"Waver" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and gazed at him with all his eyes. Perhaps there was a film upon his sight, but the outlines of the newcomer seemed to change and waver like those of the idols in the wavering candle-light of the shop; and at times he thought he knew him; and at times he thought he bore a likeness to himself; and always, like a lump of living terror, there lay in his bosom the conviction that this thing was not of ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... the doctor could imagine that he actually saw them stealing back and forth. Now one would come alone as if to listen to the Litany, and then another would follow, and another, and, growing brave, they would combine against it. Then Valentine would waver and become uneasy, as one who hears little voices crying against him in the night, and knows not whence they come or from whom. But the Litany would begin again, and Valentine would triumph over the pale fears and they would shrink away. And in the Litany one name recurred again ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... precise spot in which Charles Lamb is to shine hereafter in the firmament of letters. I am not of sufficient magnitude to determine his astral elevation—where he is to dwell—between the sun Shakespeare and the twinkling Zoilus. That must be left to time. Even the fixed stars at first waver and coruscate, and require long seasons for their ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... that he had forgotten, had changed. Else how could he have spoken so? . . . And the tempered restraint of her quivered at the thought—all the serenity, the confidence in life and in him began to waver. And her first doubt ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... knowledge only was his eyes, on hearing these words of his son and recollecting everything that Kanika had, said unto him, became afflicted with sorrow, and his mind also thereupon began to waver. Then Duryodhana and Karna, and Sakuni, the son of Suvala, and Duhsasana as their fourth, held a consultation together. Prince Duryodhana said unto Dhritarashtra, 'Send, O father, by some clever contrivance, the Pandavas to the town of Varanavata. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... own; his sole desire was to have the affair ended as soon as possible. So true was it that he was a mere drop in the on-pouring torrent that when the leading files came to the end of the trench and began to waver at the prospect of climbing the exposed slope that lay before them, he immediately felt himself seized by a sensation of panic, and was ready to turn and fly. It was simply an uncontrollable instinct, a revolt of the muscles, obedient to ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... half-mile beyond the Keeper's Lodge in Ancester Park, and the Lodge is a long half-mile from the Towers. Still, if it was reasonable to follow the dog at all, where would be the sense of holding back or flagging till he should waver in what seemed assurance of his purpose. No—no! What he was making for might be five miles off, for all that the party that followed him knew. But trust in the creature's instinct grew stronger each time he turned and waited for their approach, then ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... be able to speak to you in private? if I waver, if—" Romola broke off from rising agitation. She felt a sudden alarm lest her new strength in renunciation should vanish if the immediate personal influence of ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... and with great lucidity; he even spoke at last of reading the papers. Andrea could not help quaking at his unexpectedly rapid success; but though his distress made him aware of the strength of his passion, it did not make him waver ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... From lonely hut and busy town, The valley through, the mountain down, What was it ye went out to see, Ye silly folk of Galilee? The reed that in the wind doth shake? The weed that washes in the lake? The reeds that waver, the weeds that float?— young man preaching ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... the front line, pursuing the enemy as each could find a way through the heap of arms and men, and streams of blood, threw into complete disorder the battalions and companies. The standards also of the principes had begun to waver when they saw the line before them driven from their ground. Scipio, perceiving this, promptly ordered the signal to be given for the spearmen to retreat, and, having taken his wounded into the rear, brought the principes and triarii to the wings, in order that the line of spearmen in the centre ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog! And for thy life let justice be accused. Thou almost makest me waver in my faith To hold opinion with Pythagoras, That souls of animals infuse themselves Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter, Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, And, ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... saw him waver; "I am rich—you are poor. I have farms, estates, vineyards—you shall choose amongst them wherewith to live happily for the rest of your days. Convey this letter safely, and exchange your comfortless and disreputable wanderings for a ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... valiantly faced poverty than Elizabeth Delavie, had she alone been concerned. Cavalier and Jacobite blood was in her veins, and her unselfish character had been trained by a staunch and self-devoted mother. But her father's age and Eugene's youth made her waver. She might work her fingers to the bone, and live on oatmeal, to give her father the comforts he required; but to have Eugene brought down from his natural station was more than she could endure. His welfare must be secured at the cost not only of ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he hope to find kindliness and love. Therefore he grew yet more stern and silent, and yet more earnestly gave himself to the full discharge of the duty that was sacred to him because it was his duty, but that in his heart he abhorred. Nor did he ever waver in his faithfulness until, coming to know Pancha, his chilled heart was warmed by her sweet looks of friendliness, the first that ever he had known; and, as fate decreed, the force of duty found arrayed against it ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... exchange was made he backed upon Mrs