The firm and courageous Sir John Lawrence is but ill succeeded by the weak and vacillating Sir Thomas Bludworth.

For the weak and vacillating the consequences are likely to prove disastrous.

Once, however, his mind was made up and his retreat cut off, he set to work at his preparations upon a scale which soon showed the Government that they had this time no fiery half-savage Shane, no incapable vacillating Desmond to deal with.

The above appears to us to represent the essence of Locke's often vacillating discussion of freedom (II. 21).

Had the Federal Government been in a condition of normal health and vigor, the farce would not have been effective for even a single day; but, with capital alarmed, with, parties divided into factions, with three traitors in the Cabinet, and a timid and vacillating Executive, by successive, almost imperceptible, degrees, the farce produced a policy and the policy led to an opening drama of civil war.

The Maoris were far too acute to be impressed by the well-meaning, vacillating Governor.

He vacillated an hour between his translation of St Fortunatus' hymn, Quem terra, pontus aethera, and "Red as a Rose is She," which, although he thought it as reprehensible for moral as for literary reasons, he was fain to follow out to the vulgar end.

This may be explained on the simple ground that Fichte's philosophy had lost its hold, and Fichte himself had made it lose its interest by a mingling of tenets and ideas from Schelling; and because, on the other hand, Schelling had never set forth a philosophy, but only a vague philosophizing, an unsteady, vacillating improvisation of poetical philosophemes.

The lamp, still in the woman's hand, gave a poor and vacillating light, but they could see a wide, long hall, tall doors opening on each side, some high-backed chairs, and other dark-colored furniture.

Yes, that is wonderfully done, the eyes, that dear, vacillating look of mine; for although it is rather a staring look, yet one can almost see the dark pupils stir from side to side: very well done.

At last the news reached the teacher, and he, poor, weak, and vacillating man, had not manhood enough to defend her, but acted according to the prejudices of society, and wrote Thomas a note telling him that circumstances made it desirable that she should not again come to school.

He never committed himself to a position of the security of which he was not sure; and he carried this spirit of caution to such an extremity that many of the early years of his reign present a succession of timid and vacillating movements, that more nearly resemble the subterfuges of a coward than the crafty artifices of a despot.

The real matter for lamentation is that they suffered so much waste in the service of vacillating Popes.

He who first seizes the occasion, may be for general purposes intrinsically a feebler man than many who stand listless or hesitating till the moment be passed; but in Literature, as in Life, a sudden promptitude outrivals vacillating power.

Antoine de l'Âge, Seigneur de Puylaurens, had possessed himself of the entire confidence of Gaston d'Orléans, who, like his royal mother and brother, was always the tool of his favourites; and his influence over the weak and vacillating Prince at length became all-powerful, although it was exercised more than once to the prejudice of his confiding master.

She remembered his early fascination, his long, vacillating resistance, his brief engagement, and the stormy scene when it was broken.

But towards morning a certain monotonous grating on the sand, that had for many minutes alternately cheated and piqued the ear, asserted itself more strongly, and a moving, vacillating shadow in the gloom became an opaque object on the shore.