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Half-hearted   /hæf-hˈɑrtəd/   Listen
Half-hearted

adjective
1.
Feeling or showing little interest or enthusiasm.  Synonyms: halfhearted, lukewarm, tepid.  "Gave only lukewarm support to the candidate"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Half-hearted" Quotes from Famous Books



... to every limb, what avails it, in the name of liberty, to snap, here and there, a button or a lace? A more heroic work is required of the great protagonist, if, indeed, he will follow his mistress to the end. He shakes his head. What! Is his service, then, but half-hearted after all? Or, can it be, that behind the mask of the goddess he begins to divine the teeth and claws of the brute? But if nature be no goddess, how can we accept her as sponsor for liberty? And ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson

... your charge. You found your happiness in making others happy, remembering that kindly actions alone give to our days their real value. Your priestly heart understood that when one is in God's service he must not be content with doing things in a half-hearted ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly

... door, beyond which, entrenched behind a desk, sat a cynical-looking youth. A smaller boy in the background talked into a telephone. Both were giggling. On seeing me the slightly larger of the two advanced with a half-hearted attempt at solemnity, though unable to resist a Parthian shaft at his companion, who was seized on the instant with ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... I go to work?" He broke into a laugh that was only half-hearted. "That Hermann of yours has been talking ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... this deficiency was sensibly felt in a lowering of general tone, both in the domain of intellect and in that of practice. The spirit of feudalism and of the old chivalry had all but departed, but had left a vacuum which was not yet supplied. As for loyalty, the half-hearted feeling of necessity or expedience, which for more than half the century was the main support of the German dynasty, was something different not in degree only, but in kind, from that which had upheld the throne in time past. Jacobitism, on the other hand, was not strong ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... a while longer, and then Tassoc suggested billiards, which we played in a pretty half-hearted fashion, and all the time cocking an ear to the door, as you might say, for sounds; but none came, and later, after coffee, he suggested early bed, and a thorough overhaul of the ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... days of aloof and distasteful idleness, Ernest became quite a human being; invaluable as baiter of worms for the children's fish-hooks, as extra butler, and did not scorn even temporary experiments as kitchen-maid. In fact, he proved the half-hearted recommendation that he "might be useful" so thoroughly that the first person of all to be especially invited for next year ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... a simple sentimental impulse, full of nostalgia and tenderness for things that seemed to stay steady and put. The way he felt was half-hearted apology for human moods in which murder would have been easy. He even had a strange ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... supporters. I find they are craven-hearted, weak-kneed, and afraid to give active assistance. They say it will injure their business; so it is a matter of selfishness with them. If it fails, it will be because of the half-hearted support we receive from so-called respectable temperance men and moderate drinkers. I know the Act is far from perfect, because the liquor party in Parliament succeeded in introducing clauses that somewhat weaken its effectiveness, and they now attack it because of these ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... know that I admired the manifesto very much myself; it was a timid and half-hearted document, but it was at least sympathetic and tender. The purport of it was to say that, just as historical criticism has shown that some of the Old Testament must be regarded as fabulous, so we must be prepared for a possible ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Whig foreign policy, see Adair, p. 11-13. Its principle was to relinquish the attempt to raise coalitions of half-hearted Governments against France by means of British subsidies, but to give help to States which of their own free will ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... What is self? and how shall a man be himself? And the poet's answer is, "Self is only found by being lost, gained by being given away": an answer at least as old as the gospels. The eponymous hero of the story is a man essentially half-hearted, "the incarnation of a compromising dread of self-committal to any one ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... has been unhappy throughout the whole affair. This half-hearted way of us men has long been a mistake. It is better to end it with one ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... blood and bone, the products of stuffy air, mean food, and casual or half-hearted parentage, often tainted with hereditary or acquired disease, the faces are; but, worse than all, how insignificant and indistinguishable! It is well known that a Chinaman can hardly distinguish one Englishman from another, just ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... sky, and lies heavily over the sands of Dee. It leaves the upper blue clear and the head of Orion, but dims the flicker of Sirius and shortens the steady ray of the evening star. The people scattered about are not mining people, but half-hearted agriculturists, and very poor. Their cottages are rather cabins; not a tiled roof is in the country, but the slates have taken some beauty with time, having dips and dimples, and grass upon their edges. The walls are ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell

... as to profess love and be lukewarm. God wants all your heart. If he can not have it all, he will have none. He desires warm, fervent love. To love him only partially, and not supremely, makes it appear as if he were worthy of only half-hearted love. It makes ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... with the Portuguese. After rounding the cape they besieged and took a Portuguese trading-post, after which they cruised past Goa, Calcutta, and other places, finally sighting Sumatra, January 5, 1607, and anchoring at Bantam, January 6. There they met the Matelief expedition. With a half-hearted following of Matelief's advice, van Caerden anchored at Amboina in March, whence on May 10, he started for Ternate. His capture by the Spanish of Ternate, the taking of the Spanish fort at Machian—the place "most abounding in cloves of ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all true men engage. From women this ancient faith commands but a stammering assent. They sometimes minister at the altar in a half-hearted and ineffective way, but true reverence for the one deity that men really adore they know not. If woman had a free hand in the world's marketing ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... a recall at the end of the first act, conquering by sheer force of personality that gloomy and half-hearted audience. And Poppy St. John—among whose many faults lack of generosity certainly could not be counted—standing up, leaned right out over the velvet- cushioned barrier of the dress circle, crying "Brava!" and clapping her hands. To achieve the latter demonstration ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... disaffected; he at once ordered that what had been taken should be paid for, and that persons trespassing thereafter should be severely punished. He found also the great nobles who commanded in the army half-hearted and almost traitorous from sympathy with those of their own caste on the other side of the walls of La Rochelle, and from their fear of his increased power, should he gain a victory. It was their common ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... general sympathy and congratulation, with the Prince Regent himself to wish them good fortune, the King, the Duchess, and their suite left Hartwell in April, 1814. The return to France was as triumphant as a somewhat half-hearted and doubtful enthusiasm could make it, and most of such cordiality as there was fell to the share of the Duchess. As she passed to Notre-Dame in May, 1814, on entering Paris, she was vociferously greeted. The feeling of loyalty, however, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... arrived unheralded and hence have remained undiscovered. For instance, it is not generally known that Mrs. Pennycook has lost control of her husband. Yet, such is the fact. She is still a great stickler for principle, but she trembles if her husband looks at her. It appears that Dan Pennycook's half-hearted accusation of Miss Pickett as the author of the anonymous note found on the body of Boras O'Rourke preyed on the spinster's mind, and when Bob McGraw started an investigation she could stand the strain no longer. She fled in terror ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne

... Humphrey and Mary Gifford were alone together. The servant who had been sent with the news keeping watch at the door outside, and Humphrey, for the time, seemed to go over, half unconsciously, the scenes of the taking of Axel, and Mary listened to it not exactly with half-hearted sympathy, but with the perpetually recurring cry at her heart that God would restore to her ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... Penrod uttered one half-hearted "Gunk" as he turned in at his own gate. However, this stimulated him, and he paused to practice. "Gunk!" he ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... were important it was the custom for each party to name two arbitrators, and the procureur du roi a fifth; while an appeal might be made to the council superieur at New Orleans. The British commandant assumed the place of the procureur du roi, although there were one or two half-hearted efforts made ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... encompassed them, and, like all despots, who are invariably cowards, they lived in mortal terror lest this creature of theirs should break out into St. Helena leprosy again and impose further humiliation upon them. Lowe had talked of actions for libel against Barry O'Meara, and in a whimsical, half-hearted way worried his employers to give battle, and the law officers of the Crown stated a case but advised against taking action, and so it was never brought, though O'Meara kept telling them in so many words to come on. "I am anxious that you should have the opportunity of defending ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... sensibly he argued that a letter would reach her, while it was more than likely he would fall short of a similar achievement. She couldn't deny Uncle Sam, but she could slam the door in her husband's face. Yes, he concluded, a letter was the thing. Having come to this half-hearted decision, he proceeded to argue himself out of it. Suppose that she received the letter, did it follow that she would reply to it? He might enclose a stamp and all that sort of thing, but he knew Nellie; she wouldn't answer a letter—at least, not that kind of letter. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon

... cook can withstand such a compliment as that, and Ossie cast off his gloom. They all declared that that dinner was just about the best they had ever eaten, and they meant it, and Ossie swelled visibly with pride and almost declined Han's half-hearted offer to ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour

... the song, if you like, Mr. Moore," Lady Adela said to the young baritone, but in a very half-hearted kind of way. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... vision. He saw, beyond most of his contemporaries, the coming magnitude of the Empire, and he did his best to shape on broad lines and to far-reaching issues the policy of England towards her children beyond the seas. Lord John recognised in no churlish or half-hearted spirit the claims of the Colonies, nor did he stand dismayed by the vision of Empire. 'There was a time when we might have stood alone,' are his words. 'That time has passed. We conquered and peopled Canada, we took possession of the whole of Australia, Van Dieman's Land, ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... about to make some half-hearted reply, when her eyes rested upon the face of a girl on the opposite side of the room. It was the most beautiful and perfect face she had ever seen, and she wondered who she was and where she had come from. She tried to listen to what ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody

... guardian Miss Minett; but these ladies to-day were but broken reeds on which to lean. They still laboured under a sense of having been compromised, and of resultant social ostracism. This, although their former parsonic lodger had vanished from the scene on the day following his threatened immersion—a half-hearted proposition on his part of "facing out the undeserved obloquy, living down the coarse persecution" meeting with as scant encouragement from his ecclesiastical superior, the vicar, as from themselves. Theresa—it really was hard on her—shared their ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... silence, then the clamour broke out with redoubled violence, and a portion of the multitude made a rush round the edge of the pool towards the rock platform, which was repelled by the soldiers in a very half-hearted way. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... faction, a party which spread fast-growing shoots from out the then Government's very heart and root. The Government's half-hearted supporters were not anti-British, but they were not readers of the Daily Gazette; they were not, in short, whole-hearted Government supporters. They were Whigs, as the saying went. My party, the readers ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... and cause them to give assurances that even if the blockade were broken there would be no immediate outpouring of cotton from Southern ports[779]. On the other hand, Bright, staunch friend of the North, hoped that Gladstone was merely seeking to overcome a half-hearted reluctance of Palmerston and Russell to move. He was sore at heart over the "vile speech" of "your old acquaintance and friend[780]." The leading newspapers while at first accepting the Newcastle speech ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... uphold it. And instantly, although not a muscle moved nor a word was uttered, I felt that I had the council with me, that my passion was swaying them, that what I asserted they believed. I laughed at the neutrality of the Tuscaroras, at the half-hearted attitude of the Onondagas; I made light of the rebellion of the greater portion of the ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... policy of rallying Catholic Ireland against revolutionary France. There was, for instance, the mission of Lord Fitzwilliam in 1795—a Whig mission extorted from Pitt against his will, due to a Parliamentary complication, and backed from London with but half-hearted support. That famous mission which sent through Ireland such a strange, sad thrill of hope, soon closed in mist and darkness. Lord Fitzwilliam went to Ireland, as many Englishmen have gone since, with the intention of doing justice. He was thwarted, like most others, by the resistance of ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender

... idea of life—something at once more formalized and more subtilized than the primary virtue of courage. The Greeks, however, were too much overshadowed by the greatness of Homer to do much towards this. The Argonautica, the half-hearted epic of Apollonius Rhodius, is the only attempt that need concern us. It is not a poem that can be read straight through; it is only enjoyable in moments—moments of charming, minute observation, like the description ...
— The Epic - An Essay • Lascelles Abercrombie

... to a bishop, sounds incredible, and considering the great influence of religion on all Spaniards of that time, it is not wonderful that after such insolence, this petty official was regarded by the entire community as excommunicated; a half-hearted apology, ungraciously made, sufficed however ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... as I turn from the portico to the hall and vast domed house of books. The half-hearted light under the dome is stagnant and dead. For it is the nature of light to beat and throb; it has a pulse and undulation like the swing of the sea. Under the trees in the woodlands it vibrates ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... Southern Protestants are setting up separate synods, councils, presbyteries and conferences for the Negro, and the Y.M.C.A., with the same narrow spirit, is refusing colored men seats in its councils, while Northern Protestants are either neutral in this matter of caste or only half-hearted in crying down upon the sin of it; the Catholics alone have accepted in a full and liberal sense the command, "preach my gospel to every creature," and have extended fellowship to all, regardless of race, color or condition. It matters not ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various

... her, and even at six a woman-child can be a mother—theoretically, went out towards the huge, lonely, sad, silent young man. She insisted on friendship with him; insisted shamelessly, with the natural inclination of innocence which rises high above shame. Even the half-hearted protests of the mother, who loved to see the child happy, did not deter her; after the second occasion of Pearl's seeking him, as she persisted, Harold could but remonstrate with the mother in turn; the ease of the gentle lady and the happiness of her child were more or less at stake. When ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... eyes. A nausea of disgust swept over her. She fought it down. Then, with hypocrisy that amazed herself, she met his ardent stare boldly, though with a pretense of timidity. She spoke with a hesitant, remonstrant voice, as if in half-hearted protest, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... maid, for the women of the garrison had all been found too rude for her service. When she first came to Acadia with Claude La Tour, an English gentlewoman gladly waited on her. But now only Zelie gave her constrained and half-hearted attention, rating her as "my other lady," and plainly deploring her presence. Lady Dorinda had one large box bound with iron, hidden in a nook beyond her bed. She took the key from its usual secret place and busied herself opening the box. Marie and Antonia heard her speak a word ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... even these birds are heard but rarely in the middle of the day, nor have their voices the vigour that characterised them in the hot weather. Occasionally the brown rock-chat emits a few notes, but he does so in a half-hearted manner. In the early days of August the magpie-robins sing at times; their song, however, is no longer the brilliant performance it was. By the end of the month it has completely ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar

... should lend a hand in encouraging the immigration of people from their old homes in France. Some of them did this. Robert Giffard, who held the seigneury of Beauport just below Quebec, was a notable example. The great majority of the seigneurs, however, made only half-hearted attempts in this direction, and their efforts went for little or nothing. What they did was to meet, on arrival at Quebec, the shiploads of settlers sent out by the royal officers. There they gathered about the incoming vessel, like so many land agents, each explaining ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro

... was as though she suddenly had a bit of home right there with her. Her disappointment was forgotten. She lifted out the pine and bitter-sweet to put it in every corner of her room, then another thought seized her. Except for Gyp, practicing in a half-hearted way downstairs, the house was empty. On tiptoe she stole to the different rooms, leaving in each a bit of her pine and a gay cluster of ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... said Sir Lulworth, "the migration idea was falling somewhat into disrepute from the half-hearted manner in which it was occasionally carried out. You were not impressed by the information that such and such a paper was being edited and brought out at Lisbon or Innsbruck if you chanced to see the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... fifteen years old, Washington finished his schooling. In later life he was always very sorry that he had not been sent to college at this time. Within a year he began the study of law, but he went at his work in such a half-hearted way that although he passed his examination in 1806, he was really very ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... I lost the key. I made one or two half-hearted efforts to get into it with a button-hook; but, finding that the lock lived up to its reputation, I resigned myself to regarding it for the future as an article for ornament, not for use. In this capacity it has followed me about from house to house. As an ornament it is without beauty, and many ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... east of the Mississippi, was generally looked upon as anaemic and nebulous. He had permitted, so the Republicans contended, the honor of the country to be stained and Americans to be destroyed, without effective action. His early opposition to preparedness and the half-hearted measures of army reform had proved his weakness, at least to the satisfaction of Republican stump orators. He had won the hearty dislike of the bankers, the manufacturers, and the merchants by his attacks on capitalist interests ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... old humanities, but his father was bent on making a lawyer of him. So it came about that some ten years of his early life were devoted, first as a student and then as a practitioner, to a reluctant and half-hearted grapple with the intricacies of Holy ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... too lipsticky, like the red-paint job on its rind, and the Gouda seemed only half-hearted. Both too obviously ready-made for commerce with nothing individual or custom-made about them, rolled or bounced over from ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... must pick the Puant directly in front of him, and be sure to hit that Puant. If the attack was half-hearted and the Indians gained time to rally, Celeste would suffer the consequences; they could kill her or escape with her. If you wish to gain an Indian's respect you must make a neat job of shooting him down. He never forgives ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... 25th. Yesterday we moved out to meet and escort Ridley in with the convoy from Pretoria. About a couple of miles out we heard guns, and I thought probably we should have a bit of scrapping, but we did not beyond some half-hearted sniping. To my surprise and delight Ridley brought mails, my portion being eleven letters. Some had the home post mark of May 25th, and the others August 7th. I must leave off for a space here, as I have to carve an epitaph ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... shadows that lay beneath her wide—yet languorous eyes, the almost imperceptible tremor of her sweetly fashioned lips, all troubled him profoundly. He exerted himself to break the spell upon his senses which this woman, wittingly or not, was weaving. But the effort was at best half-hearted. ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... they'll understand you. I want the Society to be an absolutely voluntary one, or it's of no use. Don't let them think they must join merely to please me. I'd rather have a dozen who are in earnest over it than a hundred half-hearted members. Only those who feel enthusiastic need give in their names. I don't mind if it begins in quite a humble way. Indeed, I only expect ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... passages can be bridged, if you just think they can and concentrate on how to do it. But if you think the obstacles are unsurmountable, you will not of course try, and even if you do, it will be in only a half-hearted way—a way that ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont

... rural school. Not a few of them feel above the work of such a position, and look with contempt or pity upon the life of the farm. The successful rural teacher must be able to identify himself very completely with the interests and activities of the community; nor can this be done in any half-hearted, sentimental, or professional manner. It must be a spontaneous and natural response arising from a true interest in the people, a knowledge of their lives, and a sincere desire for their welfare. Any preparation that does not result in this spirit, and train in the ability to ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts

... or the conclusion of peace, we should have held quite a different position from which—if we really thought it desirable—to reopen unrestricted submarine warfare. We had always made the mistake of dealing in half-hearted concessions. In my opinion it was essential for us to strive for a complete understanding with America if we were not prepared to carry on the submarine ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... was in earnest in desiring peace, he should return the vessels he had taken, and send men of figure and consequence to treat, instead of the obscure individual through whom his overtures had come. In spite of this peremptory reply, Toolajee continued to make half-hearted proposals for peace. The fact was that he was now at open war with the Peishwa, who had made himself master of the Concan, with the exception of the coastline. According to Orme, Toolajee had cut off the noses of the agents ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... demonstrate that the man with a diploma has learned to use the tools of life skilfully; has learned how to focus his faculties so that he can bring the whole man to his task, and not a part of himself. Low ideals, slipshod work, aimless, systemless, half-hearted endeavors, should have no place in ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... Edinburgh sunshine I do not mean, of course, any such burning, whole-souled, ardent warmth of beam as one finds in countries where they make a specialty of climate. It is, generally speaking, a half-hearted, uncertain ray, as pale and as transitory as a martyr's smile; but its faintest gleam, or its most puerile attempt to gleam, is admired and recorded by its well-disciplined constituency. Not only that, but at the first timid blink of the sun the true Scotsman remarks smilingly, "I ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... fig. You see, he was so grumpy. Not knowing where to go, he strolled up the hill and into the fir woods. Here he came upon a very old, moth-eaten, feeble-looking woodchuck, who was very busy in a half-hearted way digging himself a hole. Suddenly he stopped. Young Grumpy did not think it was any sort of a hole for a woodchuck, but the old fellow seemed satisfied with it. He curled himself up in it, almost in plain ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... for the fickleness, as well as for the insatiability of the poet's love. If the poet's genius consists of his peculiar capacity for love, then in proportion as he outsoars the rest of humanity he will be saddened, if not disillusioned, by the half-hearted return of his love. Mrs. Browning ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... generation as a problem of power rather than as a problem of organisation; and the intense rivalry with France dwarfed and obscured the need for a reconsideration of colonial relations. At length this rivalry flamed out into two wars. The first of these was fought, on both sides, in a strangely half-hearted and lackadaisical way. But in the second (the Seven Years' War, 1756-63) the British cause, after two years of disaster, fell under the confident and daring leadership of Pitt, which brought a series of unexampled successes. ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... to day that he would formally declare war—in which he protested that his sacred office obliged him to embrace all nations in an equal paternal love. If his subjects, he added, followed the example of the other Italians, he could not help it: a half-hearted admission which could not mitigate the indignation which the document called forth. With regard to Durando's corps, the Pope did what was the best thing under the altered circumstances; he sent L.C. Farini as envoy to the King of Sardinia, with the ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... the gulch was sweeping, original, and striking. He laughed to scorn our half-hearted theory of a gold deposit in the bed and bars of our favorite stream. We were not to look for auriferous alluvium in the bed of any present existing stream, but in the "cement" or dried-up bed of the original prehistoric rivers that formerly ran ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... faces were gathered together in the Eyry—fifteen of the Knights of the Rose—and all knew why they were assembled. The talk which followed was conducted mostly by Myles. He addressed the others with a straightforward vim and earnestness, but the response was only half-hearted, and when at last, having heated himself up with his own fire, he sat down, puffing out his red cheeks and glaring round, a space of silence followed, the lads looked doubtfully at one another. Myles felt the chill of their silence strike coldly ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... Turks. It was hard to see the wounded withering in the increasing heat—the dead were better off. We reached the heights overlooking Haditha to find that the garrison was in full retreat. Most of it had left the night before. Those remaining opened fire upon us, but in a half-hearted way, that was not calculated to inflict much loss. Many of the inhabitants of the town lived in burrows in the hillsides. Some of these caves had been filled with ammunition. The enemy had fired all their dumps, and rocks were flying about. We endeavored to ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... middle of the afternoon and laughed a rather half-hearted laugh at the excellent Mandy's ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Trinity College, Dublin, where he matriculated in October 1874 at the age of seventeen. His academic studies seem to have been half-hearted. At the end of a year his name was taken off the College books by his father, but was replaced. At the close of his second year of study, in July 1876, it was ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... fresh night air raced through his lungs he came to a sudden realisation and then a resolution. The realisation was that since further pleading would avail nothing with John Cavendish, he needed a lesson. The resolution was to give it to him. Both strengthened his previous half-hearted desire to ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... 1914 he contented himself with what amounted to little more than a demonstration designed to hold as many British troops in Egypt as possible was due primarily to considerations of larger strategy. Undoubtedly, by his incursion into the Sinai Peninsula and his half-hearted attempt with a hopelessly small force to cross the Suez Canal, he learned many lessons invaluable in any future and more ambitious campaign. Considered as a diversion the early advance upon the Suez ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... does not weakly complain because he had no helpers. Good and earnest men are very apt to say much about the half-hearted way in which their brethren take up some cause in which they are eagerly interested, and sometimes to abandon it altogether for that reason. May not such faint hearts learn a lesson from him who had 'no man like-minded,' and yet ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... too firm in her highest principles to make a colossal mistake, and a hot sympathy for the colonists which was not long resolving itself into as burning a patriotism as any in the land. It was not in him to do anything by halves, it is doubtful if he ever realized the half-hearted tendency of the greater part of mankind. He studied the question from the first Stamp Act to the Tea Party. The day he was convinced, he ceased to be a West Indian. The time was not yet come to draw the sword in behalf of the country for which he conceived a romantic passion, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... publishers prepare for the Christmas tables of lucky children. If he be old enough to remember Mrs. Trimmer's "History of the Robins," "The Fairchild Family," or that Poly-technically inspired romance, the "Swiss Family Robinson," he feels that a certain half-hearted approval of more dreary volumes is possibly due to the glamour which middle age casts upon the past. It is said that even Barbauld's "Evenings at Home" and "Sandford and Merton" (the anecdotes only, I imagine) have been found toothsome dainties ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... as much to his friend as to the youth, and there can be no doubt that this consideration was the restraining force with many who have been stigmatised as half-hearted Reformers, because though they loved truth, they feared to ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... circle which surrounded Charlotte Bronte through her brief career, it is of the utmost importance that a word of recognition should be given, and that in no half-hearted manner, to Mr. William Smith Williams, who, in her later years, was Charlotte Bronte's most intimate correspondent. The letters to Mr. Williams are far and away the best that Charlotte wrote, at least of those which have been preserved. They are full of ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... had mostly spent in resting, or in fishing. There were many deep sea fish to be had, of great palatability, but small gameness; they came like so many leaden weights. A few of us had climbed some of the hills in a half-hearted curiosity, but from their summits saw nothing to tempt weariness. Practically we knew nothing beyond the mile or so of beach on which ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... doubt, is a providential arrangement—I mean this youthful incapacity of grasping the consolations brought by Time. For, after all, life, being there, has to be lived; and maybe life would be lived in a half-hearted fashion did we suspect its many compensations, including what may, methinks, be the last, most solemn one. Should we jump hastily out of bed and bestir ourselves with the zest of the new day, if we thoroughly realized what is, however, matter of common ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... and the Barbarians seemed springing to meet them. From the mainland a tumult of voices was rising, the myriads around Xerxes encouraging their comrades by sea to play the man. No indecisive, half-hearted battle should this be, as at Artemisium. Persian and Hellene knew that. The keen Phoenicians, who had chafed at being kept from action so long, sent their line of ships sweeping over the waves with furious strokes. The grudges, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... defenses or heavy guns to defy attack, and my troops are not more than a thousand men, all told. It is obvious that I must make for the interior. There, I gather strength as I advance, the warships cannot pursue, and I can choose my own positions to meet the half-hearted forces that Dom Miguel will collect to oppose me. In fact, I and every armed man in ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... selected as the only appropriate site, and approved by another Act of the Legislature. Jefferson lost no time in attempting to secure land for the colony, but his efforts met with no success. After a discouraging repulse from Sierra Leone, and the failure of several half-hearted attempts to obtain a footing elsewhere, the whole matter was allowed to sink into abeyance. For years a pall of secrecy concealed the scheme from ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson

... other smacks also flew Bethel-flags. These belonged to the whole-hearted ones who had fairly and boldly come out on the Lord's side. Others drew near, although they did not fly the flag. Some of these belonged to the half-hearted, who wanted medicines or books, and were rather indifferent about the meeting, though willing enough, perhaps, to remain ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne

... nothing for it but to take it in turns to carry her. She is very stout, and you have no idea how heavy she is. A half-hearted unadventurous person name no names, but Oswald, Alice, Noel, H. O., (Dicky, Daisy, and Denny will understand me) said, why not go straight home and come another day without Martha? But the rest agreed with Oswald when he said it was only a ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit

... of the king's party, was an open enemy; Grafton, a half-hearted friend. The duke (1736-1811) would have visited him in the Tower (1763), "to hear from himself his own story and his defence;" but rejected an appeal which Wilkes addressed to him (May 3) to become surety for bail. He feared that such ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... used belonged to his partner. "But women when they get together talk all manner of nonsense. Is it likely that I shall alter my course of action because you tell me that she tells you that he tells her that he is losing money? He is a half-hearted fellow who quails at every turn against him. And when he is crying drunk I dare say he makes a poor ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... that she should finish her lessons with dispatch, because it was Saturday, and she was going to the city with Mademoiselle's party to spend an hour in the dentist's chair. But the weather was not conducive to concentrated effort. After an hour of half-hearted study, she closed her geometry, and started upstairs to dress, leaving the stay-at-homes to another ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster

... followed him almost to the grave was a discreditable exhibition of party rancour, but it indicated the condition to which the public mind had been brought by his unwise and unconstitutional conduct of public affairs—conduct for which his only apology must be the half-hearted, doubtful policy of the imperial authorities with regard to the province, and his own inability to understand the fundamental principles ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... against Queen Isabella, and, amidst cries of "Down with the Bourbons!" drove her from the throne which she dishonored. This was in September, 1868. Instead of constituting a Republic at once, in harmony with those popular rights which had been proclaimed, the half-hearted leaders proceeded to look about for a King; and from that time till now they have been in this quest, as if it were the Holy Grail, or happiness on earth. The royal family of Spain was declared incompetent. Therefore a king must be found outside,——and so the quest was continued ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... there. I do not think that any one thoroughly sympathized with me in my ambition to go to Hampton unless it was my mother, and she was troubled with a grave fear that I was starting out on a "wild-goose chase." At any rate, I got only a half-hearted consent from her that I might start. The small amount of money that I had earned had been consumed by my stepfather and the remainder of the family, with the exception of a very few dollars, and so I had very little with which ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... we shall not require him," says Barbara. Something in the glittering brightness of her sister's eye warns her to give in at once, and indeed she has been unconsciously a little half-hearted about having Felix or any stranger as a travelling companion. "There, run away, Joyce, and go to your bed, darling; you look very tired. I must still arrange ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... resistance was only half-hearted. What I really felt—all I really felt—was the flood of joy that comes of heightened emotion. She had given me that, and I wanted her to give it to me again. That's as near as I've ever come to analyzing my ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... have made everything right for me, denied all things though we are. After ten years of struggle with the vineyard, with several conspicuous failures and now and then a half-hearted success, I have at last rejoiced Mother's heart—and my own as well—with the largest crop within my memory or hers. The fruit, too, has been finer than ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... only some of the things it is necessary to remember before we finally decide to desert a temporarily sick friend. If I were the ruler of a state I should pray the gods to preserve me from half-hearted Allies and over-cautious friends. If I wished to help a fallen state or lend an honest hand in a great cause, whether it were to eradicate a hideous and fatal national malady or assert a principle of right and justice, first shield ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... all the prose that he writes, this character of the "teller" shimmers clearly through the work of the "writer." He is an elegant narrator. Not only does he intersperse verses and lines more frequently than our own taste would license: by nature, he easily falls into the half-hearted poetry of rhymed prose, for which the rich assonances of his language predispose. His own learning was further cultivated by his early contact with Persian literature; through which the fable and the wisdom ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... was but half-hearted. I could not resign myself thus to lose all chance of following up this mystery. My instincts as a police official revolted. I had but to reach out my hand in order to seize this man who had been outlawed! Should I let him escape me! No! I would not save myself! Yet, on the other hand, ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne

... a down-country, aristocratic view of the responsibilities of youth and quite new to me. Caligula was worried in a like manner, I believe. We had near us there a little section of the old world which was trying, in a half-hearted fashion, to maintain itself in the midst of a democracy. It was the manorial life of the patroons—a relic of ancient feudalism which had its beginning in 1629, when The West Indies Company issued its charter of Privileges and Exemptions. That charter ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... sufficiently unselfish way to resist. He even sought to conceal his depth of feeling under a disguise of lightness. He admitted that in his present frame of mind he ought to be with her as much as possible, as then, if ever, he stood in need of a sure antidote for the blues, and with a half-hearted jest he closed the conversation, and after that call merely kept away from her. It was hard for him, and as hard for her; but if he had honor, she had pride. So they drifted ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... a half-hearted attempt at the maintenance of the proprieties, and then Wilbraham Hall rang with the laughter of a joke which the next day had become the common precious property of all the Five Towns. When the aged rector had restored his flock to a sense of decency ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... doubtful as to her daughter-in-law's project and even Musai was but half-hearted. Yet he went to work diligently. With beam, and wattle, and thatch, floor of mats and window of latticed paper, with walls made tight because well daubed with clay, he built the room apart. There alone, day by day, secluded from all, the sweet wife toiled unseen. The mother and husband patiently ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... belief in the chances of success or from a desire to protect themselves by a seeming adherence to the national cause, to throw in their lot with the war party. It might have been better for their people, had they, like Agrippa, joined the Romans. Half-hearted at best in their support of the struggle, yet by their wealth and position able at first to obtain a commanding part in the conduct of the war, they used it to temporize with the foe and to dull the edge of the popular feeling. Josephus unfortunately does not enlighten ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... of them was with the colonists who made a stand against tyranny, and they were half-hearted, ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... called—which twenty years since was a wide waste of land, but is now divided by new fences, very grievous to half-blown horses. Sir John Purefoy got a nasty fall over some stiff timber, and here many a half-hearted rider turned to the right into the lane. Hampton and his Lordship, and Battersby, with Fred Botsey and Larry, took it all as it came, but through it all not one of them could give Larry a lead. Then there was manoeuvring into a wood and out of it again, and that saddest ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... Army will never be the same again. Many officers will resign to join Ulster, and there will be such a host of retired officers in the Ulster ranks that men who would stand by the Government no matter what it did, will be worse than half-hearted in all they do. No army could stand such ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... have not the lively colouring of the wagtails, being clothed, like skylarks, in homely brown, spotted or streaked with dark brown or black. They have the wagtail trick of wagging the tail, but they perform the action in a half-hearted manner. ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar

... this, as in other matters, the teacher who has become a victim of routine will give a facile but mainly "notional" assent to the suggestions that are placed before him, will promise to try them, and will make an unintelligent and half-hearted attempt to do so, but will as often as not slide back into practices which do not materially differ from those which he professes to have abandoned. The pressure of the whole system of Western education—not ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... silent. But his head was too hot to wear a thinking cap, and no story would come at his half-hearted call. ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson

... undertaking to show one's head above the particular rock behind which one was taking cover. Their fire, however, was returned with interest, and it helped to make "Johnny" arrive at the decision that it would be a very unwise thing to attack again that day, although he did once make a half-hearted attempt to regain his former position, which was ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown

... had hitherto been the most prominent champions of Protestantism in Germany (though both half-hearted and pusillanimous shufflers) were Gustavus's brother-in-law, the Elector of Brandenburg, and the Elector of Saxony. They were now doing their best to wriggle out of their obligations, and by a shameful neutrality ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... the unfair methods of the grays. Two goals followed in their favor. So far the grays had done nothing. Unnerved by Marjorie's just censure and the fear of exposure, they paid little heed to Mignon's glowering glances and frantic signals. They played in a half-hearted, diffident fashion, quite the opposite of their whirlwind sweep during the first half. The black and scarlet girls soon brought the score up to 14 to 10 in their favor, and from that moment on had things ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... villainy of circumstances that cut these men off more completely from the rest of mankind, whose ideal of conduct had never undergone the trial of a fiendish and appalling joke. They were exasperated with him for being a half-hearted shirker: he focussed on them his hatred of the whole thing; he would have liked to take a signal revenge for the abhorrent opportunity they had put in his way. Trust a boat on the high seas to bring out the Irrational that lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... believe in her. She was the woman meant to be his mate and he had called to her and she had come to him. His moment of doubt had fled with his declaration. Otherwise he would have been the paler personality which it was not in him to be, half-hearted. Of her passion and pride he made character. From the look which he had seen in her eyes he made tenderness and truth. Every attribute of that ideal which is somewhere in the heart of every man, until at last the one woman comes to occupy its place more sweetly and warmly and intimately, he brought ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... Yes, I know it well; I've heard its prayers and creeds, And seen men put them all to shame with poor, half-hearted deeds. They follow Christ, but far away; they wander and they doubt. I'll serve him in a better way, and live his ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... fell up against a boatman who offered to take us ashore. An uglier fellow I had never seen in the East. The morning sunshine soon dried the decks of the gunboat Kinsha (then stationed in the river for the defense of the port) which English jack-tars were swabbing in a half-hearted sort of way, and all looked rosy enough.[B] But for the author, who with his companion was a literal "babe in the wood," the day was most eventful and trying to one's personal serenity. We had asked questions of all and sundry respecting our proposed tramp and the way we ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... men, and they put on nose guards till it was clear whether we meant Port Arthur or Portsmouth. But old Jack wasn't working for the furniture and glass factories that night. He sat down quiet and sang "Ramble" in a half-hearted way. His feelings had been hurt, so the twenty told me, because his offer to the church had been refused. But the wassail went on; and Brady himself couldn't have hammered the thirst mob into a better imitation of the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... turned traitors and delivered up the posts they commanded to the Spaniards. Their conduct not only caused great material loss to the allies, but it gave rise to much bad feeling between the English and Dutch, the latter complaining that they received but half-hearted ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... at three," said the Goanese, glancing at the clock in a half-hearted effort to moderate his ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... was not in Montmorillon many days before the explanation of the half-hearted reception came to light. An element of negro troops had started the story on its rounds among the guileless French peasants that the white troops, who had just arrived, comprised the "Scum of America," and that they (the negroes) ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... responsible government would not have occurred. Gifted with a clear insight into political conditions and a thorough knowledge of the working of representative institutions, he would have understood that if parliamentary government was ever to be introduced into the colony it must be not in a half-hearted way, or with such reservations as he had had in his mind when he first came to the province. Amid the regret of all parties he died from the effects of a fall from his horse a few months after the inauguration of the union, and was succeeded ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot

... serious subjects are in very bad taste, young man," said Aunt Caroline. But her rebuke was half-hearted. She looked uneasy. "John," she added with sudden suspicion, "you don't suppose they could ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... have established their authority on a surer footing, and added much to the greatness of their city by securing for it those lands which are needed to supply it with the necessaries of life. But pursuing that half-hearted policy which is most mischievous in executing justice, some of the Aretines they outlawed, some they condemned to death, and all they deprived of their dignities and ancient importance in their town, while leaving ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... owner. At any rate, before we retired to rest he prevailed on himself to eat some supper which I prepared for him, pausing every now and then in his meal to lift his infantile face to mine and wag his tail in a half-hearted manner, as though he said, "You see I am doing my best to trust you, though you are a medical student!" Poor innocent beast! Well indeed for him that he had not chanced to stop at the door of my neighbor ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford



Words linked to "Half-hearted" :   lukewarm, unenthusiastic



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