Use waver in a sentence

I revolved her sayings within my restless breast; and, albeit my understanding was blinded, I perceived that what she had said was replete with wisdom, and, almost repenting of what I had uttered and of the course which I had declared I purposed taking, I was wavering in my mind.

Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him.

When he put up his arms, each day, to begin, they pained exquisitely, and the first few blows, struck and received, racked his soul; after that things grew numb, and he fought on blindly, seeing as in a dream, dancing and wavering, the large features and burning, animal-like eyes of Cheese-Face.

When plunged in the vortex of politics, courts must waver as do legislatures, and nothing is to me more painful than to watch the process of deterioration by which our judges lose the instinct which should warn them to shun legislation as a breach of trust, and to cleave to those general principles which permit of no exceptions.

Whether it be probable that a promiscuous jumble of printing letters should often fall into a method and order, which should stamp on paper a coherent discourse; or that a blind fortuitous concourse of atoms, not guided by an understanding agent, should frequently constitute the bodies of any species of animals: in these and the like cases, I think, nobody that considers them can be one jot at a stand which side to take, nor at all waver in his assent.

What must have been the convictions of a man like General Lee, when, mounted on the same horse that had borne him in battle, upon which he was seated when the lines of battle formed by his own heroic men wavered, and he seized the standard to lead the charge; but his soldiers rushed to him, and laying their hands on his bridle, said, 'General, we cannot fire a gun unless you retire?'

It was of course his duty to recall the wavering affections of the youthful Emperor to his betrothed Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, to whom he had been bound by every tie of honor and affection, and his union with whom gave some shadow of greater legitimacy to his practical usurpation.

A ruler with progressive ideas, one who had any perception of the internal prosperity which alone can render an empire stable, would have made the attempt to weld his loose and wavering domination together by encouraging and working for the prosperity of its component peoples, so that he might, though late in the day, give birth to a Turkey that was strong, because its citizens were prosperous and content.

The good-natured clavier had observed the wavering and uncertain character of the baron's decision, and he had been induced to urge his particular request to be the officiating priest by a secret apprehension that, descended again into the scenes of the world, the relenting father might become, like most other parents of these nether regions, more disposed to consult the temporal advancement than the true happiness of his child.

She understood his rebuke, she wondered and wavered, but the affront to her pride had been too great, the tumult within her breast had been too startlingly fierce; she could not speak, the moment passed, and with it his brief, rugged splendor of simplicity.

Accordingly, at the same time that treaties have been provisionally concluded, and other proper means used to attach the wavering and to confirm in their friendship the well-disposed tribes of Indians, effectual measures have been adopted to make those of a hostile description sensible that a pacification was desired upon terms of moderation and justice.

Words of hers, long ago spoken, and merciful, forgiving expressions made use of in former days to soften him in some angry mood, were clearly remembered while Maggie spoke; and their influence was perceptible in the change of his tone, and the wavering of his manner henceforward.

This act of decision was succeeded by one single moment of breathless, wavering silence among the crew; and then the common cry, and the general rush of every man upon our defenseless and solitary adventurer, were the signals that open hostility had commenced.

When she learned that the sentence committed to her concerned her own guilt, she wavered awhile as she pondered how to appraise her transgression; but Grep sprang up and ran forward to transfix Erik with a spear, wishing to buy off his own death by slaying the accuser.

Louis, weak and wavering as was his wont, endeavored to temporize, declaring that the crisis was one of too much difficulty to admit of so extreme a measure at that moment, and entreating her to sanction his delaying for a few weeks the fulfillment of his promise; but Marie was aware that she stood upon the brink of a precipice, and she became only the more importunate in her demands, and the more bitter in her sarcasms.

The mountains, which bound the horizon on every side, except where a wavering stream of heated air shows the beginning of the Great Desert, are tinged with a soft purple haze, in anticipation of the sunset, but every patch of green grass on their slopes glows through it like an emerald, while along the summits runs an undulating thread of snow.

Later Jonas arrived, still sniffling, to announce the hack; and the two gray-garbed women hurried away amid the hysterical snivel of servants and the friendly mewing of Missy, who trotted after them to the front door, tail erect, followed by her latest progeny on diminutive and wavering legs.

And the same instant he saw close beside him, in the comparative gloom of the narrow corridor, a vivid, vibrating picture of a girl's face, pale as marble, of flower-like beauty, with dark voluminous hair and large gray eyes that met his own from behind a wavering net of eyelashes.

It struggled across the floor in a wavering path, strayed over the desk, and died away, shadowy and formless, against the blackness of the opened recess door, against the blackness of the great steel safe, the blackness of a huddled form crouched against it.

Presently a faint pallor overspread the canon till it lay like a ghostly sea dotted with strange islands of brush and rock; islands that seemed to waver and shift in a sort of vague restlessness, as though trying to evade the ever-brightening tide of moonlight that burned away their shrouds of dusk and fixed them in still, tangible shapes upon the canon floor.

As a matter of fact, the familiar everyday duty had ceased to exist for him, and if his new exaltation wavered a little as he neared the warehouse, fifteen minutes later, it was only because he would have to explain things to the uncle who employed him, and to other people; and he was ever shy of speaking about himself.

Such were the principal contents of Annie's letter, more than sufficient to confirm Caroline's already half-adopted resolution, and convince her wavering judgment that obedience to her parents was now no longer a duty; their unjust harshness had alienated her from them, and she must stand forth and act alone.

Deceived by her daughter's manner, Lady Helen began to waver in the positive refusal she had given to accompanying her, and Annie was not slow in discovering her advantage; she continued the persuasions she knew so well how to use, concealing the inward struggle it was to veil her discontent at this unwonted humiliation, and suppressing the violence that was ready to break forth, at length succeeded.

To some dispositions these considerations would have been of no weight whatever; to Marie they were so exquisitely painful, that she could scarcely understand how it was that, feeling them thus acutely, she could yet so clearly, so calmly, reply to Father Denis, bring argument for argument, and never waver in her steadfast adherence to, and belief in her own creed.

The lady, evidently an able person, arranged her parcels swiftly and neatly in the racks, pulled up the windows, slammed the ventilators, stripped off her cloak, flung back her veil, and sitting down with a sigh of vast depth and length stared steadily for five minutes without wavering at the other two.

They repudiated similarity of aim and social sympathy as tests which were much too loose and wavering as they did that vague socialism which for thousands has come to be a philosophy or rather religion embodying the hope of the world and the protection of all who suffer.

At that time there were folk from the Welsh woodlands coming up to help in any way that was needed, for a fire on the highest point of the ramparts was sending a tall smoke curling and wavering into the air, and the meaning of that was well known to them.

Not a cloud obscured the deep starry firmament, the lights of which wavered on the surface of the placid river; and a shooting meteor, streaking its pale course in the very direction they were taking, was interpreted by the doctor into a most propitious omen.

Moreover, it is easy to form line at the moment of the charge, by leaving a small distance only between the leading and following battalions; for we must not forget that in the checkered order there are not two lines, but a single one, which is broken, to avoid the wavering and disorder observed in the marches of continuous lines.

He was re-elected because the people of Cork had the most absolute confidence in his integrity, good faith and political judgment, and because they were convinced that his return to public life represented the only hope of the resumption of the great policy in which their confidence never for a moment wavered.

Marius sent his officers to every part of the army, with orders to the soldiers to stand firm in their ranks till the enemy came within the reach of their spears, which they were to discharge, and then to draw their swords, and drive against the barbarians with their shields; for as the ground was unfavorable to the enemy, their blows would have no force, and their line no strength, owing to the unevenness of the surface, which would render their footing unstable and wavering.

At the same time he confirmed by frequent letters the wavering mind of the Pontiff, checked by his remonstrances the opposition of the cardinals who had been gained by his adversaries; and intimated to Henry, in strong but affectionate language, the punishment which awaited his impenitence.

It was true that the firelight still wavered and sank again in billows of soft color about the shadowed walls, but the changing light was no more an interruption to the action of that steady medium through which he perceived than the movement of summer clouds across the full sunlight.

In its uncertain glimmer we seemed to get quite back to the dawn of feudal civilization, when Theodoric founded the great Basilica of the city; and as we stood before the famous Clock Tower, which rises light and straight as a mast eighty-two meters into the air from a base of seven meters, the wavering obscurity enhanced the effect by half concealing the tower's crest, and letting it soar endlessly upward in the fancy.

Hatred and contempt of the upper classes for their "fickle" desertion of him, these, if we may judge from his frequent allusions to the topic during the voyage, were the feelings uppermost in his mind; and this may explain why he wavered between the thought of staking all on a last effort against the allies and the plan of renewing in America the career now closed to him in Europe.

For a moment the lines of scarlet seemed to waver under the triple attack; but, recovering themselves, they closed up their ranks and met the charging squadrons with a storm of musketry which blasted them off the field, then turning with equal fierceness upon the French infantry, they beat them back with terrible loss

If you dare stand up in one, the least waver from a perfect balance will send the sensitive, skittish thing a rod from under your feet, which of course leaves you standing on the water without the faith to keep you from going under; and usually it is your head that you are standing on.

Religion was to her a series of definite commands, and although her temperament was not such as enabled or led her to penetrate beneath the commands to the reason of them, or emboldened her to rely on the latter rather than the former, she had never wavered in the view that at least these commands may and should be observed, and that, above all, by a man whose profession it was to inculcate them.

When the moon was nearly full, one of their great delights was to dive deep in the water, and then, turning round, look up through it at the great blot of light close above them, shimmering and trembling and wavering, spreading and contracting, seeming to melt away, and again grow solid.

Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for a pretense, proved not altogether displeasing to him.

The gay and thoughtless might, indeed, laugh at the wavering and undecided notes, but to the reflecting mind there was something profoundly pathetic in the feeble tribute to the praise of their Maker, of those whose voices in the ordinary course of nature must soon be silent in the grave.

One of the two gigantic crests, into which the summit had been divided, rocked and wavered to and fro; and then, with a sound, the mightiness of which no language can describe, it fell from its burning base, and rushed, an avalanche of fire, down the sides of the mountain!

My aim in this address was not to scout criticism, from which much of the highest value to faith is to come, but to steady the wavering young minister; to sustain his preaching power by helping him to a definite message, and to encourage him to a slow and guarded acceptance of critical opinions destructive of "the faith once delivered to the saints."

However, when on the very point of its completion, one of those sudden and mysterious changes which often takes place in the human mind made her waver in her purpose; and the child of her intended victim having behaved so tenderly and so kindly when all the rest hooted at and tormented her, made her fervently wish that she could turn the fierce men around her from that fell purpose which she herself had nourished till it grew into a fixed, and, she dreaded, an unalterable determination.

As the vigor of the storm increased, the harbor towers Saint Nicholas and the Chain, looming in the blur like suppliant arms, and the sea walls began gradually to waver and recede in the accumulating haze, while across the dim yellow flame in the tower of the Lantern the snow flurried in gray, shapeless, interminable shadows.

Now presently as Diane stared at the moon-lit pebbles glinting at her feet, a shadow among the cedars, having advanced and retreated uncertainly a score of times before, suddenly detached itself from the wavering stencil of tree and bush upon the moonlit ground and resolved itself into the figure of a tall, determined sentinel who approached and seated himself beside her.

They wavered; but they are a pampered army, personally much attached to the king, who pays them well and indulges them at the expense of his people, that they may be his support against that people when in a throe of nature it rises and striven for its rights.

In many of these adventures he barely came off with credit whole, a thing he found absolutely necessary to maintain any kind of credit with this singular people, and, for this purpose, he called into action every particle of courage from every crack and crevice of his system, and brought the whole to bear upon one point, the wavering of his own heart, and, with it, the staying of his almost quaking limbs, and ready-to-run-away feet.

Whether it was that the men were depressed by the loss of their leader, or that they were not prepared for the very damaging fire which suddenly poured upon them, I know not, but certain it is that they wavered, and for a few minutes there was a slight panic.

And then beneath that loud and cheerful singing I became aware of duller half-heard movements; and a moment or so later yellow lights began to flicker through the transom high at the blank wall of the room, and to reflect in wavering patches on the ceiling.

As they were walking over the moor a gleam of sun shone out, wavered, then strengthened, and before a soft breeze the mist began to vanish, only clinging here and there in the pockets of the moor like fine white wool rubbed off the backs of phantom sheep.

There came a moment when the night grew more silent, and the breeze more chilly, and the surrounding world more dim and fantastic in the uncertain moonlight; and then the shadows began to waver and grow confused, long streaks of light showed themselves in the east, the moon grew fainter in the brightening sky, the birds began to chirp and twitter in every tree and bush.

Ashman, who was closely watching the chieftain with a natural wonder us to how he would conduct himself (for he did not waver in his faith that the giant was still loyal to him), saw him suddenly raise his eyes and gaze at the opposite ledge, which was fully two feet above that upon which he was standing.

At last Ralph and Ursula stood on the level ground underneath the Tree, and they looked up at the branches, and down to the water at their feet; and now it seemed to them as though the Tree had verily growth in it, for they beheld its roots, that they went out from the mound or islet of earth into the water, and spread abroad therein, and seemed to waver about.

And Duke, always impressed by her opinion, wavered, and no doubt he would have wavered back into the right way, had not, just at that moment, a low whistle been heard some way to the left down the lane; and, looking in the direction from whence it came, the little boy and girl caught sight of a head quickly poked out and as quickly drawn back again into the shade of the hedge.

The Assyrian monarch was thus called on to conduct three distinct wars simultaneously in three different directions; he was, moreover, surrounded by wavering subjects whom terror alone held to their allegiance, and whom the slightest imprudence or the least reverse might turn into open foes.

It had never been painted, it was shedding its flapping gray shingles like gray scales, the roof sagged in a mossy hollow before the chimney, the windows and doors were awry, and the whole house was full of undulations and wavering lines, which gave it a curiously unreal look in broad daylight.

Once he wavered, almost tottered, but recovered himself, and from the fierce beating of his heart and the labored sound of his deep breathing she knew that it cost him great physical exertion; but at last his close strain relaxed, he reached the ground safely and stood resting a moment, while a sigh of relief escaped him.

While the governor of Virginia had been toiling, in vain, to get the colonists to move, the French had acted promptly, and the erection of their new fort at once covered their line of communication to the west, barred the advance of the English down the Ohio valley, and secured the allegiance of all the wavering Indian tribes.

Her eyes never wavered, her hand still uplifted the gleaming cross, as she retreated slowly, until she stood directly before De Croix, where he hung helplessly staring at her with an expression of fear in his face strangely at variance with his late show of desperate courage.

If her voice wavered a little as she said it, if her eyes filled at the trustfulness of his affectionate response, these things were soon forgotten, as Barry caught up her little bag, and they left the station, and started over the hills in search of happiness.

She stood wavering in her trailing, fur-lined, and softly whispering draperies, so marked and set aside by her grace and elegance and countenance of superiority and proud calm that people turned to look after her more than after many a young beauty, and did not, for a second, know what to say or do.

They moved slowly up the sand ridge, the Ranger a little ahead, oblivious of the livid blue of the old man's lips and the drag on the bridle rope till a quick jerk ripped the line from his loose hold; and he glanced back to see the other's horse stagger, flounder up again, waver and sink with a sucking groan.

Still there was no wavering amid the Scottish troops; still they stood their ground, and forming, almost as they fought, in closer and firmer order, exposing the might and unflinching steadiness of desperate men, determined on liberty or death, to the greater number and better discipline of their foe.

According to the dictates of my conscience, mine honor as a Scottish woman, the mother of a Scottish warrior, I have done my duty, and neither imprisonment, nor torture, nor death will bid me retract those principles, or waver in my acknowledgment of Scotland and her king.

In time of war, when an action has been joined for a long time, and the lines are locked in fierce conflict, and stragglers are coming in and the wounded drifting away, when the reserves begin to waver here and there, it is on such an occasion that Scottish regiments have so often won distinction; it is on these occasions that you have seen some valiant brigade march straight forward into the battle smoke, into the confusion of the field, right into the heart of the fight.

"The girl wavers about in an agony whether to tell or not, and wrings her hands and rolls her eyes, like they always do roll them on the films, and then, just when things are at the very last gasp, the husband tumbles over a precipice, or is wrecked at sea, or smashed in a railway accident, and she marries the other, who's as good as gold, and loved her first."

When the troubles with the mother country began to thicken he was slow to take extreme ground, but he never wavered in his belief that all attempts to oppress the colonies should be resisted, and when he once took up his position there was no shadow of turning.

And at the converging center of those wires Blake was able to sit and wait, like the central operator at a telephone switchboard, knowing that the tentacles of attention were creeping and wavering about dim territories and that in time they would render up their awaited word.

His eyes travelled down the inclined plane of slate roofs, glistening in a bright interval between two showers, to the masts which rocked slowly by the quays, and from thence to the silver bar of sea beyond the harbor's mouth, where the outline of Battery Point wavered unsteadily in the dazzle of sky and water.

So, when the rolling hills of this newly beholden land lifted themselves for her contemplation, and the harvest sun, all in an angry and sanguinary glow sank in the veiled horizon, and at noon a scarf of golden vapor wavered up and down along the earth line, it was as if a new world had been made for her.

There is a flight of five or six hundred lines, in short, in which he never stoops his wing, nor wavers in his course; but carries the reader forward with a more rapid, sustained, and lofty movement, than any Epic bard that we can at present remember.

Steve's eyes had not wavered once from the little girl's face, from the time she appeared in the hedge gap until she mounted the steps, utterly oblivious to his nearness; but when she brushed against his elbow, the boy rose and stood, hat in hand, gravely quiet, gravely possessed, and silently sure of himself.

It did her good to see them rising, strong and firm, though hideous to behold, on higher ground than the poor dilapidated hovels at the water's edge, where fever was always breaking out, which yet made, as they supported each other in their crookedness, and leaned over their own wavering reflections, such a picturesque sketch that it seemed a shame to supplant them by such brand new red brick, such blue tiling, such dreadful little porches.

At one time, when I was about to be subjected to great exertions, and did not practice it every day, but thought it was enough to sing coloratura fireworks, I soon became aware that my transition tones would no longer endure the strain, began easily to waver, or threatened even to become too flat.

Having been some time at a stand, in a wavering condition of mind, they at last reflected upon the straits they had brought themselves into, and that now they ought of necessity either to fight resolutely or die, for no quarter could be expected from an enemy against whom they had committed so many cruelties on all occasions.

It was quite dark by the time the engineer and his subordinate returned from the "Red Cow," and their wavering progress along the field pathway was rendered more difficult, after the first hundred yards or so, by the unaccountable absence of the hedge.

The main body halted, wavered, partially rallied again, and then, being galled by the well-directed fire of the Canadians, broke and ran for cover behind the houses and stone fences along the road, or made their way to a wood which crowned the summit of the hill opposite to our position on the western side of the road, another man being killed and several more wounded while seeking this shelter.

Our journey, therefore, was enlivened by the frequent successful attempts of our truck to overtake the truck ahead, followed by a difference of opinion with the truck behind, a wavering between two opinions, and then another mad plunge into the darkness in pursuit of the truck ahead, and the next check brought about a repetition of this pleasing diversion from sleep.

The Indian pony, apparently tireless, shot on like an arrow driven into the teeth of the wind, sending up behind a cloud of dust that stretched backward toward the baffled pursuers, a long wavering ribbon like a clew left to guide the band into the mysterious depths of the Great American Desert.

The gilded crown on the head of the bride wavered and trembled amid the attacks and the defense of the contending parties, for it was precisely the hot moment of the Swedish peasant wedding, in which, as it is said, the crown is danced off the head of the bride.

And gradually, as I watched, the wavering motion of the white and dark blots decreased, they grew less blot-like and more defined in their outlines, and finally I succeeded in detecting the fact that the craft sported a broad white ribbon along her sides.

Then, as he paused and the light grew steady, the two men on the poop caught wavering glimpses of a long line of very faintly lighted figures leaning over the larboard rail, from the after extremity of the forecastle to the fore end of the poop, all eagerly scanning the gleaming, oil-like surface of the water, while here and there one pointed as though he believed he saw something.

As to the direction in which he had gone, there was no difficulty in determining that, for, leading away toward the eastward there were two wavering lines, close together, traced through the long grass by the feet of the wanderer, and still distinct enough to be followed by even so inexperienced a tracker as the young Englishman.

At the moment I took but scant notice of the circumstance, for the flickering flames of the fire which was always kindled upon such occasions played strange pranks with the lights and shadows, and often imparted a weird effect of movement to stationery and even inanimate objects; but presently, happening to again glance in that direction, my eye was once more caught by the same queer wavering movement.

There was a disposition on the part of George Brown to grow lukewarm in his support of the North, but Gordon Brown never wavered and is said to have threatened on one occasion to leave the paper if there were any more signs of hauling down the colors.

His manner was perhaps a trifle less haughty than it would have been, had the thief taken the shape of an elderly gentleman, but he never wavered in his intention, and only stopped for an imperceptible moment in his progress up the room to demand a return of the volume.

For a brief space of time, hardly an instant though it seemed an eternity, the ship appeared somewhat sluggish to respond to the movement of the rudder, hanging in stays and settling down into the great valley of water that loomed on our lee; but the next moment a glad cry of relief burst from all as she answered her helm, a wavering motion of her bows denoting this being then perceptible.

Then they began to waver, checked their pace, and stood hesitating; while, in spite of their officer excitedly shouting and waving his sword to make them advance, they came to a stand, with the brave fellow some distance in front, where the lads could hear him shout and rage before making a dash back at the leading files, evidently with the intention of flogging them into following him.

At the sharp click of the locks, as he quickly capped the rifle in his hand, the cowardly mutineers widened their line and wavered; some retreated a few paces, others sat down and laid their guns on the ground, while the remainder slowly dispersed, and sat in twos or singly under the various trees about eighty paces distant.

The Papoose woman carried Amine into her hut, and there she lay for many days, wavering between life and death, carefully attended, but requiring little except the moistening of her parched lips with water, and the brushing off of the mosquitoes and flies.

Words tend all too quickly to become symbolic; and it is often the chief importance of what we call "genius" that it takes these inflexible symbols into its hands and breaks them up into pieces and dips them in the wavering waters of experience and sensation.

I seem to visualize this thing as a wavering, moving mass of flames, taking the shape of what might be called a "horizontal pyramid," the apex of which, where the flames are fused and lost in one another, is continually cleaving the darkness like the point of a fiery arrow, while the base of it remains continually invisible by reason of some magical power which confuses the senses whenever they seek to touch or to hold it.

As the latter jumped into the boat and ordered the men to push off, the Provost turned slowly to his brother magistrates with a wink and a quiet smile that convulsed them with suppressed laughter, and did more to encourage any of the wavering or timid inhabitants than if he had harangued them heroically for an hour.

Massing their forces against particular points of the line held by these two corps, the rebel generals would hurl their gray legions like an avalanche against our breastworks, hoping by the very momentum of the charge to break through our lines; but a most withering storm of leaden and iron hail would set the mass wavering, and finally send it back to the cover of the woods and earthworks in confusion, leaving the ground covered at each time with an additional layer of their dead.

She let the horse, which had paused the instant the bridle had touched his neck, stand still awhile, and kept her eyes fixed on the advancing cloud till, with the marvelous surety of her desert-trained vision, she disentangled it from the floating mists and wavering shadows, and recognized it, as it was, a band of Arabs.

Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for pretense, proved not altogether displeasing to him.

Thus speaking, he wavers in mind this way and that: maddened by the shame, shall he plunge on his sword's harsh point and drive it through his side, or fling himself among the waves, and seek by swimming to gain the winding shore, again to return on the Trojan arms?

Above the place we stop at, a spit of sand runs into the river with a hillock and on it, there is a little golden pagoda amongst a few trees and palms: a flight of narrow white steps leads up to it, and below in the swirl of the stream are wavering reflections of gold, and white, and green foliage.

Dangerous as it was to hurry over the wet and slippery shale, and down the steep sides of the rugged hill, Kennedy half drew, half-carried her along with swift steps towards the place from which the dim light still seemed to allure them by its wavering and uncertain flicker.