"Faltering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... countenances deeply blushing from a consciousness of what they felt. Osborne turned back, mechanically, and accompanied her in her walk. After this there was a silence for some time, for neither had courage to renew the conversation. At length Osborne, in a faltering voice addressed her: ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... kept the lead; but the judges of the gondolier's skill began to detect signs of exhaustion in his faltering stroke. The waterman of the Lido pressed him hard, and the Calabrian was drawing more into a line with them both. At this moment, too, the masked competitor exhibited a force and skill that none had expected ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... quivering lips in vain The faltering accents strove to flow, It was because my heart's deep pain Bade tears be swift and utterance slow; For in that moment rose the ghosts Of pleasant hours in bygone years; And your kind faces, O my hosts! Showed blurred and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... recovering her consciousness, she was seized with most acute pains. The intensity of her sufferings drew from her the most piteous cries. Then her conscience was roused; then, as if suddenly awakened to a sense of the enormity of her conduct, with a faltering voice she murmured: "My pride! my dreadful pride!" Francesca bent over her gently, entreated her to bear her sufferings patiently, assured her they would soon subside. Then Mobilia burst into an agony of tears, and exclaimed before all the bystanders, "They will subside, my dear ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... or faltering as affected by the girl's action was the young man who had tumbled from the tree bed. The blood dancing within him and the great natural impulse of gaining what was greatest to him in life controlled ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... old Van Quintem had said to him, in faltering accents; "go among the gambling houses, and other dens of infamy, and you will surely hear of ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... rifle. The lion remained standing, but gazing up wind with his head raised, snuffing in the air for a scent of the enemy. No rifle was put in my hand. I looked back for an instant, and saw my Tokrooris faltering about five yards behind me. I looked daggers at them, gnashing my teeth and shaking my fist. They saw the lion, and Taher Noor snatching a rifle from Hadji Ali was just about to bring it; when Hassan, ashamed, ran forward. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... Simpkins the constable, with rueful countenance and faltering voice, with the intelligence that the prisoner had escaped, created a great sensation. No one was more indignant than the Earl—though how far this was real may be judged when we inform the reader that Lambert had held a long conversation with the prisoner, Simpkins and his two assistants being ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... the last accent claims Of this poor faltering tongue; And that shall the first notes ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... resumed her chair, but stood faltering with her hand upon its broken back, looking at me. I thought she would have spoken to me privately if she had dared. She was still in this attitude of uncertainty when her husband, who was eating with a lump of bread and fat in one hand and his clasp-knife ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... crossed an apology for a bridge. During the advance both columns were discovered by the British sentinels and the rocky defense literally blazed with musketry. In stern silence, however, without faltering, the American columns moved forward, entered the abatis, until the advance guard under Anthony Wayne was within the enemy's works. A bullet at this moment struck Wayne in the forehead grazing his skull. Quickly recovering from the shock, he rose to his knees, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... been looking for us, it seems, and has built a roaring blaze out of doors to serve as a guide to our faltering steps!" announced Jud, pompously, although he could hardly have been referring to himself, for his pace seemed to be just as swift and bold as when he first ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... new path the advance guard toiled, slowly, heavily, doggedly; only those who have watched and guided the faltering feet, the misty minds, the dull understandings, of the dark pupils of these schools know how faithfully, how piteously, this people strove to learn. It was weary work. The cold statistician wrote down the inches of progress here and there, noted also where here and there a foot ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... down-hearted. I was myself inclined to think that I had better go back to the school in Brussels. But nevertheless I went to work, and under the surveillance of my elder brother made a beautiful transcript of four or five pages of Gibbon. With a faltering heart I took these on the next day to the office. With my caligraphy I was contented, but was certain that I should come to the ground among the figures. But when I got to "The Grand," as we used to call our office in those ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... it fell upon the floor. Then, her eyes still fixed upon the shoes, she moved slowly sidewise towards the closet. She tried the door, and found it still locked; then she put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key, looked at it, and dropped it. With faltering steps she drew near the table, and stood supporting herself by the back of a chair. Any one else would have seen upon that table merely a pair of baby's shoes; but she saw more. She saw the tops of the little socks which she had folded away for the last time so ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... deliberately and distinctly taken. The choice of it was the result of convictions which had been forming before the occasion came which called on them. The religious ideas which governed the minds of those who led the movement had been traced, in outline at least, firmly and without faltering. ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... rhetoricians that heights and falls, and a different cadency in pronunciation, is a great advantage to the setting off any thing that is spoken, they will sometimes as it were mutter their words inwardly, and then of a sudden hollo them out, and be sure at last, in such a flat, faltering tone as if their spirits were spent, and they had run themselves out of breath. Lastly, they have read that most systems of rhetoric treat of the art of exciting laughter; therefore for the effecting of this ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... her ever so long. We were talking about India. She remembers my dear mamma; and, do you know"—her bright expression fading to sadness—"I can scarcely remember her! I should have stayed with Decima—may I call her Decima?" broke off Lucy, with a faltering tongue, as if she ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... not to, in face of his direct gaze, from which all faltering had now vanished. Yet the matter not being completely thrashed out, Mr. Gryce felt himself obliged to say in answer ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... worker, faltering on life's rugged way, With faithful hands so full they may not rest, Forget not that the weak of earth have one sure stay, And humblest ones by God himself are blest, Who ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... answered in a faltering voice, "at least he swore to me that you were dead; and never having ceased to persecute me, since the day that fatal tidings reached, to become the wife of La Rochederrien, now Marquis de Ploermel, he now became ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... No man can make his mark on this age of specialities who is not a man of one idea, one supreme aim, one master passion. The man who would make himself felt on this bustling planet, must play all his guns on one point. A wavering aim, a faltering purpose, will have no place in the twentieth century. "Mental shiftlessness" is the cause of many a failure. The world is full of unsuccessful men who spend their lives letting empty ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... countlessly they congregate O'er our tumultuous snow, Which flows in shapes as tall as trees When wintry winds do blow!— As if with keenness for our fate, Our faltering few steps on To white rest, and a place of rest Invisible at dawn,— And yet with neither love nor hate, Those stars like some snow-white Minerva's snow-white marble eyes Without the ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... and HIS words. It matters not where we meet the word, if it is Christ's we are touched and made tender. An aged man stands in a prayer-meeting in a bare and cheerless hall, and says in broken and faltering voice, "The dear Lord has blessedly SANCTIFIED my heart," and like a flash the room lightens, and the whole place seems changed and made cheery. The heart cries, "That is my Master's word," and the entire being is ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... dear, I know it," was the somewhat faltering reply. "I want you to be happy, Jean, and I believe the young man is worthy of ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... everywhere. I had to step across their bodies to get to the kitchen, and stopped to give one poor wounded lad a drink. Oh, I never can blot this scene out; it will haunt me in my dreams." Tears were in her eyes, and stealing down her cheeks, but there was no faltering. Softly she bathed the wound on my head, and bound it up. Then she kissed me. "Will they never come to help us?" she cried, lifting her eyes from mine. "Hear that man yonder groan. What can I do, Robert? I cannot ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... shouted from the doorway, rang down her faltering sentence as with the clash of an alarm bell. I saw Ronald—in talk with Miss McBean but a few yards away—spin round on his heel and turn slowly back on me with a face of sheer bewilderment. There was no time to conceal myself. To reach ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Ogilvie. The heat of the weather, the business of the farm, to which I have made myself necessary, forbade it; and to give one round reason for all, mature sanus, I have laid up my Rosinante in his stall, before his unfitness for the road shall expose him faltering to the world. But why did not I answer you in time? Because, in truth, I am encouraging myself to grow lazy, and I was sure you would ascribe the delay to any thing sooner than a want of affection or respect to you, for this was not among the possible causes. In truth, if any thing could ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... hoped against hope," he replied, in a voice faltering with emotion. "Poor old Everard! But I am afraid there is no room for doubt. Oh, this wicked curse of money—tempting the noblest and ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... cruelty to a bad end that made such beauty so pale and resolute as Gwen's, as she said without faltering:—"The name is your mother's name—Mrs. Thornton Daverill. Your father's name was Thornton. Now open ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... and this time carried her without faltering, till they came to a hillock covered with soft grass. Here they rested again, and so by easy stages he carried her through the wood, and out into the road, to the nearest cottage, neither ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... faltering lament sounding faintly through the storm, began to protest despairingly. God, could it not soon be over! Why torment honest sailors so? They had done no harm! "Let her go, Pascualo, let her go, for God's sake! ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... I closely confronted my situation the glory of the western sky came back to me, and it must have been during one of these dreary storms that I began to write a poor faltering little story which told of the adventures of a cattleman in the city. No doubt it was the expression of the homesickness at my own heart but only one or two of the chapters ever took shape, for I was tortured by the feeling that no matter how great the intellectual advancement caused ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... was the arena where the battle was fought. Within a few years, Hamilton and Burr were the most famous men in the town. They resembled each other strongly in temperament and disposition; each was "passionate, brooking no rivalry; ambitious, faltering at no obstacle; proud with a fiery and aggressive pride; eloquent with the quick wit, the natural vivacity, and the lofty certainty of the true orator." They were too nearly alike to be friends; they became instinctive enemies. Each felt that the ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... aunt's chair with faltering steps, as became a suffering man. He took Lady Lydiard's hand and ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... and Father of us all, shining light of thy land, whose lineage, most glorious from times of old, I am to relate, I beseech thee let thy grace attend the faltering course of this work; for I am fettered under the weight of my purpose, and dread that I may rather expose my unskillfulness and the feebleness of my parts, than portray thy descent as I duly should. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... gloriously and triumphantly. His face was so radiant and shining that it seemed to us as though the heavenly gates had swung back, and from the glory land some of its brightness had come flashing down, and had so illumined the poor body that still held in its faltering grasp the precious soul, that we could almost imagine that mortal itself was putting on immortality. The triumphant death of Memotas was not only a revelation and a benediction to Oowikapun and Astumastao, and many other Christian Indians, ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... hundred advanced upon the city. Again the Arab contingent would have made off into the desert but for the promise of more money. Hamet was torn by conflicting emotions, in which a desire to retreat was uppermost. Eaton was, as ever, indefatigable and indomitable. When his forces were faltering at the crucial moment, he boldly ordered an assault and carried the defenses of the city. The guns of the ships in the harbor completed the discomfiture of the enemy, and the international army ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... sport. Such omens struck him as vivid, in any case, when Mr. Gutermann-Seuss, with a sharpness of discrimination he had at first scarce seemed to promise, invited his eminent couple into another room, before the threshold of which the rest of the tribe, unanimously faltering, dropped out of the scene. The treasure itself here, the objects on behalf of which Mr. Verver's interest had been booked, established quickly enough their claim to engage the latter's attention; yet at what point of his past did our friend's memory, looking back and back, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... stepped from the library clutching the silken curtains. She hesitated a moment at sight of him and then faltering forward, offered ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... for he was not afraid to tell me of my faults when he saw them, and the man after all, to whom I am under greater obligations than to any other, living or dead, for bringing me acquainted with myself—held on his upward course for the last thirty years of his life without faltering, and without any visible perturbation, like the planets, if not like the stars, along their appointed path, never so as to astonish perhaps, but almost always so as to convince, whatever might be the manner of his approach, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... the little girl, in faltering accents, as she presented the flower, "my plant is bloomed at last; will you accept this first blossom as a token of affection from ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... back the doctor up for as good a memory as any man in the three kingdoms. I had forgotten that piece of moral turpitude, and might have been excused for imagining that the caning I got then had wiped out the offence. Hamilton," he added, with a faltering voice, laying his hand on Hamilton's shoulder—"you don't believe I ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... a petrifying of emotion that for a season in courtship flourishes. It gets its vitality through a growth process, continues with life, a spreading of an affection always forward-looking; anything else is an indication of a faltering marriage. In the beginning love announces the awakening of mutual need. Then the feelings flow swift and strong and carry each toward the other. The impulse to possess, to annex, to have possession of the beloved, is a consuming hunger. It is a covetous grasping, ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... minister, his voice faltering and his hands trembling as they rested on Cecil's bowed head, "so we give him into Thine own hand and send him forth into the wilderness. Thou only knowest what is before him, whether it be a harvest of souls, or torture and death. But ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... said then in a faltering tone. "I will not go on one condition, that you allow me to write ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... great cost bringing all her influence to bear upon the young girl whom her son loved. She drearily said to herself, after many days, that her influence was weak, that it accomplished nothing. The strength of it pushed Susannah, who stood faltering at the parting of the ways, and the impetus of that push was felt in her rapid and unsteady step for many and ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... sentence of the law upon the murderers of the Seneca chief, who were shot on the spot in the presence of the assembly. The Iroquois were placated; three men killed for the death of one convinced them that French justice was neither slow nor faltering. In the meantime the Outaouais had brought back three of their prisoners and pledged themselves for the surrender of twelve others. in this way war was averted ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... my name! He called me Inza. His words were strange and somewhat faltering. He spoke with a growl that I am certain he assumed to disguise his voice. There is something familiar about him—something familiar in his movements and his walk. Frank, I know him! Is there no way to find out ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... leavin' it be, I sot my bucket o' berries at the foot o' a tree', an started down the slope todes the bluff, ter make sure an' view it clar o' the trees." The girl paused, her eyes widening, her voice faltering, her breath coming fast. "An' goin' swift, some hawgs, stray, half grown, 'bout twenty shoats feedin' in the woods—my rustlin' in the bushes skeered 'em I reckon—they sot out to run, possessed by the devil, like them the Scriptur' tells about." ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... every year. No, we have but one of each during our lives, if we reach old age. Springtime is our childhood, summer is our young manhood and young womanhood, autumn is our middle age and winter comes when the hair is white and the footsteps faltering. The first part of a full life is the seedtime, and the latter half is the harvest-time. Some of us may think that we may, while we are young, form habits that are bad and expect to get rid of them before the harvest-time. Still others of us do not seem to find out very early in life that there is ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... through the lonely dale, And, Fancy, to thy faerie bower betake! Even now, with balmy freshness, breathes the gale, Dimpling with downy wing the stilly lake; Through the pale willows faltering whispers wake, And evening comes with locks bedropt with dew; On Desmond's moldering turrets slowly shake The trembling rye-grass and the harebell blue, And ever and anon ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Little John sat with Robin Hood's hand in his, gazing out of the open window, ever and anon swallowing a great lump that came in his throat. Meantime the sun dropped slowly to the west, till all the sky was ablaze with a red glory. Then Robin Hood, in a weak, faltering voice, bade Little John raise him that he might look out once more upon the woodlands; so the yeoman lifted him in his arms, as he bade, and Robin Hood's head lay on his friend's shoulder. Long he gazed, with a wide, lingering look, while the other ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... sugarcane; decreasing world prices have hurt the industry in recent years. Tourism and export-oriented manufacturing have begun to assume larger roles. Most food is imported. The newly elected government has undertaken a program designed to revitalize the faltering sugar sector. It is also working to improve revenue collection in order ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... crept to the window to see if any one was ready. While I was watching through the half-closed blinds, some one crossed the piazza. My heart gave a great leap, and then every pulse stood still. It was Mr. Langenau. His step was slower than it used to be, and, I thought, a little faltering. He crossed the road, and took the path that led through the grove and garden to the river. He had a book under his arm; he must be going to the boat-house to sit there and read. My heart gave such an ecstasy of life to my veins at the thought, ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... edges of swords, and warlike borders of broad shields, the hero Suibhne was filled and intoxicated with horror, panic, and imbecility; his feet trembled as if incessantly shaken by the force of a stream; the inlets of his hearing were expanded and quickened by the horrors of lunacy; his speech became faltering from the giddiness of imbecility; his very soul fluttered with hallucinations, and with many and various phantasms. He might be compared to a salmon in a weir, or to a bird after being caught in the strait prison of a crib," &c. "When he was seized with this frantic fit, he made a supple, very light ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... instances in the siege of Tientsin of disregard of death. And outside the gates of Pekin ten men who were killed in their attempts to blow it up might apparently have been indefinitely multiplied at the command of their officers without any danger of faltering. When at ten o'clock at night they advanced to take the gate by assault which they had failed to force in the morning, it was immensely attractive to observe the gaiety, almost amounting to hilarity, with which they advanced to the attack. All ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... sluggish and inert body, less active than another, less enduring, and especially less defiant of physical ills. And one might prophesy, too, that he who had high thoughts and wealth of knowledge would have stored up in his brain a magazine of reserved power wherewith to support the faltering body: a prophecy not wide apart, perhaps, from any broad and candid ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... not having leaned to a great angle, was now pushed back by some power from the inside of the barn and kept erect. Though now and again it swayed in, as though the strength which held it was faltering ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... dead formalities, nor slavish submissions, but new and fuller life, self-reliance, self-development, and the freest individuality. Gladly the people accepted the propositions and principles of their national existence. Not a doubt anywhere of the result; no faltering, no looking back; but brave hearts, everywhere, and bold fronts, and conquering souls. Before them, through the mists of the starry twilight, loomed the mountain peaks and shadowy seas of the unventured and unknown future; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... did not lose his self-possession in the conflict, while the agitated expression of his countenance evidently showed what was passing in his mind. He was sufficiently master of himself to reply to the Emperor in a calm though rather faltering voice: "Sire, permit me to hope that posterity will judge of my grandfather more favourably than your Majesty does. During his administration he was ranked by the side of Sully and Colbert; and let me repeat again that I trust posterity will render him justice."—"Posterity will, probably, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... which separates nearly every woman of genius from her sex; there such women are found to have a certain vague similitude to man; they have neither the suppleness nor the soft abandonment of those whom Nature destines for maternity; their gait is not broken by faltering motions. This observation may be called bi-lateral; it has its counterpart in men, whose thighs are those of women when they are sly, cunning, false, and cowardly. Camille's neck, instead of curving inward ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... fire had divided. Two guns pounded away at Taylor's feint, while two shelled the main column. The latter was struck repeatedly; more than twenty men dropped silent or groaning out of the hurrying files; but the survivors pushed on without faltering and without even caring for the wounded. At last a broad belt of green branches rose between the regiments and the ridge; and the rebel gunners, unable to see their foe, ...
— The Brigade Commander • J. W. Deforest
... friend," was whispered, in faltering accents, and the thin, careworn object of their mission gazed up wildly in his old school-fellow's eyes. "You have dared to come ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... going to his studio in the Rue Tourlaque, and when he did so, it was as to a house desolated by death. He turned the huge canvas to the wall and rolled his steps into a corner; he would have smashed and burned everything if his faltering hands had found strength enough. Nothing more existed; amid a blast of anger he swept the floor clean, and spoke of setting to work at little things, since he was incapable of perfecting ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... Madame's heart, but in her head. She was no longer a princess full of scruples, nor a woman with her ever-returning suspicions, but one whose heart had just felt the mortal chill of a wound. "Wounded to death!" she murmured, in a faltering voice, "oh, Monsieur de Manicamp! did you ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... whirling him about and sucking him under. He felt as if a clear light broke upon his mind, and with it a conviction that good was, after all, stronger than evil, and that good was possible to men. He seemed to discover that there was a kind of rapture in which he could love forever without faltering and without sin. He looked across the heads of the people at Frank Shabata with calmness. That rapture was for those who could feel it; for people who could not, it was non-existent. He coveted nothing that was Frank Shabata's. The spirit he had met in music was his own. Frank Shabata had ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... chair and the tears came to her eyes, but she choked them back. She would not let him see how much she was hurt. She told him in a faltering voice where she sat, and he passed out. Then her tears came and flooded away the last hope. She had been so proud to think that she would walk to church with her husband that morning for the first time in so long a while, and now it was all over. For a little while she thought that ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... where after so long an absence, she found herself as in a foreign land. Domingo and Mary personated the reapers. Virginia followed their steps, gleaning here and there a few ears of corn. She was interrogated by Paul with the gravity of a patriarch, and answered, with a faltering voice, his questions. Soon touched with compassion, he granted an asylum to innocence, and hospitality to misfortune. He filled Virginia's lap with plenty; and, leading her towards us, as before the old men of the city, declared his purpose to take her in marriage. At this scene, ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... with faltering or uncertain tone— With chosen words we make our meaning known, That like a great wind from the West ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... her husband, Maria turned pale: her blood ran cold in her veins. But what could she do? She felt the same distress as her husband. After a few moments of silence, she replied in a faltering voice, "My husband, you may do as you wish." Accordingly Tetong made ready the necessary provisions for the journey, which consisted of a sack of ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... but with a rather faltering laugh he replied, as he put the rose to his lips, "Never let the color suggest that I will show the white feather;" and then he began his military career ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... much to see the play. If we do it all well together it ought to be so very pleasant. I never saw a great mass of people so charmed with a little story as when we acted it at the Glasgow Theatre. But I have no other reason for faltering when I take him to my arms. I feel that he is the man for the part.[10] I see him with a blue bag, a flaxen wig, and green spectacles. I know what it will be. I foresee how all that sessional experience will come out. I reconcile myself to it, in spite of the selfish consideration of wanting ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... weakness, and hunger, by optimistic human nature. An odd word here, a line or two in another place, was eloquent of simple, steadfast courage and endurance; and even when the weakening man clearly knew that his end was near there was no outbreak of desperation or sign of faltering. He had dragged himself onward to ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... are but little children, after all, seeing not, groping blindly, attempting weakly, blundering always, yet never faltering in love for Thee. Now I, Thy servant, humble and lowly, from whom Thou hast already taken in hardest ways all that his heart held dear, who will to-day give his body to be crucified, if need be, for this people—I implore Thee to save these blundering children ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... enough left to pay my way to New York; and even if I should walk back, I've no place there to go back to, and no one at all—now—" He broke off here, his voice faltering; and his blue eyes filled with moisture. But he made a swallow, and checked the tears, and sat gently stroking ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... that he could not break through, he floundered along, and was much nearer than he thought to all that he shunned and banned. All his compositions were a mixture of truth and turgidness, of lucid strength and faltering stupidity. It was only in rare moments that his personality could pierce the casing of the dead ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... she, in a faltering voice. "You will lay me under very great obligations. Yes, Sir, I accept your kind offer. I shall be only too happy to put myself under your protection. I will go with you, and may ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... introduced some tax reforms to that end. Unemployment fell steadily under the AZNAR administration but remains high at 10.4%. Growth of 2.5% in 2003 and 2.6% in 2004 was satisfactory given the background of a faltering European economy. The socialist president, RODRIGUEZ ZAPATERO, has initiated economic and social reforms that are generally popular among the masses of people but that are anathema to religious and other conservative elements. Adjusting to the monetary and other economic policies of an integrated ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... of suffering and privations by land and water, in the woods, and swamps of North Carolina and Virginia, were before him, as his experience in traveling proved. But the hope of final victory and his daily sufferings before he started, kept him from faltering, even when starvation and death seemed to be staring him in the face. For several months he was living in dens ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... short, looked this faltering faint-heart all over from head to heel with withering scorn, and demanded: "Ain't you got sportin' blood enough to know the difference between a high-station game-cock and that old bow-legged Mormon down ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... robes, light-waving in the breeze, Her tender limbs embrace; Her lovely form, her native ease, All harmony and grace; Tumultuous tides his pulses roll, A faltering, ardent kiss he stole; He gaz'd, he wish'd, He fear'd, he blush'd, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... emerged into view, and came hurriedly staggering along over the field, directly towards the house. The instant the careless eye of the elated Martha fell on the approaching figure, it became fixed as if enchained by a spell. The half-uttered word she was speaking suddenly died on her faltering tongue. An instinctive shudder seemed to run over her; and, for nearly a minute, she stood gazing in ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... he placed it on his arm, where he held it close as he strode away, leaving his deliverer planted in the middle of the sidewalk and staring after him. She scarcely dared ask him if he were hurt, as she found herself doing now with a faltering voice. ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... we felt that they were faltering and that our work was easier and our hope higher; then we cried our cries and pressed on harder, and in that very nick of time there arose close behind us the roar of the Markmen's horn and the cries ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... land, and can do it with a swiftness, a precision and a silence that no other nation could surpass. So we hold our heads high and are proud to reckon ourselves the fellow-countrymen of JELLICOE and KITCHENER. We have begun well. May we have strength and resolution to endure without faltering to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 26th, 1914 • Various
... with a faltering voice, as he hurried away to conceal his disappointment and indignation, which he felt at ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... forbid a fate so dread — ALONE to travel down The dreary road we all must tread, With faltering steps and whitening head, The road to Old ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... to the faltering arms. The protecting cap was dashed from the poisoned arrow and the notched base of the shaft flew to its position in the string. There was the twang of the bow and the deadly missile whined through the air. A hoarse scream rang out; the points of greenish fire were gone; a heavy body tore its ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... the contest was about. Her beauty, which I heard praised; the deference I saw her met with; her sanctity, which I recognized as a great power, which my father, otherwise yielding to nothing or no one, dared only resist with faltering mockery; the sphere of suffering and tears in which she lived - all this drew my chivalrous heart to her. I considered my father a great man, a giant who dared anything and could get whatever he pleased - but for this very reason would ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... her air Such gentle thankfulness declare, That (so it seemed) her girded vests Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts. 380 'Sure I have sinn'd!' said Christabel, 'Now heaven be praised if all be well!' And in low faltering tones, yet sweet, Did she the lofty lady greet With such perplexity of mind 385 As dreams ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Gerald, "who nothing could dismay, raised the faltering hopes of his abject minions by saying that he was jolly well going on, and they could do as they ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... was no need, for they were very good friends now. When he had returned that night from the rescue of Martin, all mud-splashed and exhausted, he had read, with a glad leap of his heart, the message in her eyes and in her faltering words—he had vindicated himself. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... emancipation, or Nirwana. Accordingly, the discourses of Gotama, and the sacred books of the Buddhists, are filled with vivid accounts of every thing disgusting and horrible connected with existence, and with vivid descriptions, consciously faltering with inadequacy, of every thing supremely fascinating in connection with Nirwana. "The three reflections on the impermanency, suffering, and unreality of the body are three gates leading to the city of Nirwana." The constant claim is, that whosoever by adequate moral discipline and philosophical ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his bill. Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell. He took another look to assure himself that his senses had not deceived him and then read the items aloud, in a faltering voice, while the roses in his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... disturbed intellect, but a part of the bystanders esteemed and respected him as a man of noble and generous disposition, lavish of his small means towards those whom he considered poorer than himself, and never faltering in any act of kindness on account of hardship or privation; while the rest, as already intimated, felt a sort of awe in his presence from the mystery that surrounded him. Among the spectators was our old friend, Tom Gladding, leisurely engaged in whittling out a chain from a pine block, some ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... faltering and uncertain; he made his way straight up to them as a group first, then turned sharply and peered close into the face of Simpson. The sound of a voice ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... the lecturer turned again to the drawing on the wall and stretched out his hand, evidently with the intention of making some addition to it, but instead of doing so lie paused irresolutely, and faltering, let his arm drop down ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... to accomplish that creative task, to go as far on that road as his strength will carry him, to go undeterred by faltering, weariness or reproach, is the only valid justification for the worker in prose. And if his conscience is clear, his answer to those who in the fulness of a wisdom which looks for immediate profit, demand specifically to be edified, consoled, amused; who demand to be promptly ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... position; he avoided the other's glance; he was visibly trembling, and when presently he spoke it was in faltering accents. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... intellectual one, as his skill at repartee, and praises the literary crack shot, and defines manliness to be readiness, as he does in this last volume and in the preceding one, I am filled with a perverse envy of all the confused and stammering heroes of history. Is Washington faltering out a few broken and ungrammatical sentences, in reply to the vote of thanks of the Virginia legislature, less manly than the glib tongue in the court-room or in the club that can hit the mark every ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... hands with Daphne and Hans, and others of his associates. The train would bear him away in the morning. Azalia came tripping down the path, holding out both hands to meet him at the gate. She greeted him with a sad smile. "You are not going away to the war, are you?" she asked with faltering voice. ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... smelt my coat-tails singeing at the fire, I had not the power to withdraw them. The young man put the packet in my faltering grasp, and repeated,—let me do him the ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... uncle said, in a faltering voice, "you have indeed borne sorrow well; but this will demand even a greater share of fortitude. All is not yet known, there may be hope, but I dare not encourage it. Tell her, Howard," he added, hastily, shrinking from her sorrowful glance, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... influence at the right moment. There was hearty affection on either side, and Mervyn was exceedingly improved, but more than once Phoebe saw in poor Cecily's harassed, puzzled, wistful face, and heard in her faltering remonstrances, what it was to have loved and married without perfect esteem ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the sentry spoke, and spoke in no faltering tone. He was an American. He was wearing the rough garb of the private soldier in the ranks of the regulars, but, like scores of other eager young patriots that year, he held the diploma of a great, albeit a foreign, university. He ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... discovered the new world, Martin, a boy of very nearly nine, was sitting at his desk in the school at Mansfeld. Though both diligent and quick, he found the crabbed Latin primer, itself written in abstract Latin, very difficult, and was flogged fourteen times in one morning by {63} brutal masters for faltering in a declension. When he returned home he found his mother bending under a load of wood she had gathered in the forest. Both she and his father were severe with the children, whipping them for slight faults until the blood came. Nevertheless, as the son himself recognized, they meant heartily ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... that he was a bright young student, and she secretly admired his intellect, but she was an inveterate tease, and it amused her to see him blush, and to hear his faltering answers. ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... I knew you," she said, faltering, "but I don't. Why don't you despise hypocrisy and double-dealing as you ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... lasted without fading or faltering during thirty-four years altogether, that is to say, throughout the whole of Dickens's career as a novelist. It began with his very first book, when, as Thackeray put it, "the young man came and took his place calmly at the head of the whole tribe, as the ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... flown several hundred yards away from us, and were growing small in the distance, the heron, less hardy than its knightly foe, showed signs of weariness and confusion. It changed its course, still flying away from us. This did not suit the hawk, and it continued circling about its faltering prey with a vicious swiftness well calculated to inspire terror. Its movements became so rapid that it appeared to describe a gray circle about the heron. These circles, with the heron as the centre, constantly grew ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... to Sauxal from La Paz that I met the cortege. The corpse was that of a wealthy rancher's wife, and the coffin was strung on two long poles borne by four men. Accompanying the coffin alongside of those carrying it were about two hundred horsemen. The bearers kept up a jog-trot, never once faltering on the way, each horseman taking his turn on the poles. When it became a man's turn to act as bearer nobody told him, but he slipped off his horse, letting it run wherever it pleased, ran to the coffin, ducked under the pole and started with the others on the jog-trot, while the man ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... the bailiffs was kindly supporting the faltering steps of the released prisoner, in taking him from the dock, and while the crowd in the court-room were pouring out of the front doors, the presiding judge, Baron Stairs, came down to the place where the young Duke of Hereward ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... reached the banks of the stream which had overflowed, and the Knight started on finding the wild torrent changed into a gentle rippling brook, without a trace of its former violence left. "By to-morrow it will have dried up completely," said the bride, in a faltering voice, "and thou mayest begone whither thou wilt."—"Not without thee, my Undine," said the Knight, playfully; "consider, if I had a mind to forsake thee, the Church, the Emperor, and his ministers might step in, and bring thy truant home."—"No, ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... Beholding them there, draped above the tombs, some faded but still intact, some mere clotted wisps of ragged silk clinging to blackened standards, gives one an uplifting conception of the spirit that has sent the British soldier forth to girth the globe, never faltering, never slackening pace, never giving back a step to-day but that he took two steps forward ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... room, Fanny dear," said Vizard, in a hurried, faltering voice, "and don't leave her. Rosa, help Miss Dover. Do not leave her alone, night nor day." Then to Miss Gale, "She will live? Tell me she ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... and despised the timid precaution which it implied, as an attempt to prevent the dispute betwixt Albany and himself. The tune, which was played upon a viol, was gay and sprightly in the commencement, with a touch of the wildness of the troubadour music. But, as it proceeded, the faltering tones of the instrument, and of the female voice which accompanied it, became plaintive and interrupted, as if choked by the painful ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the pretty face had anything to do with it. He imagined himself entirely above and beyond such flimsy considerations. Yet it is sadly doubtful whether an example in long division, on a smeared slate, brought to him with tears and faltering accents by Miss Christina, would have produced the effect which followed when Miss Rosamond May betrayed her shameful ignorance by handing him the slate and saying forlornly, "I've done it seven times, and it comes out differently wrong every time. Can you see what's the matter?" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the Dead Dervishes is long and winding. To Mrs. Greyne it seemed endless. As she threaded it with faltering step, gripped by the feverish hand of Abdallah Jack, who now began to display a strange and terrible excitement, she became a centre of curiosity. Unwashed Arabs, rakish Zouaves in blue and red, wandering Jews of various nationalities, unveiled dancing-girls covered with jewels, ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... and starting up, a figure stood before me. It was a young man, in a rich habit, with streaming hair, and looks that bespoke the utmost terror. I knew not what to think of this sudden apparition. 'Mother,' said he with faltering accents, 'let me rest under your roof; and deliver me not up to those who thirst after my blood. Take this gold; ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... wonder, then, that I should be solitary among the festive few on board the Jane Moseley—no wonder I felt myself darkly, deeply, desperately blue. I thought I would go on deck. I clung to my companion with an ardor which would have been flattering had it been voluntary. My faltering steps were guided to a seat just within the guards. I sat there thinking that I had never nursed a dear gazelle, so I could not be quite sure whether it would have died or not, but I thought it would. I mused on the changing fortunes of this unsteady world, and the ingratitude of man. ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... less lovely in his eyes because she came, not flaunting with bare bosom, in tawdry finery and paint, but shrouded close in coif and pinner, hiding from all the world beauty which was there still, but was meant for one alone, and that only if God willed, in God's good time? And was there no faltering of their voices, no light in their eyes, no trembling pressure of their hands, which said more, and was more, ay, and more beautiful in the sight of Him who made them, than all Herrick's Dianemes, Waller's Saccharissas, flames, darts, posies, love-knots, ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... essence in it, past all fellowship with ephemeral things. There is a true, not a laconic, logical, and prophetic inference in it that is apropriately styled, "time"; the finest embodiment of musical equipoise; felt to a "tick"; no faltering, barbaric, or false quantities, but a sustained and equable, uniform tone of chromatic measure, meted out as by a mind imbued by but sacrificing the scale of colour to its own actual, achieved end. One misses the heated passion of Watts's best pictures, which flow through the ordered ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... the College, who has nothing in his appearance to call attention. But this is Burton, by some accounted a morose person, but by those who knew him intimately a cheery and witty companion. Here, too, with slow and faltering step comes Pusey in extreme old age, and Liddon of ascetic mien. Hark to the laughter! It is Stubbs—historian Bishop—with witty saying falling from his lips. And there is Liddell, feared of the ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... a burning and a shining light, to the end of her days. Dearer to her gentle spirit than any martyr's crown, must have been the consciousness that this God-given light had proved a guiding beacon to many a faltering soul feeling its way into the dim beyond, out of the drear loneliness of camp or hospital. With her slight form, her bright face, and her musical voice, she seemed a ministering angel to the sick and suffering soldiers, while her sweet womanly purity ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... it with her lips and fastened it to a small silver chain she wore, and then a shadow swept over her fair face that made it strangely sad and weary. Her lips quivered pathetically; she shaded her eyes with her curved fingers as though the sunlight hurt her,—then with faltering steps she turned away from the warm stretch of garden, brilliant with blossom, and entered the house. There was a sense of outrage and insult upon her, and though in her soul she treated Mr. Dyceworthy's observations with the contempt they deserved, his coarse allusion to Sir Philip ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... driven by Juno to fall in love with Minos, her father's enemy; and, to win his love, she yields to the temptation of betraying her father to Minos. The picture of the girl when she had decided to cut the charmed lock of hair, groping her way in the dark, tiptoe, faltering, rushing, terrified at the fluttering of her own heart, is an interesting attempt at ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... him alone,—"oh, be satisfied, I can understand my father." D'Avrigny took the young man's arm, and led him out of the room. A more than deathlike silence then reigned in the house. At the end of a quarter of an hour a faltering footstep was heard, and Villefort appeared at the door of the apartment where d'Avrigny and Morrel had been staying, one absorbed in meditation, the other in grief. "You can come," he said, and led them back to Noirtier. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... January introduces to amateurdom a new bard, Mr. J. Morris Widdows, Hoosier exponent of rural simplicity. Mr. Widdows has enjoyed considerable success in the professional world as a poet, song-writer, and musical composer; hence it is no untried or faltering quill which he brings within our midst. "Stringtown on the Pike," which adorns the first page of the magazine, is a very pleasing bit of dialect verse whose accent and cadences suggest the work of the late James Whitcomb Riley. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... a man of himself again; he would conquer the evil that had taken possession of him. There was time; he was comparatively young yet; he would resurrect his old eager ambitions and pursue them without faltering. Those solemn but sweet organ notes had set up a revolution in him. To-morrow he would go into the roaring downtown district and find work. A fur importer had once offered him a place as driver. He would find him to-morrow and ask for the position. ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... as it were, vaguely to surmise that, wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville |
