retreat. The moment the brute caught sight of me he stopped, and began snapping ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... yard of the log house, a figure appeared plodding slowly along the roadway, and the girl's eyes were bent on it with a fixed anxiety. It came with such a weary lagging, with such a painful shuffling of feet and such an exhausted hanging of head that Brent at first failed to recognize Bud Sellers. The left arm hung with that limpness which denotes ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... and tongue, "I ask pardon of Allah."' So he carried him, still chained, to the Divan and kissed the earth before the Khalif, who said to him, 'O Amir Khalid, what seekest thou?' Then he brought forward Ahmed Kemakim, shuffling in his fetters, and the Khalif said to him, 'O Kemakim, art thou yet alive?' 'O Commander of the Faithful,' answered he, 'the wretched are long-lived.' Then said the Khalif to the Amir, 'Why have thou brought him hither?' And he replied, 'O Commander of the Faithful, he hath a poor, desolate ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... fairly midwived into the world. But I should say the world was at the eve of the highest scene of earthly power and grandeur, that has ever yet been displayed to the view of mankind. The cards are shuffling fast through all Europe. Who will win the prize is with God. This, however, I know, detur digniori. The next universal monarchy will be favorable to the human race; for it must be founded on the principles of equity, ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... plow-line with which he had intended to tie Simon's hands, turned his back to that individual, in order to prevent his witnessing the operation of mixing. He then sat down, and very leisurely commenced shuffling the cards, making, however, an exceedingly awkward job of it. Restive kings and queens jumped from his hands, or obstinately refused to slide into the company of the rest of the pack. Occasionally a sprightly knave would insist on facing his neighbor; ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... kick stretched him on the ground as if he had been a child. Before he had time to think of further resistance he was bound, gagged, and carried, half-suffocated, to the corner of the Rue de la Chaise. No sound had been heard; not a word, not an ejaculation, not even a noise of shuffling—nothing. Any suspicious sound might have reached May, on the other side of the wall, and warned him of ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... * The very name of the sect carries with it an impression of meanness and hypocrisy. Scarce an individual that has had any dealings with those belonging to it, but has good cause to remember it from some circumstance of low deception or of shuffling fraud. Its very members trust each other with caution and reluctance. The more wealthy among them are drained and dried by the leeches that perpetually fasten upon them. The leaders, ignorant and bigoted—I speak of them collectively —present us with ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... stamped in my memory. I can still see the scene in its every detail, and I know I shall carry the picture with me to the grave; the long, low room with its blackened ceiling, the garish yellow gaslight, the smoke haze, the crowded tables, Otto, shuffling hither and hither with his mean and sulky air, Frau Hedwig, preoccupied at her desk, red-eyed, a graven image of woe, and Haase, presiding over the beer-engine, silent, defiant, calm, but watchful every time ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... flashed through the snow and came to a stop with a clang and a roar, disgorging a chattering holiday crowd who paused for a change of cars at Cotesville on their southbound trips. Uncle Noah hastened his shuffling footsteps: the Northern Express with its horde of transient visitors had been a vital part of the inspiration. Upon the station platform people stamped up and down in the snow or laughed and chatted, quite oblivious to the timid gaze of the old ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... and I would but ask thy master's name and condition. Answer me straight—no equivocation, no shuffling or evasion shall serve thee; 'tis a stale device now, and will ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... was awakened by some noise outside the window near which his stateroom was. He sat up and listened, putting out his hand to where his rifle stood in the corner near his bunk. The lad heard stealthy footsteps pattering about on the deck of the airship. There was a soft, shuffling sound, such as a lion or a tiger makes, when walking on bare boards. In spite of himself, Tom felt the hair on his head beginning to creep, and a shiver ran ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... absolute silence as far as the vicinity of the dug-out was concerned, although three or four hundred yards away the desultory firing still continued. Three quarters of a minute: there was a shuffling sound from the subterranean retreat and the guttural voice of several ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... must be that a man has power to will as he pleases or chooses to will; that is, he has power by one act of choice to choose another; by an antecedent act of will to choose a consequent act, and therein to execute his own choice. And if this be their meaning, it is nothing but shuffling with those they dispute with, and baffling their own reason. For still the question returns, wherein lies man's liberty in that antecedent act of will which chose the consequent act? The answer, according to the same principle, must be, that his liberty lies also in his ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... within, followed by a sudden shuffling of feet as the two men leaped upright from what I presume had been a recumbent position, warned me to be ready to face defiance if not the fury of despair; and curbing with a determined effort the slight sinking of heart natural to a man of my make on the threshold ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... It seemed to her that the murmur of their harsh voices went up in a great protest, an inarticulate cry of sorrow. While she looked on the doctor held back a long-haired man who was following a haggard woman shuffling in broken boots. He drew him aside, and when, after he had apparently consulted with the other official, two seamen hustled the man towards a second gangway that led to the tug, the woman raised a wild, despairing cry. It, however, seemed that she blocked the passage, and a quartermaster ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... made to bend at the knee, and we waded the snow with difficulty. The summit ridge was fortunately wind-swept and nearly bare, so we were not compelled to lift our feet high, and on reaching the long home slopes laden with loose snow we made rapid progress, sliding and shuffling and pitching headlong, our feebleness accelerating rather than diminishing our speed. When we had descended some three thousand feet the sunshine warmed our backs and we began to revive. At 10 a.m. we reached ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... and drew sundry nice distinctions between actual treason and constructive treason. He also disclaimed all participation in the law for taxing America, as he had not been consulted on the subject. The Duke of Grafton complained of both these lords, and accused Camden of meanness and shuffling, in endeavouring to screen himself by accusing others; reminding him, that at the time the act was passed, he was lord-chancellor, and had signified the royal approbation of the act in his official capacity. Lord Lyttleton seconded the blow given to the ex-chancellor by his quondam colleague; but ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... association, he refers certain known effects to certain unknown causes; and would thus explain to us how these effects (our sensations) come to assume, as it were, the character of external objects. But we know not "as it were." Away with such shuffling phraseology. There is nothing either of reference, or of inference, or of quasi-truthfulness in our apprehension of the material universe. It is ours with a certainty which laughs to scorn all the deductions of logic, and all the props of hypothesis. What we wish to know is, how our subjective ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... in the screen consulted his watch. "Probably inside of an hour. We've had to do some re-shuffling; you know how these things are handled. And if you'll pardon me, Literate; just what are you doing at Pelton's? I understood that you were principal ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... Chenier would have called the little Lyons shopkeeper in the suspicions he had against his host, and in the steps he proposed to take to satisfy his curiosity. He might have debated the situation with himself till midnight, or as long as Mungo's candles lasted him, had not a shuffling and cautious step upon the stair suggested that some one was climbing to the unused chambers above. Putting punctilio in his pocket, he threw open his door, and had before him a much-perplexed Baron of Doom, wrapped from ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... had to concede the point. Immediately afterward he said good-night to his mother and wife, and went in to his study. Madame Carter followed him in, and went upstairs, but Isabelle sat on moodily shuffling and reshuffling the cards, in the bright soft light of ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... door of several bedrooms, ranged on both sides of it; into each, speaking a word, which, though only in whisper, seems to awake a sleeper as if a cannon were discharged close to his ears. Then succeeds a general shuffling, as of men hastily putting on coats and boots, with an occasional grunt of discontent at slumber disturbed; but neither talking nor angry protest. Soon, one after another, is seen issuing forth from his sleeping apartment, skulking along the corridor, out through the entrance door at back, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... distress to your palate and your purse? You take these precautions because your most elementary common sense tells you that such precautions as medicaments, etc., enter for something of a condition in the decree of God which reads that you shall die or not die. Your return to health or your shuffling off of the mortal coil is subject to conditions of prudence, and according as they are fulfiled or not fulfiled the decree of God will go into effect one way or ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... and blue blouse, shuffling with his old man's walk, Feller came along the path from the gate. He was in retreat from the enticing picture of the regiment of field-guns in front of the castle that was ready for action. As the infantry ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... and my queen. May one be pardoned and retain the offence? In the corrupted currents of this world Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice. And oft 't is seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: but 't is not so above; There is no shuffling, there the action lies In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence. What then? what rests? Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it when one cannot repent? O wretched state! O bosom black as ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... indeed the greater part of the observations made that evening, were interrupted by Mrs. Micawber's discovering that Master Micawber was sitting on his boots, or holding his head on with both arms as if he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking Traddles under the table, or shuffling his feet over one another, or producing them at distances from himself apparently outrageous to nature, or lying sideways with his hair among the wine-glasses, or developing his restlessness of limb in some ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... are seated at desks, as at a school, each with a huge frame dotted with numbers before him. A strange contrast to the scene without. There is a heavy quiet in the place, disturbed only by an occasional cough, a shuffling of feet, and the silvery ringing of little plates of glass. A monstrous game of Lotto is this. A mere child's play of gambling, requiring neither tact, wit, nor reasoning; a simple lottery, in fact, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... wisely we shall think about God, and the more truly we shall estimate ourselves. The world says, 'Self-reliance is the conquering virtue'; Jesus says to us, 'Self-distrust is the condition of all victory.' And that does not mean any mere shuffling off of responsibility from our own shoulders, but it means looking the facts of our lives, and of our own characters, in the face. And if we will do that, however apparently easy may be our course, and however richly endowed in mind, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... representatives of the great Mercian family of Leofric, had hopes that they might turn William's invasion to their own good, and secure their independence in the north by allowing Wessex to fall unassisted into his hands. After much shuffling, Eadgar was at last chosen for king. "But as it ever should have been the forwarder, so was it ever, from day to day, slower and worse." No resistance was organised. In the midst of all this turmoil, the Peterborough Chronicler is engaged in narrating the petty affairs ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... "You shuffling little turncoat! I don't know that there's any fire in that kitchen chimney of the old dean's, but I am morally certain that there is, because clouds of black smoke are coming out of it. And you know just as well who it was ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... same metre ballet-mongers; I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd, Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree; And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing so much as mincing poetry: 'Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag. ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... beginning to satisfy himself it was alright, when he noticed Wilson shuffling about with the inner ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... she called. There was a path opened instantly, the sound of shuffling feet. Along the porch she went, step by step, stopping every moment or so to keep close hold on her advantage, every nerve strained, every one of her faculties at the ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... impatient to reach Beaumanoir, spurred on for a while, hardly noticing the absurd figure of his guide, whose legs stuck out like a pair of compasses beneath his tattered gown, his shaking head threatening dislodgment to hat and wig, while his elbows churned at every jolt, making play with the shuffling gait of his spavined and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Schwalliger turned and winked slowly at the minions of the law, and went quietly into a corner with them, and there was the sound of the shuffling of silken paper. Later on he found the old man and returned him his ten, and went back to don his ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... about an hour later, when his work was done, and made his way towards the Vicarage. It was barely nine o'clock, but the little house seemed already to be in darkness. He rang twice before anybody answered him. Then he heard slow, shuffling footsteps within, and a tall, gaunt man, in clerical attire, and carrying a small lamp, opened ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Underneath the lid among hot ashes, Where the groundnuts roast, Round shadowy fires at nights, With tales of graveyard ghost, While eery spirituals ring, And organ voices sing, And sticks knock maddening rhythms on the floor To shuffling youngsters "cutting" buck-and-wing; Dogs bark; And dog-eyed pickaninnies ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... rose, the other two ladies rising instantly, observing, in spite of the intimate relations in which they stood toward the duchesse, the deference due to her more exalted rank. The latter clapped her hands; outside the door a shuffling and a low groan were heard—the groan came from the sleepy lackey, roused from his deep slumber, as he uncoiled himself from the close knot into which his legs and body were knit in the curve ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... begged, menaced, persuaded. The square was still moving, ever moving, with the same bloody fight raging in its entrails. Even while they had been speaking they had been shuffling backwards, and the useless Gardner, with her slaughtered crew, was already a good hundred yards from them. And the pace was accelerating. The mass of men, tormented and writhing, was trying, by a common instinct, ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... through the beautiful tropical forest, under tall cocoanut and taller palm; on past the one long grave of the Rough Riders—along the battle-line of the first little fight—through the ghastly, many-coloured masses of hideous land-crabs shuffling sidewise into the cactus and shuffling on with an unearthly rustling of dead twig and fallen leaf: along the crest of the foothills and down to the little town of Siboney, lighted, bustling with preparation ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... dominos arrived, and M. Georges began shuffling them; the other turned to Graham and asked politely ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... heart sick, played upon a harp, while to serve the crew with liquor there was a mahogany-faced hag whom the men addressed as "Mother Catch." An old crone, bent and doubled like a bow, yet vigorous in her work, and shuffling with quick steps as she laid down the jugs, or took the uncouth orders so freely given to her, she seemed to have the eye of a hawk; nor did I escape her glance, for I had not been seated before the marble table a moment when she shuffled up to me and stood glaring with her shining eyes, the ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... withdrew silently in the direction of the lunch-room. He was a tall man with stooping shoulders, and his noiseless retreat was cautiously made, yet not quite cautiously enough, since Judson's sharp eyes marked the shuffling figure vanishing in the shadow cast by the over-hanging shelter