Pengelly's shop door, and the impact set a bell clanging. The sense of it shot up his spine of a sudden, and at each stroke of the clapper he felt he had sold his soul to the devil. But Miss Oliver stood in front of him, with a smile on her face that seemed to waver the more she fixed it: and at this moment the voice of Mrs ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... painter could capture. Other fine works here are the Fra Bartolommeo, No. 256, over the door, a Holy Family, very pretty and characteristic, and his "Ecce Homo," next it; the adorable circular Botticini (as the catalogue calls it, although the photographers waver between Botticelli and Filippino Lippi), No. 347, with its myriad roses and children with their little folded hands and the Mother and Child diffusing happy sweetness, which, if only it were a little less painty, would be one of the chief ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... moments Steve became deeply absorbed again. Then the watching man saw the decision in his eyes waver, and his lean hand move up to his head, and its fingers pass wearily through his ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... evident to the girl facing him: his eyes were still fixed full upon hers, but he was not actually looking at her; nevertheless, and with an extraordinarily acute attention, he was unquestionably looking at something. The direct front of pupil and iris did not waver from her; but for the time he was not aware of her; had not even heard her question. Something in the outer field of his vision had suddenly and completely engrossed him; something in that nebulous and hazy background which we see, as we say, with the white of the eye. ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... give way, the London tailors,—on!" and on dashed, with their joyous cry, the merry men of Yorkshire and Warwick, the warrior yeomen! Separated thus from his great foe, Gloucester, after unhorsing Marmaduke, galloped off to sustain that part of his following which began to waver and retreat before the rush of Warwick ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Army of the Potomac to a standstill. But he would not admit failure. Led by Pickett of Virginia, thirteen thousand men charged across the valley between the two armies directly at the Union center. Some of them even penetrated the Union lines. But there the line stopped. Slowly it began to waver. Then back the Confederates went—all who escaped. The battle of Gettysburg was won. Lee faced the Army of the Potomac for another day and then retreated. In this tremendous conflict the Confederates lost twenty-two thousand five hundred ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... as of individuals, is only sustained by an ideal higher than themselves, and stronger than themselves, to which they cling firmly when they feel their courage waver. Where is the ideal of the Germany of to-day? The time when her philosophers proclaimed the inviolability of right, the eminent dignity of the person, the duty of mutual respect among nations, is no more. Germany, militarized by Prussia, has cast aside ...
— The Meaning of the War - Life & Matter in Conflict • Henri Bergson
... halted not, nor did his courage waver, for another voice, louder than the other, cried "Onward!" It seemed like his brother's voice, as he had known it years ago, before troubles came, and when as merry boys the two lived with but one heart between them. And at the sound he put spurs to his ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... could not have been more astonished than she was by this speech. Her face became deadly pale; she trembled violently from head to foot, and panted like a frightened hare. To utter a word in reply was impossible. The husband was startled at the effect produced, but did not waver an instant in his purpose. The suddenness of the annunciation had one good effect: it opened the eyes of Mrs. Tompkins completely. The manner of her husband left no doubt upon her mind that all he ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... somewhat. She was alarmed lest her words might add to the grief of the dying man. But she must not waver now, and in measured tones she repeated almost word for word the same conversation which had so deeply ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... rose a warning cry behind, a joyous shout before: "The current's strong,—the way is long,—they'll never reach the shore! See, see! they stagger in the midst, they waver in their line! Fire on the madmen! break their ranks, and whelm ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... the bathing facilities of the rich, if not on so gorgeous a scale, were a really trim, decent lot to-day, and their merry voices reached Nate Tierney, going rapidly along the street, outside, making him waver, hesitate, then turn in, with a smile on his honest face. He was a favorite with the younglings. With cries of "Nate! Nate!" "Hello, Nate!" "Be on my side, Nate!" they surrounded him, and dragged him into their game of Indian-and-white man, a ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... he depended entirely upon the citizens for subsistence. The partisans of James were headed by the earl of Balcarras, and Graham viscount Dundee, who employed their endeavours to preserve union among the individuals of their party; to confirm the duke of Gordon, who began to waver in his attachment to their sovereign; and to manage their intrigues in such a manner as to derive some advantage to their cause from the transactions of the ensuing session. When the lords and commons assembled at Edinburgh, the bishop of that diocese, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Impervious to failure, disasters urge it into action, but never depress it to repose. Its existence is the air that preserves the vitality of the mind—the spring that moves the action of the thoughts. Never for a moment did Ulpius waver in his devotion to his great design, or despair of its ultimate execution and success. Though every succeeding day brought the news of fresh misfortunes for the Pagans and fresh triumphs for the Christians, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... But as Henry and Shif'less Sol leaned in the shadow of a lodge, a tall warrior painted in many colors came forth into the light of the fires, and uttered a loud cry, which he repeated twice at short intervals. Meanwhile the torches among the women and children had ceased to waver, and the Shawnees and Miamis stood immovable, their hands resting on the muzzles of their rifles. The great fires blazed up, and cast a deep red light over the whole scene. A minute or so elapsed after the last cry, and Henry and Shif'less ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 'The passengers got up two dances, and quite a number of gentlemen invited me, but I declined with thanks, though I would not say it is wrong in itself.'" Lindsay seemed to waver; her glance went near enough to him to show her that his face had a red tinge of embarrassment. He looked at the letter uncertainly, on the point of folding ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... losses, however, the French horse rallied and came again to the attack, this time supported by four brigades of infantry and thirty-two guns. "For a moment the lines of scarlet seemed to waver under the triple attack; but, recovering themselves, they closed up their ranks and met the charging squadrons with a storm of musketry which blasted them off the field, then turning with equal fierceness upon the French infantry, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... off to the right of the Sudley Road, and that another battery had opened on the enemy. I afterward learned that they were Rickett's guns. Under this increasing and relentless pressure the enemy's lines were seen to waver. Wild cheers went up from our ranks; and such is the power of the human voice—the echo direct from the heart—that these shouts rose above the roar of the cannon, the crash of musketry, and thrilled every nerve and fibre. Onward pressed our ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... disillusions—(inevitable because Nature is before all things sensual and has no care for mental prejudices one way or the other)—the inevitable disillusions of family life. It was scarcely possible that the devotion of Robert and Mrs. Parflete would not waver or seem less exquisite under this discipline. Their dream of love would become unparadised. It would gain a sadness, a melancholy, a note of despair hard to endure and most difficult to repress. Reckage had no transcendentalism in his own philosophy: he divided ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... choice of three instruments to select from; but his heart did not waver for long, ere it became fixed upon the pianoforte as the fittest interpreter of his genius, and he was true to his first love to the end. His 'Three Sonatas for the Pianoforte,' written about this time, gives us the first record of his published works. ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... I hardly know how it came about. Never did my countrymen fight more bravely. For hours, the Spaniards stood as a wall which we, in vain, tried to break. Thousands fell on our side, but not for a moment did we waver. Others took their places until, as the hours went on, the Spaniards grew weary, and victory seemed in our grasp. Their horsemen had charged through and through us, but though many chiefs were slain, it mattered little. The ranks closed up, and each time they ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... never wavered in his belief that the Indians would soon muster every adult for an assault on the ship. The elements might waver, but not the hate of the savage. From the rising of the sun to the going down thereof Suarez was ever on the alert. He ate his meals with his eyes fixed on the low point of land which hid Otter Creek. He saw thin columns of smoke rising ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... back again to the withdrawing-room; a little cedar-fire had been kindled under the wide chimney; and the room was full of dancing shadows. The great plaster-pendants, the roses, the crowns, and the portcullises on the ceiling seemed to waver in the firelight, for Mr. Buxton at a sign from Mary blew out the four tapers that were burning in the sconces. They all sat down in the chairs that were set round the fire, Mary in a tall porter's chair with flaps that threw a shadow on her face when she leaned back; and she took a fan in ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... than an impostor whom they had brought to defraud her sorrow. Trunnion was confounded at this unaccountable passion, which had no other foundation than caprice and whim; and Gamaliel himself was so disconcerted and unsettled in his own belief, which began to waver, that he knew not how to behave towards the boy, whom his godfather immediately carried back to the garrison, swearing all the way that Perry should never cross their threshold again with his good-will. Nay, so much was he incensed at this unnatural ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... their sakes didst thou weep, Who mightst have smiled to feel my kiss on thee? Yet as thou wishest once more shall it be, Because my oath constrains me, and thy tears. And yet again beware, and make these fears Of none avail; nor waver any more, I pray thee: for already to the shore Of all delights and joys ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... a study of complex emotion as she looked at her baby, but Pam's triumphant satisfaction did not waver for a moment. She nodded her head, and ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... either from a narrow street beside it or across its piazza, beyond the fountain fringed with post-card boys and their bargains. In spite of them, the sight of the temple does mightily lift the heart; and though you may have had, as I had, forty-odd years to believe in it, you must waver in doubt of its reality whenever you see it. It seems too great to be true, standing there in its immortal sublimity, the temple of all the gods by pagan creation, and all the saints by Christian consecration, and challenging your veneration equally as classic or catholic. ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... that of physical weakness; confronted in this way with the problem of fraternity, he did not waver any longer. On the threshold of safety, he turned straight back into the jaws of destruction. He had not emerged from that darkness and depth of earth, to descend into a lower profundity and a denser darkness ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... more crudely, were my contentions when desire did not cloud my brain and make me incoherent. And I did not fail to remind Nancy, constantly, that this was the path on which her feet had been set; that to waver now was to perish. She ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... glad am I of that! The fresh woodland only begins to please me, the glad daylight to smile to me, now that the offensive wretch is out of my sight!" He drives away the thought of him and lets sweeter reflections gradually absorb him. The leaves rustle and waver; delicate shafts of sunshine drop through them and play over the forest floor. The exquisiteness of the hour, by its natural power over the mood, turns the lonely boy's thoughts toward the only human beings life has so far given him to love,—and in images ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... paper written in French, of which I could read enough to see that it was a sort of official warrant to receive accounts for Monsieur Perrier, avocat, and his wife. I did not waver any longer. The prospect seemed too promising for me to lose it by any irresolution. I drew out my purse, and laid down two out of the three five-pound notes left me. She gave me a formal receipt in the names of Emile and Louise Perrier, and her sober face wore ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... inexorable dog! And for thy life let justice be accus'd. Thou almost makst me waver in my faith, To hold opinion with Pythagoras, That souls of animals infuse themselves Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter, Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, And whilst thou lay'st in thy ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... obstacles. Therefore once more I say yes! Could God turn my eighteenth birthday into a day of mourning? Oh, no! that were far too gruesome. Ah, I have long felt 'it must be,' and nothing in the world shall make me waver, and I will convince my father that a youthful heart can also be ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... of law, the common conscience of Christendom and the morals of men baptized, when we really have an implicit faith and honour and type of freedom to summon up our souls as with trumpets—then many of us begin to weaken and waver and wonder whether there is not something very nice about little yellow men, whose heroic stories revolve round polygamy and suicide, and whose heroes wore two swords and worshipped the ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... were of as motley a character as his conduct; and seemed to waver, during this whole reign, between the ancient and the new religion. The queen, engaged by interest as well as inclination, favored the cause of the reformers: Cromwell, who was created secretary of state, and who was daily advancing in the king's confidence, had embraced the same views; and as he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... was now upon his feet again, and aimed a stroke at me with a cutlass as I fell, which took place in a deep wound upon my neck and shoulder. He was going to repeat his blow. The two who had seemed to waver at first in their animosity, afterwards appeared to me to join in the attack, urged either by animal sympathy or the spirit of imitation. One of them however, as I afterwards, understood seized the arm of the man who was going to strike me a second time with his cutlass, and who would otherwise ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... on an eve is Sigurd in the ancient Niblung hall, Where the cloudy hangings waver and the flickering shadows fall, And he sits by the Kings on the high-seat, and wise of men he seems, And of many a hidden marvel past thought of man he dreams: On the Head of Hindfell he thinketh, ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... to be done, Saxham?" Julius stumbles up. The fires that burned in him a few moments ago are quenched; his slack hand trembles irresolutely at his beautiful weak mouth, and his deer-like eyes waver. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Tommy. "I am courageously calm. Go on, Bobby—my calmness will waver if you don't get to the point. Where ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... and practised. Now wit ye well that this frere, being an holy man and a simple, and having an eye single to ye blessed works of his calling, was presently mightily troubled in his mind by ye artifices of ye Divell, and his harte began to waver and to be filled with miserable doubtings; for knowing nothing of ye things whereof ye Divell spake, he colde not make answer thereto, nor, being of godly cogitation and practice, had he ye confutations wherewith to ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... with thee, how shall I be able to protect the girl? Indeed, as birds seek with avidity for meat that hath been thrown away on the ground, so do men solicit a woman that hath lost her husband. O best of Brahmanas, solicited by wicked men, I may waver and may not be able to continue in the path that is desired by all honest men. How shall I be able to place this sole daughter of thy house—this innocent girl—in the way along which her ancestors have always walked? How shall I then be able to impart unto this child ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and drugs (such as opium), and also as to sexual matters. To secure such information is extremely difficult, and the help of a close friend or companion will be necessary. After the mind begins to waver many a patient plunges into dissipation, though formerly a model ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... him after this, later the Emperor Frederick William—made his appearance on the field with his army. Assailed on both flanks and pressed in the centre, the Austrians first began to slacken fire, then to waver, then to give way under the terrific concentrated fire of the needle-guns, then to retreat into ignominious flight. The contending forces were about equal; but science and the needle-gun won the day, and changed the whole aspect of modern warfare. The battle of Koeniggraetz settled this point,—that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... the clover! Tears on the eyelids that waver and weep! Rockaby, lullaby—bending it over! Down on the mother-world, Down on the other world! Sleep, oh sleep! Down on the ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... before. Sumter, too, was not slow in showing her metal and paid particular attention to Moultrie. Early in the forenoon the smoke began to rise from within the walls of Sumter; "the tort was on fire." Shots now rain upon the walls of the burning fort with greater fury than ever. The flag was seen to waver, then slowly bend over the staff and fall. A shout of triumph rent the air from the thousands of spectators on the islands and the mainland. Flags and handkerchiefs waved from the hands of excited throngs in the city, as tokens of approval of eager watchers. Soldiers mount the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... British captain fall and the men waver, Capt. Blakely with a cheer called up the boarders of the "Wasp;" and in an instant a stream of shouting sailors, cutlass in hand, was pouring over the hammock-nettings, and driving the foe backward on his own decks. The British still fought stubbornly; ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... returned home to Dunore, having gained nothing by his London trip but a little of that bitter though salutary tonic called experience. His resolve did not waver—nay, it became his day-dream; but manifold obstacles occurred in the attempt to realize it. Family pride was one of the most stubborn; and not until all hope from home resources was at an end, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... blotted out by the falling gloom of reality. It was her child who stood there, but the bond between them seemed, but for the ache of rejected maternity at her heart, a pictorial one merely. Tears of bitterness involuntarily filled her eyes as she looked, and Imogen's form seemed to waver in a ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... to a gale which caused the planted standards, blazoned with lions rampant and with fleurs-de-lis, and the pennons of a hundred knights set here and there among the long battle lines, first to flap and waver and then to stand out straight as though ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... since the statute does not exist in an authentic shape, and is not to be found in the Rolls of the Realm, we cannot safely base any conclusion on it. As to the date too at which it may have been passed, our statements waver between the twenty-eighth and the thirty-fourth year of Edward. On the other hand we find in the collection of charters an undoubted charter of confirmation given at Ghent and dated 5 November 1297, in which not merely are the Great Charter ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... and breaking on her lips, and trying, how hard, not to show that she was watching, she searched his face, saw it waver and hesitate, saw a troubled line come between his brows, the blood rush into his face. He answered: "Not Sunday, dear; some ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... piece of ground, cheering on his men, when he was shot. He stayed with them until the line was formed, and then walked back to camp unassisted, giving his gun to a man who was near him. His men, who were drawn up on the high ground skirting Crooked Run,[31] began to waver, but were rallied by Fleming, whose division had been attacked almost simultaneously, until he too was struck down by a bullet. The line then gave way, except that some of Fleming's men still held their own on the left in a patch of rugged ground near the Ohio. At this moment, however, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... would waver. He had never wanted to come. Left to himself, he and Patch would have walked—elsewhither. Had he not known that Valerie was away, he would have excused himself at breakfast. Not for anything in the world would he have forfeited a chance of meeting her. Poor Anne's feelings would ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... cultivate that beautiful rhetoric and exquisite rhythmic harmony which impress us so forcibly in the work of scholars and bookmen like Rheinhart Kleiner. "A Girl of the U. S.", by George W. Macauley, is a prose piece whose nature seems to waver between that of a story and a descriptive sketch. Though description apparently preponderates, the narrative turn toward the conclusion may sanction classification as fiction. The faults are all faults of imperfect technique rather than of barren imagination, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... dare do it? The audacity of the proceeding was sufficient to make the iron will of even Lennox Sanderson waver. And yet, to lose her! Such a contingency was not to be considered. His mind flew backward and forward like a shuttle, he turned the leaves of his book; he smoked, but no light came from within ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... understand this, and doubted whether her grandfather would allow her to go. Oliver had then to explain that the old chief was not her grandfather; possibly, that he or his followers had murdered their parents, though for some reason he had saved her life. This seemed to make her waver; she promised Oliver that she would ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... his shot was answered by a fresh outburst of yells of pain and rage. Suddenly the palisade began to waver, then it slowly fell over, as a stream of blue-clothed figures darted from its insufficient shelter. The dacoits did not make either for the door of the hut nor for the jungle they had left. The pagoda was ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... supplement to Le Beau, ii. 208-242. As long as his Grecian queen Olympias maintained her influence, Arsaces was faithful to the Roman and Christian alliance. On the accession of Julian, the same influence made his fidelity to waver; but Olympias having been poisoned in the sacramental bread by the agency of Pharandcem, the former wife of Arsaces, another change took place in Armenian politics unfavorable to the Christian interest. The patriarch Narses retired from the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... incidentally brought out, in the examination of the aged converted jossakeed, or prophet of the Ottawa nation, called Chusco. He insisted, and could not be made, to waver from the point, that Satanic influences alone helped him to perform his tricks of jugglery, particularly the often noted one of shaking and agitating the tight-wound pyramidal, oracular lodge. No cross-questioning could make him give up this explanation. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... postponed, till at last it is too late, and the Hun has got through, and raided the trench. If you hesitate or ask advice you are lost. You have to make up your mind in an instant, and to stand by it. If you waver your men will never have ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... destroy life in every cause, whose everything is also at stake, yet there is, on the other side, your Government at stake. If these men be guilty, justice to the nation demands of you this day that you should convict them, and you must not waver. In the consideration of this case, you must bring to your aid a power, that may be a little more than is ordinarily given to human nature. You must, for the time, sink all hatred, malice, even human sympathy; and rise, God-like, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... is courage—the courage of the heart, which does not reason, which does not waver, which dashes blindly on, like a lightning flash, wherever it hears the cry of a dying man. One of these days I will take you to the exercises of the firemen, and I will point out to you Corporal Robbino; for you would be very glad to ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... and with those two new friends, it did not seem so absolutely impossible; but when Kitty's thoughts flew to Miss Pidsley, the bare, unhomelike room downstairs, and the dreary road outside, her mind began to waver, and she ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... rock I lie; Outside, the waters foam; And echoes of old storms go by Within my sea-built dome. The waters, half the gloomy way, Beneath its arches come; Throbbing to unseen billows' play, The green gulfs waver dumb. ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... Nelsen didn't waver. The impulse to do what he was doing had come too suddenly for nervousness to build up. He hadn't planned what to say, but his arguments were part ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... Martin Leland made no reply; nor did his steady gaze waver from the eyes now as stern as his own which looked straight back ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... spores are lost, stipitate, the stipe about one-fourth to one-third the total height, black polished shining; hypothallus distinct, common to all sporangia, purple-brown, shining; columella distinct, attaining almost the summit of the sporangium but inclined to waver a little at last, in other words, flexuose toward the top, freely branching, the branches rather stout, anastomosing to support the capillitial net; the meshes larger, several times the spore-diameter, the spores sooty-brown, distinctly warted or spinulescent, about 7-8 ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... under Commandants Ross, Botha, and Alberts did not waver. These officers and their veldtcornets with less than one hundred men stormed the nearest position of the enemy, who were occupying a fort on the brow of ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... crowd; for this is the crisis of the fight. The victor gives a fierce cut upon his adversary's line. The backers of the latter fancy they hear it grate, and in an instant their forebodings are realised; far the unfortunate Red is seen to waver like a bird struck by a shot, and then, released from the severed string, he descends in forlorn gyrations ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... know what you knew, that I had a fresh cause of quarrel with Uncle James. Do you believe me absolutely? Don't you waver at all?" ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... no chains of fear should bind me; I'd brave the heights which older men must shun. I'd leave the well-worn lanes of life behind me, And seek to do what men have never done. Rich prizes wait for those who do not waver; The world needs men to battle for the truth. It calls each hour for stronger hearts and braver. This is the age for those who ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... turn in Mr. Otis's condition was at length arrested by an attempt on his part to dine with Governor Hancock. At the dinner he was observed to become first sad and then to waver into mental occultation. He was taken by his brother, Hon. Samuel Alleyne Otis, to Andover. The event convinced the sufferer that the end of ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... unceasing grief, I am withdrawn, Ortalus, from the learned Virgins, nor is my soul's mind able to bring forth sweet babes of the Muses (so much does it waver 'midst ills: for but lately the wave of the Lethean stream doth lave with its flow the pallid foot of my brother, whom 'neath the Rhoetean seaboard the Trojan soil doth crush, thrust from our eyesight. * ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... strong enough and sudden enough to make him waver, but all the disgust came back to him that was his when he lay in the grass fighting gnats and cursing ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... be either that of a woman or a snake, for the Nagas, to whom she belonged, waver between the two. The Naga, it may be well to remind the reader, is a being possessed of magic powers, especially that of glamour or blearing the eye, which appealed so powerfully to ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... soft atmosphere of this temple of grace Rested silence and perfume. No sound reach'd the place. In the white curtains waver'd the delicate shade Of the heaving acacias, through which the breeze play'd. O'er the smooth wooden floor, polished dark as a glass, Fragrant white Indian matting allowed you to pass. In light olive baskets, by window and door, Some ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... stifles as beneath a pall. Prayers reach out to an infinity that is shrouded always, but the lover's lips are sweet and the caress is close and the arms are warm and human. What wonder if the brain forgets when the heart thirsts and pleads? What wonder if the reason waver and faint when the winged god nestles close in the breast? What woman if the woman wake and thrill and "answers to the touch of one musician's hand" as an instrument that is silent till the master touch sweep ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... withdrew his eyes from the hill-tops, sighed, as those do whose thoughts have been profoundly absorbed, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. He began to debate within himself—for the mind, unless strictly watched, is apt to waver between light thoughts and grave—whether or no it was worth while to make a second journey into the study after more tobacco. Perhaps Cornelia was within call, and would thus afford a means of cutting the Gordian ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... soul was revenge, and that dream by such means alone could be realized. However, when on the very point of its completion, one of those sudden and mysterious changes which often takes place in the human mind made her waver in her purpose; and the child of her intended victim having behaved so tenderly and so kindly when all the rest hooted at and tormented her, made her fervently wish that she could turn the fierce men around her from that fell purpose which she herself had nourished ...
— Ellen Duncan; And The Proctor's Daughter - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... was to be removed to make way for faith. This task is ambiguous, and the equivocation involved in it is perhaps the deepest of those confusions with which German metaphysics has since struggled, and which have made it waver between the deepest introspection and the dreariest mythology. To substitute faith for knowledge might mean to teach the intellect humility, to make it aware of its theoretic and transitive function as a faculty for hypothesis and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... himself opposed to a weak body of cavalry under Sir Marmaduke Langdale. By both the fight was maintained with obstinate valour; but superiority of numbers enabled the former to press on the flanks of the royalists, who began to waver, and at last turned their backs and fled. Cromwell prudently checked the pursuit, and leaving three squadrons to watch the fugitives, directed the remainder of his force against the rear of the royal infantry. That body of men, only three thousand five hundred in number, ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... squares. Heroic sculpture, however, in modern society, is really an anomaly and confesses as much by being a failure. No personal talent avails to rescue an art from laboured insignificance when it has no steadying function in the moral world, and must waver between caprice and convention. Where something modest and genuine peeped out was in portraiture, and also at times in that devotional sculpture in wood which still responded to a native interest ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's Burthen of honey-colored buds, to kiss And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. {10} Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, How it should waver, on the pale gold ground, Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts! I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb: But these ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... between us." Something in his eyes makes the light in hers waver and go down; she trembles and would like to run away, only he is holding ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... so noble a man as during those gloomy months. Never once did he waver in his loyalty to his father; never once did he suffer a word to be said to rebuke the old man's harshness; never once did he complain if more than a common soldier's hardships, with a common soldier's fare, fell to his lot; never once ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... Bok immensely to Mr. Curtis's methods was their perfect simplicity and directness. He believed absolutely in the final outcome of his proposition: where others saw mist and failure ahead, he saw clear weather and the port of success. Never did he waver: never did he deflect from his course. He knew no path save the direct one that led straight to success, and, through his eyes, he made Bok see it with equal clarity until Bok wondered why others could not see it. But ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... ye what. I want you like I know you. I'm satisfied. I don't want you to tell me nothin'. I don't want to know nothin'." He turned and looked with clumsy gravity into her eyes, which did not waver. "Besides," he said, "I don't believe you ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... fooling, but what occurred. When the Abyssinians were a little less than a mile from us, Ruppert's adjutants galloped along our front for the last time and bade our men to fire: 'But not a shot after they begin to waver!' Then among us there was a stillness as of death, whilst from the other side the noise of the drums and the wild music grew louder and louder, interrupted from time to time by the piercing war-cries of the Abyssinians. When the enemy was within half a mile our ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... turned her back on the bustle of the station, all the lines in her face seemed to waver and the eyes to brighten. Finally, when the train rolled up to the platform and a young-looking elderly man swung himself nimbly off the steps, the color flared up in her cheeks, only to sink as suddenly; like a candle flame in ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... the Russian army had to abandon the bank of the Vistula. Three detached corps remained stationed there. The Polish general, Skrzynecki, who had succeeded Prince Radzivil in the command, then took the offensive. He defeated the Russians under Geismas at Waver, and General Rosen at Dembevilkie and Igknie, but then stopped short. In the meanwhile a Polish expedition into Volhynia failed completely. Dvernicki was driven back into Gallicia. Another Polish ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... not a conspicuously sane operation. So near the ground, the plane tended to waver. The air was distinctly bumpy. To push a massive box out a doorway, so it would tumble down a thousand feet to desert sands, was not so safe a matter as would let it become tedious. But Joe helped. They got the box to the door and shoved it out. It went spinning ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... work by which man had been made repeated before my eyes. I saw the form waver from sex to sex, dividing itself from itself, and then again reunited. Then I saw the body descend to the beasts whence it ascended, and that which was on the heights go down to the depths, even to the abyss of all being. The principle of life, which makes organism, always remained, ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... strong enough to heave up solid rocks, and to make the firm ground upon which we tread, and upon which the houses are built, waver to and fro like the restless sea, so that the strongest buildings begin to totter and fall, and the bravest men run ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... to enumerate almost every action of men who scarce waver save under her assaults. For reason has been obliged to yield, and the wisest reason takes as her own principles those which the imagination of man has everywhere rashly introduced. [He who would follow reason only would be deemed foolish ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... invincible as the limestone foundation of their beloved college halls. The center from which all strength radiated was Victor Burleigh. Against him the weight of the line-bucking plunged. If he wavered the line must crumble. The crowd hardly breathed, so tense was the strain. But he did not waver. The ball was lost and the last struggle of the day began. Two minutes more, the score tied, and only ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... rather dismally in the parlor with Mrs. Hawley for company, at midnight heard a banging of tin cans somewhere outside, a fitful popping of six-shooters, and an abortive attempt at a procession coming up the street. But the lines seemed to waver and then break utterly at the first saloon, where drink was to be had for the asking and Manley Fleetwood was pledged to pay, and the rattle of cans was all but drowned in the shouts of laughter and talk which came ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... were closed the officers appeared at the windows, and opened a rifle fire upon the convicts, as did the guards near the gate. As comparatively few of the convicts had muskets, they began to waver at once. But, headed by the two ringleaders, the armed party rushed at the guard, shot them down, ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... the swords. The horses began to neigh, bite, rear and kick. Then the Zmudz noblemen charged down; Zbyszko, Hlawa and the Mazovians fell upon them. By dint of the press, the German throng began to waver, and swayed like trees before a storm, but they hewed like choppers of firewood in the forest thickets, and advanced slowly ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... those same eyes for centuries, as though he had always known them, and the soul that looked out of them into his. He bent his head lower, and stretching out his arms drew her to him, and the eyes did not waver. He raised her and held her close against his breast. ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... said this, he pitched the coin with a tremulous hand, and then leaned forward, breathlessly watching it fall, waver from side to side, and roll slowly under the bookcase. Too much excited to rise from his knees, he crept towards it, and, pressing his cheek against the dusty floor, he peered under the unwieldy piece of furniture, to catch a glimpse of his penny ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... as perhaps he mused, "My plans That soar, to earth may fall, 10 Let once my army-leader Lannes Waver at yonder wall"— Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping; nor bridle drew 15 ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... as perhaps he mused, "My plans That soar, to earth may fall, Let once my army-leader Lannes Waver at yonder wall,—" Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping: nor bridle drew Until ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... months he was kept in the Tower. During all that time his cheerful steadfastness did not waver. He wrote long letters to his children, and chiefly to Meg, his best-loved daughter. When pen and ink were taken away from him, he still wrote with coal. In these months he became an old man, bent and crippled with disease. But though his body was feeble his mind was clear, ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... rather for your sake in the meantime that you did not come, we cannot turn you from our doors," answered Miss Jane, somewhat relenting. "Only you must promise not to try to induce May to waver in her resolution. You will then part with the consciousness that you have acted rightly, and may hope for your reward when you ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... Daisy, but she never flinched from her post, and stood resolutely between the sick man and that other one in the corner until the latter seemed to waver a little; his shadow was not so black, his presence so all-pervading, and there was hope for Tom. His reason came back at last, and the fever left him, but weak as a child, with no power to move even his poor wasted hands which lay outside the ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... The soul must be saved, if all is lost. This is not a time for the friends of the Church and of Mexico to waver. The Church is insulted every day by ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... heather we wonn'd together, I and my Willie (O love my love): I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, And flitterbats waver'd alow, above: ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... once decided to show fight, and did not at all waver in that resolve, his courage was in the main of a despondent sort. Sometimes it would flutter up to the point of confidence, or at least hopefulness, when he met with substantial men of the church who obviously liked him, and whom he found himself mentally ranging on his side, in ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... seated myself when an electric shock went through me. A voice told me, 'She is here!' I looked round, and saw the countess hidden in the shadow at the back of her box in the first tier. My look did not waver; my eyes saw her at once with incredible clearness; my soul hovered about her life like an insect above its flower. How had my senses received this warning? There is something in these inward tremors ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... fact that it had occurred at a time when I was at such a low ebb physically, by reason of illness. I determined to try to forget it, as speedily as possible. But, however keenly I felt the humiliation and folly of my emotion upon that strange night, it never occurred to me to waver, when recalling my decision to bring matters between Mr. Gregory and myself to an end. My refusal of him had been brought about by one cause, and only one—that I fully realized; and now that I had repudiated the cause, ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... Miss Armitage seemed to waver. She sent a backward look to the river, and the glance, returning, swept Tisdale; then she straightened in her seat and swung the bays into the branch. It cut the valley diagonally, away from the Wenatchee, past a last orchard, into wild lands that stretched in level ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson |
