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Tremulous   /trˈɛmjələs/   Listen
Tremulous

adjective
1.
(of the voice) quivering as from weakness or fear.  Synonym: quavering.  "Spoke timidly in a tremulous voice"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tremulous" Quotes from Famous Books



... to read the expression of his countenance. "I am not mad, Sir Thomas Purcel," she continued, in a suppressed tremulous voice; "not mad, though I may be so soon. Keep back these people, and return with me. Mr. Glasscott ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various

... tremulous and pleading, her eyes and lips so eloquent, that she needed no vindication. I pitied Jack more than ever, but still I no ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... Sylvie even smiled a tremulous little smile as she said this; and Mr. Sherrett looked at her with one upon his own face that had as much pitiful tenderness in it as could ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... convulse, toss, tumble, bandy, wield, brandish, flap, flourish, whisk, jerk, hitch, jolt; jog, joggle, jostle, buffet, hustle, disturb, stir, shake up, churn, jounce, wallop, whip, vellicate[obs3]. Adj. shaking &c. v.; agitated tremulous; desultory, subsultory|; saltatoric[obs3]; quasative[obs3]; shambling; giddy-paced, saltatory[obs3], convulsive, unquiet, restless, all of a twitter. Adv. by fits and starts; subsultorily| &c. adj[obs3].; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... same object, would unite father and mother more closely. Napoleon loved the child tenderly, was ever fond of caressing him, and distinctly announced his intention of making him his heir. All thoughts of the divorce were banished, and a few gleams of tremulous joy visited the heart of Josephine. But alas! these joys proved of but short duration. It was soon manifest to her anxious view that there was no hope of any cordial reconciliation between Louis and Hortense. ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... expressions of affection given by her whose fingers woke the strings into harmony. But if the preluding touches fell witchingly upon every ear, how exquisitely sweet and thrilling was the voice that stole out low and tremulous at first, and deepened in volume and expression every moment, until the whole room seemed filled with melody! Every whisper was hushed, and every one bent forward almost breathlessly to listen. And when, at length, both voice and ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... and bent her tall young head to her little mother, but neither spoke—the tension was too great. Mrs Chester's face was tremulous with agitation, the girl's white and defiant. Then she stepped into the carriage and seated herself among the crowd of strangers. The girls were all silent now, pale of face and red of eye, a few crying openly, the majority fighting against emotion. The mothers came to the edge of the platform, ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... drew me toward a side door, overhung with ivy, where, sure enough, a dim light burned, 'Twas but a solitary candle stuck upon a dresser at the remoter end of a large and low-ceiled apartment; and in this flickering obscurity we found a tremulous parson in full canonicals, who had united our hands and gabbled half-way through the marriage service before I had the slightest notion ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... little ones slept, worn out with fatigue and sorrow, and ere nightfall every sound was stilled. The stars shone out on those few clustered tents,—and on that solitary grave the other side of the river. The Aurora spanned the northern sky, and played with bright and flickering light, now tremulous upon the blue ether, then heaving and expanding, spreading itself out with indescribable grace and beauty. Then it would seem to gather itself together, folding its bright rays as an angel might fold its wings: for a time it is motionless, but this ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas

... added, with a return to his old manner. "'Skipper Tommy,' says the Lard," he whispered, "'Skipper Tommy,' says He, 'leave you an' Me,' says He, 'be friends. You'll never regret it, b'y,' says He, 'an you make friends with Me.' Blessed," he said, his last, low voice tremulous with deep gratitude, "oh, blessed be ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan

... months ensuing (April 13th, May 11th, June 23d), in the shape of a "Circular to all Austrian Ambassadors", [Dohm, iii. 64, 68.] Kaunitz lifted up his voice in severe dehortation, the tone of him waxing more and more indignant, and at last snuffling almost tremulous quite into alt, "against the calumnies and malices of some persons, misinterpreters of a most just Kaiser and his actions." But as the Czarina, meanwhile, declared to the Reich at large, that she held, and would ever hold, the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... down at once, although his voice was still somewhat tremulous with suppressed laughter when ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith

... reserve of a monastery without its mysterious or pensive meditation, were all there. To escape which, he had of his own free will successively accepted a fool's distraction, the inevitable result of which was, the viewing of them the next morning with tremulous nerves ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... glad you think so," said Flamby, and her voice was rather tremulous. "I loved mother more than anything in the world, but I hate to be reminded that she is dead by ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... to note the effect of his touches, a shiver ran through his frame, the brush fell from his tremulous fingers, and ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... artist cannot embrace the object of his emotion. He does not even wish to. Once, perhaps, that was his desire; if so, like the pointer and the setter, he has converted the barbarous pouncing instinct into the civilized pleasure of tremulous contemplation. Be that as it may, the contemplative moment is short. Simultaneously almost with the emotion arises the longing to express, to create a form that shall match the feeling, that shall ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... compromising, but by being true. The only permanent comfort is in the sense of fidelity. You are like a sailor in the storm; it is dark about you, the wind howls, the stars vanish. What gives you comfort? It is the knowledge that one thing is true. Thank God, you have your compass, and the tremulous little needle can be trusted. You bend over it with your lantern in the dark and know where you are going, and that renews your courage. You have the spirit of the truth, and it ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody

... to the eyes; "but he leaves his room, and thinks his wound lightly purchased by the pleasure of being with his friends. If," she added, with a tremulous lip, "this dreadful suspicion that is affixed to his visit were removed, I could consider his wound of ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... how it 'seems,'—you don't know anything about it!" the earnest, tremulous voice went on. "How can anyone know who never had ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... no mistaking the character of the next day. It is "settled fair." Probably Nature feels that she carried affairs a trifle too far yesterday. Everything is radiant, this morning; the leaves on the trees glow and are tremulous in this warm southern air. Eaux Bonnes appears to better advantage than at our rainy arrival. I cross the street to the diminutive park, which is triangular, its apex northward. It has paths and seats and leafy Gothic arches, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix

... is nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light! Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming With Hope and in Beauty to-night:— See!—it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright— We safely may trust to a gleaming That cannot ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... bear the sight—that, some day soon, she should cry aloud for her mother, and no answer would come out of the blank, dumb darkness? Yet he knew all. She saw it in his pitying eyes. She heard it in his grave and tremulous voice. How reconcile those eyes, that voice, with the hard-reasoning, dry, merciless way in which he laid down axioms of trade, and serenely followed them out to their full consequences? The discord jarred upon her inexpressibly. The more because of the gathering ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... him, jus' come to him that minute, like a flash," said the old man, reflectively, the pathos of his sweet, tremulous voice lending unspeakable melody ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich

... open all the night sounds came to them with startling distinctness;—the cry of the nighthawk and the chirping of a cricket, the peeping of hylas and the croaking of frogs and the wild, tremulous, ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... falcon far ahead, and now his flight becomes like the flash of the lightning for swiftness, and like the rushing of clouds for uproar. The haggard faces of the gods line the walls of Asgard and watch the race with tremulous eagerness. Youth and immortality are staked upon the winning of Loki. He is weary enough and frightened enough, too, as the eagle sweeps on close behind him; but he makes desperate efforts to widen the distance between them. Little by ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... conveyed to a second person save by Jacob himself. Moreover, part of this is not Jacob but Richard Bonamy— the room; the market carts; the hour; the very moment of history. Then consider the effect of sex—how between man and woman it hangs wavy, tremulous, so that here's a valley, there's a peak, when in truth, perhaps, all's as flat as my hand. Even the exact words get the wrong accent on them. But something is always impelling one to hum vibrating, like the hawk moth, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... the maiden smiled, and with eyes over-running with laughter. Said, in a tremulous voice: 'Why don't you speak for ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds— At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold! But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence! And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans, and tremulous shudderings-all is over— It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud! A tale of less affright, And tempered with delight, As Otway's self had framed the tender lay, 'Tis of a little child Upon a lonesome wild, Not far from home, but she hath lost her way: And now moans low in ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... joyousness; my wild hurrah rang through the silent woods, and I stood listening to the echo that reverberated again and again, until all was hushed. Suddenly a sound arose—it seemed to me to come from beneath the ice; it sounded low and tremulous at first, until it ended in a low, wild yell. I was appalled. Never before had such a noise met my ears. I thought it more than mortal; so fierce, and amid such an unbroken solitude, it seemed as though from the tread of some ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... had thrown on the stage in a corner within his reach. The performance of "Chaos Vanquished" took place as usual, minus only the effect of the blue light and the brilliancy of the fairies. The wolf played his best. At the proper moment Dea made her appearance, and, in her voice so tremulous and heavenly, invoked Gwynplaine. She extended her ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... harmony supreme above the melodies of gracefulness in detail. He was essentially a lyrical as distinguished from an epical or dramatic poet. The unity of his work is derived from the effect of light and atmosphere, the inbreathed soul of tremulous and throbbing life, which bathes and liquefies the whole. It was enough for him to produce a gleeful symphony by the play of light and colour, by the animation of his figures, and by the intoxicating beauty of his forms. His angels are ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds

... stateliness of person by stateliness of presence; for, like most of the descendants of Duke Robert "the Devil" and the daughter of the Falaise tanner, his appearance was not calculated to inspire respect. His grey bloodshot eyes and tremulous voice, were neither knightly nor kingly qualifications; his savage and ungovernable temper, made him appear at times rather like a demon than a man. He was charged with having violated the most solemn oaths ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... was like that. Indeed, the bitterness festered around the thought that it was life itself—the way of life—not the brutality of any particular people. "They'll pension him—he's done a lot for the school." Even the grateful memory of Gretta's tremulous, scoffing little laugh for the way it fell short could not follow to the deep ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell

... to hear the sentence of death pronounced upon her Son and her God. Jesus stood in the midst of the archers, at the foot of the staircase leading up to the tribunal. The trumpet was sounded to demand silence, and then the cowardly, the base judge, in a tremulous undecided voice, pronounced the sentence of death on the Just Man. The sight of the cowardice and duplicity of this despicable being, who was nevertheless puffed up with pride at his important ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich

... was on the floor. There were more explosions, somewhat muffled. The candle-flame showed a little tremulous excitement, as if it were one of the party. It reached upwards curiously in a long intent flame, and then shrank flat with what it had learned. We were accompanied by grotesque shadows. They stood about us on the white and unfamiliar ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... the lifeless body of his niece in his arms as a young man might have done; he carried her to a stack of wood and set her down. He looked at her face, and laid a feeble hand, tremulous with agitation, upon her ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... attitude moved him to something more than pity. Her pretty frock and her refusal to be comforted by it; her youthful act—for Lucy had never yet cried before him; her flushed cheeks, her tremulous lips—what? If I could answer the question I should resolve the problem of the flight of souls. He looked at her and knew that he desired her above all things. A Lucy in tears was a new Lucy; a James who could afford to let his want ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... draw the hands back toward the shoulders, gradually contracting the muscles and putting force into them, so that when they reach the shoulders the fists will be so tightly clenched that a tremulous motion is felt. ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka

... transport. traspasar to pass over, transfer. tratar to treat, deal; —— de try; tratarse de be a question of, concern. trato dealing, communication, conversation. trazar to trace. treinta thirty. tremebundo quivering. tremendo tremendous, terrible. tremulo tremulous. trepar to climb. tres three. tributar to bring as tribute. tricolor tricolored. trigo wheat. trinar to trill, quaver. tripulacion f. crew. triste sad, sorry-looking, terrible. tristeza sadness. triunfador one who triumphs, victor. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon

... environments. Every question and issue of national significance have for us a vital consideration for weal or woe. We scan with greedy eagerness the expressed policy of the statesman, we hang with bated breath on the eloquence of the sentiment moulder, we probe with tremulous care the feelings of the community to find out if we have been pushed to the rear or given a fair chance in the race to a higher life—our ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... now?" cried Janaki, looking around him with tremulous terror. "The Sultan is sure to send and make inquiries about his lost Berber-Bashi. It is known that he came here in disguise. The affair ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai

... stretching of hands In gloom; and my feet, Treading tremulous over hard sands; A wind that wailed wearily slow, A plashing of waters below, A twilight on bleak lone lands, Spread out; and a sheet Of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... lips, he gave the signal for the sacred chanting to be resumed, and in another moment the 'Litany of the Virgin' was started in stentorian tones by the leaders of the procession. Intimidated by the looks, as well as by the commands of the priests, the girls and children joined in the chanting with tremulous voices, as they began to file through the Cathedral doors and enter the great nave. But a magnetic spell, stronger than any invocation of the Church, had fallen upon the crowd, and they all stood as though caught in ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... in 1855. In it Mr. Longfellow has woven together the beautiful traditions of the American Indians into one grand and delightful epic poem. The melodies of its rhythm and measure flow from his classic pen in unison with the hoof-beats of the bison, the tremulous thunder of the Falls of Minnehaha, the paddle strokes of the Indian canoeist, and he has done more to immortalize in song and story the life and environments of the red man of America than any other writer, save perhaps J. Fenimore Cooper. ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... system, is in both cases the same—violent mental emotion will in like manner suspend the action of the heart and produce instant death. These are the terrors of alcohol, when drank to excess; but the health of the habitual tippler is sure to be undermined; his hands become tremulous, he is unsteady in his gait, his complexion becomes sallow, and all his mental faculties ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... its flowers and perfumes, came at last; and in the early morning, when I used to ramble through the stretches of flowers and shrubbery, and under the trees, tremulous with bird song, I wondered how the owner of all this beauty could willingly banish himself from it. Thomas permitted me to gather flowers at will—a favor I used to the utmost, among others sending Mrs. Le Grande a daily remembrance ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... surprise, for they had not expected the Duca's visit. Not heeding them, his heart full of his son, the old man continued to speak, in short, almost tremulous sentences. ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford

... our encampment is peaceful and friendly, without being remote or secluded. The grove is large and free from all undergrowth: the trunks of the ancient olive-trees are gnarled and massive, the foliage soft and tremulous. The corner that George has chosen for us is raised above the road by a kind of terrace, so that it is not too easily accessible to the curious passer-by. Across the road we see a gray stone wall, and above it the roof of the Anglican Bishop's house, and the schools, from which ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... youth with a lip that betrayed by its tremulous motion the interest he took in her speech—"never includes a long period of time. But," he added with a smile of good- humoured pleasantry, "if admitted to such a distinction, I should not feel myself competent to the task of commenting on so much innocence and purity, as I know I should find ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... came to the smooth, wide, high roads overlooking the valley, she put him down, and he would run on ahead, crying, "Turn for a walk, Mummie, turn along," and his little feet went so quickly beneath his frock that it seemed as if he were on wheels. She followed, often forced to break into a run, tremulous lest he should fall. They descended the hill into the ornamental park, and spent happy hours amid geometrically-designed flower-beds and curving walks. She ventured with him as far as the old Dulwich village, ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore

... star-shells, hung around me and gathered itself into a dark streak on the floor of the trench beneath the banquette on which I stood. Away on my right were the Hills of Lorette, Souchez, and the Labyrinth where big guns eternally spoke, and where the searchlights now touched the heights with long tremulous white arms. To my left the star-shells rose and fell in brilliant riot above the battle-line that (p. 293) disfigured the green meadows between my trench and Ypres, and out on my front a thousand yards away ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... does not now hear this for the first time," observed Donna Florinda, in a voice so meek and tremulous ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... proposal to make. You are alone, and purpose undertaking a bitter and, it may be, a perilous journey in mountain ground at this season. What say you to taking me along with you? May be, I shall prove of some use; and at any rate, your adventure and your story interest me greatly!" I was quite tremulous with apprehension lest he should refuse my request, but he did not. He looked earnestly and even fixedly at me for a minute, then silently held out his hand and grasped mine with energy. It was a sealed compact. After that we considered ourselves comrades, and continued our journey together. ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... park, and a few brave stars Look on the lights that link it with chains of gold, The lake bears up their reflection in broken bars That seem too heavy for tremulous water to hold. ...
— Love Songs • Sara Teasdale

... necromantic prodigy did indeed appal me), methinks I was not credulous in any other magic save that of love!' said Glaucus, in a tremulous voice, and fixing his eyes ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... The child, tremulous with an ecstatic sense of responsibility, bent over her paper on the table for a full minute, then diffidently pushed it across to me; and I read, in strong Roman capitals, the inscription, MRAY, with the M containing an extra angle—being, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... and advancing the right foot, he raised his hat, and with peculiar grace bowing to the two friends—"Pardon, Monsieur Vallis," said he, in tremulous accents, "I am 'de trop;' permit, me to ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... half-tremulous answer, as she beheld the peculiar expression of my glance. The entrance of Mrs. Clifford, was, perhaps, for the first time, rather a relief to ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... earth scattered upon the pavement, something white was visible. It was Militona's answer. Andres called a sereno, or watchman, who just then passed, with his lantern at the end of his halbert, and begging him to lower the light, read the following words, written in a tremulous hand, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... ours, from crested cliff to wooded base. The solemn groves of firs and spruces, the plumed sierras of lofty pines, the stately pillared forests of birch and beech, the wild ravines, the tremulous thickets of silvery poplar, the bare peaks with their wide outlooks, and the cool vales resounding with the ceaseless song of little rivers,—we knew and loved them all; they ministered peace and joy to us; they were all ours, though we held no title deeds ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... sir," said the young woman with a tremulous, hesitating voice and glistening eyes, "for his sake"—and she glanced at her aged companion—"who will else ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... worship," answered Mrs. Hornby, in a tremulous voice; whereupon the document was returned to the judge, who proceeded to compare it ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... his head. But even he managed to hold his mouth sufficiently shut. A family council was held; M. le General was given full power of attorney to act for all the heirs; and each having contributed an insignificant sum toward his necessary expenses, they waved him a tremulous good-by as he stood on the upper deck of the steamer, his silk hat in one hand and his ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... moment, quickly stepped out upon a veranda that overlooked the river. The Major turned his eyes toward the other door, and there Pennington stood with a handkerchief tightly pressed to his mouth. For a time they were silent, one strong and severe, the other tremulous and almost ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... Where the mountains afar are dim 'Neath the tremulous tread of the seraphim, Shall not our querulous hearts prevail, That have prayed for the peace of ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... grief, and aching emptiness, And fading hopes, a higher joy arises. In cloudiest nights, one lonely spot is bright, High overhead, through folds and folds of space; It is the earnest-star of all my heavens; And tremulous in the deep well of my being Its image answers, ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... both in its habits and song, resembles the Bunting of Europe, rising like it from the top of one bush, with a fine full note, and descending with tremulous wing to another. Its range, as far as I can judge, is right across the continent, since we fell in with it at our most distant northern points. It is much larger than the above, has a stronger bill, and a dark breast. This bird ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... music; and she had caught some of the science that seems to pervade nations in that part of the world. Nature had endowed her with one of the most touching voices of her sex; one less powerful than mellow and sweet; and she never used it in a religious office without its becoming tremulous and eloquent with feeling. While she was now singing this well-known hymn, a holy hope pervaded her moral system, that, in some miraculous manner, she might become the agent of turning Raoul to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... her eyes. Once more there was that change in his face which had seemed so wonderful to her. The blue of his eyes was soft, his mouth almost tremulous. She answered him almost as ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... free, not even moved by pity for that castaway (she was as much of a castaway as any one ever wrecked on a desert island), but as if beguiled by some extraordinary promise. Nothing more unworthy could be imagined. The recollection of that tremulous whisper when I gripped her shoulder with one hand and held a plate of chicken with the other was enough to make me break all ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad

... continued Bessy, "I should not have done except for the sake of my father; but now that I have done so" (and here Bessy's voice became tremulous), "let us consult at once how we shall act so as to secure his happiness, and that in future we may return to the former confidence and regard which should exist between us as brother ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... with his ideas. He had a marvellous staccato method of question and answer. He would shoot a question like a rifle bullet at the heads of his audience, and then stiffen back like a wary boxer, both clenched hands poised in a tremulous gesticulation, and before any one could answer his bullet-like question, he was answering it himself. As I edged my way nearer to him I discovered that he, also, had a little pile of books at his feet which a keen-eyed assistant was busily selling. How well-established the technic of ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson

... celandine, the primrose, the heath-flower, the jasmine, and the chrysanthemum all on the same day and from the same spot; his nightingale sings all the year round, his moon is always full, his cygnet is as white as his swan, his cedar is as tremulous as his aspen, and his poplar as embowering as his beech. Thus all nature marches with the march of mind; but among barbarians, instead of mead and wine, and the best seat by the fire, the reward of such a genius would have been to be summarily ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock

... watched those poor, withered, tremulous fingers dropping shreds of tobacco upon the hearth rug, and scarcely able to kindle a lucifer for their unsteadiness. Then walking once or twice up and down the little room, he left the old man to take a few puffs from the ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... is no more touching death-bed scene than that of the patriarch Jacob. Dying, the Prince forgot his gold and silver, his herds and lands. Lifted up upon his pillows, in tremulous excitement he took upon his lips two names—God and Rachel. More than a score of years had passed since her death, but in that memorable hour the great man built a monument to her who had fed his joy and ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... sight or sound of human life. The shadows deepened and darkness came. Then gradually a faint silvery light stole over water and marsh and wooded shore; and the stillness was broken by a burst of faint, high, tremulous tones, as though a host of unseen hands swept tiny invisible mandolins. The silvery light came from the rising moon; the rest ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... seen in the pinkish light, the Belled Buzzard flapped directly over his roof and flew due south, right toward the swamp—drawing a direct line through the air between the slayer and the victim—or, anyway, so it seemed to the watcher, grown suddenly tremulous. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... can see the princess, as she spoke those words, aglow and tremulous like the throbbing fingers in the Northern skies. Well, the "Northern Lights" recur, in our latitudes, at unexpected moments, at long ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... the silence was at length broken by the old man, who said, in a hollow and tremulous tone, "To the first condition I would willingly ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... to Nan, and, dropping on his knee as reverently as the herald of the fairy tale, he asked, still smiling, but with lips grown tremulous,— ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... vacuity" has, resembling the inexpressive glare of the glass eye of a wax figure; that indefinite sweep of the eye which ranges from one side to the other of an assembly, resting nowhere; and that tremulous, roving cast of the eye, and winking of the eyelid, which is in direct contrast to an open, collected, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... not so delicately, as alabaster endures not so firmly, the lightest, latest touches of the completing chisel. The finer feeling of the hand cannot be put upon a hard rock like syenite—the blow must be firm and fearless—the traceless, tremulous difference between common and immortal sculpture cannot be set upon it—it cannot receive the enchanted strokes which, like Aaron's incense, separate the Living and the Dead. Were it otherwise, were finish possible, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... to him. Through his every wandering, whatever might betide, her love would be with him, to comfort him in sorrow, to crown him in happiness. A bird's song recalled the lilt of her laughter. He saw again the tremulous curving of her mouth, red against the fine warm pallor of her face at parting. Passion welled in him. He halted yet once again, and stood with face suffused, gazing back. It was as if he were swayed by a sudden secret sense that warned him of her misery ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily

... look of assumed gaiety and ease, but the deep scarlet that tinged his whole face manifested his internal confusion; and in a voice that attempted to sound lively, though its tremulous accents betrayed uneasiness and distress, he exclaimed, with a forced smile, "Is it possible Miss Beverley can deign to notice a poor miserable day- labourer such as I am? how will she be justified in the beau monde, when even the sight of such a wretch ought to ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... thin habit of body, a long visage, coarse features, and melancholy aspect; of a grave and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mien, but which, upon a nearer acquaintance, softened into an engaging easiness of manners. His walk was slow, and his voice tremulous and mournful. He was easily excited to smiles, but ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... you are right,' she observed, in a tremulous voice. 'Indeed, I might have expected as much, for last night he frightened my niece and her maid on the high road. I thought it would be best to give him money and send him away, so that so evil a man should not remain here to be a source ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... of red roses and sandalwood flutter and die in the maze of their gem-tangled hair, And smiles are entwining like magical serpents the poppies of lips that are opiate-sweet; Their glittering garments of purple are burning like tremulous dawns in the quivering air, And exquisite, subtle and slow are the tinkle and tread of their rhythmical, ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu

... the tablet, which consisted of two thin leaves of ivory, fitting closely together. On the inside of one leaf was written in pencil, in a tremulous hand. "Ca-ira." ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... has assigned to them a very solemn office, Philosophy readily refers them to those great and benevolent principles of Nature by which the universe is regulated. But were there a constantly operating tendency to these calamitous occurrences; did we feel the earth beneath us tremulous, and giving ceaseless and certain tokens of the coming catastrophe of Nature; were the hurricane heard mustering its devastating powers, and perpetually muttering around us; were the skies 'like brass,' without a cloud to produce ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... that I had never dared to dream would speak for me. Mary A. Livermore came to Big Rapids, and as she was then at the height of her career, the entire countryside poured in to hear her. Far back in the crowded hall I sat alone and listened to her, thrilled by the lecture and tremulous with the hope of meeting the lecturer. When she had finished speaking I joined the throng that surged forward from the body of the hall, and as I reached her and felt the grasp of her friendly hand ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... David the whole task of washing and combing his hair, and arranging him in his neatly mended best clothes, was one long, tremulous delight. He wouldn't have had it omitted for the world. At last he was patted and brushed, and pronounced "just perfect," Polly sealing her approval by a kiss that she meant for his forehead, but it fell on the tip ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney

... sprigs of rhyme Until her life's full blossom-time, Flutter (like tremulous little birds) Her small and ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley

... land. His eloquence and religious fervour had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow; large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this young minister—an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look—as of a being who felt himself quite astray, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... hand it is true that, in order to receive the full blessed effects of trust into our characters and lives, we must persistently and doggedly keep on in the attitude of confidence. If a man holds out to God a tremulous hand with a shaking cup in it, which Le sometimes presents and sometimes twitches back, it is not to be expected that God will pour the treasure of His grace into such a vessel, with the risk of most of it being spilt upon the ground. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... alone stood out almost coal-black with an opaque and motionless solidity. Thirty miles away the serrated range of the interior stretched across the horizon, its outlines and shades of blue, faint and tremulous like a background painted on airy gossamer on the quivering fabric of an impalpable curtain let down to the plain of alluvial soil; and the openings of the estuary appeared, shining white, like bits of silver let into the square pieces snipped clean and sharp out ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... I knew that he was not dead!" she said in an intense tremulous whisper. The words were indefinite, but the master knew whom she meant, and there was a surge of joy in his heart, to be followed the next moment by doubt and astonishment. It was Henry Ware who had come back, but not the ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... go to church, and she did not always choose the same streets, so she had no special pet crossing-sweeper, and this morning it was Billy into whose hand she dropped the coin she was holding in her tremulous fingers. ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth

... Godollo did not answer immediately. She lowered her eyelids, and the deeper breathing of her bosom gave to her voice when she did speak a tremulous tone:— ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... mentions the simile of an arrow piercing the eye, he darts his forefinger towards that organ, then recoils with great violence when the word 'started' is expressed; and when he comes to 'trembling dropp'd it on the ground,' he throws all his limbs into a tremulous motion, and shakes the imaginary paper from his hand. The latter part of the description is carried on with the same minute gesticulation, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... but not at once to sleep; his nerves were still too tremulous. With the picture of Alice before him, he sat for hours in a dreamy reverie; and when at last he went to bed, he placed the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... chirping; a vague, diffused sound of voices, that seemed to come from overhead. Gradually it grew louder, and there was an uncertain gathering of shrill, discordant tones, now close by, now far off, but growing steadier and more harmonious, until at length it was blent in a single tremulous silvery chant that soared above us like the singing of a choir of angels. Thousands of children were singing the hymn to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various

... the leader of the Liberal Party, who headed the list at the last election, was seen being married like a believing bourgeois. The organ pealed forth its tender vibrations, some Christmas anthem, mysterious and tremulous, like an alleluia sounding through the aisles of centuries; the light streamed through the windows in floods and rested upon Adrienne, who was kneeling with her childlike head leaning on her gloved hands, kissing ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... remembered. In Valentine there seemed to be flowering a number of faint-hued wants, such wants as had never flowered from his nature before. The fig-tree that had seemed so exquisitely barren began to put forth leaves, and when the warm showers sang to it, it sang in tremulous reply. ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... you need not go. I will not hurt you. Besides, if this place is not large enough for us both, I will go. I would not disturb you." She spoke with a tremulous voice and a quick, uneasy glance, and started to move backward out of ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... Ratichon, I believe," she said in a voice that was dulcet and adorably tremulous, like the voice of some sweet, shy young thing in the ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... Virginia cavalry.-About as mark'd a case of a strong man brought low by a complication of diseases, (laryngitis, fever, debility and diarrhoea,) as I have ever seen—has superb physique, remains swarthy yet, and flushed and red with fever-is altogether flighty—flesh of his great breast and arms tremulous, and pulse pounding away with treble quickness—lies a good deal of the time in a partial sleep, but with low muttering and groans—a sleep in which there is no rest. Powerful as he is, and so young, he ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... her presently with wine. He dusted the bottle lovingly, and filled her glass with a flourish. She looked up with a tremulous smile: ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... the rank grass and sand mounds the woman stayed, oblivious of the cold and soaking rain. For a long time she rested absolutely motionless as if also dead. Then a few upward movements of the head told of her silent agony. By-and-by a low, tremulous moan broke from her ashen lips. Almost inaudible at first, her sobs increased until her whole frame was convulsed. She called upon her husband, she poured blessings on his name, she craved blessings from his spirit. Long and loud, with all her soul, with ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... red, wheeled in a large basket filled with bread, which the priests, with cups of wine, passed up and down among those kneeling at the altar. At least half a dozen times the places at the altar were filled—chiefly with women. We counted the men,—only seven,—and those were old and tremulous, with one foot in the grave. The whole performance was hollow and mechanical. People walked in, crossed themselves at the door with holy water, and, while kneeling and saying their prayers, looked ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... love or tenderness or pity may manifest itself. This humour is ever glinting forth from his writings. Some of his poems—The Farmer's Address to his Auld Mare, for example—are simply bathed in it, and we see the subject glowing in its light, soft and tremulous, as of an autumn sunset. In others, again, it flashes and sparkles, more sportive than tender. But, however it manifest itself, we recognise at once that it has a character of its own, which marks it off from the humour of any other writer; it is ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... made my way down the yard leading to the street, I encountered Mrs. Wattles at the back door of her shop. She had now reached the maudlin stage of intoxication. Her eyes were bleary, her mouth tremulous, her complexion bloated and inflamed. There was something indefinite in her appearance, suggesting the idea that her face had been boiled, and that the features had run, losing all sharpness of outline and expression. She fixed me with her fishy eye, and dabbing ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... philosopher,"—then, pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both, clasped together, with warmth and energy, to his breast, lifting his "sightless balls" to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice—"but Jesus Christ—like a God!" If it had indeed and in truth been an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly



Words linked to "Tremulous" :   quavering, unsteady



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