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More "Hesitancy" Quotes from Famous Books



... that at any moment Galliard might send home his blade. He was bathed from head to foot in a sweat that was at once of exertion and despair. A frenzy seized him. Might he not yet turn to advantage this hesitancy of Crispin's to ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... and a French financier met death accidentally. Yes, the people will accept this view; but the Committee! ah! it will know the truth. To the Thirty-nine it will mean that one of their brothers has gone to his fate with one of the Transgressors. It will dispel any symptom of hesitancy on their part. ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... I am very sorry to add that I have seen but little generalship during the campaign. Some of our corps commanders are not fit to be corporals. Lazy and indifferent they will not even ride along their lines, yet without hesitancy they will order us to attack the enemy, no matter what their position ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... speak to the end, but then, as his nephew was beginning to argue against their host's hesitancy, the old man abruptly interrupted him. Drawing up his figure, which was a little bent, to its full height, and passing his hand among the blue veins and fine wrinkles that marked his high ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... brought to a very perfect state of drill and efficiency. All commands were given in French—the native tongue of nearly all the officers and most of the men; and, in cases of insubordination, the former had no hesitancy in a free use of the revolver. A wonderful peacemaker ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... trumpets, the rolling of drums, the rhythmical tread of thousands of mailed feet, we rode forth from Selles, led by the Maid, beside whom rode the King's cousin, the Duc d'Alencon, now resolved to join us, despite his former hesitancy and the fears of his wife. He had marched with us to Orleans, but had then turned back, perhaps with the not unnatural fear of again falling into the hands of the English. This had happened to him at Agincourt, and only ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... other course was left, and Stafford had adopted that. There had been no hesitancy on the manager's part; he must protect the Two Diamond property. Sentiment had no place in the situation whatever. Therefore toward Ferguson's movements Stafford adopted an air of studied indifference, not doubting, from what he had seen of the man, that he would eventually ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... the lapse of years, was the letter, in her hands, with its singular superscription, covering its whole side, and its seal unbroken. But she would break it now. Surely she might do that, if Arthur was never to see it; and after a moment's hesitancy, she opened it, and read, first, wild, crazy sentences, full of love and tenderness for the little Gretchen to whom they were addressed, and whom the writer sometimes spoke to as living, and again as dead. There was the expression of a strong desire to see ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... words, indistinctly heard. It is Corkey crying to Lockwin to climb up the steps to the hurricane deck. Indeed it is a clever riddance of that uncomfortable man. Ouf! that brutal sneeze, that jargon, that tobacco, that quaking of head and hesitancy of expression! It distracts one's thoughts from an insoluble problem; How to shuffle off this coil—not of life, ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern

... did, sorrowful, perplexed; but in feeling only, not in purpose. We knew not which became us most, grief, or stern satisfaction that at last a doubtful matter was to be settled by arms; but, with one or two exceptions, there was no hesitancy, I believe, on the part of the officers as to the side each should take. There were four pronounced Southerners: two of them messmates of mine, from New Orleans. The other two were the captain and lieutenant ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... The touch of hesitancy, so rare in her, disarmed the man, reawakened his better self; and slipping an arm round her, he crushed her against him with a force that took ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... hesitancy in saying that it is by far the best presentation of this very important subject that I have ever seen. It answers many important questions for which I have seen no answer elsewhere."—Prof. William ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall

... unhealthy grey of Louis' sunken cheeks as he remembered Molembrais. At the door stood the guards with crossed pikes, beyond these were Leslie and Saint-Pierre, watchful and alert. He was loved little better than his master, and he knew it. Let the King speak and there would be no hesitancy, little pity. In his rapid rise he had kicked many rivals from the ladder of Court favour, and climbed yet higher by trampling them underfoot, caring little what gulf of disgrace or worse swallowed them. And ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... have all the facts at first hand before venturing an opinion," Craig replied with precisely that shade of hesitancy that might reassure the anxious father and mother, ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve

... Later in life, he heard a great many more of these tales, while traveling through the cotton states, swapping yarns with the negroes after he had gained their confidence. His knowledge of their hesitancy about telling a story and his sympathy with them made it possible for him to hear rare tales when another would probably have found only silence. Sometimes, while waiting for a train, he would saunter up to ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... meant fight, and assumed the offensive without a second's hesitancy. He seemed to have been crouching in the bushes, and calmly awaited the time when the boy should advance too far ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... the treasure back into his host's hand, at last. "I'd like, please, to look at you," he said. "It won't hurt," he added quickly, instantly conscious of some unspoken hesitancy. ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price

... the amount of labour she can yet perform; and, after much manifest hesitancy, she is knocked down to Romescos for the sum of two hundred and seventy dollars. "There! 'tain't a bad price for ye, nohow!" says the vender, laconically. "Get down, old woman." Rachel moves to the steps, and is received by Romescos, who, taking his purchase by the arm, very mechanically sets it ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... now we come to a sinister result of these methods of exploiting the wage-working girls and women. The subject is one that cannot be approached with other than considerable hesitancy, not because the facts are untrue, but because its statistical nature has not been officially investigated. Nevertheless, the facts are known; stern, inflexible facts. For true historical accuracy, as well as for purposes of humanity, they must be given; that delicacy would be ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus

... paid to me by—" Then Jack stopped. He could not tell who gave him the money without revealing to Echo the return of Dick. The whole miserable lie would then come out. Echo noticed Jack's hesitancy. ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller

... woman had more diversity of gifts; she was equally at home in the editorial chair, or the reportorial office; as a speaker she excelled. In the old days we who knew her best would sometimes notice a hesitancy of speech that would occasionally cloud a brilliant idea; but if she hesitated she was never lost, and the idea was worth waiting for. She was always clear, logical, forceful in expression, and exhaustive in argument. Thoroughness seems ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various

... degenerative diseases of the brain in which the psychical mechanism of speech is affected, e.g. General Paralysis of the Insane, in which the affection of speech and hand-writing is quite characteristic. There is at first a hesitancy which may only be perceptible to practised ears, but in which there is no real fault of articulation once it is started; sometimes preparatory to and during the utterance there is a tremulous motion about the ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott

... hear, the soft fall and hesitancy of Faith's voice at the last word. Yet they hardly told of the struggle it had cost. How the word thrilled him she did not know,—the persons living from whom he ever had that name were now so few, that there was a strange mingling with ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner

... after he had closed the door they stood side by side, she pressing close to him. She shivered the length of her slight frame. The hesitancy which had come to him with the first impress of the lightless silence ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... who, through pride or cunning, or personal interest and ambition, or love of novelty, attempt to falsify or to minimise or to distort the teaching of Our Divine Master. Without respect of persons, without regard to temporal consequences, without either hesitancy or ambiguity, he speaks "as one having power" (Matt. vii. 29). And while, on the one hand, every true Catholic throughout the world, who hears his voice, is intimately conscious that he is hearing the voice ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan

... subject must be considered closed. In conclusion, Bismarck was authorized to publish the message if he saw fit. The Chancellor at once saw his opportunity. In the royal despatch, though the main incidents were clear enough, there was still a note of doubt, of hesitancy, which suggested a possibility of further negotiation. The excision of a few lines would alter, not indeed the general sense, but certainly the whole tone of the message. Bismarck, turning to Moltke, asked him if he were ready for a sudden risk of war; and on ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... and with some tremor as he said good-evening, and then he descended the brownstone steps aware that all debate and hesitancy were at an end. Come what might come, he knew himself to be irretrievably in love with Phillida Callender. This was what he had gained by abstaining from the sight of her for ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... of the day, when I was almost back to camp, that I saw him coming along the road, with the peculiar swing to his shoulders and arms that, once acquired, never leaves the deep-water sailor; so I had no hesitancy in greeting him after the manner ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson

... irresolution, infirmity of purpose, indecision; indetermination, undetermination|!; unsettlement; uncertainty &c. 475; demur, suspense; hesitating &c. v., hesitation, hesitancy; vacillation; changeableness &c. 149; fluctuation; alternation &c. (oscillation) 314; caprice &c. 608. fickleness, levity, legerete[Fr]; pliancy &c. (softness) 324; weakness; timidity &c. 860; cowardice &c. 862; half measures. waverer, ass between ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... Without any hesitancy, the six Indian chiefs entered into the redoubt which La Salle had thrown up. They appeared frank, unsuspicious, and cordial, and were made very happy by several presents which La Salle placed in their hands. They invited the whole ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... it is possible to form a habit of indecision, of undue hesitancy in coming to conclusions when the evidence is all before us. This gives us the mental dawdler, the person who will spend several minutes in an agony of indecision over whether to carry an umbrella on this particular trip; whether to wear black shoes or tan shoes today; ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... fail to speak the disappointment of William Hinkley, he attended her back to the village. Their progress was marked by coldness on the one hand, and decided sadness on the other. The conversation was carried on in monosyllables only, on the part of Margaret, while timidity and a painful hesitancy marked the language of her attendant. But a single passage may be remembered of all that was said between the two, ere they separated at the door of the ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... success. Reckless audacity, coupled with rare good fortune, might result in our return with the prisoner sought, but it was far more likely that we would be the ones captured, if we escaped with our lives. Yet this knowledge caused no hesitancy on my part; I was trained to obedience, and deep down in my heart welcomed the opportunity. The excitement appealed to me, and the knowledge that this service was to be performed directly under the eye of the great ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... Therefore, he objected once more on another ground: "I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." This continued hesitancy put the Lord out of patience; who retorted sharply, "Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... assure you, and your noble associates, of my lasting gratitude, and feel no hesitancy in expressing the opinion that but for your great skill in treating me, I should have been in my grave. I state for the benefit of all those who may be similarly afflicted that if they will place themselves in your hands, you will goon ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... devotion on her face. She looked simply like a sad, spiritual-minded old lady, amiable and indolent, like her race, but sweeter and more thoughtful than their wont. Her voice heightened this mistaken impression. She was never heard to speak either loud or fast. There was at times even a curious hesitancy in her speech, which came near being a stammer, or suggested the measured care with which people speak who have been cured of stammering. It made her often appear as if she did not known her own mind; at which people sometimes took heart; when, if ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson

... well be that two case workers who differ in personality but are of equal ability, will choose very different plans of treatment in a given case and yet each bring it to a successful issue. It is with a good deal of hesitancy, therefore, that a case worker ventures upon the discussion of anything so flexible as treatment. In preparation for this study many consultations were had with practising social case workers in the fields of family work, probation, ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord

... out, perhaps because I sought to conceal the fact that I was just the tiniest bit provoked. She had said this with a little hesitancy, as if she had been just timidly venturing on deep waters. She looked at me, and I think she sighed again, and immediately asked for my very expert advice about cutting into a piece of very cheap goods that has come from St. John's, and with which ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... very same place where the infamous one concealed you in order to expose me to your gaze. At the approach of night I shall turn back one of the folding-doors upon you, undress myself, lie down, and when he shall be asleep I will give you a signal. Above all things, let there be no hesitancy, no feebleness; and take heed that your hand does not tremble when the moment shall have come! And now, for fear lest you might change your mind, I propose to make sure of your person until the fatal hour. You might attempt to escape, to ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... moment, but mastering his hesitancy he turned to the old Sheikh, and rapidly growing earnest and warm, he vividly described his plans, while the old man stood stern and frowning, apparently receiving everything with the greatest disfavour, merely glancing once or twice at the doctor and then ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... International Secretary of the Socialist Party.—'The Socialists of the United States would have no hesitancy whatsoever in joining forces with the rest of their countrymen to repel the Bolsheviki who would try to invade our country and force a form of government upon our people which our people were not ready for, and did ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... here now?' asked Cargrim, noticing the hesitancy at the end of her sentence; 'because I wish to speak with ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... apprehended that that Government does not realize the character of its obligations under that convention. As there is reason to believe, however, that its hesitancy in recognizing them springs, in part at least, from real difficulty in discharging them in connection with its obligations to other governments, the expediency of further forbearance on our part is believed to be ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson

... so many friends we had counted on, the bickerings which arose among the Confederates when we met just now at the Isthmus, the slackness of all Spartans save Leonidas in preparing for war, the hesitancy of Corcyra in joining us. Thebes is Medizing, Crete is Medizing, so is Argos. Thessaly is wavering. I can almost name the princes and great nobles over Hellas who are clutching at Persian money. O Father ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... "I have no hesitancy in saying that Graustark already idolizes this brave American," said Halfont, warmly. "He has won her affection. If the question is placed before the people to-morrow in proper form, I will vouch for it that the whole nation will rise and cry: 'Long live the ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... hand, the Union army might, had the corps on the north bank of the Chickahominy promptly followed that of General Sumner across the river, have easily entered Richmond. But the hesitancy which characterized the movements of the army lost to us all the advantages of success. Early next day the treacherous river had risen to such an extent as to render crossing almost impossible; so the army remained as the battle of Fair Oaks had left it; three corps on the south, ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... country, Wyoming, the writer prides himself on being able to distinguish drinkable water from the salty or alkaline article almost as far as it can be seen, and a stream about which the least suspicion is entertained is invariably tasted with gingerly hesitancy to begin with. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... Angela, lifting her face slowly from Mrs. Luttrell's shoulder. "He must not feel that he has lost a home, must he, mother?" She pronounced the title which Mrs. Luttrell had begged her to bestow, still with a certain diffidence and hesitancy; but Mrs. Luttrell's brow smoothed when she ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... Chancellor, Lord Eldon's great foible was an apparent inability to arrive at an early decision on any question: it was really a desire to weigh carefully all sides of a question before expressing his opinion. This hesitancy was expressed in the formula "I doubt," which became the subject of frequent jests among ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... There was no hesitancy on the part of the monkeys. They began leaping from rope to rope, swinging by their tails to facilitate their descent, until finally the whole troop leaped to the top of the cage and swung themselves down the bars ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... proceed apace. It was still necessary for the companies to complete half the road before qualifying for government assistance. This the St Lawrence road effected slowly, in face of quarrels with contractors, repudiation of calls by shareholders, and hesitancy of banks to make advances. The Great Western did not get under way until 1851, when American capitalists, connected with the New York Central, took shares and a place on the directorate. In the same year the Toronto, ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... even to the professor seemed possible the required boat-man was produced and bargained with. That is to say he was requested to mention his terms and produce his launch, both of which he did without hesitancy. And again ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... have opposed the movement in its initial stages. Even the man who was subsequently won over to the capitalist interest hesitated long before taking the formidable step: It was believed, however, that the hesitancy of Marcus Octavius was due more to his personal regard for Tiberius than to respect for the people's wishes.[353] The tribune who was to scotch the obnoxious measure was an excellent instrument for a dignified opposition. He was grave ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... instances. Chlorodyne, which is nothing more than a mixture of sedatives, often works well, and indeed frequently excels other remedies. The regulation of the heart's action is also of very great importance in these cases, and the physician should have no hesitancy in resorting to such remedies as digitalis and belladonna for the purpose of reducing the tension in the domain of the cerebral circulation. As a matter of course the digestive functions should be carefully looked to; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... Claude felt some hesitancy about presenting himself to these ladies. Perhaps they didn't like Americans; he was always afraid of meeting French people who didn't. It was the same way with most of the fellows in his battalion, he had found; they were terribly afraid of being disliked. ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... charitable to their own countrymen. Those speaking the same language and coming from the same country are always received kindly and are assisted. A Prussian helps a Prussian, a Saxon a Saxon, etc., etc.; secondly, they have less hesitancy in asking for what they need, being accustomed to it from their own country. There, when a mechanic has learned his trade he goes on his travels, and seldom having money, must beg his way. He is seldom ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... Peter's an experienced-looking gentleman in a full-bottomed wig was pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled lady on a camel. But in Venice so many things were happening at once—more, Tony was sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a twelve-month or in Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by their garb, were people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks, Spaniards, ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... should be well considered before it is decided upon. The necessity should be very urgent before you mortgage your home. As your mother's old friend, may I inquire how you intend using this money? Do not answer me if you have any hesitancy in giving me ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... no outward sign of any hesitancy or doubt whatever in the movements of either vessel. The frigate had borne away into our wake the moment that we had borne away, and was now foaming along after us in gallant style, with studding-sails set on both sides, from the royals down; and was of course ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... a book were known, there might be in some regions hesitancy in respect to receiving it, from doubts in regard to its author, as in the case of the epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse; or from the peculiarity of its contents also, as in the case of the latter book. In the influence ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... tell Arthur,' he thought, and, with something like hesitancy, he started for his ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... is not words, but meanings. It is an intelligence above language. One imagines endless conversations with his Friend, in which the tongue shall be loosed, and thoughts be spoken without hesitancy or end; but the experience is commonly far otherwise. Acquaintances may come and go, and have a word ready for every occasion; but what puny word shall he utter whose very breath is thought and meaning? Suppose you go to bid farewell to your Friend ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... were diffident; they were sad and they were merry; they were faltering and they were enthusiastic. Some were there freely, splendidly, exultantly; more were there because some force greater than themselves impelled them. Through bewilderment and hesitancy and doubt, they saw the lights of the future shining, and they fixed their eyes upon the amber lanterns as upon the visible symbols of their faith; they marched and marched. They were the members of a new revolution, and, as always, only a portion of the revolutionists ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... They then openly confessed that there was only one of them wounded, and that they had used his bloody rags for arm-bandages and head-bandages only for the brief period when they were visited by suspicious-looking persons; but, as we were all right, they had no hesitancy in telling us they were part of Hardee's corps, and were left there by accident when the rebel ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... resolution to take Stampede into his confidence and to reveal all that had happened on the day of his departure for the mountains. He proceeded to do this without equivocation or hesitancy, for there now pressed upon him a grim anticipation of impending events ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... replied he, with a little hesitancy over the unfamiliar term, "is well. Cannot you come to see us before that dreadful reception through which I am to be dragged? I'd like you to know Edith in a ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... herself with the feeling that she had acted according to her best light. She was a faithful disciple of every cause she espoused, and scrupulously exact in obeying even its implied provisions. In this there was no hesitancy. No matter who was offended, or what sacrifices to herself it involved, the law, the strict letter of the law, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... or direction, his gaze fixed upon the trim, slender figure in blue. He now saw that her dark eyes were filled with a soft seriousness that belied her brave smile; a delicate pink had come into her clear, high-bred face; the hesitancy of the gentlewoman enveloped her with a mantle that shielded her from any suspicion of boldness. Brock struggled to his feet, amazement written ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... left to suffer alone. In more homely language the merchants appealed to their friends. "Yes, Bill," wrote John Andrews to his brother-in-law in Philadelphia, "nothing will save us but an entire stoppage of trade, both to England and the West Indies.... The least hesitancy on your part to the Southerd, and ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... with another nod; and on this he turned to an adjacent door, opened it gently, whipped out his flash-lamp, and passed through. Without sign of hesitancy, she followed; and like two shadows they dogged the dancing spot-light of the flash-lamp, through a linen-closet and service-room, down a shallow well threaded by a spiral of iron steps and, by way of the long corridor ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... one of the male passengers, must be the last to quit the ship. That was the code of all true sailor-men—the women first, then the male passengers and crew followed by the officers, beginning at the junior in rank. There could be room for no hesitancy or dispute—it was just a sailor-like way of doing one's duty, in the simple faith that the recording angel would enter up ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... directions and what Thea called his timidity in others, his unspent and miraculously preserved youthfulness. Men could never impose upon the doctor, he guessed, but women always could. Fred liked, too, the doctor's manner with Thea, his bashful admiration and the little hesitancy by which he betrayed his consciousness of the change in her. It was just this change that, at present, interested Fred more than anything else. That, he felt, was his "created value," and it was his best chance for any peace ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... BAYARD: Then I make a motion that the resolution be sent to the Committee on the Judiciary. I would state that I voted with some regret and hesitancy upon the motion of the senator from Missouri [Mr. Vest] to refer this matter to the Committee on Revolutionary Claims. My regret was owing to the fact that I do not wish even to seem to treat a subject of this character in a spirit ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... what shrubs and trees there were he came without mishap at last to the ornate building concerning the purpose of which he had asked Lu-don only to be put off with the assertion that it was forgotten—nothing strange in itself but given possible importance by the apparent hesitancy of the priest to discuss its use and the impression the ape-man had gained at the time ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... of the party had come up. But soon a remark which was let fall started him very wide awake indeed, and at the same time he recognized that the voices were not those of his present companions, but of strangers. From a certain quaver or hesitancy in the tones, he judged them to be ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... equable disposition. It was typical of Pete, however, that he absolutely hated to leave an unpleasant task to an indefinite future. Moreover, he rather liked the Concho boys and the foreman. He wanted to ride with them. That was the main thing. Any hesitancy he had in regard to riding the outlaw was the outcome of discretion rather than of fear. Bailey had said there was no work for him. Pete felt that he had rather risk his neck a dozen times than to return to the town of Concho and tell Roth that he had been unsuccessful ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... away at least two weeks," said Martin. "Many things can happen in that time. If I were you, I'd forget that the Judge is on earth. I'll—I'll tell Sayers about this matter," said his benefactor, with the first sign of hesitancy that Jim had ever seen him display. "And in the meantime, I'll do all I can to get that Judge to show some sense. You can be certain of that. Well, may good ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... capriciously with the silent and apparently causeless obstinacy to which very old persons are subject, and which makes them resemble children. In order to sit down beside the young lady he needed a folding-chair. His slightest movements were marked by the inert heaviness, the stupid hesitancy, which characterize the movements of a paralytic. He sat slowly down upon his chair with great caution, mumbling some unintelligible words. His cracked voice resembled the noise made by a stone falling into a ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac

... in its blanket shroud and flung it into the hole. There was neither pause nor hesitancy in anything he did, only his eyes peered furtively about. As the first part of the burial was accomplished, a panic seized him and he shovelled the soil back as though his life depended on his speed. He packed the dry clay down with his feet; nor did he rest till ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum

... godsend to her, and everybody else. She still talked revolution, and she was always ready to spar with Lord Buntingford, or other people. But all the same Lucy Friend was often aware of a much more tractable temper, a kind of hesitancy—and appeasement—which, even if it passed away, made her beauty, for the moment, ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of him who so emphatically sought admission to the feast was as prompt as his summons had been determined. For, without an instant's delay or the least hesitancy of movement, the great door was pushed suddenly inward and a man stepped ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... friend from New Bedford prevailed on Mr. DOUGLASS to address the convention: He came forward to the platform with a hesitancy and embarrassment, necessarily the attendants of a sensitive mind in such a novel position. After apologizing for his ignorance, and reminding the audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and heart, he proceeded to narrate some of ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... are everybody to me, Lelia," he said, taking the locket with a kind of reverent hesitancy and opening it with as much care as if he feared it might fall to pieces in his grasp or vanish entirely, like the enchanted ring in the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... They were at once recognized by the colonists, which received them, as it were, with open arms and began to cleanse their bodies by removing the paint. In both of these experiments the recognition appeared to be instantaneous; there was no hesitancy whatever. ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... September, 1890, I left for Tuskegee. When I reached there, although I was a young man, I could not tell what county I lived in, in answer to Mr. Washington's question. I was admitted, after some hesitancy on the part of Principal Washington, and sent to the farm to work for one year in the daytime and to attend ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... was that slight touch of hesitancy, as if the son were not quite sure of the father and ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand

... Plato's successors. He distinguished three spheres, the sensible, the intelligible, and a third compounded of the two, to which correspond respectively, sense, intellect and opinion (doxa). Cicero notes, however, that both Speusippus and Xenocrates abandon the Socratic principle of hesitancy. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... has worn,[108] fierceness, cruelty, villifying, pointing out the faults of others, thoughts entirely devoted to worldly affairs, anxiety, animosity, reviling of others, false speech, false or vain gifts, hesitancy and doubt, boastfulness of speech, dispraise and praise, laudation, prowess, defiance, attendance (as on the sick and the weak), obedience (to the commands of preceptors and parents), service or ministrations, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Protestant William and Mary ascended it. Lord Baltimore immediately acquiesced in the political change. On account of his instructions to his deputies to proclaim the new monarchs being delayed in their transmission, he was charged with hesitancy; and a restless spirit named Coode, an associate of Fendall in his insurrectionary movements—"a man of loose morals and blasphemous speech"—excited the people by the cry of "a popish plot!" He was ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... that the Wilbur twin shyly approached the group by the felled tree, and the watching father saw the two children, after a moment's hesitancy on the part of Juliana, disappear from view over the crest of the ridge. Dave continued to loll by the stile and to watch the waiting Juliana, thinking of gypsies and the pure joy of wandering. He began to repeat some verses he had lately happened upon, murmuring ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... Mayo's countenance showed much more concern than she expressed when she faced about at the sound of his voice and looked at him. Color came into his cheeks; there was embarrassment in his eyes, a queer hesitancy in his tones. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... before Cap'n Amazon, opened at the page containing the shipping news. His glance dropped to the sailing notices and with scarcely a moment's hesitancy he said: ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... see! I'd hate to see what you'll be seeing before long. God help you when you finish!" rather impolitely interrupted the bartender. He waved the mallet and made for the end of the counter with no hesitancy and lots of purpose in his stride. "G'wan, now! ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... standing in a state of hesitancy, troubled by a strong desire to help his friend, and a stronger desire to spare himself, when he was thrown somewhat off his wonted balance by the sudden reappearance of Dechamp, leading, ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... spite of the fact that he was given abundant opportunity to examine the floor of the box, but not until after the dangerous nails had been clinched. His long continued avoidance of the experiment boxes and his still more persistent hesitancy in entering them, coupled with his almost ludicrous efforts to see beneath the floor through the holes cut for the staples on the doors, gave me the impression of superstitious fear of the unseen. As I watched and recorded his behavior day after day during the period of most ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... question of a god. In one way or another we are bound to indicate our judgment on the subject. We must act either as though we believe in the possibility or in the impossibility of "divine" interference. If the mental hesitancy of the respectable Agnostic were accompanied by a corresponding timidity in action life would ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... she bade them both a smiling "addio" and left the apartment. When she had gone, and he was left alone with his foundling, the Cardinal stood for a few minutes absorbed in silent meditation, mechanically gathering his robes about him. After a pause of evident hesitancy and trouble, he approached the boy and gently laid a ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... staff followed him. I could have cut off his ears. I spat down before him—it was all I could do. In my opinion, the Duke d'Orleans would have filled his place better. He had set his eyes on a crown, and, as every one knows, such a motive overcomes much hesitancy. ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach

... can take nothing at all and incorporate it and make money out of it," Roland defined with some hesitancy. ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... with the same singular hesitancy of manner, "why didn't you purchase possession of at least that part of the land which lies so dangerously ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... Pantaloon in "Les Fourberies" been other than that of a blundering, timid old idiot, Binet would have ruined it by his apprehensions. As it was, those very apprehensions, magnifying as they did the hesitancy and bewilderment that were the essence of his part, contributed to the success. And a success it proved that more than justified all the heralding of ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... expected to receive praises by the basketful, was astounded at this tone! It was therefore, with great hesitancy that he ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... silence, each side seeming unwilling to begin, and taking advantage of an apparent hesitancy on the part of the strange leader, Uncle Paul instead of stepping back raised his hand and advanced, Rodd springing to his side, while their movement was exactly followed by the chief intruder and the youth ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... through the crack of the door and Lizzie, peeping out from above her tiny rim spectacles, immediately recognizes her visitor. She offers her usual cheerful greeting and begins hastily to push the large wooden tubs from the door to make room for her visitor to enter, though it is with unusual hesitancy that she invites her guest to come in ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... order to that effect was dispatched on the evening of July 30th, but the General in command of the Third Army Corps desired to wait for the arrival of the Fourth and its baggage train. In spite of this hesitancy the Second Army was ordered to proceed towards the Saar, where the French were ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... But my hesitancy belied the truth of that answer; for we both heard sounds, which no one can interpret but he whose well beloved is lost in ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... the face of my mother as she heard this. I noticed that she did not feel quite comfortable in having to reply to this in the presence of men; but as my father was not to be convinced in any other way, she answered, at first with hesitancy, but she was afterwards carried away by her interest in the ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... While standing in hesitancy, they hear a voice raised above the rest— one which both recognise. Well do they remember it, pealing among the waggons on that day of real ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... government and fighting for the Entente. The problem was complicated by a further revolution in Hungary where a Soviet Government was established, and Bela Kun endeavoured to rule after the manner of Lenin. The Russian Bolsheviks were, however, unable to help their Hungarian pupils, in spite of the hesitancy shown by the Allies in dealing with the situation; and early in August Bela Kun's government fell before domestic reaction and the advance of the Rumanian army, which occupied Buda-Pesth. At last Rumania had her revenge, and it required energetic ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... neck toward him: "I want him to know strong and manly boys. He is very fond of you, Ranald. He thinks you are better than any man in the world." She paused, her lips parting in a smile that made Ranald's heart beat quick. Then she went on with a shy hesitancy: "Ranald, I know the boys sometimes drop words they should not and tell stories unfit to hear"; the blood was beginning to show in her cheek; "and I would not like my little boy—" Her voice broke suddenly, but recovering quickly she went on in grave, sweet ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... be said of Kuprin's style. He is by no means a purist; his pages bristle with neologisms and foreign—or, rather, outlandish—words; nor has he any hesitancy in adapting and Russianizing such words. He coins words; he is, at times, actually Borrowesque, and not only does he resort to colloquialisms and slang, but to dialect, cant, and even actual argot. Therein is his glory—and, perhaps, his weakness. Therefore, an attempt ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... and royal decrees—namely, that "they shall be given only to citizens; and if he appoints to them his creatures or kinsmen, or those of the auditors or fiscal, or of their wives, the royal Audiencia shall check him without any reserve or hesitancy. The fiscal thereof shall oppose him, and take all possible measures to this end." This should be charged upon the consciences of all; and the government notary should be ordered to put upon all commissions of offices of justice or war, or of encomiendas of Indians, or of any other positions ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... red car two blocks away and arrived on foot at the pretty, three-storied, shingled Berkeley house. For an instant only, he was aware of an inward hesitancy, but the next moment he rang the bell. He knew that what he was doing was in direct violation of her wishes, and that he was setting her a difficult task to receive as a Sunday caller the multimillionaire and notorious Elam Harnish of newspaper fame. On the other hand, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... Dan decided that Bart might run loose. It was a brief ceremony, but a vital one. Doctor Byrne went out with Barry to watch the loosing of the dog; from the window of Joe Cumberland's room he and Kate observed what passed. There was little hesitancy in Black Bart. He merely paused to sniff the foot of Randall Byrne, snarl, and then trotted with ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand

... people gathered about this entrance: men in evening dress, men in shabby, insignificant clothes, women in varying types of costume. Max would have lingered to study the little crowd, but Blake looked upon his hesitancy with distrust, and still retaining the grip upon his shoulder, half led, half pushed him through a short passage straight into the dancing-hall, where on the instant his ears were assailed by a flood of joyous sound in the form of a rhythmic, swinging waltz—his eyes blinked ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... of greatest achievement to tell how they had risen by their own efforts from the very depths of untoward circumstances. For this purpose they selected Jacob A. Riis and Booker T. Washington. After much hesitancy on his part and urgency on theirs Booker Washington finally agreed to write the story of his life for serial publication in the Outlook. His hesitancy was due merely to the fact that he could not believe that the events ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... of peace which have been made by this Government have not been accepted by Mexico. With a view to avoid a protracted war, which hesitancy and delay on our part would be so well calculated to produce, I informed you in my annual message of the 8th December last that the war would "continue to be prosecuted with vigor, as the best means of securing peace," and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... whispered colloquy, and mistaking it for hesitancy on the part of Joe, set up its wolf-like ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... by Viscount Grey, who had been appointed British Ambassador to the United States, but who had returned to England after a four months' stay, during which he had been unable to secure an interview with the sick President. In this letter he attempted to explain to the British the causes of American hesitancy to accept the League. He then went on to state that the success of the League depended upon the adherence of the United States, and while admitting the serious character of the reservations proposed by Senator ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... those main trailers, two of them on hands and knees. Only back where the bodies lay some remained yelling and dancing furiously. Then they also, in response to a shout and the wave of a blanketed arm, scattered, running west toward the gully. There was no hesitancy now; some savage instinct seemed to tell them where the fugitives had gone. They dragged the dead warrior from the ditch, screaming savagely at the discovery. A dozen scrambled for the river bank, others ran for the pony herd, while one or two ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... no holding back, no hesitancy, no looks of concern or anxiety, but when the signal to advance inshore appeared on the "New York," at six bells (seven o'clock), there was a feeling of relief that the time of waiting ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... for explanations, nor for hesitancy. Wash, like the others behind him, believed that the Indians were making an attack upon their master, and the first thought of all was that Professor Henderson was with the ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood

... the spot where he had last seen the man, the cattle were still milling, but were getting calmer, and had no hesitancy in scattering when he rode among them slashing right and left with his quirt and firing his ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... and there were many new words in his vocabulary. When he grew excited or enthusiastic, however, he dropped back into the old slurring and the dropping of final consonants. Also, there was an awkward hesitancy, at times, as he essayed the new words he had learned. On the other hand, along with his ease of expression, he displayed a lightness and facetiousness of thought that delighted her. It was his old spirit of humor and badinage that had made him a favorite in his ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... seceders owed from the first their successes not to their superior organization, to their better preparation, or to the better discipline and appointment of their armies, but to their very rashness, to their audacity even, and the hesitancy, cautious and deliberation of the government. Napoleon owed his successes as general and civilian far more to the air of power he assumed, and the conviction he produced of his invincibility in the minds ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... with bloodshot eyes and reeling step, the satyr entered. Yet so great was the spell and charm of that womanly purity and dauntless pride, that even lust and tyranny sank abashed on the threshold, and a certain shame and hesitancy were visible in the flushed face ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)

... hitherto been almost wholly in their hands; and the militant and aggressive temper sometimes shown by the agents of these powers awakened some nervousness regarding the safety of the existing British possessions. Hence Britain, after a period of hesitancy, became as active as any of the other states in annexation. Throughout this period her main rival was France, whose new claims seemed to come in conflict with her own in almost every quarter of the globe. This rivalry produced ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... defined itself as coyness and coquetry. If he wanted to speak—well, let him speak; I wouldn't help him. I could realise the processes of his mind even more clearly than those of my own—his desire, his hesitancy. He was too timid to leap the barriers; I must open a gate for him. He hovered near me for a minute longer, and then drifted away. I felt his disappointment, his spiritual shrug of the shoulders; and I perceived rather suddenly that I was disappointed myself. I ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland

... evident that Broadhurst must face this peril. The soggy condition underfoot had made it impossible for him to evade the Eli even by keeping close to the side line. There was no turning outward. To do so would carry the ball out of bounds. And any hesitancy or slowing up would close the distance between the Crimson runner and the three Yale men who kept ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... could be the cause of all these unpleasant sensations. I will tell you. It was returning to the gratification of a depraved appetite in the use of tobacco; and I have no hesitancy in declaring it as my opinion, that could the causes of the many acts of suicide, committed in the United States, be investigated, it would be found, that many instances were owing to the effects of tobacco ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey

... for the doctor," said Alvina, in her cool voice, wherein none the less there rang the old hesitancy ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... of every member of the family in the course resolved on towards the nephews shows how united they were in moral sentiment as well as in affection. There was not the slightest hesitancy exhibited. The point touching her brother's shame thrust in the background by the conviction of a higher duty, Mrs. Weld allowed it to trouble her no more, but, with her husband and sister, expressed a feeling of exultation ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... furtive movement, he no longer showed any hesitancy as to his course of action; but at once declared his willingness, as well as his determination, to abide by the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... a trace of frown now between Rennie's brows. "You told Topham you wanted work." His tone implied that he found Drew's present hesitancy odd. And—from Don Cazar's point of view—it was. Tubacca was still in a slump; the rest of the valley held about as many jobs for a man as Drew had fingers on one hand. The Range was the big holding, and to ride there meant security and ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton

... had realized that she was one of those generous, heroic women who are capable of any sacrifice for the man they love—a woman who would never shrink from what she considered to be her duty, who was utterly incapable of weak hesitancy or selfish calculation. ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... of surrendering to the common but often pernicious demand of our swift-moving America that in order to receive consideration a new idea should prove itself capable of yielding immediate dividends. There seems to be a certain hesitancy today among some in our educated classes about speaking of "ideals." Ideals connote a long look ahead. They imply a sense that there is something perfect even though the steps toward embodying or approximating it will be many and arduous, perhaps discouragingly hard. They betoken the likelihood ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... you, Mr. Van Berg, and should I ever need the services of a gentleman,"—she laid a slight emphasis upon the term—"I shall, without any hesitancy, turn to you. But I have long since learned to be my own protectress, as, after all, one must be, situated as ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... turned he felt no hesitancy in reckoning a fortune from almost any venture. The Grant book, even on the liberal terms allowed to the author, would yield a net profit of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to its publishers. Huck Finn would ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... yet another circumstance which tended, in some degree, to give courage to the Tories. It was the somewhat temporizing policy of the patriots. There was still a feeling of doubt, a hesitancy, on the part of the latter, as the prospects grew stronger of a final breach with Great Britain. There were many who still clung to the hope that the differences of the two nations might yet be reconciled; and though the means of such reconciliation did not make themselves ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... in crime thinks himself ready to act when he is not; as appears from his hesitancy and reluctance when the moment for action arrives. If, however, this unexpected recoil of his nature does not induce him to change his purpose altogether, he knows but too well how to supply the defect in training for sin. If we could look into his heart, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... as a moment later she confidingly took his arm and strolled toward the library, it was evident that all her flutter and hesitancy, her seeming freedom and mimic show of war, were like those of some bright tropical bird fascinated by a remorseless serpent whose intent eyes and deadly purpose are creating a spell ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... adjourned, and its members had gone home, having done but little to re-assure the loyalists. They had, indeed, passed an ordinance declaring that Missouri would adhere to the Union; but the majority of the members had betrayed such hesitancy and indecision, such a lack of stomach to grapple with the rude issues of the rebellion, that their action passed almost without moral effect. Their ordinance was treated with contempt by the secessionists, and nearly lost sight of by the people; so thoroughly were all classes lashed into ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... sea power which she is, but step by step, as opportunity offered, she has moved on to the world-wide pre-eminence now held by English speech, and by institutions sprung from English germs. How much poorer would the world have been, had Englishmen heeded the cautious hesitancy that now bids us reject every advance beyond our shore-lines! And can any one doubt that a cordial, if unformulated, understanding between the two chief states of English tradition, to spread freely, without mutual jealousy and in mutual ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan

... unbroken, virgin wilderness, marked only by slow centuries of growth. The accumulation of moss on the tree-trunks, as well as the shading of the leaves, told me that we continued to journey almost directly westward; and there was no perceptible hesitancy in our steady progress, save as we deviated from it here and there because of natural obstacles too formidable ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... I mention without hesitancy these consequences of the abandonment of opium, from the belief that any person really in earnest in his desire to relinquish the habit will be more likely to persevere by knowing at the start exactly what obstacles he may meet in his progress ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... precisely the same exclamation which had been uttered by the warrior who sat so cold and inanimate in the stern of the canoe, and Tom, without the least hesitancy, ceased paddling for the instant, straightened up, and responded in the same gutteral fashion, resuming the use of the oar at the same time, as if he meant that that should be the end of it. But the Apaches immediately followed up their ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... of selection became comparatively easy. With every detail of the business he was familiar, from long experience. There was no piece of machinery that he did not know better than its makers. There was never any hesitancy as between rival types or loading down with superfluous gear. His main concern was for ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... though the gentleman in question had declined to make a public statement touching on the remarkable disclosures now added thus strangely as a final chapter to the annals of an event long since occurred, the writer felt no hesitancy in saying that appreciating, as they must, the motives which prompted him to silence, his fellow citizens would one and all join the editor of the Daily Evening News in congratulating him upon the lifting of this ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... present. In just what light the maiden regarded him, she made it difficult enough for him to guess. But the interpretation of his own feelings,—this furious throbbing of his heart, the awkward hesitancy of his speech,—was no very difficult matter. When at last he left her, at her mother's door, he made himself an inward promise that this should be the first of many such meetings. And when he reached his own quarters, it was to amaze de Windt by the radiance ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... The literary and thinking world had learned but a little of it in Hippel's book; and now there seemed to be no inclination to probe the concise language of the master's work, for the task appeared greater than the fruits would justify. This hesitancy was a glaring testimony to the loose thinking and careless literary habits of those days. But the haste with which Kant prosecuted the authorship of his work, apart from the thoughts employed in its elaboration into a system, furnishes ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... event of any outcry, you would be sooner upon the scene than I should, for instance, because I sleep on the opposite side of the ship. This circumstance I take to be the explanation of the wireless message, which, because of its hesitancy (a piece of ingenuity very characteristic of the group), led to your being awakened and invited up to the Marconi deck; in short, it gave the would-be assassin a better chance of ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... one other person in the monoplane detracted somewhat from its speed. Then, too, Peggy had ached with her whole being to be alone—to think. She wanted to reconstruct everything in her mind so that when she told all to Mr. Bell there would be no confusion, no hesitancy ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham

... back in a low, lounging chair with a big ostrich feather fan in her hand, and she looked up expectantly into her lover's face. There was nothing else for it, and he took the plunge valiantly—and with precisely the correct amount of maidenly hesitancy, Lady Ethel named a day for their marriage. And then—somehow there seemed nothing more to ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris

... the merciless kind. There was no tenderness, no hesitancy about it. Not only did her armies "dash to pieces" the fighting men of the nations opposed to her, allowing apparently no quarter, but the women and the children suffered indignities and cruelties at the hands ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... to the effect that though the gentleman in question had declined to make a public statement touching on the remarkable disclosures now added thus strangely as a final chapter to the annals of an event long since occurred, the writer felt no hesitancy in saying that appreciating, as they must, the motives which prompted him to silence, his fellow citizens would one and all join the editor of the Daily Evening News in congratulating him upon the lifting of this cloud from ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... with which to answer. "Impossible!" I burst out, flinging doubt, fear, hesitancy, everything I had hitherto trembled at to the winds. "It was in my nature to take it, worked upon as I was by family affection, the awfulness of our father's approaching death, and a thousand uncanny influences all carefully measured and ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... connection with the historic cruise described in these pages, the Kawa's owner, Dr. Traprock, has no hesitancy in saying, "Frankly, without Triplett the thing never could have been done." The accompanying photograph was taken just after the captain had been hauled out of the surf in Papeete. It will be remarked that he still maintains an indomitable front and holds his trusty Colt ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock

... back with palpable hesitancy. "I was aiming to go and get the boys to bury them. My God, did you ever see anything so quick? They drilled through each other ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine

... in spite of the fact that he was given abundant opportunity to examine the floor of the box, but not until after the dangerous nails had been clinched. His long continued avoidance of the experiment boxes and his still more persistent hesitancy in entering them, coupled with his almost ludicrous efforts to see beneath the floor through the holes cut for the staples on the doors, gave me the impression of superstitious fear of the unseen. As I watched and recorded his behavior day ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... that maelstrom of frenzied murder-lust took courage of the highest order. But neither Bohannan nor the Frenchman had even paled. Not one of their men showed any hesitancy whatever. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... reference to the British accounts. The latter are impartial, as between the American parties; their only bias is to constitute a fair case for Barclay, by establishing the surrender of the American flagship and the hesitancy of the "Niagara" to enter into action. This would indicate victory so far, changed to defeat by the use Perry made of the vessel preserved to him intact by the over-caution of his second. Waiving motives, these claims are substantially ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... peremptorily put in, yet with a certain hesitancy which seemed to speak of doubts he hardly acknowledged to himself, "I will not marry you if I must expose you to privation or to the genteel poverty I hate. I love you more than you realize, and wish to make your life a happy one. I can not give you all ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... in Holland was ended in September 1649, in response to an urgent invitation from the studious young Queen Christina of Sweden, who wanted the now famous philosopher as an ornament to her court. After some hesitancy he sailed for Stockholm, where only ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... some Byzantine traits in your national character and for the formlessness and hesitancy which I, at least, seem to detect in the demeanour of many individual Anglo-Saxons. They realize that their traditional upbringing is opposed to truth. It gives them a sense of insecurity. It makes them shy and awkward. Poise! That ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... with the silent and apparently causeless obstinacy to which very old persons are subject, and which makes them resemble children. In order to sit down beside the young lady he needed a folding-chair. His slightest movements were marked by the inert heaviness, the stupid hesitancy, which characterize the movements of a paralytic. He sat slowly down upon his chair with great caution, mumbling some unintelligible words. His cracked voice resembled the noise made by a stone falling into a well. The young woman nervously pressed my hand, as if she were trying to avoid ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac

... the necessary means for the protection of our domestic firesides from invasion and our national honor from disgrace. I would most earnestly recommend to Congress to abstain from all appropriations for objects not absolutely necessary; but I take upon myself, without a moment of hesitancy, all the responsibility of recommending the increase and prompt equipment of that gallant Navy which has lighted up every sea with its victories and spread an ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... New Bedford prevailed on Mr. DOUGLASS to address the convention: He came forward to the platform with a hesitancy and embarrassment, necessarily the attendants of a sensitive mind in such a novel position. After apologizing for his ignorance, and reminding the audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and heart, he proceeded to narrate some ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... circumstances, or a degenerate of the worst type. The time of Judge Ostrander's office was nearly up, and his future continuance on the bench might very easily depend upon his attitude at the present hearing. Yet HE, without apparent recognition of this fact, showed without any hesitancy or possibly without self-consciousness, the sympathy he felt for the man at the bar, and ruled ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... evidently disconcerted the men with the thongs, who apparently did not expect their intended prey to approach by any course except the passage near which they were standing; but after a slight pause of hesitancy, the thongs were whirling in the air, and descending, lasso-fashion, upon the shoulders of the intruders. The noose caught Langley over his arms, which were instantly drawn close against his body as the throng tightened, so he was thus rendered completely powerless; but Whitson sprang, ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... outward sign of any hesitancy or doubt whatever in the movements of either vessel. The frigate had borne away into our wake the moment that we had borne away, and was now foaming along after us in gallant style, with studding-sails set on both sides, from the royals down; and was of course coming up with us, hand over hand. ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood

... uncertainty, vacillation, irresolution, misgiving, query, suspense, hesitancy, distrust, suspicion, quandary, perplexity; skepticism, incredulity, pyrrhonism; ambiguity, difficulty. Antonyms: conviction, credulity, confidence, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... warnings, selfish forgetfulness, and the knowledge of an unconscious but irremediable wrong frightened and bewildered her; she hid her face and shrunk back trembling with remorse and shame. Moor, seeing in her agitation only maiden happiness or hesitancy, accepted and enjoyed a blissful moment while he waited her reply. It was so long in coming that he gently tried to draw her hands away and look into her face, whispering like one ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... moments' silence, each side seeming unwilling to begin, and taking advantage of an apparent hesitancy on the part of the strange leader, Uncle Paul instead of stepping back raised his hand and advanced, Rodd springing to his side, while their movement was exactly followed by the chief intruder and the youth who stepped ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... later she confidingly took his arm and strolled toward the library, it was evident that all her flutter and hesitancy, her seeming freedom and mimic show of war, were like those of some bright tropical bird fascinated by a remorseless serpent whose intent eyes and deadly purpose are creating a spell that ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... forth into the blizzard meant she must wrap up warmly. This she did. Then she wrapped a small brown fiddle in her jacket, took the pail and went to the door. There she stood, considering a moment, with her hand on the knob. With no further hesitancy she placed the kittens and fiddle gently on the floor, and went to the stairs. The thought of the spirits made her shiver. She saw long shadows making lines here and there, and had no doubt but that these were the ghosts Matty had seen. She closed her eyes tightly and began to ascend the stairs, ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White

... what might his motive be. He realized that he was mastered, and that at any moment Galliard might send home his blade. He was bathed from head to foot in a sweat that was at once of exertion and despair. A frenzy seized him. Might he not yet turn to advantage this hesitancy of Crispin's ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini

... selfish policy of a Clinton, but in the limitations of a too narrow genius, was haranguing with all his recuperated might against the sinister menace to the liberties of a people who had freed themselves of one despotism so dearly; and even Randolph, with characteristic hesitancy when approaching a point, was deficient in enthusiasm, although he intimated that he should vote for the unconditional adoption of the Constitution he had refused to sign. He and Marshall were Madison's only assistants of importance against the formidable ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... me?" Even in the growing dusk I could mark a red flush mount into the clear cheeks at this insistent question, and for an instant her eyes wavered. But she possessed the courage of pride, and her hesitancy was short. ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... would be able to choose for herself. In such case, ambition would cut no figure in her choice. The chains of duty to family, state, and ancestry that bound Max's feet so firmly would be but wisps of straw about Yolanda's slender ankles. She would have no hesitancy in making her choice, were she free to do so, and states might go hang for all she would care. Her heart was her state. Would she ever be able to choose? Fortune had been kind to us thus far; would she remain our friend? She is a coquette; but the heart ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... transacted. His return to the Spanish quarters, even if compulsory, had less in it to strike the natives than is commonly believed. It was a re-installation in old quarters, and therefore the 'Tlatocan (Council of Chiefs) itself felt no hesitancy in meeting there again, until the real nature of the dangerous visitors was ascertained, when the council gradually withdrew from the snare, leaving the unfortunate 'chief of men' in Spanish hands." [Footnote: 12 Annual Report of ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... had enough recovered from the fear created by the presence to understand what it said to him, he realized that it was telling him of something that in life it had buried at the foot of the Old Elm. After much hesitancy Mike set forth with his ghostly guide, for he would have risked his soul for money, but on arriving at his destination he was startled to find himself alone. Nothing daunted, he set down his lantern and began to dig. Though he turned up many a rood of soil and ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... shop just in time to find him locking the door. He recognized them immediately, and had no hesitancy in opening up his store again. Phil soon found a rifle to his liking, and Garry replaced the compass that he had dropped when he was lost in the woods; ammunition was also procured, and then Garry purchased a small automatic ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle

... and looked fixedly at him. This reference to an outbreak of fire I felt sure was made with a purpose. It certainly had the desired effect of removing from our host's manner the last signs of hesitancy. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... of the hesitancy that had marked her early manner. She came towards the table with quick, assured steps, ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... only one way in which you could, so far as I know. That was by buying my pet. I—I don't suppose," Hallam continued, with hesitancy, "that there is anything such a—a useless fellow as I could do to earn ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... her hand gently and with some tremor as he said good-evening, and then he descended the brownstone steps aware that all debate and hesitancy were at an end. Come what might come, he knew himself to be irretrievably in love with Phillida Callender. This was what he had gained by abstaining from the sight ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... old fox had not the slightest idea such a contretemps was possible, but in order to play safe he considered it good policy to hearten Ole for the fray.) "Should he defeat you, captain, I have no hesitancy in saying to you now that such a misfortune would have a most disastrous effect on your future in my employ. You know me. When I order a job done, I want it done, and I want it done well. Understand! I don't want you to maim or kill the man, but just give him a good sound—er—commercial thrashing; ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... is the justification of Plato's peculiar dialectical method, of its inexactness, its hesitancy, its scruples and reserve, as if he feared to obtrude knowledge on an unworthy receiver. The treatise, as the proper instrument of dogma [188] —the Ethics of Aristotle, the Ethics of Spinoza—begins with ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... near the eastern vestibule. It was the bathing girl at last, standing erect, but of diminutive proportions, being scarcely as tall as a girl ten years old, but charmingly delicate—with slim hips and a tiny bosom, displaying all the exquisite hesitancy of a sprouting bud. The figure seemed to exhale a perfume, that grace which nothing can give, but which flowers where it lists, stubborn, invincible, perennial grace, springing still and ever from Mahoudeau's thick fingers, which were ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... disposition. It was typical of Pete, however, that he absolutely hated to leave an unpleasant task to an indefinite future. Moreover, he rather liked the Concho boys and the foreman. He wanted to ride with them. That was the main thing. Any hesitancy he had in regard to riding the outlaw was the outcome of discretion rather than of fear. Bailey had said there was no work for him. Pete felt that he had rather risk his neck a dozen times than to return to the town of Concho and tell Roth that he had been unsuccessful in ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... train going south, but west. "My poor Paris!" exclaimed a French lady. It was not for themselves these people were sorry. The common sort of people in the train were sorry for Paris, for all their unlucky fellows. The train moved with hesitancy for hours. During one long pause we listened to a cannonade. One burst of sound seemed very close. A young English girl, sitting in a corner with her infant, abruptly handed the child to her husband. She rummaged ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... throbbing hope in her heart that kindled color in her pale cheeks and light in her weary eyes, sped away to the Spragues. There was no tremor in the hand that raised the dragon-headed knocker, nor hesitancy in the voice that bade the servant say that "Miss Boone requested a few moments' conversation with ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... certainly been deceived by him. This dissimulation both in speech and manner appeared perfect. By the keen eye of Carlos, however—with his knowledge of the true situation—the tremor of the speaker's lips, slight as it was—his uneasy glance—and an occasional hesitancy in his speech, were all observed. Though Carlos was deceiving him, ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... come that will render it safe for the Government to take that step.' I am willing to believe that something of this kind weighs in the mind of the President and the Cabinet, and that there is some ground for hesitancy as a mere matter of political expediency." This admirable and discriminating support of the President finds another capital illustration in weighty words of his in answer to animadversions of Prof. Francis W. Newman, of England, directed against Mr. Lincoln. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... wolves, her nephews devoured their food. Coyotes in midwinter could not have been more starved. Without comment she offered them the remaining fried cakes, and between them they took it all. She offered the second helping of coffee, which they accepted without hesitancy. Filling their cups, she placed her empty coffeepot on the ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa

... of him," replied the other with a slight hesitancy which was, however, so faint as to be hardly noticeable. The voice of Madame Desplaines summoning them to breakfast broke off any opportunity for further questions on a matter that plainly, for some strange reason or other, ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... was always low and gentle, with a quaver and hesitancy in the utterance; now it was tender and comforting with the comprehension of one in suffering, the extraordinary tact, which the old of his race nearly all come to possess. "Li'l chicken-wing on piece ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... the Wilbur twin shyly approached the group by the felled tree, and the watching father saw the two children, after a moment's hesitancy on the part of Juliana, disappear from view over the crest of the ridge. Dave continued to loll by the stile and to watch the waiting Juliana, thinking of gypsies and the pure joy of wandering. He began to repeat some verses he had lately happened upon, murmuring them to a little mass of white clouds ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... small sail, had been rigged up, and two good oars provided for it. Angel was completely at the command of George, and when he was called and taken down to the landing in front of the boathouse, he went without any hesitancy. But to induce him to enter the boat ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay

... upon labor and capital; hesitancy about slavery. The President wishes to be pushed on by public opinion. But public opinion is safe, and expects from the official leader a decided step onwards. The message gives no solution, suggests none, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski

... memory, as he writes down the narrative of what had interested him most in it. 'I write in the hope that my history will never see the broad daylight of publication,' he tells us, scarcely meaning it, we may be sure, even in the moment of hesitancy which may naturally come to him. But if ever a book was written for the pleasure of writing it, it was this one; and an autobiography written for oneself is not likely ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled lady on a camel. But in Venice so many things were happening at once—more, Tony was sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a twelve-month or in Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by their garb, were people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... 253. HESITANCY IN ATTACKING THE PROBLEM.—The American people have been singularly backward about grappling with the problem of fitting ten million Negro citizens into the fabric of American democracy. One explanation of this backwardness is that until recently many have believed that the ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson

... many people gathered about this entrance: men in evening dress, men in shabby, insignificant clothes, women in varying types of costume. Max would have lingered to study the little crowd, but Blake looked upon his hesitancy with distrust, and still retaining the grip upon his shoulder, half led, half pushed him through a short passage straight into the dancing-hall, where on the instant his ears were assailed by a flood of joyous sound in the form of a rhythmic, swinging ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... the colonists, which received them, as it were, with open arms and began to cleanse their bodies by removing the paint. In both of these experiments the recognition appeared to be instantaneous; there was no hesitancy whatever. ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... man and walked with the erectness of one who had been a soldier. The way in which he carried himself and strode was extraordinarily reminiscent. Tabs slowed down and looked back; the man moved straight ahead, without hesitancy or sign of recognition. It couldn't be Braithwaite; Ann's vicinity was the least likely place ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... talk over. I asked if they felt they knew what to do in the meeting for worship. Their happy confidence that they did know was a pleasant surprise, as I have found many Friends, young and old, who are in need of suggestions and guides. I asked these three what they did in the silence. After some hesitancy, one brightened and replied, "I talk over my problems with God." I told her that was a splendid thing to do. For young people of thirteen or thereabouts, it is enough that they talk over their problems with God, or engage in some other simple and sincere exercise. For some older people ...
— An Interpretation of Friends Worship • N. Jean Toomer

... credit her hesitancy. It was a deceit, he felt, a bit of theatricalism,—the simulated modesty of a woman ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... Christianity, as illustrated in four principal scenes of the life of St. Peter, supplies the material for the dramatic development of the subject. The overture, beginning with an adagio movement in B-flat minor, gives expression to the vague yearnings of that time of doubt and hesitancy when the "oracles were dumb," and the dawning of a new era of stronger and diviner faith was matter of presentiment rather than of definite hope or expectation. Though the tonality is at first firmly established, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... to its natural color. The proprietors will mail to anyone who sends name and address, a free trial package of the remedy so that all may test it for themselves. As it is a pure vegetable product you need have no hesitancy in using it freely, as it cannot harm the most tender scalp. Write to-day to the Altenheim Medical Dispensary, 3156 Foso Building, Cincinnati, Ohio, enclosing a 2-cent stamp to cover postage, and they will forward the free trial package ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various

... the volume of "Les Evangiles." He brings out the contradiction between the literary taste of the artist, which is delicate, individual, and true, and the opinions of the critic, which are borrowed, old-fashioned and wavering. This hesitancy of choice between the beautiful and the true, between poetry and prose, between art and learning, is, in fact, characteristic. Renan has a keen love for science, but he has a still keener love for good writing, and, if necessary, he will sacrifice the exact phrase ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... proposes to benefit, he is set upon, mobbed, hustled, mussed and finally ejected from the door with a battered hat and torn coat collar. Every other broking office in the Street has a pictorial caricature hanging over its ticker of his hesitancy and timidity, his rash venture, his silly and short-lived hilarity, his speedy and inevitable ruin, and his final departure, with his face distorted by rage and grief, and his ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... be completely mistress of herself.... Thus her flights of thought, like carrier-pigeons, never fail to reach their end, although at times they circle and hover as though troubled by some mysterious hesitancy or temptation to turn back from ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis

... After some hesitancy, I yielded to a desire to appear in a visible form before an assembled company of Muteite philosophers who were gathered in one of the under-surface halls ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... and Chester followed him. Hal mounted the steps without hesitancy and turned the knob of the door. The door opened and the lad stepped inside, where he halted with a cry of surprise. Chester peered over ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes

... accomplishment of his desire, but the same Divine power which had implanted the desire, prepared the way for its fulfilment. He visited Manchester, shortly after the event just related, to be present at a Wesleyan Conference; and while there, with much hesitancy and trepidation, ventured to knock at the door of Mr. Roby's house and request an interview with that gentleman. He was shown into the parlour, and the man whom he had been hoping, yet dreaded, to see, quickly made his appearance. "He received ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane

... rest, gentlemen. Lylda told me little about the Malites, but the loathing disgust of her manner, her hesitancy, even to bring herself to mention them, ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... questions vaguely referring to the same subject. His jealous devotion to Pierre rebelled against this preference. And Pierre felt as though he could hear him thinking; he guessed and understood, read in his averted eyes and in the hesitancy of his tone, the words which rose to his lips but were not spoken—which the druggist was too timid or too ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant

... men? Alas, he did not know. Why, then, this hesitancy! Once more he essayed the effort, but a qualm of nausea overwhelmed ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... feeling, can exist without the civility of a call, and, when there is too great a hesitancy on the part of a resident to call upon the newcomer, one is reminded either of the priest or the Levite as they "passed by upon the other side," or is forced to recall the parvenue's dread of losing a footing in ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... relative quality of his magic. Therefore, he objected once more on another ground: "I am not eloquent, neither heretofore nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." This continued hesitancy put the Lord out of patience; who retorted sharply, "Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... and there was hesitancy now in his voice. "Is not the burial of the dead enjoined by Mother Church? Is it not a part of ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... I must ask you to supply me with the names of those making complaints against me and the nature of their complaints, and as you also state the public generally have made complaints, I trust there should be no hesitancy on the part of the Company to supply me with the information asked for, as you can readily see it is beyond the realm ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith

... himself as effect. Try to imagine a billiard ball which feels it moves others, but which does not feel that it is moved. What we call decision is an idea which decides us because it exercises more power over us than the others do; what we term deliberation is a hesitancy between two or three ideas which at the moment have equal force; what we name volition is an idea, and what we call will is our understanding applied to facts. We do not want to fight; we conceive the idea of fighting and the idea carries us away; we do not want to hang ourselves; ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... hours Darrell entertained his friends; quaint medleys, dreamy waltzes, and bits of classical music following one after another, with no effort, no hesitancy, on the part of the player. To their eager inquiries, he could ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... her ladyship confessed, and fell for a moment into consideration of that delicious and rather amusing past, when O'Moy's ferocious hesitancy and flaming jealousy had delighted her with the full perception of her beauty's power. With a rush, however, the present forced itself back upon her notice. "But I still don't see why Count Samoval should have offered ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... apologetic tone the Knight had used, seemed warrant for her hesitancy, and rendered ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... complicated by a further revolution in Hungary where a Soviet Government was established, and Bela Kun endeavoured to rule after the manner of Lenin. The Russian Bolsheviks were, however, unable to help their Hungarian pupils, in spite of the hesitancy shown by the Allies in dealing with the situation; and early in August Bela Kun's government fell before domestic reaction and the advance of the Rumanian army, which occupied Buda-Pesth. At last Rumania had her revenge, and it required energetic protests on the part of Versailles to induce ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... because it may supply too much food value or too much protein. However, if the fact that a high-protein food is to be served at the end of the meal is taken into account when the remainder of the meal is planned, there need be no hesitancy in serving cheese with pie. Of course, when cheese is to be included in the meal in this way, the portions of the protein foods served with the main course should ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... manner. Still Job stood watching the soldiers, listening to the band until it had moved onward, past the spot where he was. Then his eyes fell on the hearse, and he took one eager step forward. Surely that was a familiar sight! The carriages came next, and by that time there was no hesitancy in his mind; for at length he recognized all the solemn import of the procession. It was a funeral, and in funerals Job had often borne a conspicuous part. The band was doubtless his call to duty; and should any one say that he had ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... glad that you approve of what I did," she said. "I confess I had some hesitancy, but not enough to prevent my carrying out the design. But when the first effort proved without result, I set about making a study of all the Humes in the directory. I had my secretary make me a typed list of them, with their addresses and occupations, ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre

... When I considered that, with all our speed, We are not laughing yet at funerals. I see him now as I could see him then, And I see now that it was good for me, As it was good for him, that I was quiet; For Time's eye was on Ferguson, and the shaft Of its inquiring hesitancy had touched him, Or so I chose to fancy more than once Before he told of Norcross. When the word Of his release (he would have called it so) Made half an inch of news, there were no tears That are recorded. Women there may have been To wish him back, though I should say, not ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson

... thought, he also met. He had evidently scarcely any other quality than presumption. I told him at last that, from the inhabitants in the vicinity, it was necessary that he should speak Dutch. This seemed a poser, but, after some hesitancy and hemming, and the re-mustering of his cardinal presumption, he thought he could shortly render himself qualified to speak. I admired the very presumption of the theory, and finally told him to call the next day ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... early sentiment favorable to prompt ratification, that part of the Treaty which related to a League of Nations met a variety of opposing forces. Some of them were based on personal, political and partisan considerations, and some of them founded upon a sincere hesitancy about adventuring into new and untried fields of international effort. In the main, party lines were somewhat strictly drawn in the Senate, the Democrats favoring and the Republicans opposing ratification of the treaty as it stood.[12] All debates in the Senate relating to the treaty ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... as in an earthquake, nothing is secure, everyone doubts his neighbour. If those who are prepared to support authority can only discover at the right moment one little group round whom they can rally, and who they know will think nothing of death in performance of duty, the danger is over at once. Hesitancy disappears, and the normal is instantly produced. We filed out to find the infantry in their ranks, and the horsemen mounted in line, ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... had come pouring through the breach. If I said that my labors of ten years had been useless or that the fruition of John Benham's ideals for his son were still in doubt I should be putting the matter too strongly, but I have no hesitancy in confessing that the appearance of the girl had at least put them in jeopardy. She had turned his mind into a direction which I had carefully avoided. He must think now and ask questions that I could not be ready to answer. By this time it must be well understood that I have ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... drew rein, and remained for some moments in a state of hesitancy, as to whether I should ride forward or go back. A feeling of shame was upon me, and I believe I would have turned my horse and stolen gently away, but just then I saw the fair rider draw forth from ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid

... infirmity of purpose, indecision; indetermination, undetermination^; unsettlement; uncertainty &c 475; demur, suspense; hesitating &c v., hesitation, hesitancy; vacillation; changeableness &c 149; fluctuation; alternation &c (oscillation) 314; caprice &c 608. fickleness, levity, legerete [Fr.]; pliancy &c (softness) 324; weakness; timidity &c 860; cowardice &c 862; half measures. waverer, ass between two bundles of hay; shuttlecock, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... drop no word that would have aroused suspicion as to the truth. With a slight misgiving I presented him to her and was again relieved of fear. She received the introduction in her usual gracious manner, and without the least hesitancy or embarrassment joined in the conversation. An amusing part about the introduction was that I was upon the point of introducing him as "Shiny," and stammered a second or two before I could recall his name. We chatted for some fifteen minutes. He was spending his vacation north, with ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson

... He was a broad-shouldered man of medium height, with a yellowish mustache and brown hair. He was dressed in rather shabby clothes, without an overcoat, and he had a soft felt hat in his hand. The most noticeable thing about him was a slight hesitancy in his walk. He was not lame, he did not limp, yet his left foot seemed to halt for an instant as he brought it forward in the step. They learned afterwards that it had been hurt in a mine cave-in. He carried himself with ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... is with great hesitancy that I write to add to the burdens of one so busy and burdened as I presume you to be. But it is not for myself but for others that I write, and will try ...
— The Repair Of Casa Grande Ruin, Arizona, in 1891 • Cosmos Mindeleff

... could feel it. And it hurt," said my junior officer with shame-faced hesitancy. "But I'll forget ...
— Priestess of the Flame • Sewell Peaslee Wright

... elbow; but after he had properly attended to the other people whose claims came first, he served her nicely with whatever was good for her. Was Daisy going to omit her usual giving of thanks? She thought of her mother's interference with a moment's flash of hesitancy; but resolved to go on just as usual. She did not think she would be noticed, everybody was so busy; and at any rate there was a burden of gladness in her little heart that must speak. While the talking and laughing and click of knives ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... believed, at the crisis, Weedie could be managed. Miss Amabel had startled his mind broad awake to what she called the great issues and what he felt were vital ones. He went on over the bridge, and up the stairs of the old Choate Building to Alston's office, and, from some sudden hesitancy, tapped ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... of the Socialist Party.—'The Socialists of the United States would have no hesitancy whatsoever in joining forces with the rest of their countrymen to repel the Bolsheviki who would try to invade our country and force a form of government upon our people which our people were not ready for, and did ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... section. Moreover, he's called upon to receive orders with calm and reserve under the most difficult and trying circumstances, must grasp them with lightning speed and execute them according to rules and tactics. A moment of hesitancy or forgetfulness, and he is lost. The men will no longer follow him. I tell you it isn't everybody that's born to be ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... saw was a broad-shouldered, finely-formed young man, who stood so erect, that he seemed taller than he really was. A face which strangers would trust without a moment's hesitancy; large dark-blue eyes, thick brown hair just inclined to curl at the ends; and a smile which would have made the plainest face handsome and which was Grey's chief point of attraction, if we except his voice, which, though rich and full, was very sweet, and expressive of the genuine ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... lay before Cap'n Amazon, opened at the page containing the shipping news. His glance dropped to the sailing notices and with scarcely a moment's hesitancy he said: ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... day, and read them to some of the chief citizens. But irony was not for those people; their mental vision was not focused for it. They read those playful trifles in the solidest terms, and decided without hesitancy that if there had ever been any doubt that Dave Wilson was a pudd'nhead—which there hadn't—this revelation removed that doubt for good and all. That is just the way in this world; an enemy can partly ruin a man, but it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... tranquillity which was a condition of the stability of all internal affairs was assured. Such occasional misunderstandings as might crop up among the Powers could, they imagined, always be smoothed over by manifestations of goodwill and timely concessions. Fitfulness and hesitancy marked every attempt made by Germany's rivals to push their trade or extend their political relations beyond their ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... part, and it may very well be that two case workers who differ in personality but are of equal ability, will choose very different plans of treatment in a given case and yet each bring it to a successful issue. It is with a good deal of hesitancy, therefore, that a case worker ventures upon the discussion of anything so flexible as treatment. In preparation for this study many consultations were had with practising social case workers in the fields ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord

... man who measures up more nearly to the stature of a great poet than any other American—Edgar Allan Poe. Outside of America, there has never been any hesitancy in pronouncing Poe the first poet of his country; but, at home, it is only recently his real merit has come to be ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson

... He would come to-morrow, no doubt; and the oftener she repeated to herself his assertion that he had never betrayed affectionate trust, the more earnestly she felt prompted, in spite of the abbess' counsel, to abandon all hesitancy, to follow the impulse of her heart, and to be his at once in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... instance—might have noted his hesitancy, might have realized that coming to a place does not imply ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... extempore speech. It was at a temperance meeting. Bright got his notes muddled, and broke down. The chairman gave out a temperance song, and during the singing told Bright to put his notes aside and say what came into his mind. Bright obeyed, began with much hesitancy, but found his tongue and made an excellent address. On some early occasions, however, he committed his speech to memory. In 1832 he called on the Rev. John Aldis, an eminent Baptist minister, to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... colleagues must attend that hearing, Susan consulted with her friends in Congress and overrode Mrs. Hooker's hesitancy about associating their organization with so questionable a woman as Victoria Woodhull. She engaged a constitutional lawyer, Albert G. Riddle,[262] to represent the 30,000 women who had petitioned Congress for the franchise. Then she and Mrs. Hooker ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... out. But there was something else surely goading the girl than mere intolerance of the family tradition. The hesitancy, the moral doubt of her conversation with Langham, seemed to have vanished wholly in ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... of hesitancy the villain turned and strode from the place. When Nell attempted to follow she was confronted by a solid oak door that Elliston had quickly closed and ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... classical illustration of the difficulty in gauging the latter being the rejection of "John Inglesant" by the late James Payn, then "reader" for an eminent firm. While fully recognising the remarkable gifts of the author Mr. Payn's hesitancy as to the book's attractions got the better of his judgment; and with "The House of Merrilees" it is now an open secret that very much the same point of view was taken in more than one instance. Mr. Marshall's "Peter Binney, Undergraduate," had been and ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale

... the airships became more daring. Their ability to soar to a great height offered them complete protection against gun-fire, and accordingly sallies over the hostile lines were carried out. But even here a certain hesitancy became manifest. This was perfectly excusable, for the simple reason that the dirigible, above all, is a fair-weather craft, and disasters, which had overtaken these vessels time after time, rendered prudence imperative. ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... persons who, from having used various forms of medicated bougies—having had sounds, catheters and bougies roughly passed upon them by unskillful persons—or merely from an indistinct belief, based upon hearsay or tradition, feel some hesitancy about passing anything into the organ for fear that it may do harm, cause pain, or ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown

... slow centuries of growth. The accumulation of moss on the tree-trunks, as well as the shading of the leaves, told me that we continued to journey almost directly westward; and there was no perceptible hesitancy in our steady progress, save as we deviated from it here and there because of natural obstacles too formidable to ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish

... of these moral vagaries, the master could not help noticing in her different tasks the workings of a quick, restless, and vigorous perception. She knew neither the hesitancy nor the doubts of childhood. Her answers in class were always slightly dashed with audacity. Of course she was not infallible. But her courage and daring in venturing beyond her own depth and that of the floundering little swimmers around her, in ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... did not know that we had an artist in Chicago who could copy the work of one of the best European painters so that there need be a moment's hesitancy in detecting differences, but it seems I am mistaken. I am almost as puzzled as ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe

... trap. He had conceived the idea after reading the report of a Mercurian expedition that explored the dens of the divided trunks at some place marked "Coney Island." According to the reports the divided trunks showed no hesitancy in entering these types of dens. In fact, the writer of the report gave it as his opinion that the divided ones perhaps played games in these types of caves. It also mentioned that some of the dens were equipped with flat shiny surfaces that cast ...
— Solar Stiff • Chas. A. Stopher

... Half an hour later found them still together, standing with linked hands. In Rooke's eyes there was a quiet light of triumph, while Nan's attitude betrayed a kind of hesitancy, as of one driven along ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... architect, from the line of the wall; but I had no open sesame to form vistas through them into the recesses of the past. I saw merely the stiff pastry matrix of which they are composed, and the inclosed pebbles. But the boulder-clay has of late become more sociable; and, though with much hesitancy and irresolution, like old Mr. Spectator on the first formal opening of his mouth,—a consequence, doubtless, in both cases of previous habits of silence long indulged,—it begins to tell its story. And a ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... to the Horitic element—in the obscurity of the early history of the continent, which may be here mentioned, but from the diversity of the sub-elements which enter into it, some hesitancy exists in giving it a name. In order to secure the purposes of generalization, and include every element of which it is composed, it may be called, provisionally, the MEDITERRANEAN PERIOD. It is the earliest and most obscure of the whole, relying, as it ...
— Incentives to the Study of the Ancient Period of American History • Henry R. Schoolcraft

... the blood from their wounds, Murden joined us. He looked astonished to think that we took so much interest in the men, and after a moment's hesitancy, said,— ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... morning of the second day there that our defence was put to the test by a regiment of combined Irish and Athole men. The day was misty, with the frost in a hesitancy, a raw gowsty air sweeping over the hills. Para Mor, standing on the little north bastion or ravelin, as his post of sergeant always demanded, had been crooning a ditty and carving a scroll with his hunting-knife on a crook he would maybe use when he got back to the tack where his home ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... regard to taste or direction, his gaze fixed upon the trim, slender figure in blue. He now saw that her dark eyes were filled with a soft seriousness that belied her brave smile; a delicate pink had come into her clear, high-bred face; the hesitancy of the gentlewoman enveloped her with a mantle that shielded her from any suspicion of boldness. Brock struggled to his feet, ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... believe now this board is organized with a president who is heart and soul for the success of the exposition. Without being tied up to anything in the way of local interests, it will be better able to compete with the coming situation. There is, and has been a great deal of hesitancy on the part of the National Commission about attempting to outline a plan of action for this board of lady managers. We provided for your appointment according to law, and we fell into the belief, I hope it was not an error, that the ladies on ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission

... would be naught—to gain him the courage to clasp the maiden to his breast; yet, so intense his awe, he would not strain a spider's web to risk the maid's good will.—The maid—who shall say what passes in her mind? That the youth should adventure, she could wish; yet his very hesitancy bespeaks his devotion true. Were he to fall about her neck, embrace her close, and demand the kiss of love—most like she would recoil aghast—at first! Yet if he desisted—she would also recoil aghast.—What should he do, poor awkward youth? what she?—One thing onlookers will do: ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain

... to a very perfect state of drill and efficiency. All commands were given in French—the native tongue of nearly all the officers and most of the men; and, in cases of insubordination, the former had no hesitancy in a free use of the revolver. A wonderful peacemaker ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon

... piece of information Mr. Stuyvesant whirled about again in added astonishment. "Why," said he, "this upsets—one theory completely. I declare, if that's true we're all at sea. I beg pardon," he continued, but now with marked hesitancy—"you know—you've heard, ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... the cold, glittering Avelin, there was a grass-grown track, and an ancient, broken-backed bridge. There were few passers on the high-road, none on this deserted way; but the girl in all her loneliness shrank back into the shadow. In these minutes she endured the bitter mistrust, the sore hesitancy, of awaiting on ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... the young inventor understood. Mr. Swift was getting rather along in age, and his long years of brain work had made him nervous. He had a great fear of Morse and his gang, for they had made much trouble for him in the past. Tom appreciated his chum's hesitancy, and guessed that Ned had something to say that he did not ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton

... the flour, pay the costs and indemnify the owners reasonably, since the latter were entirely innocent and had depended upon the usual rights and immunities of neutral shippers in time of war. The fact was pointed out that the situation was causing an uncertainty and hesitancy in business circles which was detrimental to all American interests. Although a number of the consignments were being delivered at Delagoa Bay, presumably by English ships, it was alleged that the seizures and the unforeseen ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell









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