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Falter   Listen
verb
Falter  v. i.  (past & past part. faltered; pres. part. faltering)  
1.
To hesitate; to speak brokenly or weakly; to stammer; as, his tongue falters. "With faltering speech and visage incomposed."
2.
To tremble; to totter; to be unsteady. "He found his legs falter."
3.
To hesitate in purpose or action. "Ere her native king Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms."
4.
To fail in distinctness or regularity of exercise; said of the mind or of thought. "Here indeed the power of disinct conception of space and distance falters."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Falter" Quotes from Famous Books



... this life ye bear: Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly, Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly. Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin, But onward, upward, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... Phelim," she said; "this is my swan-song; listen;" and she began to sing. She sang bravely, at first, with her head held high, and then, suddenly, her voice began to falter. ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith

... men, Heed ye not the nation's sin? Heaven's blessing can ye win If ye falter now? Men of blood now ask your vote, O'er your heads their banners float; Raise, Oh raise the warning note, God and ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark

... fatal weakness. No one, looking upon his pale, scholarly face, and noting his faultlessly neat apparel, and easy, graceful manners, would have thought of such a thing. Yet he was a—I falter in writing it—a drunkard. At times he drank deeply and madly. When half intoxicated he was almost as brilliant as Hamlet, and as rollicking as Falstaff. It was said that even when fully drunk his splendid intellect never entirely ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald

... thou soon," she said, "Who wouldst not hear the rede I read For thine and not for my sake, sped In vain as waters heavenward shed From springs that falter and depart Earthward. God bids not thee believe Truth, and the web thy life must weave For even this sword to close and cleave Hangs ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... with nothing but such sentimental stuff to stand between these muscles of mine and those papers which you have about you, and which I want and mean to have: suppose I, with the prize within my grasp, were to falter and sneak away with my hands empty; or, what would be worse, cover up my weakness by playing the magnanimous hero, and sparing you the violence I dared not use, would you not despise me from the depths of your woman's soul? Would any woman be such a fool? ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw

... before, with all his delightful, passionate frankness, Lionel had clasped Waife's reluctant hand in both his own, and, with tears in his eyes, and choking in his voice, was pouring forth sentences so loosely knit together that they seemed almost incoherent; now a burst of congratulation—now a falter of condolence—now words that seemed to supplicate as for pardon to an offence of his own—rapid transitions from enthusiasm to pity, from joy to grief—variable, with the stormy April of a young, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the questions of politics are to be more and more moral questions. And I invoke those whom God made to be peculiarly conservators of things moral and spiritual to come forward and help us in that work, in which we shall falter and fail without woman. We shall never perfect human society without her offices and her ministration. We shall never round out the government, or public administration, or public policies, or politics itself, until you have ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... picture itself will, on foreign soil, plead the cause of American civilization, and tend to assure those who look with dismay at the tumultuous upheavings of freedom's home, that imperishable Art still maintains her placid sway in this distracted land, and that her votaries falter ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... ahead and the fire behind and on either side. The great mass of flame had not yet rolled abreast the boat, but the blazing brands were already falling in advance. It was not a moment to hesitate; nor was he a man to falter when action was ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray

... almost as a cat, Buck followed the flying horseman over perilous rock rims and across deep-cut creek beds. Pantherlike he climbed up the steep creek sides without hesitation, for the round-up had taught him never to falter at stiff going so long as his rider put him ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... replied the woman who had known happiness. And she closed her lips quickly, as if she feared that they might falter. ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... consisted of a comfortable bed, a table with some books on it, three chairs, a small looking-glass on the wall, a guitar and some articles of men's clothing hanging here and there. A heap of dull embers smouldered in the fireplace. Alice did not falter at the threshold, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... other, "as long as I have a prospect of large profits; why should I falter or hesitate at so ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... merit To choke it in the utterance. So our virtues Lie in the interpretation of the time: And power, unto itself most commendable, Hath not a tomb so evident as a cheer To extol what it hath done. One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail. Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine, Thou art poor'st of all; ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... by paths we do not know; Upward he leads us, though our steps be slow; Though oft we faint and falter by the way; Though clouds and darkness oft obscure the day, And still ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... sin a duty; and if, as I rightly understand thee, thou lookest to the gospel as that higher vocation for which thy spirit yearneth, then would I say to thee, arise, and gird up thy loins; advance and falter not;—the field is open, and though the victory brings thee no worldly profit, and but little worldly honor, yet the reward is eternal, and the interest thereof, unlike the money which thou puttest out to usury in the hands of men, never fails ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... that hast all thy lyfe tyme dealt in fyre-woorks, Stoves and hott bathes to sweet in, nowe to have Thy teethe to falter in thy head for could Nimbler ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen

... whether, riding on the balls of mine, Seem they in motion?—Here are sever'd lips, Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar Should sunder such sweet friends.—Here, in her hair, The painter plays the spider, and hath woven A golden mesh, t' entrap the hearts of men Falter than gnats in cobwebs.—But her eyes— How could he see to do them! having made one, Methinks it should have power to steal both his, And leave ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... woman he had chosen Gustave Lenoble never wavered. He worked for her, he endured for her, he hoped against hope for her sake; and it was only when bodily strength failed that this nameless foot-soldier began to droop and falter in life's bitter battle. Things had gone ill with him. He had tried his fate as an advocate in Paris, in Caen, in Rouen—but clients would not come. He had been a clerk, now in one counting-house, now in another, and Susan and he had existed somehow during the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... is God and right is right, Right the day shall win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin." ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger

... falter. "That's just what I want you to tell us; because, though I was present, I ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... at him for a moment with a look of honest inquiry in her eyes. His own did not falter. Their expression ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... indeed. To cut off all commerce with England and foreign countries would bring utter ruin upon the planters, for their tobacco crop would then be without a market. Even now, however, the Governor did not falter in his loyalty. He felt, no doubt, that Parliament would have difficulty in enforcing this act, and he looked to the Dutch merchantmen to ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... the foot of the ramparts: most of those who had mounted on the rolling towers were hors de combat; the remainder, covered with sweat and dust, overwhelmed with heat and the weight of their armour, began to falter. The Saracens who perceived this raised cries of joy. In their blasphemies they reproached the Christians for adoring a God who was unable to defend them. The assailants deplored their loss, and believing themselves ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... that way, Miss Watkins," screamed Mitchell. "It is we that are the blind and the halt. You are ever fresh, but we falter and faint. You see it's you that go out, but it's we that you get ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... and build your temples on the wreck of Empire! Ha! do you start? and does some touch of shame redden the sallow cheeks that courage had left bloodless? and do ye grasp your daggers, and rear your drooping heads? are ye men, once again? Why should ye not? what do ye see, what hear, whereat to falter? What oracle, what portent? Now, by the Gods! methought they spoke of victory and glory. Once more, what do ye fear, or wish? What, in the name of Hecate and Hades! ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... consequence whenever he became puzzled about facts that were being read to him or that he heard he would instantly appeal to Van, whom he was sure could right every sort of dilemma that might arise. But too often the unlucky Van was forced to blush and falter that he would have to look it up; and when he did so he frequently learned something himself. For Tim never forgot. No sooner would Van be inside the gate than the shrill little voice would pipe: "And did you find out how far away ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... little Michmash," she whispered. "Stumble not nor falter on the way. Thou carriest the Light of all the world, the Hope of every heart upon ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips

... Our courage to relax. Arouse ye then! A brave man's spirit its vigour soon regains. That ye, the best and bravest of the host, Should stand aloof thus idly, 'tis not well; If meaner men should from the battle shrink, I might not blame them; but that such as ye Should falter, indignation fills my soul. Dear friends, from this remissness must accrue Yet greater evils; but with gen'rous shame And keen remorse let each man's breast be fill'd; Fierce is the struggle; in his pride of strength Hector has forc'd the gates and massive bars, And raging, ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... 'Tis well. But now, yea, even while I reel And falter, one poor hope, as hope now is, I clutch at in this coil of miseries; To save some honour for my children's sake; Yea, for myself some fragment, though things break In ruin around me. Nay, I will not shame The old proud Cretan castle whence ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This like thy glory, Titan! is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... to get up!" howled the excited little man, growing still worse, as the colonel seemed to shrink and falter. "Why, I can lick you in a fraction of no time! You've been making lots of fighting talk, and now it's my turn. Get up and put up ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish

... from his covert and started again, although he felt that he was growing weaker. Such intense exertion, under such conditions, was bound to tell even upon a frame like his, but he would not let himself falter, passing from island to island, resting a little at every one, bearing toward the southeast, and intending to enter the forest about a mile from the fire on that side. Meanwhile, the chill of the deadly cold and elation over his escape fought for the mastery of him. He reached ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... afterthoughts shall tempt you to falter; that happen what may in the changing years, you will not hesitate; that though your interests and affections should intervene, you will not suffer them to retard you in your purpose; that no effort, no sacrifice, no privation, no suffering of mind or body ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... delight of her own achievements full upon her face, which was pretty, although untutored, regarded her visitor with an expression which almost made Margaret falter. It was probably the absurd dressing of the girl's hair which restored Margaret's confidence in her scheme. Martha Wallingford actually wore a frizzled bang, very finely frizzled too, and her hair was strained from the nape of her neck, and it seemed impossible that a young woman who knew ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... by rugged paths like these they go That scale the heights of immortality, Unreached by those that falter ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... chose—never to know the rest and sweetness of forgetting even for a little while? Why must she be mastered by a voice that did not care at all whether its cadence and its fall were marked by her or not? Why must she tremble and falter even in her prayer, if a foot came up the aisle that she could not bear to miss, and yet that was treading down, and doomed, if this went on, to tread down all reviving joy, and every springtide flower that was budding ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... pure sensitive darling! How much longer must we be separated? Will the time ever come when the only earthly rest that remains for me can be taken in her soft clinging arms? Patience—patience. If it were not for her—for my baby—I might falter even now,—but she must, she shall be righted—at any sacrifice, at every cost; and may the widow's and the orphan's God be ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... front of the Confederate, and, pulling out a revolver, pointed it at Lightfoot's head. "Unless you promise not to have us followed, you shan't leave this room alive!" he cried with the tone of a man daring everything for liberty. George fully expected to see the officer falter, for he had seen that the Major ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins

... doing? Why—why did you come here?" she questioned, a falter in her voice; and he noticed that her eyes were dark and large, yielding a marked impress of ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... MAN never grows so old as to be come either stale, juiceless, or unpalatable. The older he grows, the mellower and riper he becomes. His eyes may fail him, his step falter, and his big- mouthed shoes—"a world too wide for his shrunk shank"—may cluck and shuffle as he walks; his rheumatics may make great knuckles of his knees; the rusty hinges of his vertebrae may refuse cunningly to articulate, but all the same the "backbone" ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... blew her nose and looked disagreeable, and some of them talked; so that presently all became more animated, and the sky lightened, and the day was less trying. Only Sally's head continued to ache, and her spirits to falter. But she no longer sighed for Toby. A curious dread of him came into her consciousness, which she could not understand. She was afraid. She felt defensive towards him, and explanatory. Under her attention all sorts of impulses were at work. Pictures of ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... overwhelming; but she resents no injury, harbours no resentment, feels no spite, murmurs at no misfortune. From every blow of evil she recovers with a gentle patience that is infinitely pathetic. Passionate and acutely sensitive, she yet seems never to think of antagonising her affliction or to falter in her unconscious fortitude. She has no reproach—but only a grieved submission—for the husband who has wronged her by his suspicions and has doomed her to death. She thinks only of him, not of herself, when ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... and she found that she was still singing—mechanically her voice had answered to the long training of years. But the audience had heard the great prima donna catch her breath and falter in her song. For an instant it had seemed almost as though she might break down. Then the tension passed, and the lovely voice, upborne by a limitless technique, had floated out again, golden ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... I must never falter. Work, my boy, work unweariedly. I swear that all the thousand miseries of this hard fight, and ill-health, the most terrific of them all, shall never chain us down. By the river Styx it shall not! Two fellows from a nameless spot in ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... stunned. When they reached the church, and the men, after searching for a time without result, appealed to him to save trouble by pointing out the spot where the pocket-book was concealed, he could only stammer and falter unintelligibly, and finally ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... toyed with them instead of allowing myself to embrace them. I shrunk from them as it were like a cold lover who fears the too ardent caresses of his mistress. I could not believe that the supreme happiness I had so long pined for was at last so near. Might not M. le Duc d'Orleans falter at the last moment? Might not all our preparations, so carefully conducted, so cleverly planned, weigh upon his feebleness until they fell to the ground? It was not improbable. He was often firm in promises. How often was he firm in carrying them out? All these questions, all these restless ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... sifting, Came to the gates of sleep. Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep, Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling: The gates of sleep fell a-trembling Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter 'Yes,' Shaken with happiness: The gates of sleep ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... into the army?" said Mrs. Brice, Stephen did not remark the little falter in her voice. He laughed over the recollection of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... stated, before the war, where he was properly cared for until he was partially recovered. Although the wound, in process of time, seemed to have healed, yet its deep-seated injury caused him to falter in his walk during the remainder of his life. The reason he assigned for refusing to be taken from his horse when severely wounded does honor to his exalted patriotism. He said if he had complied his men would neglect to load and fire as often as they should; would gather around ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... Do you know any friend of mine? Do you know a man named Mountjoy? Do you know two men named Mountjoy? No: you don't. One of them is dead: killed by those murdering scoundrels what do you call them? Eh, what?" The doctor's voice began to falter, his head dropped; he slumbered suddenly and woke suddenly, and began talking again suddenly. "Would you like to be made acquainted with Lord Harry? I'll give you a sketch of his character before I introduce him. Between ourselves, he's a desperate wretch. Do you know ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins

... gladly hear The words I hardly dare to breathe,— The words that falter in their fear To tell what ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... breathed, but they did not falter. Mutely, with parted lips, she seemed to search ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... desert march or battle flame, In fortress and in field, Our war-cry is thy holy name, Thy love our joy and shield! And if we falter, let thy power Thy stern avenger be, And God forget us in the hour We cease to think ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay

... Todd and Mr Beauclerk, and should have been more good-humoured than usual with Lord Alfred in discussing those empty seats. But for spilt milk there is no remedy. The blow had come upon him too suddenly, and he had faltered. But he would not falter again. Nothing should cow him,—no touch from a policeman, no warrant from a magistrate, no defalcation of friends, no scorn in the City, no solitude in the West End. He would go down among the electors to-morrow ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... servant did as his master had commanded him, and so went to France; and coming one day to Monsieur Fayel's house, he suddenly met him with one of his servants, who knowing him to be Captain Coney's servant, examined him; and finding him timorous, and to falter in his speech, he searched him, and found the said box in his pocket, with the note which expressed what it contained; then he dismissed the bearer, with injunction that he should come no more thither. Monsieur Fayel, going in, sent for his cook, and delivered him the powder, charging him to make ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various

... a lodge meeting which had wound up with a little supper in the banquet hall, felt a queer stir through his members to see the Higgins place alter its usually placid countenance, falter, turn half round, and get down on its knees with an apparently disastrous collapse of its four walls and of everything within them. The short wide windows narrowed and lengthened with an effect of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... wandering about with a girl's frock in his hands. It was old, but he did not remember that he had ever touched it before or noticed its material or pattern. He looked at it fondly now, as he held it ready to renew the dog's memory if his purpose should falter. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... the serpent rolled over into the ditch, and Siegfried was covered by the folds of his huge body. He did not fear or falter. He thrust Balmung, his wonderful sword, deep into the monster's body. The blood poured forth in such torrents that the ditch ...
— Bertha • Mary Hazelton Wade

... the question Which my heart has asked before? Then I falter, "Can you love me, Darling?" I can ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... it pleased, ran to the coffin, ducked under the pole and started with the others on the jog-trot, while the man whose place he had taken caught his horse. Never once in a carry of 150 miles did that coffin stop, and never once did that jog-trot falter. The cortege followers ate at the various ranches they passed, nobody thinking of refusing them food. The 150 mile journey to San Luis was necessary in order to reach a priest who would bury the dead woman. All the dead were ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady

... after I had given him a hint of it; and to encourage them, rode through their ranks and spoke cheerfully to them, and used what arguments he thought proper to settle their minds. I remembered a saying which I heard old Marshal Gustavus Horn speak in Germany, "If you find your men falter, or in doubt, never suffer them to halt, but keep them advancing; for while they are going forward, it ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... search Colwyn had cherished the hope that Ronald, if captured, would declare his innocence and gladly respond to his overture of help. But, instead of doing so, Ronald had taken up an attitude which was suspicious in the highest degree, and one which caused the detective to falter in his belief that the Glenthorpe murder case was a much deeper mystery than the police imagined. Ronald's attitude, by its accordance with the facts previously known or believed about the case, belittled ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... to get rid of her. If I objected to having my bed made at five o'clock in the afternoon—which I do still think an uncomfortable arrangement—one motion of her hand towards the same nankeen region of wounded sensibility was enough to make me falter an apology. In short, I would have done anything in an honourable way rather than give Mrs. Crupp offence; and she was the ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... know not how many bottles carrying messages. It were only by mere chance yon varlet could escape coming over some of them. Add this to the fact that yon varlet has got the king's navy after us, and marry! methinks we have full work cut out for us. Not that stout heart should falter, ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... found his money—missing! 'O Heavens!' he cried, 'shall I Such riches lose, and still not die? Shall I not hang?—as I, in fact, Might justly do if cord I lack'd; But now, without expense, I can; This cord here only lacks a man.' The saving was no saving clause; It suffer'd not his heart to falter, Until it reach'd his final pause As full possessor of the halter,— 'Tis thus the miser often grieves: Whoe'er the benefit receives Of what he owns, he never must— Mere treasurer for thieves, Or relatives, or dust. But ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... danger, with every external circumstance against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then, to falter now—-now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail; if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... valiantly. Inspired by high and honourable resolve, a man must stand to his post, and die there, if need be. Like the old Danish hero, his determination should be, "to dare nobly, to will strongly, and never to falter in the path of duty." The power of will, be it great or small, which God has given us, is a Divine gift; and we ought neither to let it perish for want of using on the one hand, nor profane it by employing it for ignoble ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... chamber where Tithonus lies. But through his window there the eastern skies Fall palely fair to the dim ocean's end. There, in blue mist where air and ocean blend, The lazy clouds that sail the wide world o'er Falter and turn where they can sail no more. There singing groves, there spacious gardens blow — Cedars and silver poplars, row on row, Through whose black boughs on her appointed night, Flooding his chamber with enchanted light, Lifts the full moon's immeasurable sphere, Crimson ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... then! Fate hath endow'd him with an ardent mind, Which unrestrain'd still presses on for ever, And whose precipitate endeavour Earth's joys o'erleaping, leaveth them behind. Him will I drag through life's wild waste, Through scenes of vapid dulness, where at last Bewilder'd, he shall falter, and stick fast; And, still to mock his greedy haste, Viands and drink shall float his craving lips beyond— Vainly he'll seek refreshment, anguish-tost, And were he not the devil's by his bond, Yet must his ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... halted, her arms behind her, looking him fixedly in the face. He had made a movement to advance, and offer his hand in greeting, but her posture checked the impulse. His courage began to falter under her inspection. ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... fireside and for home, For heritage, for altar; And, by the God of yon blue dome, Not one of us shall falter! ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... Hope thinks infinite; 570 To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates; Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; 575 This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... third revolt against her authority; and it remains to be seen how the Church of Rome will deal with it. Will she now adopt half measures? Will she now falter and draw back,—she that never before feared enemy or spared foe? Will that Church that quenched in blood the Protestantism of the Waldenses,—that put down the Reformation in France by one terrible blow,—that by the help of dungeons and racks banished the light from Italy and Spain,—will ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... his father. He now began to falter in his story, and to change his statements. The examination had lasted long, and it was seen that the feeble intellect of the boy was wearied out, so the case was adjourned. When next confronted with the elder Grenier, ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... falter for a moment? There flashed over her the remembrance of Maurice's anger, of his continued absence, of the probability that he would never come back to her; and the dream of a tender love that could envelop the ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... who came!" he said, his keen eyes on her. But her look did not falter. "You waited because the gods willed that I should come to you," he said, speaking rapidly, since she showed signs of nervousness. "And I have come, to plead my love, and to ask yours in return. Once before were we interrupted when I tried to speak; now the chance is mine at ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... gray to the lips, but his nerve did not falter. "It had to come some time. And it was Luck ought to have done it too." He waved aside Sweeney, who was holding a flask to his lips. "What's ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... quick to see and interpret Charley's action, and their guns were quickly turned upon his frail craft. As he drew nearer the drifting dugout and came within range, a perfect hail of bullets splashed the water into foam around him. He did not falter or hesitate, but with long clean strokes of the paddle, sent his light little craft flying towards his goal. Perhaps it was this very speed that saved his life. Bullet after bullet pierced the thin canvas sides and one ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... remains in dressing station and hospital, the white-faced, wild-eyed women waiting at home, and back of all, safe, snug and cynical, the selfish, ambitious promoters of war. Steady as a marching column without pause or falter, in a tone monotonous yet thrilling with a certain subdued passion, he gave forth his indictment of war. He was on familiar ground for this had been the theme of his prize essay last winter. But to-night the thing to him was vital, terrifying, horrible. He was delivering no ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... barb deeper, may try to shake the dust of life from off their feet. Neither will be wise. But precisely because they are not wise, they will seek the company of wise men. Their own attitude will not wear. The ecstasy will fail, the will to renunciation falter; the gray reality which permits no one to escape it altogether will filter like a mist into the vision and the cell. Then they will turn to the wise men. They will find comfort in the smile to which they ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... is a critical year in the defense effort of the whole free world. If we falter we can lose all the gains we have made. If we drive ahead, with courage and vigor and determination, we can by the end of 1952 be in a position of much greater security. The way will be dangerous for the years ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman

... though fearful her resolution would falter, Teresa drew her writing-desk towards her, and wrote a note so rapidly, and with so unsteady a hand, that there was little resemblance to her usual writing, and then sought for sleep-but in vain-and at the ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray

... not at liberty to make this comparison. If a youth were to begin his career in such an assemblage, with such examples to guide and to animate, it will be pleaded, there would be no cause for apprehension; he could not falter, he could not be misled. But ours is, notwithstanding its manifold excellences, a degenerate age; and recreant knights are among us far outnumbering the true. A false Gloriana in these days imposes worthless services, which they who perform them, in ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... power of speech on the rack in Portugal, and could only falter a few unintelligible words, when greatly excited, but her hearing had remained, and her husband understood how to read the expression of her eyes. A great sorrow had drawn a deep line in the high, pure brow, and this also was eloquent; for when she felt happy ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... to see the revengeful trend of the Indian's thought. The hints of the evil intention of the Potlatch troubled him, but his faith in the old chief and the influence of his own integrity did not falter. ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth

... they befriend, but they add enormously to its moral strength, that is, to its confidence and courage. Men have a sort of instinctive respect and fear for constituted authorities of any kind, and, though often willing to plot against them, are still very apt to falter and fall back when the time comes for the actual collision. The feeling that, after all, they are in the wrong in fighting against the government of their country, weakens them extremely, and makes them ready to abandon the struggle ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott

... true, then, to a stout heart and ready hand, a way might open even aboard the bark to protect her from the final closing of the devil's jaws. I had nothing to risk but my life, and it had never been my nature to count odds. I would act as the heart bade, and so I drove the temptation to falter away, and strode on up the bank into the black shadow ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... ate up the energies of the men. As if by agreement, the leaders began to slacken their speed. The volleys directed against them had had a seeming windlike effect. The regiment snorted and blew. Among some stolid trees it began to falter and hesitate. The men, staring intently, began to wait for some of the distant walls of smoke to move and disclose to them the scene. Since much of their strength and their breath had vanished, they returned to caution. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... the kind old eyes were dim with unshed tears. "The hand of the Lord has been laid in heaviness upon you, but 'those whom He loveth He chasteneth.' Even could I lift the burden of your sorrow as easily as I raise this hand, I should falter, because, as I believe in God, so do I believe that through trial even such as this your light shall yet shine before men so pure and strong that men themselves shall be purer ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... finally came in hand- in-hand. Then they made use of their war clubs. At this time the Squawkihows summoned to their aid their reserved company, which they kept in the rear. The young women came on the flank of the Senecas' ranks, and beat them with clubs, which made the Senecas falter for a while. Finally they called on their reserved warriors, who made a desperate charge on the enemy and made them retreat. The Senecas began taking prisoners. They tied their hands behind them to trees. In this way they took a great many prisoners, particularly the females. The warriors ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... raving words, about the blessed dead: And then he rose, and in the moonshade stood, Gazing upon its light in solitude; And smote his brow, at some idea wild That came across: then, weeping like a child, He falter'd out the name of Agathe; And look'd unto the heaven inquiringly, And the ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... the moving years; Youth's colour dies, the fervid morning glow Is gone from off the foreland; slow, slow, Even slower than the fount of human tears To empty, the consuming shadow nears That Time is casting on the worldly show Of pomp and glory. But falter not;—below That thought is based a deeper ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott

... was going to do. She said: "I am going inside; I cannot escape you, you are too many for me. Leave me to myself for a short time." The man brandished a spear in her face, and said: "See, that is the blood of your friends; yours will soon cover it." But she did not falter, and the savages probably left her untouched for this reason. They are very superstitious, and must have thought that there was something supernatural about her. Shortly after this she heard the tramp of feet outside, and an English voice calling to ask if there was anybody inside; running ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 24, June 16, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... rarely satisfy me. Is it not remarkable that soldiers who could face the shells with an excellent imitation of indifference should falter in their books, intimidated by the opinions of those who stayed at home? They rarely summon the courage to attack those heroic dummies which are not soldiers but idols set up in a glorious battlefield that never ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... the splendor of the part he was being called upon to play flowed through him like some elixir; he felt that he was transcending himself, that his inspiration was drawn from the hidden springs of the spirit, and that he could neither falter nor go astray. "You don't know what you are meddling with! This man has plotted to lay the South in ruins—he has been arming the negroes—it—it is incredible that you should all know this—to such I say, go home and thank God for your escape! For the others"—his shaggy brows met in a menacing ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... ten days or more, since time measurement had lost its meaning, Cal lived among the colonists, watched their complete retrogression into a state of unawareness. Even the speech which they had retained seemed now to thin and falter as the simplifying of their idea-content no longer ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton

... many a long day, and after a few moments more of earnest conversation with Josephine, too sacred for revelation. It may be believed that she who had gone so far for the young girl's happiness and that of her "brother" Richard, would not falter now in finishing her task; and the truth is that had she had no benevolence extending further, she had the fox-hunter's anxiety to be "in at the death," and the feminine fancy for her own peculiar "reward," which could only be obtained at the end of ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... You never falter when the close comes round, Or leave the substance to preserve the sound; You never wander after words that fly, For all the words you need before you lie. But I, who—smarting for my sins of late— With itch of rhyme am visited by fate, Expend on air ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... went on with less virulence, "you have, as her companion, the happy life I wish for you, Ah, your old father does not grudge you that, my liebschen! And, after all, you do not falter in your love. My poverty does not make ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... she answered low, "Across the world upon a quest for me? And will you falter not, nor swerve, nor fail, Nor turn aside from seeking, night nor day, Until you conquer with your prowess rare The prize for me? And may I choose ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask

... I had intended to rush on here in a loud bullying voice, but 'Along this path came a woman' I read, and stop. Did I hear a faint sound from the other end of the bed? Perhaps I did not; I may only have been listening for it, but I falter and look up. My sister and I look sternly at my mother. She bites her under-lip and clutches the bed with both hands, really she is doing her best for me, but first comes a smothered gurgling sound, then her hold on herself relaxes and ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie

... senses came back to her so that she could grasp one of the wires. Hand over hand she was able to pull herself slowly to the nearest pole, where she rested before again making the trial. This time she did not falter, but when she was picked up by the rescuers at the farthest pole toward safety she was limp from ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... and social morality. But what of that? He professes to take his cue from the elemental laws. "I reckon I behave no more proudly than the level I plant my house by." The question is, Is he adequate, is he man enough, to do it? Will he not falter, or betray self-consciousness? Will he be true to his ideal through thick and thin? The social gods will all be outraged, but that is less to him than the candor and directness of nature in whose spirit he ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... time and will. And presently the glance that watched me, as at distance and in doubt, began to flutter and to brighten, and to deepen into kindness, then to beam with trust and love, and then with gathering tears to falter, and in shame to turn away. But the small entreating hands found their way, as if by instinct, to my great projecting palms; and trembled there, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... passion, than yours. You suppose, however, that you can act as a make-weight, a drag on the chariot-wheel; that you will be able to keep and steady the pace; and that, when you like, you may arrest the onward progress. Ah, it is not so! Herodias will have her way with you. You may be reluctant, will falter and hesitate, will remonstrate, will resist, but ultimately you will drift into doing the very sins, the mention of which in your presence brings the red blood ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... visionary tints the year puts on, When falling leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills 5 The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... undertaking. It is well we should understand each other, at once and forever, or even I some day might be tempted to make a fool of myself. Your excellent counsels, my dearest cousin, will be invaluable to me, should my lagging footsteps falter by the way. Edith! where have you learned to be so hard, so worldly, so—if you will pardon ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... but creatures of the night Led forth by day, Who needs must falter, and with stammering steps Spell out our paths in syllables ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various

... to falter, almost as does a bird stricken by a hunter's gun. The craft seemed to hang in the air, losing motion as though about ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton

... is your idol's supplement? Who will be his lieutenant, who will be heir to his heritage of a cross bar and a rope? You are not so brisk as you were. Does your devotion falter? Were you mocking me ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... molten lead, blotting out his sight in scorching vapour, closing over his head, merciless and deadly. When she spoke of the deception as to Dain's death of which he had been the victim only that day, he glanced again at her with terrible eyes, and made her falter for a second, but he turned away directly, and his face suddenly lost all expression in a stony stare far away over the river. Ah! the river! His old friend and his old enemy, speaking always with the same voice as he runs from year to year bringing fortune or disappointment happiness ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad

... Traveling Salesman's hand shook slightly with the memory, and his joggled mind drove him with unwonted carelessness to pin price mark after price mark in the same soft, flimsy mesh of pink lisle. But the grin on his lips did not altogether falter. ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... were like other folk; And, when Platonic flights were over, The tutor turn'd a mortal lover! So tender of the young and fair! It show'd a true paternal care— Five thousand guineas in her purse! The doctor might have fancied worse.— Hardly at length he silence broke, And falter'd every word he spoke; Interpreting her complaisance, Just as a man sans consequence. She rallied well, he always knew: Her manner now was something new; And what she spoke was in an air As serious as a tragic player. But those ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... hoofs outside, but no one looked round, and none came in. A shadow fell across the open door. At a Dominus Vobiscum you might have seen the ministrant falter; there might have been a second or two of check in his chant, but he mastered it without effort, and turned again with displayed hands to his affair. The choir of white hoods, however, watched the shadow at the west door. Isoult saw nothing and heard nothing; she was kneeling at prayer. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... The step may falter, eye be dim—the brow may wrinkles wear, And underneath the crumbling mould our friends be sleeping there— But oh, these visions come to us as to the rose the dew, And while with raptured gaze we look the ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy

... are directly affected by its arguments, or avowedly adopt its conclusions. It is hard to hold by a creed which so many influential voices tell you it is a sign of folly and of being behind the age to believe. The consciousness that Christian truth is denied, makes some of you falter in its profession, and fancy that it is less certain simply because it is gainsaid. The mist wraps you in its folds, and it is difficult to keep warm in it, or to believe that love and sunshine are above it all the same. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... at the hypostyle of the temple of Amen, and a sensation of fear makes me hesitate at first on the threshold. To find himself in the dead of night before such a place might well make a man falter. It seems like some hall for Titans, a remnant of fabulous ages, which has maintained itself, during its long duration, by force of its very massiveness, like the mountains. Nothing human is so vast. Nowhere on earth have men conceived such dwellings. Columns after ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... my heart upon Thy altar, But can not get the wood to burn; It hardly flares ere it begins to falter, And ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... Brookfield, went down, the very last of June, last year, and purchased three calves of Mr. Chenery, of Belmont. He brought these calves up in the cars to Brookfield. On their way from the depot to his house, about five miles, one of the calves was observed to falter, and when he got to his house, it seemed to be sick, and in two or three days exhibited very great illness; so much so, that his father came along, and, thinking he could take better care of it, took the calf home. He took it to his own barn, in ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... their thoughts. Curled within their minds, like an endless scroll, are the marvellous scriptures of millenniums, and yet their brain-surfaces are fresh for earth's newest concept.... What are they whispering? Their voices falter with emotion over vague bits of dreaming. They ask no greater stimulus to fly to the uttermost bounds of their limitations—than each other and the night. Reason dawns upon their stammered expressions, and farther they fly—thrilling like young birds, when their ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... he feared neither God nor hell; yet again, at times, his soul is even drowned with terrors. If one knew the wicked, when they are under warm convic-tions, then the bed shakes on which they be; then the proud tongue doth falter in their mouth, and their knees knock one against another. Then their conscience stares, and roars, and tears, and arraigns them. O! none can imagine what fearful plights a wicked man is in at times!-(Bunyan's Desires of the Righteous, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... inscrutable, Till, at the last, an utterance direct, Obscure no more, was brought to Inachus— A peremptory charge to fling me forth Beyond my home and fatherland, a thing Sent loose in banishment o'er all the world; And—should he falter—Zeus should launch on him A fire-eyed bolt, to shatter and consume Himself and all his race to nothingness. Bowing before such utterance from the shrine Of Loxias, he drave me from our halls, Barring the gates against me: loth he was ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus

... of their own. Eben had died; and the church—strange how long and longer still the walk to the church had grown each time she had walked it this last year! After all, perhaps it did not matter; there were new faces at the church, and young, strong hands that did not falter and tremble over these new ways of doing things. For a time there had been only the house that needed her—but how great that need had been! There were the rooms to care for, there was the linen to air, ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter

... not falter nor her eyes droop. Curiously regarding him, she seemed immersed in the solution of the problem as he ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers

... she resolves to "do something" in the interest of her child, she is on the right road, and we hope to encourage her in the good intention. We would however tell her that her effort must be thorough, and that she must be patient and persevering. If she does not falter in well doing she will succeed beyond her expectation, and the satisfaction she will experience in noting the evidences of returning health and strength in the appearance and conduct of her child, should be ample recompense for the effort made and ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... in his acquaintance with her, that brave spirit seemed to falter: she became a burden, bereft for a little of all ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... school, and he had liked it immensely. Warrender had been a word to conjure withal, named by lower boys with awe, fondly cherished in the records of Sixth Form. But the glimmer in the Head Master's eye as he said good-bye, the little falter in his tutor's voice,—did these mean no more than an appreciation of his progress, and an anticipation of the honour and glory he was to bring them at the university, a name to fling in the teeth of the newspaper fellows next time they demanded ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... had become used to what had at first appeared innovations. Mr. Dusautoy, in thanking Mr. Kendal, begged him to allow himself to be nominated his churchwarden next Easter, and having consented while his blood was up, there was no danger that, however he might dislike the prospect, he would falter when the time ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... have been deterred by the supplications of his young wife from going in person to destroy them.[1074] At length, when the alternative of death or the Bastile was the only one presented, the courage of the Bourbons began to falter. Navarre was the first to yield, and his sister, the excellent Catharine de Bourbon, followed his example. On the thirteenth of September the ambassador Walsingham wrote: "They prepare Bastile for some persons of quality. It ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... be remembered that the raspberry is a Northern fruit. I am often asked in effect, What raspberries do you recommend for the Gulf States? I suppose my best reply would be, What oranges do you think best adapted to New York? Most of the foreign kinds falter and fail in New Jersey and Southern Pennsylvania; the Cuthbert and its class can be grown much further south, while the Turner and the black-caps thrive almost ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... Throughout the whole of a ceremony, which is ever solemn and admonitory, the squatter had maintained a grave and serious deportment. His vast features were visibly stamped with an expression of deep concern; but at no time did they falter, until he turned his back, as he believed for ever, on the grave of his first-born. Nature was then stirring powerfully within him, and the muscles of his stern visage began to work perceptibly. His children fastened their eyes on his, as if to seek a direction ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... In any event, there is a venerable adage concerning the buttering of parsnips. So I content myself with asking you to remember that I have not ever faltered. I shall not falter now. You loathe me. Who forbids it? I have known from the first that you detested me, and I have always considered your verdict to err upon the side of charity. Believe me, you will never loathe Ahasuerus as I do. ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al

... garden of our joy, and palled with empire, how often hast thou sighed for some sweet isle unknown to man, where thou mightst pass thy days with no companion but my faithful self, and no adventures but our constant loves? O my beloved, that life may still be thine! And dost thou falter? Dost call thyself forlorn with such fidelity, and deem thyself a wretch, when Paradise with all its beauteous gates but woos thy entrance? Oh! no, no, no, no! thou hast forgot Schirene: I fear me much, thy ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli

... glad to hear that Anthony, though he did shirk the welcome on the quay, behaved admirably, with the simplicity of a man who has no small meannesses and makes no mean reservations. His eyes did not flinch and his tongue did not falter. He was, I have it on the best authority, admirable in his earnestness, in his sincerity and also in his restraint. He was perfect. Nevertheless the vital force of his unknown individuality addressing him so familiarly was enough to fluster Mr ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... the thorn bushes. Eleanor could think of but one person coming to that spot of the ruins; and in sudden terror she sprang from the window and rushed round the other corner of the wall. The tune ceased; Eleanor heard no more; but she dared not falter or look back. She was in a thicket on this side too, and in a mass of decayed ruins and rubbish which almost stopped her way. By determination and perseverance, with some knocks and scratches, she at last got free and stopped to breathe and think. Why was ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... the French troops falter under fire; nor did the Germans, for that matter. Never was there greater bravery, loyalty and devotion. Called upon for tasks that seemed well nigh impossible, the men did not hesitate. They met death in such numbers as ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes

... backwards and hurt herself. On the other hand, her bearing was certainly calculated to check familiarity. Even stockbrokers' clerks—young men as a class with the bump of reverence but poorly developed—would in her presence falter and grow hesitating. She had cultivated the art of not noticing to something approaching perfection. She could draw the noisiest customer a glass of beer, which he had never ordered; exchange it for three of whiskey, which he had; take ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... thus he drapes with duty. Sometimes he waits upon me like a maid, Silent with watchful eyes. Oh, would to Heaven, He used me like a slave bought in the market! Yes, used me roughly! So, I were his own; And words of tenderness would falter in, Relenting from the sternness of command. But I am not enough for him: he needs Some high-entranced maiden, ever pure, And thronged with burning thoughts of God and him. So, as he loves me not, his deeds for me Lie on me like a sepulchre of stones. Italian ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... oppression had driven them to revolt, when the solemn farce of trying them for a crime which posterity will account a virtue had terminated, and when the verdict of "guilty" had gladdened the hearts of their accusers. The circumstances under which they spoke might well cause a bold man to falter. They were about parting for ever from all that makes life dear to man; and, for some of them, the sentence; which was to cut short the thread of their existence, to consign them to a bloody and ignominious death, to leave their bodies ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various

... and now you feel like setting to work again with earnest good-will. That's right. But don't try to do to much at first. Better start easily and keep up the pace, than make a quick run for a while only to falter and grow weary ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... complained to me of certain Christian witnesses who had given evidence in a case recently conducted by him in Madura. "I hate to have your Christians as witnesses in any of my cases," he says; "for whenever they venture to give false evidence they instantly falter and stumble and are caught by the opposing counsel. A Hindu, when he gives false evidence, will tell a straight and a plausible story. But your Christians are too much affected by twinges of conscience." What was embarrassing and annoying to him was encouraging to me! That our Christians should ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... the Pulpits obliged with an "O God who art in Heaven girthed in shining armor before Thee Thy cause Liberty Humanity Democracy Thy blessing inspire light of sacrifice brave women and hero men give us strength O Lord not falter see way of Righteousness stern hearts bear great burden Thou has given us carry on till powers of darkness routed virtue again triumphant. Thy will done on earth ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... helpless, clinging to her code, and justifying all the trouble she gave to others by a reference to the impalpable, elusive and possible non-existent immortal and inner self she had held so dear. She was ashamed. Ah, now at last she would give ungrudgingly. Her feet should not falter, nor her eyes be dimmed by any shadow of fear or of regret, though she went by perilous ways ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... sand-bank, steep yet aslope to the gleaming Waste of the water without, waste of the water within, Lights overhead and lights underneath seem doubtfully dreaming Whether the day be done, whether the night may begin. Far and afar and farther again they falter and hover, Warm on the water and deep in the sky and pale on the cloud: Colder again and slowly remoter, afraid to recover Breath, yet fain to revive, as it seems, from the skirt of the shroud. Faintly the heartbeats shorten and pause of the light in the westward ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... O Jeddak, and judge us with leniency. We followed the two slaves to the apartments of O-Mai the Cruel. We entered the accursed chambers and still we did not falter. We came at last to that horrid chamber no human eye had scanned before in fifty centuries and we looked upon the dead face of O-Mai lying as he has lain for all this time. To the very death chamber of O-Mai the Cruel ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... from the Bon Homme Richard. At length Paul found himself in violent storms beating off the rugged southeastern coast of Scotland, with only two accompanying ships. But neither the mutiny of his fleet, nor the chaos of the elements, made him falter in his purpose. Nay, at this crisis, he projected the most ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... began to remark that things were going badly, the city falling into a state of anarchy, and that some strong remedy was required, everyone felt amazed. Some of his colleagues began to murmur, others to cough; and at last he began to falter and became so confused that he could not go on with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson

... It danced elfishly, and trippingly—for very joy it made one laugh. The tear rolled down Joyce's face, as the smile replaced it, and dropped upon the thin cheek of the baby. He did not flinch, and the staring eyes did not falter, but something drew the mother's attention. As the final tripping notes ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... intelligence. She had before this weaned the expatriated from traditions compared with which the matutinal beefsteak was but the creature of an hour, and it was not for her, with some of her memories, to falter in the path though she freely enough declared, on reflexion, that there was always in such cases a choice of opposed policies. "There are times when to give them ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... and comedian, or true man and no pretender, his eyes did not falter. They were absorbed, as if in eager ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... that it ought to be abolished, and must eventually be abolished; and that the only question about its abolition is a question of time. [192] But here is the peril,—that a good many persons in Congress and out of Congress will falter in their conviction before the determined stand of the South,—the determination, that is to say, to break off from the Union rather than submit to the Wilmot Proviso. And I do most seriously fear, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... before Augustus. And what had he to oppose against the seasoned veterans of the English army, thrice armed in the consciousness of their unparalleled achievement?—Five weak and astounded battalions, and a horde of inchoate peasants. But Montcalm did not falter; by ten he had taken up his position, and by eleven, after some ineffectual cannonading, to allow time for the arrival of re-enforcements which came not, he led the charge. The attack was disordered by the uneven ground, the fences and the ravines; ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... in the count's body seemed rushing to his heart. He trembled. The ingenuous smile on his friend's countenance, and his features so sweetly marked with frankness, made his resolution falter. ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... sir, you must believe; There is one language never can deceive The lover knew it when the maiden smiled; The mother knows it when she clasps her child; Voices may falter, trembling lips turn pale, Words grope and stumble; this will tell their tale Shorn of all rhetoric, bare of all pretence, But radiant, warm, with Nature's eloquence. Look in our eyes! Your welcome waits you there,— North, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Never to submit or falter; To arms! etc. Till the spoilers are defeated, Till the Lord's work is completed. To arms! etc. Advance the flag of ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... MacDonald that I can't think of anything else. But I think the explanation is that the Scotch are essentially such a devout people and live so closely within the shadow of death itself that they may without irreverence or pain jest where our lips would falter. Or else, perhaps they don't care a cuss whether Sandy MacDonald died or ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... uncle, in a tone of disappointment that made her falter, as she added, 'I think so.' At the same time the stranger turned the paper round, and she knew it for the cheque that had so long resided in her desk, but with dilated eyes, she exclaimed, 'But—but— that was for ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... approach, and it was with the same air of deference that he had welcomed the Marquis, as he took care to call him; but he affected to be so overcome by the honor of this visit that he could only falter out,— ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... as the fox sprang up the slight embankment on which, as is usual, the line of fence was placed. For an instant he seemed to falter, then leaped the top rail, and disappeared beyond ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... spot where she had just renounced her last hope of earthly happiness. Her eyes followed Philip in his frenzied flight, and, when he disappeared, she stretched out her hands with a gesture of mingled longing and despair. But the weakness that had made this courageous soul falter for an instant soon vanished. She lifted her eyes toward Heaven as if imploring strength from on high and then walked slowly in the direction of the chateau. Suddenly, at a turn in the path, she met Coursegol. She had not time to conceal ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet



Words linked to "Falter" :   talk, stammer, walk, stutter, mouth, speak, waffle, waver, pause, utter, bumble, verbalise, hesitate, hesitation



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