"Falter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... 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 mutilated corpses, from which the rights of Christian burial ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... the quake messages were stacked yards high in all the telegraph offices waiting to be sent throughout the world. Conditions warranted utter despair and panic, but through it all the people were trying to be brave and falter not. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... you, although I have always from my earliest youth had an awe and love of Homer, which even now makes the words falter on my lips, for he is the great captain and teacher of the whole of that charming tragic company; but a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and therefore I ...
— The Republic • Plato
... townspeople stood up against a wall and shot; they saw their townspeople killed by shells. The cornucopia of war's horrors was emptied at their door. And women of a provincial town, who had led peaceful, cloistered lives, they did not blench or falter in the presence of ghastliness which only men are supposed to have ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... falter when I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares, Upon the World's great altar-stairs That slope ...
— The Philosophy of Despair • David Starr Jordan
... caught the music, as it softly floats along— Ah! the soul-entrancing music of sweet Lula Johnson's song! If my feet shall ever falter, it shall cheer me on my way; Ay, sustain and give me comfort,—make my feeble spirit gay. All we need to have, my brothers, in our war of peace 'gainst strife, Is the cadence of sweet music sprinkled in to sweeten ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... all kinds of people, they so uniformly favor education? Why, if they must err, do they err so pertinaciously in one direction? How does it happen, that, summon as many witnesses as you please, and cross-question them as severely as you can, they never falter in this testimony, that, where intelligence abounds, there physical vigor does much more abound? that, where education is broad and generous, there the years are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... heavy work going through the drifts and keeping the right way over a plain that had the similarity of the sea, but the men did not falter. Jimmy Grayson was always looking into the darkness, striving to see the darker line or blur that would mark the hills, but he asked no questions. The snow ceased, and after a while low, black slopes appeared against the ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... 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, Empire, ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... and right is right, And truth the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... fear to lose her way; Nay, could go near the precipiee, nor dread A failing caution or a giddy head; She'd fix her eyes upon the roaring flood, And dance upon the brink where danger stood. 'Twas nature all, she judged, in one so young, To drop the eye and falter in the tongue; To be about to take, and then command His daring wish, and only view the hand: Yes! all was nature; it became a maid Of gentle soul t'encourage love afraid; - He, so unlike the confident and bold, Would ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... have, in your passions and your prides. And this, I will add, that I die a Queen, but I would rather have died the wife of my cousin Culpepper or of any other simple lout that loved me as he did, without regard, without thought, and without falter. He sold farms to buy me bread. You would not imperil a little alliance with a little King o' Scots to save my life. And this I tell you, that I will spend the last hours of the days that I have to live in considering of this simple ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... his incapacity for hope or goodness cast a shadow upon the courage of those who bear their burdens as if they were privileges? The optimist cannot fall back, cannot falter; for he knows his neighbor will be hindered by his failure to keep in line. He will therefore hold his place fearlessly and remember the duty of silence. Sufficient unto each heart is its own sorrow. He will take the iron claws of circumstance ...
— Optimism - An Essay • Helen Keller
... onslaught, made a feeble effort to get off, and then ran their boats ashore and fired them. They had but one chance, and that a desperate one, to bear down with reckless speed on the oncoming ships and ram them. Failing to do this, and beginning to falter, the ships came among them like dogs among a flock of sheep, willing enough to spare, had they understood the weakness of their foes, but thinking themselves to be in conflict with formidable iron-clad rams, an impression the Confederates had ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... building falter Can thy God thy griefs despise? 'Mid the ruins dark, an altar Fashion'd by His hands, ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... here and keenly watching everything, the light began to falter, and the latest gleam of sunset trembled with the breath of Spring among the buds and catkins. But the tall man continued his long, firm stride, as if the watch in his pocket were the only thing worth heeding. Until, as the shadows lost ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Mark told him very carefully and tenderly, and while he repeated the three or four broken words in which Mistress Alison had tried to send a last message to Paul—for the end had come very suddenly—Mark himself found his voice falter, and his eyes fill with tears. Paul had, at that sight, cried a little; but his life at the House of Heritage seemed to have faded swiftly out of his thoughts; he was living very intently in the ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Its direst agonies and meanest fears, For that one kiss. Away with fond remorse! Here, on the brink of ruin, we two stand; Lock hands with me, and brave the fearful plunge! Thou canst not name a terror so profound That I will look or falter from. Be bold! I know thy love—I knew it long ago— Trembled and fled from it. But now I clasp The peril to my breast, and ask ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... mountain goat, as good a climber 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
... as certain victory— A glory ending in eternity. Life is before ye—oh! if ye could look Into the secrets of that sealed book, Strong as ye are in youth, and hope, and faith, Ye should sink down, and falter, "Give us death!" Could the dread Sphinx's lips but once disclose, And utter but a whisper of the woes Which must o'ertake ye, in your lifelong doom, Well might ye cry, "Our cradle be our tomb!" ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... were the deeds of men and the deeds of men always have an inward significance. In distant Philadelphia, on this very day, the Continental Congress had chosen as the Commander of their Army, General George Washington, a man whose clear vision looked into the realities of things and did not falter. On his way to the front four days later, dispatches reached him of the battle. He revealed the meaning of the day with, one question, "Did the militia fight?" Learning how those heroic men fought, he said, "Then the liberties of ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... to the house. He was not baffled. He knew that the struggle was yet to come; that, when she was alone, her faith in the far-off Christ would falter; that she would grasp at this work, to fill her empty hands and starved heart, if for no other reason,—to stifle by a sense of duty her unutterable feeling of loss. He was keenly read in woman's heart, this Knowles. ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... 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 abroad her misty, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... her own, had starved and sickened for the love which is their rightful food;—with senses bleared and deadened, she had heard them piteously wailing but for a morsel of that bread of life without which even the footsteps of the self-reliant, the strong and brave of heart, faint and falter by the way, and she had cruelly denied them that precious nutriment; she had given them life, but had robbed them of all that makes life endurable. Life's duties unfulfilled, life's high and holy aims trampled under the foot of sensual indulgence, living to blight instead of to bless! O woman, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... unhesitatingly do myself were I in your predicament, what I would even join you in doing were I younger by thirty years than I happen to be, and had no wife or family to think about and make me falter and lose courage on the brink of every extra hazardous adventure; and it is this. I would recommend you to draw the whole of your money out of the bank, buy a good wagon and a team of salted oxen, invest about twenty pounds in beads, copper wire, and Kafir 'truck' ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... go ahead of me in sacrificing yourself, Josiah. No, I will go fur ahead of what you or anybody else would do; it will most probable kill me, but I shall not falter." ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... 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 ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... to talk to you about." A fiery blush burned through her deep tan, but her low, clear voice did not falter and her eyes held his unflinchingly. "I know you better than you know yourself, as I've said before. You are killing yourself, but it isn't the work, frightfully hard and disheartening as it is, that is doing it—it's your anxiety for me and the uncertainty of everything. You haven't been able ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... have nests and the foxes holes, but the son of man hath nowhere to lay his head." The noblest thing He ever did was this—to walk from the house of Pilate to the crest of Calvary, with the cross upon His back and the railing mob behind Him and before, and never once to falter and complain. Hated and hooted by the multitudes who at one time followed Him gladly, deserted even by the twelve who had pledged to Him their lives, misunderstood, despised, condemned, spat upon—a stranger ...
— Heroes in Peace - The 6th William Penn Lecture, May 9, 1920 • John Haynes Holmes
... thinkest it better that we should serve thee needy than rich. What is more odious than such a wish? What more senseless than such a counsel? We recognise these as the treasures of our own homes, and having done so, shall we falter to pick them up? We were on our way to regain them by fighting, we were zealous to win them back by our blood: shall we shun them when they are restored unasked? Shall we hesitate to claim our own? Which is the greater ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... also falter here, as to the stating of the proposition; for in the beginning of your book, you state it thus: That the enduing men with inward real righteousness, or true holiness, was the ultimate end of our Saviour's coming into the world, still meaning the holiness we lost ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Arthur had been tempted to play the coward's part, to write to Lady Clementina for the pill, and to let the marriage go on as if there was no such person as Mr. Podgers in the world. His better nature, however, soon asserted itself, and even when Sybil flung herself weeping into his arms, he did not falter. The beauty that stirred his senses had touched his conscience also. He felt that to wreck so fair a life for the sake of a few months' pleasure would be a wrong thing ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... where 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 ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... start along a new line of endeavour we resort to the distinctly obvious, and then announce that he brushed away the tears and laughed as gaily as any of them over the surprises that followed the one which momentarily caused him to falter. He was not given to looking upon the dark side of things. Even as he sat there at the head of the long table, he jocosely remarked to Diggs that he would have to borrow a saw from the janitor the next day and reduce the size of his board by five feet at least. Moreover, he could practice ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... to falter for a moment. She looked speculatively at the indignant old face opposite, then made a vague little gesture toward her hair, and dropped her eyes. "No," she said softly. "Don't—please." She raised her eyes once more and looked straight into Mrs. Oglethorpe's. The two women stood ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... that a cue was being pressed on her; but it was put forth with such startling suddenness, and with so incredible an air of ignoring what it led up to, that she could only falter out doubtfully: "Anything upsetting?" ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... all the vows ye've sworn At holy Becket's altar— Remember all the ills ye've borne, And scorn'd to shrink or falter— Remember every laurel'd field, Which saw the Crescent waving— Remember when compell'd to yield, Uncounted numbers braving: Remember these, remember too The cause ye strive for, ever; The Cross! the Holy Sepulchre! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 343, November 29, 1828 • Various
... did not surrender; there were devotions, Count Hamilcar appeared at breakfast, pale and weary, but his conversation with the Professor did not falter. They spoke of the yellow race, and, as if even that were not sufficiently remote, of the Bismarck Archipelago. Embarrassed silence burdened the remaining company. Egon's and Moritz's places were vacant, for at the news of Billy's disappearance they had ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... came upon the good gray. His sight began to fail—his knees to falter. His teeth were entirely ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... of his train. At the siege of Illora, 1486, he obtained permission to lead the storming party. As his followers pressed onwards to the breach, they were received with such a shower of missiles as made them falter for a moment. "What, my men," cried he, "do you fail me at this hour? Shall we be taunted with bearing more finery on our backs than courage in our hearts? Let us not, in God's name, be laughed at as mere ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... fierce, contending forces. All that is egoistic in his nature cries out for a life of pride and power and joy. At best it is but little that he could ever do to serve the suffering multitude. And yet should he falter because he cannot gain for them the results of time? Is it not his part to take the single step in their service, though it can be no more than a step? In the excitement of this supreme hour of inward strife Sordello dies; but he dies a victor; like Paracelsus he also has "attained"; ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... in writing the lines. Why should my voice falter in repeating them? Depend on it, Shirley, no tear blistered the manuscript of 'The Castaway.' I hear in it no sob of sorrow, only the cry of despair; but, that cry uttered, I believe the deadly spasm passed from his heart, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... noting a tendency to falter. "And now for the names and addresses of a few witnesses, and we'll ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... this opportunity of detecting him in the midst of his fancied security. Do you know this, Sir, this pocket-book?'—'Yes, Sir,' returned he, with a face of impenetrable assurance, 'that pocket-book is mine, and I am glad you have found it.'—'And do you know,' cried I, 'this letter? Nay, never falter man; but look me full in the face: I say, do you know this letter?'—'That letter,' returned he, 'yes, it was I that wrote that letter.'—'And how could you,' said I, 'so basely, so ungratefully presume to write this letter?'—'And how came you,' ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... answers Surge and Deep doth call on Deep; This Line in Foam and Thunder issues forth, Spurred by the West or smitten by the North, Sombre in all its sullen Deeps, and all Clear at the Crest, and foaming to the Fall, The next with silver Murmur dies away, Like Tides that falter to ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... me not grow old. Ah, let Me not grow old, and falter In my delusion, or forget My heart was once an altar. Let me still think myself a star With these my rays about me; Pretend these green perspectives are ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... and bind her, As ye lift a wild kid, high above the altar, Fierce-huddling forward, fallen, clinging sore To the robe that wrapt her; yea, he bids them hinder The sweet mouth's utterance, the cries that falter, —His ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... moments before I could overcome my surprise enough to falter out, "You know my language? How? Who and ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... for all the Israelites and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. Then Elijah came to the people and said, "How long are you going to falter between worshipping Jehovah or Baal? If Jehovah is the true God, follow him, but if Baal, then follow him." But the people were silent. Then Elijah said to the people, "I, even I only, am left as a prophet of Jehovah, but there are four hundred and fifty ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... 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 ...