roof ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... strange and ominous murmur of voices, a shuffling of feet in the gallery, a silence, which was like the silence before a storm. Anna, who had sung the first verse of her song, looked around the house, a little surprised at the absence of the applause which had never yet failed her. She realized in a moment what had happened. Even though the ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... deck was shuffled and divided into three piles. After this Geary made a mental calculation, selected one of these piles, shuffled it, and gave it back to her, asking her if she saw her card in it; then more shuffling and dividing until their interest and patience were quite exhausted. When Geary finally produced a jack of hearts and demanded triumphantly if that was her card, Henrietta began to laugh and declared she had forgotten what card she chose. Geary said ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... (to a Martyr, who is shuffling along inside a property-trunk, covered with twigs, and supposed to represent a Bird in the Hand). Well, that's one way of coming out to enjoy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... the stage by that same poor fool of a lover; and she had two or three bouquets thrown her, notably one from Mrs. Ross's box. Then she disappeared, and the lights were lowered, and there was a dull shuffling of people getting their cloaks and hats ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... for a moment," profoundly remarks Professor Sedgwick, "suppose that there are some religious difficulties in the conclusions of geology. How, then, are we to solve them? Not by making a world after a pattern of our own—not by shifting and shuffling the solid strata of the earth, and then dealing them out in such a way as to play the game of an ignorant or dishonest hypothesis—not by shutting our eyes to facts, or denying the evidence of our ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... taken to the torture chamber, and so terrible was the ordeal of this American Inquisition that some were almost broken—body and soul. Loren Roberts had the light in his brain snuffed out. Today he is a shuffling wreck. He is not interested in things any more. He is always looking around with horror-wide eyes, talking of "voices" and "wires" that no one but himself knows anything about. There is no telling what they did to the boy, ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... body. This shabby row leaned and lopped and settled upon themselves, into all the lines and curves and downward slants of laziness, and with rank tobacco-smoke curling about them, like the very languid breath of it. However, when Eugene Hautville drew near, there was a slight shuffling stir; a drawling hum of conversation ceased, and when he entered the store their eyes followed him, bright with furtive attention. The mill of gossip had ground slowly in this heavy spring atmosphere, but it had ground steadily. They had been discussing Madelon ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... would stand still for a moment with the two motionless serenos before him, and, abruptly, high up on the sheer face of the mountain, dotted with single torches, like drops of fire fallen from the two great blazing clusters of lights above, the ore shoots would begin to rattle. The great clattering, shuffling noise, gathering speed and weight, would be caught up by the walls of the gorge, and sent upon the plain in a growl of thunder. The pasadero in Rincon swore that on calm nights, by listening intently, he could catch the sound in his doorway as of a ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... reached to within an inch or so of the pavement, that it would have been impossible for a passer-by to have decided whether it was that of a man or a woman; but the manner in which it bent, added to a shuffling uncertainty of gait—a sort of "feeling the way" movement of the feet—as Mr. Narkom guided it across the pavement to the door, suggested either great age or a state of total blindness: an affliction, by the way, of such recent date that the sufferer had not yet acquired that air of confidence and ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... is a round shallow tray, 40 centimeters in diameter and usually of plaited rattan strips with a rim of thicker rattan. It is held in both hands and by a series of shuffling motions, which are better seen than described, accompained[sic] by a peculiar movement of the thumb of the left hand, the chaff and the little broken fragments of rice are thrown off into another receptacle for the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... adverse for the moment to Arthur Berkeley's well meant designs for shuffling off the trammels of his ecclesiastical habit. He was destined to appear in public at least once more, not only in the black coat and white tie of his everyday professional costume, but even in the flowing snowy surplice of a ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... wore a sickly halo; the red robes and red face of my lord judge opposite that stared through it and outshone the candles; the black crowd around, seen mistily; the voice of the usher calling "Silence!"; the shuffling of the jurymen's feet; the pallor on their faces as I leant forward and tried to read the verdict on them; the very smell of the place, compounded of fog, gaol-fever, the close air, and the dinners eaten earlier in the day by the crowd—all this strikes ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... smoke or to converse was forbidden. In the dark, the black mass of the regiment, bristling with its bayonets like some huge, porcupine-like creature, crawled steadily onward, filling the air with the shuffling of innumerable feet. The men kept stumbling over each other, and swore viciously in half tones; they slipped in the mud and sank knee-deep into the wheel-tracks filled with cold water. "Some road!" ...
— The Shield • Various
... Sometimes persons emit sparks in pulling off their flannels or silk stockings. The fur of a cat, or even of a garment, stroked in the dark with a warm dry hand will be seen to glow, and perhaps heard to crackle. During winter a person can electrify himself by shuffling in his slippers over the carpet, and light the gas with a spark from his finger. Glass and sealing-wax are, however, the most convenient means for ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... was never quite impossible. At one place I found the rocks wholly impassable, and choosing the broader of two ledges which ran left and right, I worked out along the cliff, only to find that the ledge ran into the precipices, and I had to retrace my steps, if the shuffling motions I made could be so called. Then I took the harder of the two, which zigzagged backwards and forwards across the rocks. At one place I saw a thing which moved me very strangely. This was a heap of bones, green, slimy, and ill-smelling, with some tattered rags of cloth ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... There was a shuffling and a whispering at this, and every man nudged his neighbour to begin, but no one spoke till the sergeant felt that it was his duty, and going along the front of both ranks he had a few words with the soldiers and the jacks. After this he retook ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... spirit I could summon, threading my way through the dark, deserted streets, pausing for a moment in front of a small house with closed doors and closely, shuttered windows, where I heard suppressed voices, the monotonous scraping of a fiddle, and a lively shuffling of feet, and passing on finally entered, drawn by the musical strains, a quaint old place, where a blind harper, seated in the corner of a rude kind of coffee and sitting room, was playing on a harp. I liked the atmosphere of the place, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... preceding his wedding was an Auld Licht ever known to stay out after ten o'clock. So weekly conclaves at street-corners came to an end at a comparatively early hour, one Coelebs after another shuffling silently from the square until it echoed, deserted, to the town-house clock. The last of the gallants, gradually discovering that he was alone, would look around him musingly, and, taking in the situation, slowly wend his ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... news-vender, with his cane and smoked glasses and bundle of papers. In the morning, he might be seen at the railroad station, a grotesque and patient form, holding out his papers silently in the direction of the shuffling feet that passed by. He never cried his wares, but his appeal was more compelling than the noisy shouts of his more fortunate competitors. He had become an institution in Warwick. Every one knew where to find him at certain hours: in the morning, at the station; toward noon, taking his way, ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... and went over to the tray of spirits and liqueurs which had been brought in with the coffee. Pouring out a liqueur-glass of brandy, she was about to drink it, when her ear became attracted by a noise without, a curious stumbling, shuffling sound. She put down the glass, went to the door that opened into the hall, and looked out and down. One light was still burning below, and she could see distinctly. A man was clumsily, heavily, ascending the staircase, holding on to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hot place was a lot of merry devils laughing and shouting, with an old pack of greasy cards—it reminded me of them we used to play with at the Rendezvous—shuffling them to the time of the Devil's Dream, and Money Musk; then they'd deal in slow time, with the Dead March in Saul, whistling as solemn as medicine-men. Then they broke out sudden with Paddy O'Rafferty, which made this hoss ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... hammering where men and boys worked by torchlight, and now and then a revolver shot, there had been added the inciting music of stringed instruments, cymbals, and such—some in dance measures, some solo, while immediately at hand sounded the shuffling stamp ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... you going to fuss about, my good woman?" quoth Prince Amede d'Orleans impatiently after a while. "This shuffling ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... were broken in on by the awkward shuffling of heavy feet in the hallway, and then some one knocked loudly on his door. Gilmore glanced hastily about to assure himself that the tell-tale paraphernalia of his craft were nowhere visible, and that the room was all he liked to fancy it—the parlor of a gentleman with sufficient income ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... air, to which the circle of dancers endeavor to shuffle time with their feet, while at the same time moving around in a circle Livelier and faster twang the tamboricas, and more and more animated becomes the scene as the dancing, shuffling ring endeavors to keep pace with it. As the fun progresses into the fast and furious stages the youths' hats have a knack of getting into a jaunty position on the side of their heads, and the wearers' faces assume ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... claim on her, not thataway. She's her own. She belongs to her own self. When you're fit to take her, why, then come and tell us about it, and if we judge you're a-tellin' us the truth, mebbe we'll let her go. Till then—" a pause which was filled with a rapid shuffling of feet. The door flew open and in its lighted oblong the observer saw a huddled figure behind which rose a woman's black and shapely head. "Till then," repeated the deep-toned, ringing voice, "get out!" And the huddled man came on a staggering run which ended ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now heard coming up the hill, and presently there emerged from the shade severally five men of different ages and gaits, all of them working villagers of ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... pride in the train of a semi-royal procession, with a recognized place under the patronage of an old lady of charming manners and infinite resource. The escort, their heads tied up native-fashion, fell in on either side the cart, shuffling ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling |
