"Cowardly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... remarked the Old Cattleman reflectively, at a crisis in our conversation when the talk turned on men of small and cowardly measure, "I thoroughly saveys that taste for battle that lurks in the deefiles of folk's nacher like a wolf in the hills Which I reckons now that I, myse'f, is one of the peacefullest people as ever belts on a weepon; but in my instincts—while ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... employment—occupation for his mind which, in spite of the efforts he made to dwell upon the villainies of Ephraim Shine and the wrong he had done Frank, and the good reasons he had to hate him, would revert again and again to Christina; and then a wish, a cowardly wish, traitorous to his brother, cruel to his mother, and false to himself, stole into his heart, and he felt for one burning moment a hope that the searcher might escape for her sake, for the sake of sweet Chris, ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... weak, it's cowardly, but it's so. And yet I want to face the situation—I'm trying to get you to face it, to realize how terrible ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... board. It must, no doubt, have been deadly dull, that house in Aldersgate Street. Silence reigned, save when broken by the cries of the younger Phillips sustaining chastisement. Milton had none of that noble humanitarian spirit which had led Montaigne long years before him to protest against the cowardly traditions of the schoolroom. After a month of Aldersgate Street, Mrs. Milton begged to go home. Her wish was granted, and she ran back to her ten brothers and sisters, and when her leave of absence was up refused ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... said the chief; "I am weary of this idleness, and my young men are impatient and clamor to be led against the Arapahoes, who have invaded our territory and cut off several of our hunting parties. I have therefore determined to take out a strong party and strike a blow that will teach these cowardly horse thieves a lesson!" ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... interrupted her son in a low tense voice. "He's a white-livered, cowardly hypocrite, that's my ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... degree by its vicissitudes, amongst which we must not forget his involuntary exile, and his residence in this country, where he lived for many years as Duke of Orleans. A worse man than his father it would be difficult to imagine. He was a vain, ambitious, and cowardly voluptuary, who gratified his personal passions at the expense of his sovereign and his country; but his son was reared in a different school, and to that accident, conjoined with a better nature, he probably owes the high position ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... great pity, so it was, This villainous saltpeter should be digg'd Out of the bowels of the harmless earth Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd So cowardly; and but for these vile guns He would himself ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... The wretched, cowardly lad forgot that there was another—a great Omniscient Being—who, at all events, heard him; and that every evil word he had uttered had assuredly been registered in a book whence it would never be erased till the Day of Judgment, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... A cowardly desire to lose consciousness ran through me, to forget myself, to hide my shame with her in death; yet, even while this was so, I sought most desperately through the depths of my anguished pity to find some hint, ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... troubles him with an instinctive apprehension. There is then no safety, his nerves tell him, except in bringing the affair, whatever it is, to an early issue—in having it out with her. Colville subdued the cowardly impulse of his own heart, which would have deceived him with the suggestion that Mrs. Bowen might be occupied with Effie, and it would be better to ask for Miss Graham. He asked for Mrs. Bowen, and ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... word recalled her to herself, but too late. It woke in her memory the clasp of her mother's arms, the sound of the sweet, tired voice: 'Only two of us against the big world, Polly—you and I. Be brave, little daughter, brave and patient.' Oh, how impatient and cowardly she had been! Would she never learn to be good? The better impulses rushed back into her heart, and crowded out the bad ones so quickly that in another moment she would have flung herself at Laura's feet, and implored her forgiveness merely to gain again her own self-respect ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of the midland and southern provinces, where the taint is deepest, are indolent and cowardly, and do not know what war means. The towns are more corrupt than the country districts. But the strength of England does not lie, as on the Continent, in towns and cities. The town population are merchants and craftsmen, rarely or never nobles ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... Russian revolutionary youth for many years, is here as the delegate of the Russian Revolutionary Socialist party, to raise funds for a new uprising. He was right when he said, at the meeting in Grand Central Palace, "The Russian Revolution will live until the decayed and cowardly regime of tyranny in Russia is rooted out ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... shy as a nun is she; One weak chirp is her only note; Braggart, and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat, Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink, Never was I afraid of man, Catch me, cowardly knaves, if ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... learned to trust him, and under his rule things were looking more prosperous. He saw that his men took nothing from them without paying for it, whereas the Egyptian governor had forced them to work without pay; and finding the troops he had brought from Cairo both cowardly and lazy, he engaged forty Soudanese, on whom he could depend, and trained them to ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... again to golf, and see at once that, with the miserable and cowardly exception of laying the stymie, there is no stroke in this game that fulfils the proper conditions which should govern athletic contests involving the use of spherical objects with or without instruments ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... arrest the course of evil, to prevent its channel from being deepened, its area from being enlarged. Pluck the whip from the hand of the ruffian who is lashing his beast; stay the arm that is uplifted to strike the cowardly murderous blow. Much has been said of the need of considering the good of society, of protecting the community at large from the depredations of the violent and fraudulent; and of subjecting the latter to exemplary punishment, in order to deter others from following ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... utility use, utilize rival, competitor male, masculine female, feminine beauty, esthetics beauty, pulchritude beautify, embellish poison, venom vote, franchise vote, suffrage taste, gust tasteful, gustatory tasteless, insipid flower, floral count, compute cowardly, pusillanimous tent, pavilion money, finance monetary, pecuniary trace, vestige face, countenance turn, revolve bottle, vial grease, lubricant oily, unctuous revive, resuscitate faultless, impeccable scourge, flagellate power, puissance barber, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Clarence might ride the words lingered in his ears. He saw through the man's hesitation; he, too, had probably heard that Clarence Brant weakly sympathized with his wife's sentiments, and dared not speak fully. And he understood the cowardly suggestion that there was "no real danger." It had been Clarence's one fallacy. He had believed the public excitement was only a temporary outbreak of partisan feeling, soon to subside. Even now he was conscious that he was less doubtful of ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... them, is chaff? how much is life coming in from the deep by these low doors? What is society? An eating and drinking together? a bit of gossip? a volley of jokes? Do men meet in these exercises, or in hope and humanity? We are all superior to amusement. The cowardly host will entertain with fiddlers and cream; then every guest leaves his high desire with his hat, leaves himself behind, and descends to fiddlers and cream. But men rise to associate; in sinking they separate; and the good host must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... one of the occasions in which Zicari appears, at first sight, to have stretched a point in order to improve his case, because, in the reference he gives, it is Behemoth, and not Belial, who speaks of himielf as cowardly (imbelle). But in another place Lucifer applies this ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... presence of some hoary mystery of sin far older than creeds or Christendom. There was fear in my heart—a kind of uneasy disgust, and above all a nervous eerie disquiet. Now I wanted to go away and yet I was ashamed of the cowardly thought. I pictured Ashtaroth's Grove with sheer horror. What tragedy was in the air? What secret awaited twilight? For the night was coming, the night of the Full Moon, the season ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... of the mercantile marine, had the last word, but only by the cowardly expedient of getting out of earshot of his daughter first, and then hurling it at her with a voice trained to compete with hurricanes. Miss Boom avoided a complete defeat by leaning forward with ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... curse of mankind; and possessed by a Manichaean belief in the power and presence of innumerable demons, whose especial victims were women; they erected witch-hunting into a science; they pandered to, and actually formalized, and justified on scientific grounds, the most cruel and cowardly superstitions of the mob; and again and again raised literal crusades against women, torturing, exposing, burning, young and old, not merely in the witch-mania of the 17th century, but through the whole middle age. It is a detestable page of history. I ask those ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... average people be saddened by their disabilities in either direction. Let your curses be as private as your prayers for both are purgative operations. In public we must conform to the standard, in private only may we do our best or our worst. Acting so, we will be freed from false pride and cowardly self-consciousness. Let us be brave. Let us caress the waists of our neighbours without fear. Let everybody's chin be our toy. Let us pat one another on the hats as we pass in the melancholy streets.—Thus only shall we learn to be gay and careless who for so long have been miserable ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... Tecaughretanego were men of great sense, with good heads and good hearts. They treated Smith with the greatest love and patience, and took him to task with affectionate mildness when he transgressed the laws of taste or feeling. The Indians all despised the white settlers, whom they thought stupid and cowardly, and they expected to drive them beyond the sea. They despised them for their impiety, and Tecaughretanego once said to Smith, "As you have lived with the white people, you have not had the same advantage of knowing that the Great Being ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... that, did you?" interposed Isobel, contemplating him steadily. "Well, I am glad to know who could have been so cowardly," she added with withering contempt. "Now I begin to wonder whether a letter which some years ago, I brought to the Abbey House to be forwarded to Godfrey, was ever posted to him who did not receive it, or whether, perhaps, it fell into ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... is little danger, Yonder dull-eyed craven seems Fitter far for stall and manger Than for scarf and blade that gleams; Shorter, and of frame less massive, Than his comrade lying low, Tame, and cowardly, and passive,— He will prove a feebler foe. I have done with doubt and anguish, Fears like dews in sunshine languish, Courage, husband, we shall vanquish, Thou art calm and so am I. For the rush he has not waited, On he strides with step elated, And the ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... charged too much for lumber, a-cuttin' on the cross, and the backstroke work. And it may 'a been so, when I took agin a man. But to bring up all that, with the mill strown down, is a cowardly thing, to my thinking. And to make no count of the beadin' I threw in, whenever it were a straightforrard job, and the turpsy knots, and the clogging of the teeth—'tis a bad bit to swallow, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... life can be summed up in two phrases: enlightened, hence good, just, generous; fanatic, hence wicked, hypocritical, lewd, cowardly. ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... the Socialist movement? It is true that these are anxious, trying days for us all, testing those who are upholding the banner of the working class in the greatest struggle the world has ever known against the exploiters of the world; a time in which the weak, the cowardly, will falter and fail and desert. They lack the fibre to endure the revolutionary test. They fall away. They disappear as ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... young men were performing their cowardly prank, a man was intently watching all that was taking place. He had been observing the blind violinist and the timid girl for several minutes. In his eyes was an expression of sympathy, which changed at once to intense anger at the act of the two heartless fops. He stepped ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... mother undressed him, carried him to his bed, and sat by him and remained with him until he was calmer. But he did not yield one inch. He forgave her nothing, and pretended to be asleep to get rid of her. His mother seemed to him bad and cowardly. He had no suspicion of all the suffering that she had to go through in order to live and give a living to her family, and of what she had borne in taking sides ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... meet, hungry one for the other, after some accidental abstinence. This meeting took place very soon, and the curious hunchback saw the boatman waiting below the square, at the Canal St. Antoine, for the young priest, who was handsome, blonde, slender, and well-shaped, like the gallant and cowardly hero of love, so celebrated by Monsieur Ariosto. Then the mechanician went to find the old dyer, who always loved his wife and always believed himself the only man who had a ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... conduct—honor, integrity, civic courage. The kind of business prosperity that blunts the standard of honor, that puts an inordinate value on mere wealth, that makes a man ruthless and conscienceless in trade, and weak and cowardly in citizenship, is not a good thing at all, but a very bad thing for the Nation. This Government stands for manhood first and for business only as ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... damned welcome to you. At the same time, if I ware telling anybody as to what kind of a fellow you was, I should say,—yessir, after thinking the matter over carefully, and taking all points into consideration,—I might say that I thought ye an all-around white-livered, cowardly cuss, an' that's ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... upon the captain that the rascal had been a spy. The Rackbirds had known that there were shipwrecked people in these caves. How could they help knowing it, if they had killed Davis and the others? But, cowardly hounds as they were, they had been afraid to attack the place until they knew how many people were in it, what arms they had, and in what way the place could best be assailed. This Mok had found out everything. If ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... of me, ejaculating, 'By Jove! this is infernal—I never heard of such a contemptible bit of rascality in my life. I have told my father ever since I came home that these men had bad faces, and I have looked carefully for traces of cheating in their accounts. But they were too cowardly to try it ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... shivered with new apprehension, the eyes of Snake le Vasquez glittered with new hope. He faced his steely eyed opponent for an instant only, then with a snarl like that of an angry beast sprang upon him. Benson met the cowardly attack with the flash of a powerful fist, and the outlaw fell to the floor with a hoarse cry of rage and pain. But he was quickly upon his feet again, muttering curses, and again he attacked his grim-faced antagonist. Quick blows rained upon his defenseless face, ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... his hand toward the girl to draw her to him, but she motioned him back indignantly, declaring that it would be reprehensible and cowardly in a soldier to use violence toward ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... no cowardly sensations whatever, but it didn't seem exactly prudent to investigate. But I somehow couldn't keep my eyes off the thing. And the more I looked at it the more disagreeably it grew on me. But I was resolved to play ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... many more of our friends, that it would take long to reckon them up. These deeds they did by the power of Satan, by witchcraft, and by villainy; for it stands in our laws and country rights, that however highly a man may have been guilty, it shall be called villainy and cowardly murder to kill him in the night. This band has had its luck hitherto by following the counsel of men acquainted with witchcraft and fighting by night, and not in the light of day; and by this proceeding have they been ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... learned of the intercepted letters, and, frightened by their probable result for himself, told the whole story of the crime, from the time Hopkins had first broached it to him until they were arrested in San Francisco. And during the entire narration of the cold-blooded, brutal, and cowardly deed, old Dan Hopkins sat with his eyes on the witness, as steady and unflinching in color and nerve and muscle as if he had been listening to ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... mean all the difference between failure and success. It was expedient to get ahead of the rabble. He, for one, was no craven; he had staked his all on this trip. He had studied the records of Arctic explorers. He thought he was no man's fool. If others were cowardly enough to hold back, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... these questions were very simply settled," he reflected. "Every urchin who was caught smoking was thrashed. The cowardly and faint-hearted did actually give up smoking, any who were somewhat more plucky and intelligent, after the thrashing took to carrying tobacco in the legs of their boots, and smoking in the barn. When they ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... closed on the wounded man, his friends went wild, and chaos followed. It was a mountain trick, they cried, and a mountaineer had turned it. The lawless hillsmen had come down and brought their cowardly custom of ambush with them. The mountain secretary of state was speeding away from the capitol at the moment the shot was fired, and that was a favorite trick of alibi in the hills. That shot had come from his window. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... him. Was it not cowardly to flee from this gallery? And he determined to show his courage, his lofty soul, into which ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the faith of the Duke, who was further persuaded, against the evidence of his own ears, that it was the Chancellor's intention to insist upon his daughter's rights, and to appeal to Parliament. That threatened opposition, the Duke met by cowardly bluster, which the Chancellor was easily able to rebuff by an indignant denial of such tales. For the injury the Duke had done him, he said, he was answerable to "One Who is as much above him as his highness was above him." The Chancellor's sense of proportion is curious, but may perhaps be condoned ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... who wished for war, would not listen to their words. They said that our fathers had beaten their fathers in many battles, and that the Shawanos were as brave and strong now as they ever were, and the Walkullas much weaker and more cowardly. They said, the old and timid, the faint heart, and the failing knee, might stay at home and take care of the women and children, and sleep and dream of those who had never dared bend a bow, or look upon a painted cheek, or listen ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... evil nature better than her son. He entertained a suspicion that he had not conquered her by his recent opposition to her will. Indeed, he would never have dared to brave her anger except for Tato's sake. Tato was his idol, and in her defense the cowardly brigand had ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... under the Pass Law system mean lashes innumerable at the direction of any Boer Field Cornet or Landdrost. It is a most barbarous system, as brutal as it is criminal-making, alone worthy of a Boer with an exaggerated fear of and cowardly brutality towards a race he has ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... orders. When we received the order we were too stunned to fully realize and appreciate all the circumstances and significance of it. Countless numbers of us openly cursed the order, for was it not a cowardly act and a breach of trust with our fallen comrades lying beneath the snow in the great cathedral yard who had fought so valiantly and well from Ust Padenga to Shenkursk in order to hold this all important position? However, cooler ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... justification of my inventions; if these men went so far (granting Davie sprung on them) would they not have gone so much further? But of course I knew they were a difficulty; determined to carry them through in a conversation; approached this (it seems) with cowardly anxiety; and filled it with gabble, sir, gabble. I have left all my facts, but have removed 42 lines. I should not wonder but what I'll end by re-writing it. It is not the technicalities that shocked you, it was my bad art. It is very strange ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rapidly, and in English, that Abdul could not fully understand. Indeed, he was totally at a loss to comprehend anything of the situation. It baffled him. His master actually seemed pleased and highly amused at the cowardly conduct of his mistress! ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... will endeavor, as it were, to get your vote for Chevydale. This will make the act more manly and determined on your part, and consequently one much more high-minded and creditable to your reputation. You will show them, besides, that you are not the cowardly ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... window-bars; and a captain of an Ohio regiment was shot through the head and instantly killed while reading a newspaper. He was violating no rule whatever, and when shot was from eight to ten feet inside the window through which the bullet came. This was a wholly unprovoked and wanton murder; the cowardly miscreant had fired the shot while he was off duty, and from the north sidewalk of Carey street. The guards (home guards they were) used, in fact, to gun for prisoners' heads from their posts below, pretty much after the fashion of boys after squirrels; ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... as well as he could, without complaining. But one day the cowardly apprentice began to say unkind things of Oliver's dead mother, and this he could not stand. His anger made him stronger even than his tormentor, though the latter was more than a head taller and much older, and he sprang upon him, caught him by the throat and, after shaking him till ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... said. "The cur! I expected almost as much. I know now what I never dreamt of before. He is a cowardly villain, and I will expose him ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... GOD and to them!' since, as I think in mine heart, many men and women trust so mickle in me in this case, that I would not, for the saving of my life, do thus to them. For if I thus should do, full many men and women would, as they might full truly, say that 'I had falsely and cowardly forsaken the Truth, and slandered shamefully the Word of GOD!' For if I consented to you, to do hereafter your will, for bonchief and mischief that may befall to me in this life, I deem in my conscience that I were worthy herefore to ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... to do about you I don't know," she repeated, leisurely inspecting him. "Shall I tell you something? I am not afraid to; I am not a bit cowardly about it either. ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... like dogs, sir," was the prompt reply. "If passengers were not so cowardly, stages ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... one leg across the low sill. The two men stood breathless. Maria saw the intruder. She sat up, articulating his name. At that piteous sound, betraying him to her brother, the cowardly impulse of many days' growth carried Dr. Dunlap's hand like a flash to his pocket. He fired his pistol directly into Rice's breast, and dropped back through the window to the boat he had taken from ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... of the road, if not restrained by a pull at the rein, and a good cut of the whip scientifically applied. Even the milestone was an object of great alarm; and as there were twelve of them on the way, and the cowardly creature never by any chance missed seeing them, however deep they were sunk in hedges, or buried in grassy banks, we never required to distinguish the figures on the stones, but calculated the progress we made by the number of starts and struggles. After ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... arose to speak," related a martyred statesman, "some one hurled a base, cowardly egg at me and it struck me in ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... for life, but it must be taken. He indulged in a momentary thought as to his own course. Would he leave the ship in the last boat? Yes, if every wounded man on board were taken off first; and how could he entertain even a shred of hope that his cowardly crew would preserve such discipline to the end as to permit ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... the Latin races do. There was very little suicide among the men of the North, because every man considered it his duty to get killed, not to kill himself; and to kill himself would have seemed cowardly, as implying fear of being killed by others. In modern ethical training, quite apart from religious considerations a man is taught that suicide is only excusable in case of shame, or under such exceptional circumstances as have occurred in the history of the ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... enough to bend over him, and when I did I found him asleep. I left him as he was, and I never let him know that I had been to his room; but I got him out on the rock again that night, and I turned our talk again to suicide. I said it was small, mean, cowardly, criminal, contemptible! I was savagely in earnest, and Grayson shivered and said not a word. I thought he was in better mind after that. We got to taking night rides again, and I stayed as closely to him as I could, for times got worse and trouble was upon everybody. Notes ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... one of the above six charges which, strictly speaking, the Court was required to consider, was the 4th, which imputed disgraceful and cowardly conduct to ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... abandoned their enterprise altogether. They, therefore, amused themselves with fishing in the bay; and then inviting their allies to join their revels, they passed the night in vaunting of their own great actions, and defying the cowardly whites. ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... with favor. There seemed to be a general conviction that the colored race was to be put on trial, and that it must show its manhood by defending itself and maintaining its rights against all odds. His idea of running away was voted a cowardly and unworthy one, and the plan advocated by Nimbus and Eliab, to stay and fight it out or take whatever consequences might result, was accepted as the true one to be adopted by men having such responsibility as rested upon them, as the first generation of free-men in the American history ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... different somehow, from what they did when we were sitting around the cheery camp-fire, listening to stories told by the guides," Thad admitted. "But then, wolves as a rule are cowardly brutes. They may do a heap of howling, but they seldom show any bravery. Only when in packs are they feared by hunters, away up in the frozen-up parts of Canada, ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... He is one of those men who can be honest as long as he is forced to be; but, who, the moment the pressure is taken off, can perpetrate crime for his own interests, without pity or remorse. I know the type well—cold-blooded, cunning, selfish, hypocritical, secretive, without much intellect, cowardly, but still, under certain circumstances, capable of great boldness. So ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... way," agreed Walter, "but it would be cowardly to go now and leave the Seminoles to ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... is cowardly; it is, indeed. How am I to help talking about it? I have come here, from Twickenham, on ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... should spread rapidly, for fear is its powerful auxiliary, and the Cruces people bowed down before the plague in slavish despair. The Americans and other foreigners in the place showed a brave front, but the natives, constitutionally cowardly, made not the feeblest show of resistance. Beyond filling the poor church, and making the priests bring out into the streets figures of tawdry dirty saints, supposed to possess some miraculous influence which they never ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... said Pixie deeply, "you are a cowardly man. I am sorry for the girl you are going to marry. She seems to have a conscience, but it would have been kinder of her if she had made you tell me the truth without first trying to spoil my life. I suppose you would have married me if I had said ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... had often given his Master pain and trouble through his impulsive ways. But the culmination of it all came on the night of the betrayal, when, in the hall of the high priest's palace, Peter denied being a disciple of Jesus, denied even knowing him. While for the third time the base and cowardly words were on his lips, Jesus turned and looked upon his faithless disciple with a look of grieved love, and then Peter remembered the forewarning the Master had given him. His heart was broken with penitence, and he went out and wept bitterly. But he had no ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... woman's reason. For one thing you've let me come along when you know that I'm a weight, and you're in danger. But you don't know what it means if I go back. You can't know. I know it's wrong and cowardly for me to stay and imperil you, but I am a coward, and ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... that the Federal government should observe, as far as in their power, the public engagements contracted by both nations; and that, by this generous and prudent conduct, they will give at least to the world the example of a true neutrality, which does not consist in the cowardly abandonment of their friends in the moment when danger menaces them, but in adhering strictly, if they can do no better, to the obligations they have contracted with them. It is by such proceedings that they will ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... that it was founded on no better grounds than an apprehension of the ridicule it might excite if the Convention were to do what is so unusual in England—admit women to an equal share and right of the discussion. I also without difficulty recognized that this was an unworthy, and, indeed, a cowardly motive, and I easily ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... one of patronage, especially amongst the champions of the class. "The English," said the blear-eyed lad, "though a wee bit behind the Scotch in strength and fortitude, are nae to be sneezed at, being far ahead of the Irish, to say nothing of the French, a pack of cowardly scoundrels. And with regard to the English country, it is na Scotland, it is true, but it has its gude properties; and, though there is ne'er a haggis in a' the land, there's an unco deal o' gowd and siller. I respect England, for I have an ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Narragansetts? His thoughts seem uneasy. I think there is more before his eye, than one whose sight is getting dim can see. Doth he behold the spirit of the brave Miantonimoh, who died, like a dog, beneath the blows of cowardly Pequots and false-tongued Yengeese? Or does his heart swell, with longing, to see the scalps of treacherous Pale-faces hanging at his belt? Speak, my son; the hatchet hath long been buried in ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... and glanced warningly at the thin partition. "At one time I thought there'd be murder done, for Joselyn yelled: 'Take that away—take it away!' and Old Swallowtail—that's the name we call Mr. Cragg, you know—roared out: 'You deserve to die for this cowardly act.' Well, you'd better believe my hair stood on end for a minute," Josie smiled as she thought of the wig standing on end, "but nothing happened. There was deep silence. Then the door opened and Mr. Joselyn walked out. I ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... of your life, Mr. Mace, and a costly experiment for your pocket. This boy is innocent of the outrageous, and I might say cowardly and unfounded, charge you make against him. I shall ask you to remain here for about an hour, while I attend to some details of this case which will enable me to give you a clear statement as to who ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... moment the Red Un was possessed for the river and a lifebelt. So were the other three. The signs were responsible. Permitted, a ship's lifebelt was a subterfuge of the cowardly, white-livered skunks who were afraid of a little water; forbidden, a ship's lifebelt took on the qualities of enemy's property—to be reconnoitred, assaulted, captured ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... says: "The Papists and Jacobites, in pursuance of their rebellious designs, assembled a mob on Friday night last, and threatened to attack Mr. Read's mug-house in Salisbury Court, in Fleet Street; but, seeing the loyal gentlemen that were there were resolved to defend themselves, the cowardly Papists and Jacobites desisted for that time. But on Monday night the villains meeting together again in a most rebellious manner, they began first to attack Mr. Goslin's house, at the sign of the 'Blew Boar's ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the corvette, lighted up by the rays of the setting sun, making her appear so much nearer than she really was, that he wondered she did not fire a shot to make the lugger heave to. He had no cowardly fears on the subject, but he again thought that he should have acted more wisely had he stowed himself away safely on shore, instead of coming on board the lugger. The corvette looked so powerful, that it seemed to him that a single broadside from her guns, would ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... divided his soldiers into even numbers, being careful to place a strong man and a weak one alternately throughout the length of his files, so that he who was less vigorous or more cowardly might be at once led and pushed forward by two others. But with his three thousand Ligurians, and the best in Carthage, he could form only a simple phalanx of four thousand and ninety-six hoplites, protected by bronze ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... (whom he heartily admired as having "nothing of the parson" about him), and argued quietly, rather severely, and then left him with the assurance that they relied on his sense of what was proper. He was amazed and secretly indignant at this combined attack. He thought it cowardly, unscrupulous; it resembled brigandage. He felt most acutely that no one had any right to demand from him that hundred pounds, and that they who did so transgressed one of those unwritten laws which govern social ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... chipmonks had them all to themselves. Here, in the early morning, deer, bighorn, and the stately elk come down to feed; and there, in the night, prowl and growl the Rocky Mountain lion, the grizzly bear, and the cowardly wolf. There were chasms of immense depth, dark with the indigo gloom of pines, and mountains with snow gleaming on their splintered crests, loveliness to bewilder and grandeur to awe, and still streams and shady pools, and ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... Ferrara, whom he believed to be his devoted friend. But what was thus whispered in the closet was proclaimed upon the house-top; and a duel was the result, in which Tasso, as expert in the use of the sword as of the pen, put to flight the cowardly traitor and his two brothers, whom he had brought with him to attack the poet. This adventure, and the cause of it, reached the ears of the duke, whose resentment was kindled by the audacity of a poor poet and dependant of his court in falling ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... the rumpus, came running up to see the fun, and they laughed and danced over poor Little Moccasin's distress. Often afterward they called him "coffee-cooler"; which meant that he was cowardly and faint-hearted, and that he preferred staying in camp around the fire, drinking coffee, to taking part in the manly sports of hunting ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... from the general, contrary to the discipline of war; though the earl insisted that he had done nothing but what he would readily justify, and that his intentions were to have divided the spoil among the whole army. But this being of no avail, and very much displeased at being deprived in so cowardly a manner of what he had so adventurously gained, he made his complaint to the king; and being successfully opposed there by the pride of the Count of Artois, the kings brother, who thwarted his claims with disdainful spite, he declared that he would serve no longer in their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... Sink to the hell from whence Thou cam'st! I do abhor thee, Satan; yea, I tell thee to thy face that I who quail Before the awful majesty of God, And cowardly do hide my sin from man, I tell thee, vile as I am, I do detest Thy very ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... "Not one cent, you cowardly hound!" he roared. "Not one cent shall you have; do you hear? I thank God that I am here to stop you robbing these, your mother and sister." Mrs. Malling tried to interfere, but he waved her back. "I've come at the right time, and I tell you that ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... Hell whom he could not be avenged-upon on earth! I suppose if ever pity, tender as a mother's, was in the heart of any man, it was in Dante's. But a man who does not know rigour cannot pity either. His very pity will be cowardly, egoistic,—sentimentality, or little better. I know not in the world an affection equal to that of Dante. It is a tenderness, a trembling, longing, pitying love: like the wail of AEolean harps, soft, soft; like a child's young heart;—and then that stern, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... case with this man; he defended himself, as it were, on all sides, and always kept himself in position so as to oppose to each of his vices the proof positive of the contrary virtues. Thus, if accused of usury, he could prove that he had lent, without interest, considerable sums of money. Cowardly and base in a tete-a-tete, he was bold and redoubtable in public; those who had made him tremble in secret were then compelled to acknowledge him a man of courage. Even his more than suspected probity was defended by such ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... exclaimed Agnes. "There must be a punishment deeper than any for the writers of anonymous letters. A murderer strikes the vital spot but once. Here every commandment is broken in the cowardly secret letter. False witness, the stab, illicit joy, covetousness, dishonor of father and mother, and defamation of God's image in the heart, are all committed in these ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... his life. With the instinct of self-preservation the young Athenian sprang forwards, clasped the knees of the leader, and exclaimed, "No spy—no Syrian—no foe! as ye would find mercy in the hour of death, only hear me!" Then, ashamed at having been betrayed into showing what might look like cowardly fear, the Greek stood erect, but gasping, expecting that ere he could draw another breath he should feel the dagger in his side, or ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... always understood from the novels in the pretty paper covers which she liked to read so much. It had killed trust; but the ache in her went on just the same, even though Godfrey had been threatened by Uncle Creddle with a big stick, and had shown such a cowardly anxiety to ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... other sulkily, "he told me to take care for the future and not to put any confidence in such cowardly rascals ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... Calhoun in the streets of the City of Charleston,"—so the papers say. Whether true or not, the Greek-fire of the righteous indignation of a loyal people is fast shattering the offspring of his infamous teachings,—the armed treason of the South, and its more cowardly ally the insidious treachery that lurks under doubtful cover in the loyal States. In thunder tones do the masses declare, that now and for ever, they repudiate the Treason and despise the Traitor. Nobly are the hands of our ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... Thorolf parted. By that time men had come there from the nearest farmsteads at the summons of Vigdis, and no fewer than twenty men had gathered there already. But when Ingjald and his men came to the place, he called Thord to him, "You have dealt in a most cowardly way with me, Thord," says he, "for I take it to be the truth that you have got the man off." Thord said this had not happened with his knowledge; and now all the plotting that had been between Ingjald and Thord came out. Ingjald now claimed to have back his money that he had given to Thord. ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... cried he, when he had revived. "He shall rue the day that he ever touched the person of Carlo Zeno." And forthwith he secured a number of bloodhounds with which to track the cowardly ruffian of the highway. ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... Beaufort, shaking with nameless and cowardly apprehension; but Philip had flown to the door, and, gazing on ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was shown in many ways. When he had been found apparently suitable employment or a new home he often would stay only a few days. The father's first statement that the boy was a craven was borne out by all that we saw. He was too cowardly to be "tough,'' but he was a persistent runaway and vagrant. He sometimes used an assumed name. In general demeanor he was good natured, but always restless. Not the least of his peculiarities was his ready weeping. It was amazing to see so large ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... cowardly, despicable sarcasm of the dregs of the people—was the beginning and the end of this youth. He was a perfect type of those Parisians who bear upon their faces the mocking scepticism of the great city of ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... Senator or Governor of a State or other public representative who takes the position that our citizens should not, in accordance with their lawful rights, travel on such ships, and that we need not take action about their deaths, occupies a position precisely and exactly as base and as cowardly (and I use those words with scientific precision) as if his wife's face were slapped on the public streets and the only action he took was to tell her to stay in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... must put aside this cowardly indifference, which the affectation that provokes it is ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... is some excuse for me," she said. "After what you have done, is it a manly action, on your part, to find your way to me as you have found it to-day? It seems a cowardly experiment, to try an experiment on my weakness for you. It seems a cowardly surprise, to surprise me into letting you kiss me. But that is only a woman's view. I ought to have known it couldn't be your view. I should have done better ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... their blue clothes, and they are manly fellows, whether they are drunk or whether they are sober. Now look at this, sir, that in the worst of weather they will neffer tek whisky with them when they go out to the sea at night, for they think it is cowardly. And they are ferry fine fellows, and gentlemanly in their ways, and they are ferry ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... insult me,—an uncivilized, vicious beast, who can never forgive me for refusing to receive her at Tunis. Do you know what she called me there to-night when she passed me? 'Robber and son of a dog.' The harlot had the face to call me that. As if I didn't know my Hemerlingue, who's as cowardly as he is fat. But, after all, let them say what they choose. I snap my fingers at 'em. What can they do against me? Destroy my credit with the bey? That makes no difference to me. I have no more ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... life and death, I succeeded in passing the two villains, Venturo and Antonio, before they had entered the sphere of the brilliant illuminations of the casinos in the vale of Arno; and I beard one say to the other, 'There's some cowardly knave who has just done a deed of which he is no doubt afraid.' Convinced by this remark that they suspected not who the person that passed them so rapidly was, I hurried on with increasing speed, and likewise with augmented ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... care for Tom, the ambulance came back with Josiah Crabtree. The former teacher of Putnam Hall showed his cowardly nature by groaning dismally every time he was moved. He was placed in a public ward, and those in attendance were told that he was an escaped prisoner and must not be allowed to get ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... petrified on Nehemiah's face. He felt his blood rush quickly to his head in the excitement of the moment. So here was the bird very close at hand! And here was his enterprise complete and successful. He could go away after the cowardly caution of the moonshiners should have expended itself in dallying and delay, with his negotiation for the "wild-cat" ended, and his accomplished young relative in charge. He drew himself erect with a sense of power. The moonshiners, the miller, would not dare ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... I meet the cowardly blackguard I will kill him! That I swear. Not only has he robbed me, but he has also betrayed me to the police, knowing that I must be sent to prison, while ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... muttered Mason. "The cowardly old schemer, to strike in the back; but we can beat her. She did not count on my helping you—I, who ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... terribly. Then the fun of the thing was still more dampened, to the boy's appreciation, by a sudden suspicion. Why had his companions thrust the most perilous part of the enterprise upon him, the youngest of the party? It was mean; it was cowardly; and the whole affair was intended to make sport for the rest, by getting him into a scrape. So, ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... other, striking his clenched right hand into the palm of his left, "but the villain don't the less deserve to be tied up, and get twelve dozen for all that. I'd content myself with knocking out both his daylights for his cowardly attempt to badger an old man, but that wouldn't be safe; besides, I know'd well enough he'd take to smugglin' again, an' soon give us a chance to nab him at his old tricks; so Coleman and I have been keepin' a look-out on him; and ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... got it into his head that we knew what we were talking about. How we got him to the station I do not remember, but somehow we got him there. He sputtered and fumed and swore, as all brave men will who feel that they are running away in a cowardly fashion. He wasn't convinced, but he thanked Ellis for his kindness and hoped that he wouldn't get into trouble ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath |
