"Unsteadiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in as a witness for God against the sinner upon the account of that unsteadiness and variety that were in them, both touching God, and their own selves. Sometimes the man thinks there is no God, but that everything hath its rise of itself, or by chance, or fortune—"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... one of my shoes," said Rodriguez, "leaving the other on. It will equalise our unsteadiness, and you shall not be disappointed in our ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... side-walks, it covered them with a slimy mixture very difficult to walk on. From the windows I could see people slipping and sliding about so much, that any one ignorant of the cause might, have attributed their unsteadiness to the strength of their morning libations; the absence of women from the streets making that solution appear possible, if ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... think of. She would not believe that Bertram was one of these; but it was fearful to think that any one should so call him. Caroline, perhaps, would not so much have minded this flaw in her future husband's faith if it had not been proof of his unsteadiness, of his unfitness for the world's battle. She remembered what he had said to her two years since on the Mount of Olives; and then thought of what he was saying now. Everything with him was impulse and enthusiasm. All judgment was wanting. How ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... receive the answer that need not be spoken in words. But all vestige of colour was gone from her face, and the unsteadiness of her beautiful mouth cut ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... amongst the Mexicans, to judge from the degree of confusion which suddenly showed itself in their ranks, and which, beginning with the cavalry and right flank of the infantry, soon became general throughout their whole force. It was a sort of wavering and unsteadiness which, to us, was quite unaccountable, for Fanning and Wharton had not yet fired twenty shots, and, indeed, had only just come within range of the enemy. Not knowing what it could portend, I called in my men, and stationed them round the gun, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... to pounce; yet he did not, lolling back in the stern-sheets, very much at his ease. The tiller under his arm wobbled, and he wobbled with it. In spite of those staring eyes of his, there was a dreadful unsteadiness about the man. Was he ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... stone or brick facings and precipitated them into the ditch below, at the same time disarranging and breaking up the brick pavements which covered their surface. The weight of the buildings raised upon the monads must have tended to hasten these catastrophes, while the unsteadiness of their foundations and the character of their composition must have soon had the effect of throwing the buildings themselves into disorder, of loosening the slabs from the walls, causing the enamelled ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... cold dignity. If he had been a dupe, he was one no longer, as could be plainly read on his calm, pale face. The old listlessness, the unsteadiness had vanished. He wore a manner of extreme quietude; but his eyes were like balls ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... harim bhajati, for the sake of liberation he worships Hari; vtya kapil vidyut, adark red lightning indicates wind. Very interesting, too, is the construction with the prohibitive m; e.g. m cpalya, lit. not for unsteadiness, i.e., do ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... he exclaimed. "I say, Cuckoo, who the—?" The question faded on his lips as he saw Doctor Levillier, on whom he gazed with a vacant surprise that, added to the unsteadiness of his movement upon them, spoke his condition ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... those who do not love Mr. Chamberlain either personally or politically, to watch him during this episode. When the son first stood up, the pallor of the face, the unsteadiness of the voice, the broken and stumbling accents, told of the high state of nervous strain through which he was passing, and it was easy to see that the emotions of the son had communicated themselves to the father. Mr. Chamberlain had his hat low down on his forehead so ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... for Marvin, since, with the wind against her, Cherry Valley would not be likely to do much punting and Carmine's backfield unsteadiness would not count. He managed to get more speed into the Maroon-and-Grey and toward the end of the period two long punts, poorly returned, put her within scoring distance. On the thirty yards Brimfield uncorked her real offence and Kendall and Harris and St. Clair hammered the line ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... found their proper orbit, for his character was one not unusual among literary politicians; a combination of knowledge, eloquence, and enthusiasm for ideal excellence, with vanity, inexperience of mankind, unsteadiness, and physical timidity. As these latter qualities became conspicuous, they eclipsed his virtues, and caused his benefits to be forgotten: he was compelled to abdicate his government, and retire into exile. After several years, some of which he passed in the prison of Avignon, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... had studied her part for the occasion. She would not say a harsh word, and now she endeavoured to meet him with a smile. 'Mother,' he said, 'you up at this hour!' His face was flushed, and she thought that there was some unsteadiness in his gait. She had never seen him tipsy, and it would be doubly terrible to her if such ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... achieved in recent years by Beck, who developed an intensive flame carbon-arc. His chief object was to send a much greater current through the arc than had been done previously without increasing the size of the carbons and the unsteadiness of the arc. In the ordinary arc excessive current causes the carbons to disintegrate rapidly unless they are of large diameter. Beck directed a stream of alcohol vapor at the arc and they were kept from oxidizing. He thus achieved a high current-density and much greater beam intensities. He also ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... be extremely moderate on account of the unsteadiness of labor and exceeding uncertainty of crops of all sorts, but especially of cane ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... receiver at his ear. He looks round for an instant at Saxham as he waits for the intelligence, and the muscles of his face twitch as if under the influence of some strong, repressed emotion, and the Doctor's practised glance notes the unsteadiness of the uplifted hand. Then he is saying to the officer in charge at ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... The slight unsteadiness of his tone at first surprised, then brought her almost to the point of confusion. Their eyes met—a startled glance on her part, merely to assure herself that he was in earnest—and afterwards there was a moment's embarrassment. ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... exterior, so that now he could not show his feelings. People told him he was unemotional; but he knew that he was at the mercy of his emotions: an accidental kindness touched him so much that sometimes he did not venture to speak in order not to betray the unsteadiness of his voice. He remembered the bitterness of his life at school, the humiliation which he had endured, the banter which had made him morbidly afraid of making himself ridiculous; and he remembered the loneliness he had felt since, faced with the world, the disillusion ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Germans it may be said that, as a rule, they had, until recently, no special liking for the tempo rubato. Dr. Hanslick, the eminent Viennese critic, referred to it thirty years ago, as "a morbid unsteadiness of tempo." Mendelssohn, who always liked a "nice, swift tempo," repeatedly expressed his aversion to Chopin's rubato. Nevertheless, traces of it may be found in the rhythms of the classical school. Although Mozart's tempo in general was as strict and uniform ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... the greatest stumbling-block to the construction of larger telescopes is the fact that the unsteadiness of the air will be increasingly magnified. And further, the larger the tubes become, the more difficult will it be to keep the air within them at one constant temperature throughout ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... she was with the baby. He missed his handkerchief, and rose and went over, with a swaying unsteadiness, to his chiffonier drawer in the farther corner to get one. A pistol lying there in its leather case, as it had done any time this five years, for a reserve protection against burglars, caught his eyes. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... walk with Selden had represented an irresistible flight from just such a climax as the present excursion was designed to bring about. But other memories importuned her also; the recollection of similar situations, as skillfully led up to, but through some malice of fortune, or her own unsteadiness of purpose, always failing of the intended result. Well, her purpose was steady enough now. She saw that the whole weary work of rehabilitation must begin again, and against far greater odds, if Bertha Dorset should succeed in breaking up her friendship with the Gormers; and her longing for shelter ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... doctor laid a steady hand upon the lean wrist beside him. As he had supposed, the pulse was leaping with a furious unsteadiness. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... during her momentary gasp, Tuppence's right hand shot out and grasped the revolver where it lay on the edge of the washstand. The next moment she had sprung back a pace, and the revolver pointed straight at Mrs. Vandemeyer's heart, with no unsteadiness in ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... said he, 'will afflict men with diseases of their nerves. They shall tremble and shake when there is nothing to be afraid of. And when they draw the bow-strings, their arrows shall go wide of the mark by reason of the unsteadiness of eye and hand. And we will send upon them in their sleep evil dreams. The ghosts of the snakes which they have needlessly killed shall twine about them, with fearful fangs, ready to pierce their flesh, and the cold sweat of terror shall ooze from their skin, and they shall awake ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... week of the recess of parliament. But Miss Sidney, who had great delicacy of feeling and dignity of character, thought that Vivian had of late shown some symptoms of decreased affection, and that he had betrayed signs of unsteadiness of character. In the whole affair of the castle-building and of the election, he had evidently been led by others instead of following his own conviction:—she wisely dreaded that he might, in more important actions, yield his judgment to others; and then what security could she have for ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Mervin?" I called to Stoner when he came out from the dug-out, and moved cautiously across the yard. There was a certain unsteadiness in his gait, but he was regaining his nerve; he had really been more surprised than hurt. He disappeared without answering my question, probably he had not ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... Quay she felt she could not go aboard the Oriana yet. In spite of the unsteadiness of her feet it was very pleasant to be walking about in a new land, so, taking out Louis's letter again she went on rather blindly through the wharves, reading it. A Japanese boat was loading; smells of garlic and of spice and sandalwood were wafted to her from the holds and weaved ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... deadly skill with a gun. Bostil felt that he was neither afraid nor loath to face Sears in gun-play, and he gazed at the little horse-thief in a manner that no one could mistake. Sears was not drunk, neither was he wholly free from the unsteadiness caused by the bottle. Assuredly he had no fear of Bostil and eyed him insolently. Bostil turned away to the group of his riders and friends, and he asked for ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... me only as a man in need of advice, and incidentally a fellow-sufferer in Paris; for he had no knowledge of music, and had no particular interest in it. We soon became so intimate that I had him dropping in nearly every evening with Anders, Lehrs being extremely useful to his friend, whose unsteadiness in walking obliged him to use an umbrella and a walking-stick as crutches. He was also nervous in crossing crowded thorough-fares, and particularly so at night; while he always liked to make Lehrs cross my threshold in front of him to distract the attention of Robber, of whom he ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... interest of the drama deepens with every new expression, but at least you can learn from it that your parents in the nineteenth century were not to blame for losing the sense of unity in art. As early as the fourteenth century, signs of unsteadiness appeared, and, before the eighteenth century, unity became only a reminiscence. The old habit of centralizing a strain at one point, and then dividing and subdividing it, and distributing it on visible lines of support to a visible foundation, ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... the would-be regicide, they are so almost certain to miss, at long or short range. Alas there is no halo of sovereignty or "hedge of divinity" about our poor Presidents! It is, perhaps, because of this unsteadiness of nerve and aim, that Continental regicides are taking to sterner and surer means—believing that no thrice blessed crown can dazzle off dynamite, and that no ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... author of a "Complete Concordance of the Holy Scriptures," with which alone his name is now associated; born in Aberdeen; intended for the Church, but from unsteadiness of intellect not qualified to enter it; was placed frequently in restraint; appears to have been a good deal employed as a press corrector; gave himself out as "Alexander the Corrector," commissioned to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of silence, except the essential communication or the mutterings of the Maccabee against his weakness and unsteadiness. On the fourth day the Maccabee declared that he was able to travel. Joseph protested, but not for long. He had learned in the sojourn of his guest that this man was in the habit of doing as he pleased. So the shepherd sighed and let ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... and sublimely free from the common and dangerous passion for applause: that passion which, though taken altogether, it is certainly beneficial to the interests of mankind, yet frequently communicates inquietude and unsteadiness to the pursuits of Genius and Virtue. As human praise was never the object of his ambition, so he has nobly soared above it. There appear, in different ages upon the Earth, certain elevated spirits, who, by the ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... after the unhappy circumstance we have related, in the bar-room of a Broadway hotel, in New York city, a colonel of volunteers, moustached and uniformed, and evidently in a very unmilitary condition of unsteadiness, was entertaining a group of convivial acquaintances, with bacchanalian exercises ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... This inconstancy and unsteadiness, to which we must so often find ourselves liable, ought certainly to teach us moderation and forbearance towards those who cannot accommodate themselves to our sentiments: if they are deceived, we have no right to attribute their mistake to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... became visible, as if suspended between the two hands that grasped a doorpost on each side of the face. The tassel of his blue woollen nightcap, cocked forward, danced gaily over his left eyelid. He stepped out in a tottering stride. He looked powerful as ever, but showed a strange and affected unsteadiness in his gait; his face was perhaps a trifle thinner, and his eyes appeared rather startlingly prominent. He seemed to hasten the retreat of departing light by his very presence; the setting sun dipped sharply, as though fleeing before our nigger; a black mist emanated from him; a subtle and dismal ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... perceived that there was a growing change, a declension, in her style. She seemed to lose the spirit of the nocturne and even her command on the instrument; the firm touch faltered into indecision, from indecision to absolute unsteadiness; the notes, before clear and distinct, now slurred into one another ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... my brain. My heart was torn with anguish. The perseverance and the filial piety of Smithson, so opposite to my unsteadiness and unnatural disloyalty, confounded and unmanned me. I burst into tears before the faithful Thompson, and covered ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... and she had been forced to return home. If such were the case, he vowed to withdraw her from such galling slavery; he swore by some means to make her his own. But when her letter reached him, when he had perused its contents, and marked that not one word gave evidence of agitation of mind or unsteadiness of purpose, the current of his feelings changed. He cursed his own mad folly for thus seeking one, in whom from the first he might have seen there was no spirit, no quality suited to be his partner in a fashionable world; he vowed to think no more of a weak, capricious fool, so he now termed ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... made his appearance after supper it was evident by his flushed face, and a slight unsteadiness in his manner of walking, that he had carried his intentions with regard to the champagne into effect; and, heedless of my warning, he proceeded to lay violent siege to Miss Clapperton, to induce her to waltz with him. I was watching them with some little amusement, for the struggle ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... on the side-table." Hamilton followed the other with his eyes and noted the greedy unsteadiness of the fingers ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... we can behold how false, and also the unsteadiness of the hearts of the children of men; yea, we can see that the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... romantic spirit, a sort of wonder-loving imagination, and a disposition towards enthusiastic flights of the fancy, which to sober persons has the appearance of a temporary derangement. As the former effect must become injurious by producing forwardness, so this must become so by producing unsteadiness, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... Ignacio, "what sort of a man I—was once. Indeed, it seems very strange to myself that you should have been here not twenty-four hours yet, and know so much of me. For there has come no one else at all"—the Padre paused a moment and mastered the unsteadiness that he had felt approaching in his voice—"there has been no one else to whom I have talked so freely. In my early days I had no thought of being a priest. By parents destined me for a diplomatic career. There was plenty of money and—and all the rest of it; for by inheritance came to me ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... as he said it, had made me start as if I had seen him illuminated by a blaze of light. Recalled by his request, preferred in quite another tone of voice, I did the honours of the shaving-pot; but I did them with an unsteadiness of hand, a sudden sense of being no match for him, and a perplexed suspicious anxiety as to what he might be going to say next, which I felt ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... informal groups, and sat together puffing at cigarettes, sipping tea, and talking, in a desultory fashion, while the underlying tension increased, and more than one man wondered a little at the weakness of his knees and the slight unsteadiness of the hand upholding glass or match. Vladimir de Windt, Ivan's acknowledged chum, was doubly concerned and doubly restless. He shuffled his chair from group to group, his eyes asking anxious and unanswerable questions of each comrade with ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... and see the injustice righted. It was not an enviable position, the one in which he stood. He felt it to be only human that in the face of this acid test the old inventor's affection and allegiance toward him should waver, and that Janoah would detect and rejoice in its unsteadiness. But as Bob relied upon ultimately solving the conundrum, he felt he could endure a short interval of unmerited distrust. It was in Delight and Tiny, who were unconscious of any false note in his relation to the household, that he placed his hopes for aid. Hence it was with no small degree ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... put ajar! Or, after nightfall, a great many of the stars might be loosened from their places, and shower down, like fiery rain, upon the people's heads! And how ashamed would the hero be if, owing to his unsteadiness beneath its weight, the sky should crack and show a ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... Clitellus and Summanus, gave him an extra coin, and signalled me to rise. I lurched to my feet, swaying, almost as drunk as our victims and beholding Agathemer swaying before me, not only because of my blurred eyesight, but also because of his unsteadiness on his feet. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... and nephews and nieces—and has sat in church with 'em whenever he thought well to come," said Mrs. Waule. "And might have left his property so respectable, to them that's never been used to extravagance or unsteadiness in no manner of way—and not so poor but what they could have saved every penny and made more of it. And me—the trouble I've been at, times and times, to come here and be sisterly—and him with things on his mind all the while ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... observed, to be of the convulsive kind, and of the nature of that distemper called St. Vitus's dance; and in this opinion I am confirmed by the description which Sydenham gives of that disease. 'This disorder is a kind of convulsion. It manifests itself by halting or unsteadiness of one of the legs, which the patient draws after him like an ideot. If the hand of the same side be applied to the breast, or any other part of the body, he cannot keep it a moment in the same posture, but it will be drawn into a different ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... hastened down the steps to stop the carriage; but all the old ladies were there to see, and she simply stood, and gazed after the vehicle as it rolled away slowly behind the jog trot of Samuel's safe, old calico-horse. She stood and looked, holding her chin very high, and trying to check its unsteadiness. ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... N. N. E. which forced him to lie-to. He brought the schooner to the wind under a double-reefed foresail alone, when she rode as well as any vessel could be expected to do, and shipped not a drop of water. Toward night the gale somewhat abated, and she rolled with more unsteadiness than before, but still did very well, until a heavy lurch threw her upon her beam-ends to starboard. The corn was then heard to shift bodily, the force of the movement bursting open the main hatchway. The vessel went down like a shot. This happened within ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Anyway you've been crying about something; and ten to one it's Burney. I saw him coming away from here, and I had the biggest mind to ask him what business he had to be prowling round a place where he was turned off for unsteadiness." ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... and was forced to quit my pen. And so much weaker and worse I grew, that had I resumed it, to have closed here, it must have been with such trembling unsteadiness, that it would have given you more concern for me, than the delay of sending it away by last night's post can do. I deferred it, therefore, to see how it would please God to deal with me. And I find myself, after a better night than I expected, ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... does not mean unsteadiness.... We must have in music the sense of equilibrium, of stability. A careless, spasmodic hurrying and retarding leads only to ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... cylinder involve expensive construction and unsteadiness. Experience has conclusively proved that it does not pay to build air compressors with vertical cylinders, and moreover we have found out that there is nothing in the apparent difficulty in equalizing the strains in a direct-acting engine. It is simply necessary to add enough ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... THERE was no unsteadiness in the doctor's walk, and no flush on his face. He certainly did strut when he entered the room; and he held up his head with dignity, when he discovered Mountjoy. But he seemed to preserve his self-control. Was ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... with advantage. The object-glass can only collect a certain quantity of light from the star; and if the magnifying power be too great, this limited amount of light will be thinly dispersed over too large a surface, and the result will be found unsatisfactory. The unsteadiness of the atmosphere still further limits the extent to which the image may be advantageously magnified, for every increase of power increases in the same degree ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... reluctantly away. They walked arm in arm down the broad entrance lounge towards the glass doors. It seemed to have become suddenly evident that Jocelyn Thew's words were not without point. Richard stumbled once and walked with marked unsteadiness. Just before they reached the doors, Brightman, with a tall, stalwart-looking friend, slipped past them on the right. Another man fell almost into line upon the left, and jostled the young officer as he did so. The latter glanced at both of them a ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... steps. The first measure resorted to was the enforcement of the rule requiring savings-bank depositors, at the option of the institution, to give sixty days' notice before withdrawing deposits. The second expedient was one which had been resorted to during former years of financial unsteadiness. "Emergency currency" was issued. This currency took various forms. (1) The clearing-house loan certificates issued in denominations ranging from $500 to $20,000, used for settling inter-bank balances; (2) clearing-house certificates in currency dimensions ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... Kshatriyas as Salya and others endued with might and accomplished in the science and practice of arms could not? If he doth not achieve success in this untried task which he hath undertaken from a spirit of boyish unsteadiness, the entire body of Brahmanas here will be rendered ridiculous in the eyes of the assembled monarchs. Therefore, forbid this Brahmana that he may not go to string the bow which he is even now desirous of doing from vanity, or mere childish daring.' Others ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... join in the fray, combination follows combination in bewildering sequence and fantastic chaos. Captures of pieces are planned, mating nets are woven, perhaps with two pieces, against a King's position, where five pieces are available for defence. This unsteadiness in the first childish stages of development makes it very difficult for the beginner to get a general view of the board. Yet the surprises which each move brings afford him ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... off the mosquitos; but at each contact with them he shivered and his fears increased. He tried, vainly, to get his thoughts straight, and lit a cigarette with apparent calmness, swaggering to the window; but his legs did not cease to tremble, and the unsteadiness of his gait caused Xantippe to smile as she watched him. Resting by the window, Gregorio widened the lips of the lattice and let in a stream of moonbeams that rested on wife and child, ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... arise from an instrument not being placed in the position it ought to have; and from those of its parts which are made purposely movable not being properly disposed, inter se. These are errors of adjustment. Some are unavoidable, as they arise from a general unsteadiness of the soil or building in which the instruments are placed.[334] Others again are consequences of imperfect workmanship; as when an instrument, once well adjusted, will not remain so. But the most important of this class of errors arise from the non-existence of natural indications other ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... very good chance indeed of getting killed. Then it came to him suddenly as a clear and simple truth, as something luminously plain, that it is better to get killed than go away defeated by such fears and unsteadiness as his. The change came into his mind as if a white light were suddenly turned on—where there had been nothing but shadows and darkness. He rose to his feet and went swiftly and intently the whole way back, going ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... more particularly than ever before that there were many purple veins distinctly lined upon the major's nose and cheeks and that his eyes were moist and wavering in their glance. He used a cane with a flourish; but his legs had an unsteadiness that ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... may be profitably applied, while the other gives precedence to those very minute and perpetually deteriorating portions of it which go to the construction of ships, wagons, and steam-engines. An examination of these figures will perhaps enable the reader to understand the cause of the unsteadiness observed wherever the ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... you may tell them - as the author's last dying confession - that it is a strange example of the difficulty of being ideal in an age of realism; that the unpleasant giddy- mindedness, which spoils the book and often gives it a wanton air of unreality and juggling with air-bells, comes from unsteadiness of key; from the too great realism of some chapters and passages - some of which I have now spotted, others I dare say I shall never spot - which disprepares the imagination for the cast of ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Meanwhile Coburg had bestirred himself, and, marching on Miranda's vanguard on the River Roer, threw it back in utter rout. Dumouriez, falling back hastily to succour his lieutenant, encountered the Austrian force at Neerwinden, where the unsteadiness of the Republican levies enabled Coburg and his brilliant lieutenant, the Archduke Charles, to win a decisive triumph (18th March). A great part of the French levies melted away. The Belgians rose against the retreating bands; and ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... assistance they afforded in warping their ships in-shore, and placing them in such a position as to enable the different batteries to support them. But the failure of the attack must be mainly attributed to the unsteadiness and faintness of the wind, which enabled none of the squadron to obtain the position it wished; that is, in-shore of the enemy: while, by falling calm at a moment the most disadvantageous, it left the ships exposed to the enemy's fire without the ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... into account not only the unsteadiness of the ground on which the Government stood, owing to these parliamentary regroupings, but the general effects that would ensue from the country's financial position. When, in spite of the victory and ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... own lover would be joy enough for her whole life. She knew that he was idle, extravagant, fond of pleasure, and,—unsteady, as she in her vocabulary would be disposed to describe the character which she believed to be his. But in her heart of hearts she liked unsteadiness in men, if it were not carried too far. Ralph's brother, the parson, as to whom she was informed that he possessed every virtue incident to humanity, and who was quite as good-looking as his brother, had utterly ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... situation comes from the unsteadiness of the deck. How is one to cope with the caprices of an inclined plane? The ship had within its depths, so to speak, imprisoned lightning struggling for escape; something like the rumbling of thunder during an earthquake. In an instant the crew was on its feet. It was the chief gunner's ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... at the fat little man, with a quick glaze of gratitude over his eyes. The skipper left him, doubling back in the direction of the wheel-house. And something in the unsteadiness of the broad, plump shoulders gave to Peter in his perplexity the not inaccurate notion that the fat little man had enjoyed his joke and was giggling to such an extent that it almost interfered ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... text or, as often happens, by means of the margin, where they could hardly have been anticipated. The prophecy of Jacob as to the future of his children (chap. xlix) will supply an instance. In the character of Reuben few of us would understand more than general unsteadiness and changefulness in purpose and in act, but a glance at the margin will show that impulse and excitability were plainly elements in his nature which led him into the grievous and hateful sin for which his father deposed him from ...
— Addresses on the Revised Version of Holy Scripture • C. J. Ellicott
... movements. Washington's attack was fatally checked in this way, and Sullivan was surprised from the same causes, as well as from his own culpable ignorance of the country beyond him, which was the reason of his failure to guard the upper fords. The Americans lost, also, by the unsteadiness of new troops when the unexpected happens, and when the panic-bearing notion that they are surprised and likely to be surrounded comes upon them ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... a slight unsteadiness in her voice, which made her stop suddenly. She did not fold the paper, but continued to ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... in this poem there may be something, which might have been corrected by the revising judgment of its author; but its errors in thought and language, are so few and trivial that they must be regarded as the inequality of the plumage, and not the depression or unsteadiness of the wing. The most splendid results of Shakspeare's poetry are still separated by some interposing defect; but the poetry of Comus may be contemplated as a series of gems strung on golden wire, where the sparkle shoots along the line with ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... of way, and with growing unsteadiness, Orlando walked towards the camp-fire. He was leaning against his horse, and opening his coat and waistcoat to find the wound in his side and staunch it with the kerchief from his neck, when ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... replied. The unsteadiness of her tone was hardly appreciable, but it was not lost on Broomhurst's quick ears. "Oh, I don't think ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... any one without might see it, and set it down beside the flagstone. All over this stone I groped without finding any trace of a rift or any hint of how to lift so formidable a weight. It seemed fast set in the boards, and gave no sound of hollowness or symptom of unsteadiness when ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... apprenticed to a barber, but was converted by the preaching of Whitefield and studied till he obtained a good education, and was ordained to the Methodist ministry. He is supposed to have written his well-known hymn in 1758. A certain unsteadiness of mind, however, caused him to revise his religious beliefs too often for his spiritual health or enjoyment, and after preaching as a Methodist, a Baptist, and an Independent, he finally became a Socinian. On a stage-coach journey, when ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... perfect, maybe there wasn't much of it left to live—but what there was was his, not his mother's, not Eve's. The unsteadiness in his chest was fading. He turned on the ignition, drove slowly back through the housing developments, the neon signs and clover-leaf turns and graded crossings ...
— A World Apart • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... before confessing the terror which had been shaking him by the throat, was he able to stifle it. Instead, he removed his drenched and battered hat and passed one fluttering hand across his forehead, with just the shade of unsteadiness for which the ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... eager, startled glance around the room; then he drooped his head, and covered his face with the hand I wasn't holding, and for several minutes we didn't speak. Presently he said slowly,—and the unsteadiness of his voice told me more than his words did,—"I suppose I could let you try; for I do need—some one. You might be useful to me, my dear, if you could come regularly to help me—every day; on that condition I will accept your offer, and ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... the Zenith Tube (which, considered in reference to the expectations that had been formed of its accuracy, must be estimated as a positive failure) is probably due to two circumstances. One is, the use of a plumb-line; which appears to be affected with various ill-understood causes of unsteadiness. The other is, the insuperable difficulty of ventilating the room in which the instrument is mounted.'—On December 20th I circulated an Address, proposing a Transit Circle, with telescope of 8 inches aperture. The Address states as follows: 'The clear aperture of the Object-Glass ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... closett, which she do very prettily herself with her own hand, to my great content. So I to the office till night, about several businesses, and then went and sat an hour or two with Sir W. Pen, talking very largely of Sir J. Minnes's simplicity and unsteadiness, and of Sir W. Batten's suspicious dealings, wherein I was open, and he sufficiently, so that I do not care for his telling of tales, for he said as much, but whether that were so or no I said nothing but what is my certain knowledge and belief concerning ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... attack is accomplished by an extraordinary explosive effect or click; (3) the vocal cords seek to adjust themselves to the pitch after the tone has started, and produce a horrible scoop in the attack. One of the worst faults in singing, the tremolo, is due to that unsteadiness of attack which results when the relationship between the breath and the laryngeal mechanism is not maintained—when the vocal tract has not been adjusted in time to the note the ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... ships of great tonnage and speed, we shall find these difficulties intensified; and if we pass on to the little gunboats, advocated in some quarters for attacking ironclads in a swarm, we shall find that unsteadiness of platform in a sea-way renders them a helpless and harmless mark for the comparatively accurate practice of their solitary ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... have been certain that their sovereign meant only to make war on France, they would have been eager to support him. Could Lewis have been certain that the new levies were intended only to make war on the constitution of England, he would have made no attempt to stop them. But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of Charles were such that the French Government and the English opposition, agreeing in nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his protestations, and were equally desirous to keep him poor and without an army. Communications were opened between Barillon, the Ambassador ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... specially by the homoeopathic chemists: and the use of the Fly Agaric has been adopted by the school which they represent for curatively treating an irritable spinal cord, with soreness, twitching of the limbs, dragging of the legs, unsteadiness of the head, neuralgic pains in the arms and legs (as if caused by sharp ice), some giddiness, a coating of yellow fur on the lining mucous membranes, together with a crawling, or burning, and eruptive skin. In fact for a lamentably depraved ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... gallop at the same instant as the giraffes, away we went over the beautiful park. Unfortunately Richarn was a bad rider, and I, being encumbered with a rifle, had no power to use the sword. I accordingly trusted to ride them down and to get a shot, but I felt that the unsteadiness of my horse would render it very uncertain. The wind whistled in my ears as we flew along over the open plain. The grass was not more than a foot high, and the ground hard; the giraffes about four hundred yards distant steaming along, and raising a cloud of dust from the ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... it liked to call up their younger days and to show them at the point which had decided or compelled their future loneliness—again and again discovering some act of abnegation such as giving up a lover because of the unsteadiness of his moral principles or surrendering him to another woman to whom he seemed for some reason or other to belong. In its realistic hours local color in New England liked to examine the atrophy of the emotions which in these stories often ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... and shed the influence of resignation over unfeigned and heart-felt sorrow. We are all penetrated with gratitude to God that the deceased lived so long; that he did so much for himself, his friends, the country, and the world; that his lamp went out, at last, without unsteadiness or flickering. He continued to exercise every power of his mind without dimness or obscuration, and every affection of his heart with no abatement of energy or warmth, till death drew an impenetrable veil between us and ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... unsteadiness of the surprise, he staggered, and slipped on to the road below him. But recovering his feet immediately, he stepped back a pace or two upon that road, to interpose some wider space between them, and looked at his pursuer, breathing ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... be pacified by protestations about oysters and cigars from the lips of a husband who was thick of utterance, and who betrayed a general imbecility of mind and unsteadiness of body. This London excursion, which had begun in sunshine, threatened to end in storm and darkness. Georgy Sheldon and his set had taken possession of the young farmer; and Georgy had no better amusement ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... detail—the substitution of springs for weights—has had a far-reaching effect upon organ music. It rendered possible the entire removal of the old unsteadiness of wind from which all organs of the time suffered in greater or less degree. It quickened the attack of the action and the speech of the pipes to an amazing extent and opened a new and wider field to the ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... appreciating the Value they attach to their Pursuits and Enjoyments. Those who govern Children should join in their Sports. This the best way to gain their Confidence and Affection. But Older Persons should never lose the Attitude of Superiors. Unsteadiness in Government. Illustrations. Punishment from unsteady Governors, does little Good. Over-Government. Want of Patience and Self-control in Parents and Governors. Example of Parents more effectual than their Precepts. Formation of Habits of Self-denial in Early Life. Denying ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... expression of their countenances, however, was very different. One, evidently the younger, was seated on the farther side of the large hearth, opposite to the door at which the party stood. She had the sallow look of long and wasting illness; and there was an unsteadiness of expression about her eyes, that immediately struck the observer. Yet her face was mild and gentle, therein contrasting widely with that ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
