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Wavering   /wˈeɪvərɪŋ/   Listen
Wavering

adjective
1.
Uncertain in purpose or action.  Synonyms: vacillant, vacillating.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Wavering" Quotes from Famous Books



... quite still as long as he was within sight. She seemed conscious of his presence though she was not looking towards him, for as soon as he had stepped within the low opening of the shed, she moved away, walking in a wavering track across the tilled land, walking as if movement was the end of her purpose, not as ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... twirling line, reads plainly "Frederic Chopin." Op. 15 shows a higher degree of independence and poetic power than Op. 9. The third (in G minor) of these nocturnes is the finest of the three. The words languido e rubato describe well the wavering pensiveness of the first portion of the nocturne, which finds its expression in the indecision of the melodic progressions, harmonies, and modulations. The second section is marked religiose, and may be characterised as a trustful prayer, conducive to calm and comfort. The Nocturnes in F major ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... come on and scalp them. They were led by Dragging Canoe himself, and were formed very curiously, their centre being cone-shaped, while their wings were curved outward; apparently they believed the white line to be wavering and hoped to break through its middle at the same time that they outflanked it, trusting to a single furious onset instead of to their usual tactics.[35] The result showed their folly. The frontiersmen on the right and left scattered out still farther, so that their line could not be outflanked; ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... At the wavering scream, Harper looked up quickly. Pillbot was staring frozenly in front of him, toward the floor. Harper followed his glance—and ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer

... of his cigar, which had been wavering across the room in snaky twists, went straight up as if from a factory chimney, and the two, with their chairs and table, shot down through the floor as if the earth had swallowed them. They went rattling down a kind of ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... "is the instructor of a hundred ages. When the manners of Loo are heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the wavering determined." Thus the acted life of a good man continues to be a gospel of freedom and emancipation to all ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... stick and centered the old man's wavering gaze. "Don't lie," he said softly. "If yuh lie tuh me, yuh feather-brained old cockroach, I'll just natch'lly beat your face off! I want yuh tuh go home; just clamp your mind on that, Sam Meeker! If yuh think you're goin' tuh throw your money away over that bar, yuh want tuh separate yourself ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various

... torrent of shells, which should have killed every one of the slender garrison of Frenchmen, had failed in its effect; while the hope of gaining Verdun, the capture of which was to influence the whole world, and particularly wavering neutrals, was as far away as ever. That desperate attack made during the darkness broke down as others had done, and the Germans—those who were left of them—fled to the cover of the evergreen pine-trees, leaving the poilus of General Joffre's armies to stagger ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... Brindle towards her. She cannot explain the wondrous force that will direct Blossom and Darkie into the old lane, and guide them along its folds to the white gate down by the byre. But where she cannot trace she trusts. And all day long she clings to her sunny faith without wavering. She never doubts for a moment that the cows will all ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham

... against its excesses. For five years past—ever since her marriage—her husband's career had been one long, unending dissipation. At last, broken down by a life he had not the moral courage to resist, he had succumbed and taken to his bed; thence, wavering between life and death, like a burnt-out candle flickering in its socket, he had been carried ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith

... mind? Have you not beheld me fly, when I had power to pursue, and avoid, when I had opportunity to seek you? After witnessing my constancy upon such trying occasions, is it equitable, is it right to suspect me of wavering?" ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... versed in juridical disquisitions. Could not you tell your whole mind to Lord Hailes? He is, you know, both a Christian and a Lawyer. I suppose he is above partiality, and above loquacity: and, I believe, he will not think the time lost in which he may quiet a disturbed, or settle a wavering mind. Write to me, as any thing occurs to you; and if I find myself stopped by want of facts necessary to be known, I will make inquiries of you as ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... suddenly alive to this quick way of time, was looking back to the days of his heedless youth. That long aisle of years seemed unending, but it narrowed in perspective until earlier experiences were but queerly dissolving shapes, wavering of outline, dimly discerned, piquant or sad in the mind, but elusive when he would try ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... to his shoulder and its sharp crack woke the echoes in the little wood. "It's a deer and I have got it," he exclaimed, dashing off after the animal which was staggering and wavering ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... could get some long-headed Yankee to go along with him," he remarked again, balancing his spoon on the edge of his cup, in curious illustration of his own mental position at the moment Donohan being the only fixed point, and all the rest wavering in uncertainty. There were a few silent minutes before ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... was conscious of a hollow, semi- thunderous noise which seemed not to belong to the horse's hoofs and the iron wheels of the carriage. He raised his eyes to see that the other end of the bridge was clear, and at that moment he was conscious of an unsteady motion of the bridge, of a wavering of the roof, and then, before he had time to do aught, he saw the roof and the sides and the floor of the bridge collapse and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... himself off the bed, to find her, in that cold darkness. He stood wavering under the gas-jet. "Why—oh, yes, we turned on the ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... Further, prayer is based chiefly on faith, according to James 1:6, "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering." Now faith is not sufficient for merit, as instanced in those who have lifeless faith. Therefore prayer is not a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... idea was that Clement's visit had reference to that state of affairs. Some said that Susan had given her young man the mitten, meaning thereby that she had signified that his services as a suitor were dispensed with. Others thought there was only a wavering in her affection for her lover, and that he feared for her constancy, and had come to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... Miss Hallie these fresh aigs for her bufday cake, an' no way to get 'em to her. I'll nevah get all these clothes done up by night if I stop my i'onin', an' John Jay's done lit out again! little black rascal!" She lifted up her voice in another wavering call. "John Ja-a-y!" The beech woods opposite threw back the echo of her voice, sweet ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston

... Tusk's wavering call sounded before the broken gate, and the injured voice of Mrs. Hewlet answered. In a few minutes Tom emerged from the side of the house as before; but a moment after him crept another figure, stealing through the shadows in a detour ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris

... of another to Gustavus Horn for more foot, he, finding he could not carry his point, had given it over, and was in full march to second the duke. But now it was too late, for the King of Hungary seeing the duke's men, as it were, wavering, and having notice of Horn's wheeling about to second him, falls in with all his force upon his flank, and with his Hungarian hussars, made such a furious charge, that the ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... want now"—and here he suddenly got up and took his place on the mat beside the Colonel, and looked hard at him—"is men who have self-control, who are sure of themselves, whose minds at the critical moment will emit positive forces, instead of the wavering and uncertain currents due to negative feelings—due, for ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... said Eldris. It was an impulse, born of she knew not what emotion. So she told, taking a fellow-mortal on trust for sake of the faith that was in her; and again the heavy-lidded eyes fastened on her, never wavering from her face ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... announced his arrival in town and his intention to remain there some little time, George Bertram was by no means solaced in his misery. In those days he was very miserable. It was only now that he knew how thoroughly he loved this woman—now that she was so utterly beyond his reach. Weak and wavering as he was in many things, he was not weak enough to abandon himself altogether to unavailing sorrow. He knew that work alone could preserve him from sinking—hard, constant, unflinching work, that one great cure for all our sorrow, that ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... Archie paused, wavering in the path. The man had called him by his right name, throwing in the prefix with a tinge ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... apparently just that one goal. It was a direct personal appeal to every man toiler. In addition to this, Rafferty let drop a hint or two that Sweeney had jobs in his own business which he filled discreetly from the ranks of the wavering. It wasn't more than a month later, by the way, that Rafferty himself was appointed a foreman in ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton

... middle height, the jaunty, alert youthfulness of his slim figure, supple without great strength, contradicted by the grey which shot with silver the thin hair falling almost to his narrow shoulders, and, as La Mothe searched him in the wavering, guttered candle-light, it flashed upon him that contradiction was the note of all his characteristics. The weak chin with the unkempt straggle of a beard gave the lie to a forehead magnificent in its abundant strength of mental power: the promise of the luminous, clear eyes ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... fearless, hopeful face with which she had approached the coffin of her dead lover were very different from the blind manner in which she stumbled back to his bier, and the hand which a second time raised the lantern trembled so that its wavering light shed an added weirdness on the still face, so strange to her eyes, and ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich

... were covered tight with shutters and heavy screens before the doors. The waiter put a candle in a saucer before your plate and you ate your food in this wavering light. There was not the usual temptation to linger in the piazza after dinner, for the cafes were all sealed against a betraying gleam of light and the Venetian public had taken to heart the posted advice to stay within doors and draw their wooden shutters. As I entered my room, the moon ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... thick of machine-gun fire and shrapnel, where Lieutenant Mackinson, Joe, Frank Hoskins and two or three others were laying a new line of communication, the wavering, swaying target was watched from time to time, and speculations made as to how long it could remain without being punctured by a bullet, thus forcing its two occupants to resort to their parachutes ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll

... Chrysothemis recoils and refuses, Electra still nurses the fell design. The poet has more than once, and now again with judgment, made us sensible of the mature years of Electra [364]; she is no passionate, wavering, and inexperienced girl, but the eldest born of the house; the guardian of the childhood of its male heir; unwedded and unloving, no soft matron cares, no tender maiden affections, have unbent the nerves of her ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was wide and the ragged pines got indistinct as they rolled back up stream. It looked as if the canoe were standing still and the banks moving on, only that the gleaming spray-cloud got rapidly nearer. It stretched across from bank to bank, and a dull roar that rose and fell came out of the wavering mist. For the most part, the current was smooth, but here and there broken lines of foam streaked its surface, and sometimes the canoe ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... their cavalry, and trusted to the former to carry out all the chief objects which their armies were meant to effect. Among many other examples of this, we may notice the great battle which they fought with the Latins near the lake Regillus, where to steady their wavering ranks they made their horsemen dismount, and renewing the combat on foot obtained a victory. Here we see plainly that the Romans had more confidence in themselves when they fought on foot than when they fought ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... face and blushed so furiously that the walls of the cave were illuminated with a wavering crimson like the light of a great conflagration! Thinking that the capital city was ablaze, Juptka-Getch ran from the cave's mouth, crying, "Fire, fire!" and I ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... record and act of memory of you at Dower House—of June nights on the porch, with the foliage of the willow tree powdered against the stars; the white-panelled hearth of the yellow room in smouldering winter dusks; dinner with the candles wavering in tepid April airs; and the blue envelopment of late September noons. A quiet reach like the old grey house and green fields, the little valleys filled with trees and placid town beyond the hill, where the calendar of our days and ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... colonists to move, the French had acted promptly, and the erection of their new fort at once covered their line of communication to the west, barred the advance of the English down the Ohio valley, and secured the allegiance of all the wavering Indian tribes. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty

... to get out of this quickly, if at all!" quavered the boy, staring with wavering eyes at the ever-shortening candle-bit. "There won't be anything left to do—except bear it—if I'm ten minutes longer at this all but ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... and the breeze contended with the mist, intrenched in the stronghold of the valley. From the east the red orb began its attack; out of the west rode the swift-moving zephyrs, and, vanquished, the wavering vapor stole off into thin air, or hung in isolated wreaths above the foliage on the hillside. Soon the conquering light brightly illumined a medieval castle commanding the surrounding country; the victorious breeze whispered loudly at its gloomy casements. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... seem very hard labor to hunt about by a dusky light upon a desolate mountain-side, but when the snow is falling fast, when the light is only a small circle, wavering yellowish on the white, when around is a wilderness of loose stones and yawning clefts, when the air is ice and the hour is past midnight, the task is not a light one for a man; and Findelkind was a child, like that Findelkind that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... bidden to come directly up. No time, on this occasion, for Miss Polly to escape. She decided in one breath to ignore the man entirely; in the next to bow coldly and walk out; in the next to—He was there before the latest wavering ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... believe in promises which she was convinced were made with entire sincerity; and when her affections had been wrought to this point, when her resolution was once determined, she never afterwards tormented the man to whom she was attached, with wavering doubts ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth

... in the door watching the wavering lights, Lloyd exclaimed, "The puppies are gone, too. I wonder where they can be. Maybe they were left outside in the storm when we all ran indoors in such a hurry. Maybe the ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston

... the height, facing the sheets of flame which burst from the Rebel works. They fire as they advance. It is not a rush and a hurrah, but a steady movement. Men begin to drop from the line, but there is no wavering. They who never before heard the sounds of battle stand like veterans. The Rebel line in front of them extends farther than their own. The Forty-fifth Illinois goes to the support of Wallace. The Rebels throw forward reinforcements. There is a continuous roll of musketry, ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... his faith by St. Peter and he teaches us that the seen is only a stepping stone into the unseen. It has been said of him in reference to his Divina Commedia, "The light of faith guides the poet's steps through the hopeless chambers of Hell with a firmness of conviction that knows no wavering. It bears him through the sufferings of Purgatory, believing strongly fits reality: it raises him on the wings of love and contemplation into Heaven's Empyrean, where he really hopes to enjoy bliss far beyond that whereof he ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... to the setting sun By twos and threes, in wavering rows, As twilight shadows dimly close, The crows fly ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay

... of the world had been crushed together into a syrup; then a mist surged all about me, the cabin became darker, the captain seemed to grow vast, till his body filled the room. My legs melted from me. I was one little wavering flame blowing about on great waves. Something was hard upon my head. The captain's hand (I could feel) was lifting my eyelid. I heard him say "That's got him." Instantly a choir of voices began to chant "That's got him," in roaring, tumultuous bursts of music. Then the music became, as it were, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... between the Flower-garden and the Cabin, Rosa dipped in with her message, and dipped out again with more assurances from Mr. Tartar, and stood wavering in a divided state between Helena and him, which proved that confusion is not always necessarily awkward, but may sometimes present a ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... taken place:—The oncoming mass of Arabs; the crash of the volleys, changing into the continuous roar of independent firing; the pungent reek of the powder as the rolling clouds of smoke enveloped the square; and the sight of the enemy falling in scores, wavering, slackening the pace of their advance, and finally retreating over the distant hills, not one having reached the line of bayonets. Then, in the growing dusk, as the square advanced, the sight of the silver stream showing every now and again amidst the green, cultivated ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... words came in a low tone of voice as the boat glided nearer and nearer to where the shark was swimming slowly and wavering to and fro, and in my excitement I drew back, raising the lance high, and just as the monster was about to dash off in a fresh direction I threw myself forward, driving the point of the lance right into the soft flesh, forgetful ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn

... be my brother's visitant on this evening, yet my resolves were not unattended with wavering and reluctance. Pleyel's insinuations that I was in love, affected, in no degree, my belief, yet the consciousness that this was the opinion of one who would, probably, be present at our introduction to each other, would excite all that confusion which the passion itself ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown

... with his friendship, and when King, graced with his favours, a few only continued openly in his interest. Of these the chief were the Duke of Gordon, a Roman Catholic, to whom James had entrusted the castle of Edinburgh, a man weak, and wavering in courage, but bound by shame and religion; Lord Balcarres attached by affection, gratitude, and that delicacy of sentiment which the love of letters commonly inspires; and Lord Dundee, who had for ever before his eyes ideas of glory, the duty of a soldier, and the example of the great Montrose, ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson

... great hotel afforded. Now and then I considered within myself as to the whereabouts of my Old Cattleman, and was in a half humor to hunt him up. Just as my thoughts were hardening into decision in that behalf, a high, wavering note, evidently meant for song, came floating around the corner of the house, from the veranda on the end. The singer was out of range of eye, but I knew him for my aged friend. ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... wavering in the opening, the broad strait before them, and their quarry fast diminishing to small specks upon the distant horizon, a vagrant land breeze suddenly bellied the flapping sail. The prahu swung quickly about with nose pointed toward the sea, the sail filled, and the long, ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... advanced; so, as I was passing a cottage inn, I wavered a minute, and the result of the wavering was that I crossed the threshold. I said to myself: 'Perhaps I may walk on for miles, and not find another chance so good as this.' It was one of the poorest of inns, but it was able to give me a meal of bread and cheese and eggs, which ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... well disturbed, was entirely upset at the suddenness of the bird's appearance; for he had been gazing intently at the rock when his friend's exclamation drew his attention in time to see the gull within about four feet of his head. With a sudden "Oh!" Charley threw forward his gun, took a short, wavering aim, and blew the cock-tail feather out of Baptiste's hat; while the gull sailed tranquilly away, as much as to say, "If that's all you can do, there's no need ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... to instruct him, in case he be ignorant; to reprove him, in case he transgress; to correct him, if he hath need of it; to confirm him, if he be wavering. It is profitable for doctrine, and all this in a very righteous way—that the poor soul may not only be helped, but thoroughly furnished, not only to some, but to all good works. And when Paul would counsel Timothy to stick close to the things that are sound and sure, presently ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... hers whenever he entered, and he could not draw them away till hers, wavering before him, showed him he was daring. He turned and shook hands with the General, and muttered some commonplace, then back again he came to that pleasant face so like and yet so unlike the face he had known ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... as she looked upon the shivering figure before her, the wavering eyes, the hands clenching and unclenching themselves; she found conversation difficult, and began to wonder how she could avoid subjects that brought painful thoughts or suggestions. But suddenly a change came over Sybil; ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... was silent. After a while he took the arm of the laborer, turned him so that the light of the moon struck his face squarely, and examined him with care. It was evident that he was wavering in spirit whether to inquire further and bring everything out with clearness, or for that time to stop with what he ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... a scraping of matches in the room over the conservatory; the open window had shown for a moment, like an empty picture-frame, a gigantic shadow wavering on the ceiling; and in the next half-minute I remembered to tie my shoes. But the light was slow to reappear through the leaded glasses of an outer door farther along the path. And when the door opened, it was a figure of woe that stood ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... to study her. It was a doubtful satisfaction. He could rarely meet Dolly's eyes, while yet he saw how coolly they perused him, how calmly they studied him as an abstract thing. He wanted to see a little shyness, a little consciousness, a little wavering, in those clear, wise orbs; but no! Dolly sat at her work and did it as unconcernedly as if she were five years old, to all appearance; with as quiet, calm poise of manner and simplicity of dignity as if she had been fifty. But how pretty she was! Those eyes of hers were such an uncommon ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... of a large bonfire, loomed up before us. A score of half-naked men, were dancing around the fire in front of the inclosure, with the wildest and most extravagant contortions of body. Seen by the fitful and wavering light, their painted countenances scarcely looked like those of human beings, and the grim, immovable idols, upon their pedestals, seemed vaster and more ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... involve himself in any serious affair. At the same time, it is true, he committed the vanguard to Murat and to Ney, the two rashest of his officers; and, unknown to Davoust, he placed that prudent and methodical marshal under the command of the impetuous king of Naples. Thus his mind seemed to be wavering between two great resolutions, and the contradictions in his words were communicated to his actions. In this internal conflict, however, it was remarked, what an ascendence his enterprising genius had over his prudence, and how the former so disposed matters as to give birth to circumstances which ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... the big Venusian. Their eyes locked for a moment and then he nodded his head and turned away. He pulled out the pocket compass and through blurred vision read the course beneath its wavering needle. He waved an arm in a direction to the right of ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell

... say of you; let them murmur on, and do you take up a resolution of standing out so firmly, that they may not find the least concernment in you; for the shew of any natural sensibility would discover that you are not enough disengaged from the world, as if you were wavering what part to take betwixt the world and Christ. Remember, that you cannot covet popular approbation without betraying your ministry, or becoming a deserter of your sacred colours, in going back from that ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... set up by the heated iron roof over his head and the cool of the shade in the store. There was not much danger of taking cold; rather would a chill have been enjoyable as a change from the sweltering heat of the summer's day. The steady swing of the grasshopper's song—like the wavering hum of a telegraph pole pitched in a high, shrill key—came through the hot air on all sides, until it seemed to spring from the ground in answer to the heat-rays that beat upon it—a response from ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... against him: the ceremonies and pomps of the Church of Rome, their august feasts and solemn fasts, invited his imagination and pleased his eye. His flesh was against him: how great an aid would it be to a poor, weak, wavering man to be constrained to high moral duties, self-denial, obedience, and chastity by laws which were certain in their enactments, and not to be broken without loud, palpable, unmistakable sin! Then his faith was against him: he required to believe so much; panted so early to ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... looking haggard and tired; his face was pallid and drawn; his eyes were red, quick, and wandering; his hair was neglected and ragged; his step was wavering ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... salon together. It was full of the perfume of roses, of the wavering shadow of leaves on the floor and walls and ceiling. It looked bright and pretty, and madame, with suave benignity, explained: "I told Mr. Musgrave that it was better to wait here, and not play hide-and-seek; Bessie was sure ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... the yellowing groves and brown fields of our first autumn; we heard the long-drawn, wavering, mounting, falling, persistent howl of the thresher among the settings of hive-shaped stacks; we saw the loads of red and yellow corn at the corn-cribs,—as men at the board of the green cloth hear the striking of the hours. And we heeded them as little. The cries of southing wild-fowl ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... met her at the chapel-door, with lighted tapers and hymns of praise, and led her to the altar. Francis cut off her long golden hair, and threw his own penitential habit over her. She became his disciple, daughter, and friend, never wavering, though exposed to dangers and trials of the severest character. Under his direction, she formed the famous order of Franciscan nuns, afterwards named ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... Philip Quentin had started for the United States she felt a chill of regret sink suddenly into her soul, and it would not be driven forth. She went on to the very night that was to make her a princess, with the steel in her heart, but the world did not know it was there. There was no faltering, no wavering, no outward sign of the emotions which surged within. She was to be a princess! But when the Saxondales turned their faces from her, spurning the invitation to her wedding, the pride in her heart suffered. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon

... and silent, their eyes roaming idly over the courtyard. The big bonfire burned brightly, and a wavering splash of light lay on the dark earth at their feet, while the lazy smoke wreathed itself slowly in gleaming coils amongst the black boughs of the trees. They could see Lakamba, who had returned to his place, ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... with temptation, Till conscience grew too weak for inclination; For at the last he threw one wandering glance Out at the casement, and the merry dance Of sparkling sunbeams on the fields of snow Wrought havoc in his wavering heart; and so, Repeating to himself one word: "Life, life!" He took the token from ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... now, oscillating from side to side. The hole seemed to travel in a wavering loop, dipping lower, swinging up high, ...
— Gambler's World • John Keith Laumer

... Mountain battery, and the fact that their rear was threatened and their retreat about to be cut off, soon produced signs of wavering amongst the Afghans. Their Artillery fire slackened, their Infantry broke, and about 2 p.m. Drew and Hugh Gough found it possible to make a move towards the Peiwar Kotal. Gough was the first to reach the crest, closely followed by Lieutenant Brabazon, his orderly officer, and a fine plucky ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... few minutes Mr. Hatt rose slowly and portentously, and, turning, made a solemn but wavering way down the car to greet a man who sat just across the aisle from Mary Leonard. Both the women avoided his eyes, blushing a little and with the fear of untimely mirth ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... figure came across the porch, a short figure casting grotesque shadows, a bit stiff, a bit unsteady, like the rings of light that went out in circling waves behind it. It was Uncle Buzz. He came and stood on the topmost rotting step. He bowed. With one hand holding the wavering lamp, the other bravely cupped ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... Face arose and replenished the fire with resinous pine logs, and for a while the flames leaped high, filling the woods with strange shadows and ghostly, wavering spots of light. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... them armed with double-edged broad swords, iron maces furnished with sharp spikes, pointed lances, maces, bright arrows, and many a discus of the form of the sun, saw him over head. And the king of birds, attacked them on all sides with showers of various weapons and fought exceedingly hard without wavering for a moment. And the son of Vinata, of great prowess blazing in the sky, attacked the gods on all sides with his wings and breast. And blood began to flow copiously from the bodies of the gods mangled by the talons and the beak of Garuda. Overcome by the lord ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... scene I look, The azure grave of many a Roman; Where stern Ambition once forsook His wavering crown to ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... a wolf track, and there were two toes missing from one hind foot. The smaller tracks were evenly spaced, and placed one before the other in a straight line after the manner of coyote and wolf, but ten feet beyond where Collins stood the trail showed the wavering gait of the dog with an occasional track out to either side. A sudden mist blurred Collins' eyes and he dashed it off with the ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... and new in her light, with an old, withered, yet unfading newness. When the moon was nearly full, one of their great delights was to dive deep in the water, and then, turning round, look up through it at the great blot of light close above them, shimmering and trembling and wavering, spreading and contracting, seeming to melt away, and again grow solid. Then they would shoot up through the blot, and lo! there was the moon, far off, clear and steady and cold, and very lovely, at the bottom of a deeper and bluer lake than ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... streams. Some like a downward smoke, Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; And some through wavering lights and shadows broke, Rolling a slumbrous sheet of ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... stands hesitating; in his mind a conflict of emotions—a struggle between filial affection and selfish desire. Thus wavering, a word would decide him to turn back for Godalming and home. But there is no one to speak that word, while the next wave of thought surging upward brings vividly before him the sea with all its wonders—a ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... outline of the Louvre seemed to frown sarcastically on her weakness, the silent river to mock her and her wavering purpose. The man beside her had wronged her and hers far more deeply than the Bourbons had wronged their people. The people of France were taking their revenge, and God had at the close of this last happy day of her life ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... she stepped out, and, gathering her skirts back from the dewy grass, walked thoughtfully along the path and gained the hill. Newport harbor lay stretched out in the distance, with the rising moon casting a long, wavering track of silver upon it; and vessels, like silver-winged moths, were turning and shifting slowly to and fro upon it, and one stately ship in full sail passing fairly out under her white canvas, graceful as some grand, snowy bird. Mary's beating heart told her that there was passing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... shudder and his reason cried out that the thing could never be.... Yet in his heart of hearts still he loved her, still desired her with all his strength and will; in his heart there was no wavering. Whatever Rutton had been, whatever his daughter might be, he loved her. And more, the honour of the Ambers was in pledge, holding him steadfast to his purpose to seek her out in India or wherever she might be and to bear her away from the unnamed ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... eagerness in the way he assented that might have made the consent rather a means to evade the pressure than a genuine pledge to follow the advice; that darker, more evil, more defiant look was still upon his face, sweeping its youth away and leaving in its stead a wavering shadow. He rose with a sudden movement; his tumbled hair, his disordered attire, his bloodshot eyes, his haggard look of sleeplessness and excitement in strange contrast with the easy perfection of Cecil's dress and the calm languor of his attitude. The boy was very young, and was ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... higher Orders wavering and undecided, the leaders of the Revolution advanced still further in their requirements, and at last demanded that all classes alike, the Priests and the Women not excepted, should do homage to Colour by submitting ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott

... aloof is doorways listless and inactive, or, gathering in groups in corners, talked what I took to be treason under the breath. The queen-mother still lived, but Orleans had revolted, and Sens and Mans, Chartres and Melun. Rouen was said to be wavering, Lyons in arms, while Paris had deposed her king, and cursed him daily from a hundred altars. In fine, the great rebellion which followed the death of Guise, and lasted so many years, was already in progress; so that on this first day of the ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... strength even of a strong man, when he has a lie to carry, soon becomes very small. That of Prexaspes was already almost exhausted and gone. He had been wavering and hesitating before, and this proposal, that he should commit himself so formally and solemnly, and in so public a manner, to statements wholly and absolutely untrue, brought him to a stand. He decided, desperately, in his own mind, that he would go on in his course of falsehood, remorse, and wretchedness ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... of grave crisis; upon the events of the next few minutes would hang the issue of a hard-fought battle. Already at one end of the line the troops seemed to be wavering. Was it ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... he acknowledged that no persuasion could have induced him to act so generously and disinterestedly; and knowing the keen sensitiveness of Louis to disgrace, he wondered how one so alive to the opinion of others, and naturally so yielding and wavering, could steadily and uncomplainingly persevere in his benevolent purpose; for not by word or sign did Louis even hint the truth to Reginald—the usual depository of ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... though I, a god, can never know How thou canst lose thy pain, yet time will go Over thine head, and thou mayst mingle yet The bitter and the sweet, nor quite forget, Nor quite remember, till these things shall seem The wavering memory ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... devoted Woman! Of what mysterious particles could nature have formed so strange a being—made up, as it were, of contradictions, and yet deriving from that very inconsistency its principal attraction. Uncertain and wavering, but amiable in that very weakness. When impelled by affection or smarting under highly excited feelings of injury, thou art capable of the most noble enthusiasm, or the darkest exhibitions of passion. Man, proudly arrogating ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... Mrs. Wadman's scissars, from the returning angle before the gate of St. Nicolas; and with such a virgin modesty laid her finger upon the place, that the goddess of Decency, if then in being—if not, 'twas her shade—shook her head, and with a finger wavering across her eyes—forbid her ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... chief, equal in intelligence to his high position. Next, a regularly paid army,[3104] carefully equipped, properly clothed and fed, strictly disciplined and therefore obedient and able to do its duty without wavering or faltering, like any other instrument of precision. An active police force and gendarmerie kept on a tight rein. Administrators independent of those under their jurisdiction, and judges independent ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... misshapen fields seem trim paddocks, wavering and serpentining furrows appear straight and regular lines of tillage, weed-grown fields look marvels of cleanliness and care, while the lounging and ragged population were to be passed off as a thriving and industrious peasantry, well paid and ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... the upper regions. The heat was sometimes intense, but at intervals a refreshing wind would blow, the air being as fickle as the rain; and now and then we would see a slender column of dust, a thousand or two feet high, marching across the desert, apparently not more than two feet in diameter, and wavering like the threads of moisture that tried in vain to reach the earth as rain. Of life there was not much to be seen in our desert route. In the first day we encountered no habitation except the ranch-house mentioned, and saw no human being; and the second day none except the solitary occupant of ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner

... pavement, and would sink into it again and reappear at some other spot the instant you left him behind. The expression of his eye was perfectly respectful, but terribly fixed, holding your own as by fascination, never once winking, never wavering from its point-blank gaze right into your face, till you were completely beyond the range of his battery of one immense rifled cannon. This was his mode of soliciting alms; and he reminded me of the old beggar who appealed ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... atheism, hath a direct tendency towards it; and, as Dr Clarke observes, may soon be driven into it. And as to Mr. Booth, though he was in his heart an extreme well-wisher to religion (for he was an honest man), yet his notions of it were very slight and uncertain. To say truth, he was in the wavering condition so finely described ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... exposed; frail, pliant, tender; peccable, fallible, errable, erring, indiscreet; impotent, ineffectual, inefficacious, ineffective; illogical, unsustained, inconclusive, lame, unsatisfactory; vacillating, irresolute, wavering, unstable; diluted, thin, insipid, vapid; slight, gauzy, sleazy, flimsy, brittle, fragile; unsound, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... said Arcot. "I'll bet my neck on that!" Suddenly he was surrounded by the faintest of auras, a strange, wavering blue light, like the hazy corona about a 400,000-volt ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell

... postcards to everyone whose name is in the Red Book, asking them to ask for Geoffrey's Cousin at the Libraries. I also despatched six copies, with six anonymous letters, to Mr. GLADSTONE, signing them, "A Literary Constituent," "A Wavering Anabaptist," and so forth, but, extraordinary to relate, I have received no answer, and no notice has been taken of my disinterested presents. The reviews were of the most meagre and scornful description. Messrs. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various

... take his advice, as his body was hot and his sight was wavering. He felt that he was going to be ill and he might get it over all the quicker by surrendering to it at once. He rolled the blanket tightly about himself and lay down on the softest spot he could find. In the night he became delirious ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... behind us, when Raymond turning about, directed my attention to the mountains. These were overhung by masses of black clouds, that were all charged with rain and the elements of a tempest. From one of these depended a phenomenon which I had never witnessed before—I mean a water spout, wavering in its black and terrible beauty over this savage scenery, thus adding its gloomy grandeur to the sublimity of the thunder-storm, which now deepened, peal after peal, among the mountains. To such as are unacquainted with mountain scenery, and have never witnessed ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... agreed upon by the Cabinet after counsel with the King. Russell was the youngest son of the Duke of Bedford; and the Duke was one of the large territorial magnates and a proprietor of rotten boroughs. "A bill recommended by his son's authority," wrote Walpole, "was likely to reassure timid or wavering politicians." "Russell," Walpole continued, "told his tale in the plainest language. But the tale which he had to tell required no extraordinary language to adorn it. The Radicals had not dared to expect, the Tories, in their wildest fears, had not apprehended, so complete a measure. ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... observed, of the "broad Shakespearian daylight" of Fitzgerald's fine phrase as being not inapplicable to the atmosphere of MacDowell's writing. He has few reservations, and he shows small liking for recondite effects of harmonic colour, for the wavering melodic line—which is far from implying that he is ever merely obvious or banal: that he never is. His clarity, his directness, find issue in an order of expression at once lucid and distinguished, at once spontaneous and expressive. ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman

... under its azure sky, above the billows of the lake set amid sapphire hills and emerald shores, in the crystal streams shaded by the bamboos, bordered by flowers, enlivened by the beetles and butterflies with their uncertain and wavering flight as though playing with the air, in the silence of our forests, in the singing of our rivers, in the diamond showers of our waterfalls, in the resplendent light of our moon, in the sighs of the night breeze, in all that may call up the vision of the beloved, we must eternally see you as ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... a sweet morning in June, and the fragrance of the roses is wafted towards me as I move—for I am walking in a lawny meadow, still wet with dew—and a wavering mist lies over the distance. Suddenly it seems to lift, and out of the dewy dimness emerges a cottage, embowered with roses and clustering clematis; and the hills, in which it is set like a gem, are tree-clad, and rise ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... whose smile was victory." These circumstances, added to the constant devoirs of Lord Malden, whose attentions were as little understood as maliciously interpreted, conspired to distract a young creature, whose exposed situation, whose wavering and unformed character, rendered her but too obnoxious to a thousand ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson

... Weishelm appeared, his handsome face streaming blood. He staggered, turned mechanically toward the stairs again with wavering revolver; but a shot drove him blindly backward and another hurled him full length across the floor, where he lay with both arms spread out, and the last tremors, running from his ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... cunning work overlaid with gold, the masterpiece of Le Vasseur, spanned the chancel, like the rainbow round the throne. Lights were burning on the altar, incense went up in spirals to the roof; and through the wavering cloud the saints and angels seemed to look down with living faces upon the crowd of worshippers who knelt upon the broad ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... fire, in a weak, wavering voice as the half-chick approached, 'in a few minutes I shall go quite out, unless you put some sticks and dry leaves upon me. Do help me, or ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... she sat on the front steps, a web of white, dreamily intent on the shimmering sweep of Washington Square. After a little she was joined by Gerrit Ammidon. He wore linen trousers and a short blue sea jacket; and the wavering delicately lavender trail of smoke from his cheroot was like her ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... with these outpost hills. They became, in turn, cones, pyramids, boxes, benches, chimney stacks, hourglasses. Sometimes they soared high in air, like the kites of a baby god; and, beneath, the unbroken desert stretched afar, wavering, misty, ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... the voice of their master Satan, the seductive raeita. At one end of the room sat the musicians, all giant negroes, the scars and tattoo marks on their sweating black faces giving them a villainous look in the wavering light. They were playing the bendir, the tomtom, the Arab flute, as well as the raeita; but the raeita laughed ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson

... other ships. The fleet took in sail, and each vessel, under backed canvas, was pointed to the wind. Thus they waited for daybreak. It was a proud moment of painful suspense for Columbus; and brimming hopes, perhaps fears of disappointment, must have accompanied that hour of wavering enchantment. It was Friday, October 12, of the old chronology, and the little fleet had been thirty-three days on its way from the Canaries, and we must add ten days more to complete the period since they left Palos. The land before them was seen, as the ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various

... with which the Church of Rome corrects her dogmatism upon questions of salvation. A child unbaptised could not be buried in consecrated ground, and was subject to all the sorrows of the unredeemed; but who could doubt that the priest would be easily persuaded by some wavering of the tapers on the altar upon the little dead face, some flicker of his own compassionate eyelids, that sufficient life had come back to permit the holy rite to be administered? The whole little scene is affecting in the extreme, the young creatures ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... Englishmen, and make its presence recognised as a supreme blessing by those whom nothing but what was great and real in its benefits would satisfy—this was the aim from which, however perplexed or wavering or inconsistent he may have been at times, he never really swerved. In the breadth and largeness of his principle, in the freedom and variety of its practical applications, in the distinctness of his purposes and the intensity of his convictions, he was an example of high ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... her nakedness which ancient art has always represented. And in the actual life of the young girl to-day there is a moment when, by a secret atavism, she feels the pride of her sex, the intuition of her moral superiority, and cannot understand why she must hide its cause. At this moment, wavering between the laws of Nature and social conventions, she scarcely knows if nakedness should or should not affright her. A sort of confused atavistic memory recalls to her a period before clothing was known, and reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... who has no firm, decided principle, who is constantly wavering backwards and forwards, and who frequently leads others into error by his untenable opinions; who cannot quickly discern the special talent and capacity of his pupils, or discover the proper means to get rid of what is false or wrong, and ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck

... the 800 troops marched in from Egmont Castle and Egmont Abbey, where they had been quartered while the citizens were wavering between resistance and submission. Four of the citizens, who had already been told off for the purpose, met them at the gate and allotted them quarters in the various houses. Governor Sonoy was already in deliberation ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... radiantly lovely girls who stood in the little garden on the roof of the sun parlor, waiting for the men who ran up the wavering rustic ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston

... property-morality with primitive ascetic morality, neither in true relationship to the vital facts of the sexual life. It is, indeed, the property element which, with a few inconsistencies, has become finally the main concern of our law, but the ascetic element (with, in the past, a wavering relationship to law) has had an important part in moulding popular sentiment and in creating an attitude of reprobation towards sexual intercourse per se, although such intercourse is regarded as an essential ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... begin clapping his hands. They would then slowly and very politely take up the applause, in every case waiting for his signal. It was almost pathetic." At one time the Roosevelt scouts alleged that "Timothy Woodruff is wavering, with four other delegates, and will soon fall to us," and told "of delegates flopping over, here and there." A still more extraordinary piece of news came from Hooker to the effect that he had in some way intercepted a telegram "from Murray Crane to his nephew saying that Crane ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... considerations demanded that we should take the offensive and deal such a blow as would convince the rebels, as well as those whose loyalty was wavering, that the British arms were irresistible. Moreover, there was no likelihood of our force being increased. So on September 7 General Wilson issued the following address ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... dared to predict what a day would bring forth. Mr. Gouverneur's father was a pronounced Northern man, but his wife's relatives, as well as most of his neighbors, sympathized with the South. Soon after the outbreak of the war, while we were yet in China, and at the period when Maryland was wavering between the North and South, and to anxious spectators secession seemed almost inevitable, my father-in-law and ex-Governor Philip F. Thomas left one morning on a hurried trip to Frederick, where the State Legislature was convened in special session, instead of at the State Capitol ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... be satisfied with the needful knowledge, small though it be, which is vouchsafed to us, and to amuse the mind with every opinion and every varying humour of that curious and wayward creature man! And who so wayward, who so wavering as one's self in all those parts of our composite being which are subject to the play of time and circumstance? Such, in an age of confusion working towards clearness, an age of belligerency tending towards concord, were the reflections of a moralist, the ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... 2. In like manner, when particular acts of government, and particular ordinances are mentioned, the edification of the Church, at least in her members, is propounded as the great end of all: e.g. 1. Admonition is for edification, that an erring brother may be gained, Matt. xviii. 15, 16, that wavering minds may be sound in the faith. "Rebuke them cuttingly, that they may be sound in the faith," Tit. i. 13, that beholders and bystanders may fear to fall into like sins. "Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear," 1 Tim. v. 20. 2. Excommunication ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London

... fraught, The bosom, 'mid its snow, upheaving; Who, that had seen them, could have thought That things so fair could be deceiving? The moon, the sky, the wave, the wind, In all their fitful moods of changing, Are nought to wavering woman's mind, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... but beyond all this is the technical skill, giving the look of woe that does not tell of weakness, as woe usually does, but strength and loyalty and death without flinching in a righteous cause: symbolic of the Swiss Guard that died at their post, not one of the three hundred wavering, there at the King's palace at Paris—all dead and turned to dust a century past, and this lion, mortally wounded, mutely pleading ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... for him. He consented to serve another term most reluctantly, and not until he had been besought to do so by the leaders on both sides. Jefferson was as urgent as was Hamilton. While Washington was still wavering, he received a strong letter from Edmund Randolph that doubtless touched his soldierly pride. The letter closed with ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... and brass broke through the gaps in the rail fence, and the sunlight rippled along a wavering line of British bayonets. They crept nearer, nearer, until Jabez could see the grim ferocity, the bared teeth, the staring ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... answered, defiantly. But there was a wavering note in the word, as though she had begun to doubt. He was ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour

... dine alone, an idea which had not struck her as revolutionary. Accustomed to strange meals in strange company—a bowl of milk with a prison chaplain at a dairy lunch-room, or even, on one occasion, a supper in an Owl Lunch Wagon with a wavering drunkard,—she had thought that a quiet, perfect dinner with Mr. Lanley sounded pleasant enough. But she was not sorry to find it had been enlarged. She liked to meet new people. She was extremely optimistic, and always hoped that they would prove either spiritually rewarding, or practically ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... now declared that he was in favour of the appointment; but, on the other hand, would English public opinion consent to a man, described by Gordon himself as 'the greatest slave-hunter who ever existed', being given an English subsidy and the control of the Sudan? While the Cabinet was wavering, Gordon took a fatal step. The delay was intolerable, and one evening, in a rage, he revealed his desire for Zobeir— which had hitherto been kept a profound official secret— to Mr Power, the English Consul at Khartoum, and the special correspondent of "The Times." Perhaps he calculated ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... that his mind has suffered many revolutions that the same things have in the several parts of his life been condemned and approved, pursued and shunned: and that on many occasions, even when his practice has been steady, his mind has been wavering, and he has persisted in a scheme of action, rather because he feared the censure of inconstancy, than because he was always ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... the sweet hill-flowers, must be unremembered in that lofty region of light. But just as the Lark is lost—he and his song together—as if his orisons had been accepted—both are seen and heard fondly wavering earthwards, and in a little while he is walking with his graceful crest contented along the furrows of the brairded corn, or on the clover lea that in man's memory has not felt the ploughshare; or after a pause, in which he seems dallying with a home-sick passion, drooping down like one dead, beside ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... energy of man. But, uncertain in his course, unable to see the length of his own body, and pressed hard upon by the wind, even the spirit of Sigismund Steinbach could not long withstand so many adverse circumstances. He had already turned, wavering in purpose, thinking to catch a glimpse of the bark in the direction he had come, when a dark mass floated immediately before his eyes, and he felt the cold clammy nose of the dog, scenting about his face. The ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... portraits. She was asked to brush his hair and beard, and wrap his shoulders in an ivory-white shawl, thick with silk embroideries, which had been his mother's. In a little green bronze tripod a black pastille was set burning, which sent up, slow, thin, and wavering, a gray spiral ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall



Words linked to "Wavering" :   vacillating, irresolute, vacillation, hesitation, irresolution, unregularity, indecision, scintillation, indecisiveness, waver, fluctuation, irregularity, vacillant



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