— Bertha • Mary Hazelton Wade
... my Dolly, You know, little daughter, Whom I love to dress neat, and see good), Suppose in my care of you, I were to falter, And let you get ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... 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! What ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... merely shooting arrows promiscuously, is actually improving for all that. He must strive to remember that not only is each and every point important in itself, but that all must coordinate, must be working well together. No matter how crisp the release, it avails not an [sic] the bow arm falter or the back muscles relax. Again like golf, one day one thing will be working well, and another day another; but it is only when they are all working well that the ball screams down the fairway ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... now, in proportion as the king should falter, the Commons would grow bold. The House immediately began to attack Laud and Strafford in their speeches. It is the theory of the British Constitution that the king can do no wrong; whatever criminality at any time attaches to the acts of his administration, belongs to his ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... laudable 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 ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... appalled at the squalor of the neighborhood in which she finally found herself. Disgusted and revolted at the filth of Old Meg's abode, still not for an instant did she falter or hesitate. She ran down the steps to Old ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... well, both as my assistant and as thy partner, and thou mayest see that her comeliness is in no degree changed—And did the babe falter in this weary passage, or did she retard thy movements by her fretfulness? But I know thy nature, man; she hath been borne over many long miles of mountain-side and treacherous swamp, in thine own vigorous arms. Thou answerest not, Dudley!" exclaimed Ruth, taking the alarm, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... must 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 heavy round ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... climbed and never stopped. It did not seem steep. His feet might have had eyes. He surmounted the wall, and, looking down into the ebony gulf pierced by one point of light, he lifted a menacing arm and shook it. Then he strode on and did not falter till he reached the huge shelving cliffs. Here he lost the trail; there was none; but he remembered the shapes, the points, the notches of rock above. Before he reached the ruins of splintered ramparts and jumbles of broken walls the moon topped the eastern slope of the mountain, ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... "He obeyed her summons, and brought me with him. And she was here only last night—and where has she gone? This must be the 'notorious,' the 'handsome.' Ah, Lucian Davlin, this is well; this nerves me for the worst! I shall not falter now. This is the first link in the chain that shall yet make your life ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... suggestion may be; lacking all flavour of the extraordinary as it does; without novelty and confessedly old-fashioned; we have but this to commend to all who waver and doubt, to all whose voices falter as they seek to utter the mighty affirmations of the Gospel:—That the way to win again the old assurance is to come back to the source of their sublime vocation, determined, whatever may befall, there to ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... 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 ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... her, or he would have seen her cheek white as wax, and her eye seeking his in dismayed inquiry. There was a pause; then she forced herself to falter—'Yes. I suppose it is very right—very ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... a human life is saved, but it would prove a sad misfortune, indeed, should it cause you to falter in your high resolve and ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell
... all things issues from the original womb, For Nature works with a master hand in her own inner depths; She is art, alive and gifted with a splendid mind. Which fashions its own material, not that of others, And does not falter or doubt, but all by itself Lightly and surely, as fire burns and sparkles. Easily and widely, as light spreads everywhere, Never scattering its forces, but stable, quiet, and at one, Orders ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... comfort? Go to the Maiden's Chapter on the Main, I counsel you, go to your cousin Thurn. Seek in the hills a boy, light-curled as I, Buy him with gold and silver, to your breast Press him, and teach his lips to falter: Mother. And when he grows to manhood, show him well How men draw shut the eyelids of the dead. That is the only joy that lies ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... slowly came back. His face was stamped with quivering resolution. He did not falter. He had made up his mind to take his punishment. And mark you, the punishment was not for the original offence, but for the offence of running away. And in this, that tribal chieftain but behaved as behaves the exalted society in which he lived. We punish ...
— The Road • Jack London
... before Heaven, and in face of the world, I swear eternal fealty to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love. And who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt that oath that I take? Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed. But if after all we should fail, be it so. We still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the departed shade of our country's freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment, and adored of our hearts, in ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Northampton or Greenfield to see some person whom he called Tom, Dick, or Harry, but who knew the local feeling there; and after a week or two spent in that way, never giving his own opinion, talking as if he were all things to all men, seeming to hesitate and hesitate and falter and be frightened, so if you had met him and talked with him you would have said, if you did not know him well, that there was no more thought, nor more steadiness of purpose, or backbone in him than in an easterly cloud; but at length, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... under the correction of the principles such motives could best produce. Her woman's love for Roswell Gardiner, alone troubled her otherwise happy and peaceful existence. That, indeed, had caused her more than once to falter in her way; but she struggled with the weakness, and had strong hopes of being able to overcome it. To accept of any other man as a husband, was, in her eyes, impossible; with the feelings she was fully conscious of entertaining towards him, it would ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... close and nestle yet, Ere, with faint breath, they falter out good-night, Her hand in his upon the coverlet Lies in the silver pathway ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... 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
... into the jungle Kirby pushed, and never for a moment did his companions falter. But the way was not so easy now, for nerves were jaded, muscles sore, and no human will could have been powerful enough to cast aside the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... seasons, You gave us reasons For splendid treasons To doubt and fear; Bade no foot falter, Though weaklings palter, And friendships alter ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... falter, And near the door crouch by the wall; Thrice bolt the door as the voice mutters "Open!" and frail ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... of the First Rhode Island Regiment, as a part of the history of your own gallant state and as an emblem of the glory of your dearly loved country. Love the one flag and revere the others. Many dark hours we have already passed through, and many more are yet to be undergone. But let no man of us falter as to the success of our glorious cause. In all our work, however dangerous or arduous, we shall be followed by the prayers of loved friends at home and of the true and loyal of all our country, and of the good and true of every land. The great God above may chasten us in his wisdom, but ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... tests may come on the sunny day. A nation's supreme tests may come in its prosperity. The sunshine may do more damage than the lightning. The soul may falter even in Beulah land, where "the ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... despondency; I pledge you my word I will meet the future with a strong heart. Only remain with me, my dearest Louisa; look at me with your cheering eyes, and inspire my heart with hope. Whenever I falter, remind me of this hour in which I vowed to you to struggle to ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... the Present. Lo, Even as a child I hide my face and moan— A little girl that may no farther go; The path above me only seems to grow More rugged, climbing still, and ever briered With keener thorns of pain than these below; And O the bleeding feet that falter so ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... and to crown their desire who was found but the Wren? To the high heaven he came, from the Sun stole he flame, and for this has a name in the memory of men! {7} And in India who for the Soma juice flew, and to men brought it through without falter or fail? Why the Hawk 'twas again, and great Indra to men would appear, now and then, in the shape of a Quail, While the Thlinkeet's delight is the Bird of the Night, the beak and the bright ebon plumage of Yehl.{8} And who for man's need brought the famed Suttung's mead? why 'tis ...
— Rhymes a la Mode • Andrew Lang
... required to produce them; leaving a handsome surplus to be devoted to carrying forward the work on a still larger scale; in regions less promising and more remote, even within the borders of the arid lands. With this lesson before us, how can we hesitate or falter in our efforts to successfully carry forward this ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... not, nor shrink from the race I must run; I've peace and repose for the heart-stricken one, And strength for the weary who fail in the strife, And falter before the great warfare of Life. I've love for the friendless; a morrow of light For him who is wrapped in adversity's night; With trust for the doubting, a field for the soul, That has dared from its loftier purpose to stroll, To haste ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford
... lag, slug, drawl, linger, loiter, saunter; plod, trudge, stump along, lumber; trail, drag; dawdle &c (be inactive) 683; grovel, worm one's way, steal along; job on, rub on, bundle on; toddle, waddle, wabble^, slug, traipse, slouch, shuffle, halt, hobble, limp, caludicate^, shamble; flag, falter, trotter, stagger; mince, step short; march in slow time, march in funeral procession; take one's time; hang fire &c (be late) 133. retard, relax; slacken, check, moderate, rein in, curb; reef; strike sail, shorten sail, take in sail; put on the drag, apply the brake; clip the wings; reduce the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... concession; the South should not have a hair's-breadth of concession from him; but he would maintain, to the utmost of his power, and in the face of all danger, the rights, under the Constitution, of the South as well as of the North; "and God forsake me and my children, if I ever be found to falter in one or the other." He gave a sketch of the historical relations of slavery to the Constitution; and insisted that the meaning and intent of the clause providing for the return of fugitives from labor, was so plain and evident, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... repugnance to his leadership, then taunt us with incapacity for self-government. These flambeaus and rockets directed with unerring precision, taking effect in the very centre of our magazine, did not cause, in those for whom it was intended, a falter nor a wince in their course, but steadily and determinedly they pressed their way to the completion of their object under prosecution. In this design the ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... reading his face, would momentarily falter in her gay talk, only to begin again with renewed vivacity. On one topic, however, she had no difficulty in holding Barry's attention. It was when she told of the organising and despatching of the American Red Cross units to France, and more especially ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... up her mind that it was right and wise to let Ronnie go, Helen did not falter. She immediately took control of all necessary arrangements. Nothing was forgotten. Ronnie's outfit was managed with as little trouble to himself as possible. They dealt together, in a gay morning at the Stores, with all interesting items, but those ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... me, put out, I think, the flickering fire that remained, instead of fanning it into flame. You cannot know how I watched you, how I prayed! I think it was prayer—I am sure it was. And it was because you did not falter, because you risked all, that you gained me. You have gained only what you yourself made, more than I ever was, more than I ever expected ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... out her sorrows in prayer. She laid all her troubles at the feet of her Saviour, and besought Him to strengthen her and give her wisdom for her appointed task. Again and again she asked for faith, earnest faith, which should never falter, although the future might look dark to her mortal eyes, and again and again she gave all her darlings into the Lord's hand. "Give me strength to do my best," she prayed, "and faith to leave the rest to Thee,"—and gradually there came ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... single instant's hesitation, and the only sign of embarrassment she gave was that she got up from her chair, passing in this manner a little out of Olive's scrutiny. It was easy for her not to falter, because she was glad of the chance. She wanted to be very simple in all her relations with her friend, and of course it was not simple so soon as she began to keep things back. She could at any rate keep back as little as possible, and she felt as if she were making up for a dereliction when ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... clashing of his fall, Suddenly came, and at his side all pale Dismounting, loosed the fastenings of his arms, Nor let her true hand falter, nor blue eye Moisten, till she had lighted on his wound, And tearing off her veil of faded silk Had bared her forehead to the blistering sun, And swathed the hurt that drain'd her dear lord's life. Then after all was done that hand could do, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... this may be undertaken in the interest of true progress, as well as that of honest inquiry. For what so frequently checks progress, causes its advocates to falter, and produces what we call a reaction towards the old doctrines, as something shallow in the reform itself? Christians have relapsed into Judaism, Protestants into Romanism, Unitarians into Orthodoxy—because something true and good in the old system had dropped out of ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... him to know this. I want him to get such comfort as he can out of my belief and my desire to serve him. I want to sacrifice myself. But I can't, I can't," she moaned. "You don't know how mother frightens me. When she looks at me, the words falter on my tongue and I feel as if it would be easier to die than to acknowledge what is in ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... horizon; slough of Despond, cave of Despair; immedicabile vulnus[Lat]. V. despair; lose all hope, give up all hope, abandon all hope, relinquish all hope, lose the hope of, give up the hope of, abandon the hope of, relinquish the hope of; give up, give over; yield to despair; falter; despond &c. (be dejected) 837; jeter le manche apres la cognee[Fr]. inspire despair, drive to despair &c. n.; disconcert; dash one's hopes, crush one's hopes, destroy one's hopes; hope against hope. abandon; resign, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... often feel that the drought of Kadesh is more real than the grapes of Eshcol? Are we not sometimes tempted to bitter comparisons of the fair promises with the gloomy realities? Does our courage never flag, nor our faith falter, nor swirling clouds of doubt hide the inheritance from our weary and tear-filled eyes? He that is without sin may cast the first stone at these men; but whoever knows his own weak heart will confess that, if he had been ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... say that my steps did not falter when we came to whence we could see the mound. But it was lonely and still and silent; no shape of warrior waited ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... sometimes they fall— The words that burn and falter; And is it true they too must ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... on, my knights, and smite the foe! And falter not, I pray; For by the grace of God, I trow, The town is ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... of the Bronx, and spreading from man to man, accompanied with certain mutinous looks and discontented murmurs. For once in his life, and only for once, did the great Peter turn pale; for he verily thought his warriors were going to falter in this hour of perilous trial, and thus to tarnish forever the fame of the province of ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... realized the nature of that which brought him out here, to pretend to read a book. He wanted to be near her. And there was something of the pathetic faithfulness of a dog about him—a dog that is beaten and repulsed but never falters, or can falter, in devotion to his master. She had begun to know what that unreasoning ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... depressed, and my spirits were miserably low. I had all that feeling of sadness which leave-taking inspires, and no sustaining prospect to cheer me in the distance. For the first time in my life, I had seen a tear glisten in my poor uncle's eye, and heard his voice falter as he said, "Farewell!" Notwithstanding the difference of age, we had been perfectly companions together; and as I thought now over all the thousand kindnesses and affectionate instances of his love I had received, my heart gave way, and the tears coursed slowly down my cheeks. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the Federation which would establish them as an Affiliated Species ... and that would settle everything the way they would want it settled, without trouble. Some of them believed me. They decided to wait until I could talk to you. If it works out, fine! If it doesn't"—she felt her voice falter for an instant—"they're ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... Mr. Hastings mail had been delivered as usual, the boy hesitated, and finally asked with an unusual falter ...
— Three People • Pansy
... them; but I know not any tone So fit as thine to falter forth a sorrow: Dost think men would go mad without a moan, If they knew any way to borrow ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... face of this catastrophe, where a less love must have been destroyed utterly, Dick remained loyal. His passionate regard did not falter for a moment. It never even occurred to him that he might cast her off, might yield to his father's prayers, and abandon her. On the contrary, his only purpose was to gain her for himself, to cherish and guard her against every ill, to protect with his love from every ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... and lies; On it is many a strong spirit broken, And with it many a good purpose dies. It springs from the lips of the thoughtless each morning And robs us of courage we need through the day: It rings in our ears like a timely-sent warning And laughs when we falter and fall ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... a little falter in his voice. Could he have pleaded better in a thousand fine speeches, he who had seen his men wither about him on the Somme, than by that little timorous quaver in his voice? "Joan, I have something to ask of you to-night. I meant to ask it during a dance, when you couldn't run ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... the beaten track! thought Spurlock. A forgotten island beyond the ship lanes, where that grim Hand would falter and move blindly in its search for him! From what he had read, there wouldn't be much to do; and in the idle hours he ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... upon Mark was stupendous. His jaw dropped and a slow fire seemed to gleam in his pale eyes. Part of his nature rose in gladness because the girl could speak in that fashion. She had no knowledge within her to cause her to falter or stand abashed. But the tired man, in the poor fellow, cried out to this strong, brave creature to aid him understandingly where his own knowledge and slowness of nature made him a coward. And so they stood looking in ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... would bless and benefit the centuries yet to come. She was the most beautiful of women—he the greatest of artists. It was an opportunity sent from the gods! Instantly she half-ran, seeking the painter. She found him standing apart, alone. She spoke eagerly and hotly, fearing her courage would falter before she could make known her wish: "Ecco, Messer Sandro," she whispered, casting a furtive look about—"who is ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... that I may not neglect my soul in trying to fathom immortal life. If I may be hesitating between comfort and work, remind me of the greatness of the place which I started to reach. May I not grow weary of climbing and falter on the stair. Breathe upon me thy inspiration and love, that I may continue in ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... heard him turn quickly round and come back. He stood behind her; she could see his shadow thrown across the bar of sunlight on the carpet; but he did not speak. Clarice became anxious that he should, and yet afraid too. The music began to falter again; once she stopped completely, and let her fingers rest upon the keys, as though she had no power to lift them and continue. Then she struck a chord with a loud defiance. If only he would move, she thought—if only he would come round and stand in front of her! It would be ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason |
