"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pure Description held the place of Sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream. Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;— I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still. 150 Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answer'd,—I was not in debt. If want provok'd, or madness made them print, I wag'd no war with ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... us that the Lord Jesus Christ is at hand, and that therefore we are to fret about nothing, but make our requests known to him. The Gospel tells us that he stands among us. The Collect tells us what we are to do, because he is at hand, because he ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... right," said Mrs. Savor. "I see you'd be'n putting up some kind of job on her the minute she mentioned the cars. Don't you fret any, Miss Kilburn. Rebecca and me'll get along with ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... believe you're a-mendin', though kep' on the strictest Q.T. The confinement must fret you, I'm sure, 'ow I wish I could drop in to see, And give you a regular rouser. But that is a pleasure to come; When we do meet again, we will split a fizz magnum, and make ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... will not soothe. The train goes swiftly, but not half swiftly enough. We pass town and hamlet. Advertisement hoardings, grotesque flat images of cows, outrageous commendations of whisky or pills, appear in the fields. We are getting near London. Pipes are laid by. We fidget and fret. The houses we pass are closer together, get closer still, merge into a sea of grey-slated roofs. The air is thick, smoke-laden. The train slows down, stops, starts again, draws up ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... my husband not still living it would be the same. I should never under any circumstances marry again. I have passed the period of a woman's life when as a woman she is loved; but I have not outlived the power of loving. I shall fret about you, Phineas, like an old hen after her one chick; and though you turn out to be a duck, and get away into waters where I cannot follow you, I shall go cackling round the pond, and always have ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... he told her, briskly. "But they ain't gonna do it if I can help it. Don't you fret. It will all come out right. Shore it will. Can't ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... peace, this dead and leaden thing, Then better far the hateful fret, the sting. Better the wound forever seeking ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... mania for great people wishing to strut and fret their four hours and a quarter upon the stage is on the increase—at least according to our friends the constituent members of the daily press. Despite the newspaper-death of the manager of the Surrey, by which his enemies wished to "spargere ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... one single month far from his wife in his benched ship fretteth himself when winter storms and the furious sea imprison him; but for us, the ninth year of our stay here is upon us in its course. Therefore do I not marvel that the Achaians should fret beside their beaked ships; yet nevertheless is it shameful to wait long and to depart empty. Be of good heart, my friends, and wait a while, until we learn whether Kalchas be a true prophet or no. For this thing ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... are to combat the adversaries on their own ground; and because it is thus only that, while we startle a few, we can prove to all that the torrent of negations is but a passing rush of waters, which, fret as they may in their channel, shall be found to have left not so much as a trace of their passage ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... for the others, the scribblers and nibblers of literature, if they indeed reverence Rossetti's memory, let them pay him the one homage he would most have valued, the gracious homage of silence. 'Though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me,' says Hamlet to his false friend, and even so might Rossetti speak to those well-intentioned mediocrities who would seem to know his stops and would sound him to the top of his compass. True, they cannot fret him now, for he has passed beyond ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... bar owners," and others of that class.[3388]—Towards the end, "butchers of both classes, high and low, are aristocratized."—In the same way, "the women in the markets, except a few who are paid and whose husbands are Jacobins, curse and swear, fume, fret and storm." "This morning," says a merchant, "four or five of them were here; they no longer insist on being called citoyennes; they declare that they "spit on the republic."[3389]—The only remaining patriot females are from the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a great deal. I'd give I don't know what to be beautiful; but as I am not I don't mean to fret about it. Well, Maggie's downright plain; in fact—in fact—almost ugly, I may say; and yet—and yet, she is just Maggie; and you are not five minutes in her society before you'd rather have her face than any other face in the world. But the immediate ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... tears rolled from her eyes, Sometimes she pierced the air with cries, For hours together she would fret Because their toys she could not get. Ah, then! how changed this pretty child, No longer amiable and mild. That fairy form and smiling face Lost all their sprightliness and grace. Her tender mother ...
— Slovenly Betsy • Heinrich Hoffman
... "Fret not for thy sword, Sir Scout." she replied, "neither flatter thyself that Circe wastes her spells on all who come her way. Those ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... confess that a pang of jealousy shot through me. It has been observed by La Rochefoucauld that it is astonishing how cheerfully we bear the ills of others; he might well have added that, on the other hand, it is remarkable how we fret over the happiness of our neighbours. I envied Daker when I saw him drive away to the station with the gentle girl at his side; I knew that she was nestling against him, and half her illness was only an excuse ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... fret about that! I will off to Bristol at daybreak, and give my council enough to think of without their having time to devote to your fate. The soldiers will but have another instance of the working of the Father ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to deny it,' he replied; 'therefore fret not thyself, good friend,—my worldly name is James Westrop. And I will tell thee what thou askest not, that my errand hither is to this young man, Andrew Golding. I have now told him my message, ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... should I. It's all the damnedest nonsense! Such a charge as that!—Tell you what, Judith. D'ye remember 'Woodstock' and Cromwell in it? Well, Stonewall Jackson's like Cromwell—of course, a better man, and a greater general, and a nobler cause, but still he's like him! Don't you fret! Cromwell had to listen to the truth. He did it, and so will Stonewall Jackson. Such damned stuff and nonsense! It hurts me worse than that old bayonet jab ever could! I'd like ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... And now all is said; I am glad you let me tell you, Jack. I can never love you like—like that, but I need you, and you will be near me, always, won't you? I need your love. Be gentle, be firm in little things. Let me come to you and fret. ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... cold, The tall trees shiver, Each with its pool of pallid gold Draining down to the river. 'Tis now when fret of winter wet Warns the year she is old, And she casts robe and coronet, That I ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... and powerless to loose himself from his love, found life scarce tolerable, and yet knew not how to die. While in this frame he languished, it befell one day that some ladies that were of kin to him counselled him earnestly to be quit of such a love, whereby he could but fret himself to no purpose, seeing that Catella cared for nought in the world save Filippello, and lived in such a state of jealousy on his account that never a bird flew but she feared lest it should snatch him from her. So soon as Ricciardo heard of Catella's jealousy, he forthwith ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... these would not forget The pangs which love to all its victims bears, The fever of the brain, the ceaseless fret, And all ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... the book of Ecclesiastes we read, that "a living dog is better than a dead lion;" and though I had often quoted this saying, I never felt the truth of it so deeply as now. The dead lion and the dead elephant are quite immovable things for a live dog to bark at or fret about. It was a hard and trying time to me in that place. I could not see my way, or understand at all what was the Lord's will towards me. While in this state of mind I had a vivid dream. I thought that the ornamental iron grating, which was for ventilating the space under the floor ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... bay. "If a gal wants to drive, let her hitch. Ye'd better let a woman go the whole figger when she gits started, just as ye'd better give an ugly cuss of a horse his head up hill an' down. It takes the mischief out of 'em quicker'n anything. Let her go it, Dexter—don't ye fret." ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... above my head Begins irascibly to flare and fret, Wheezing into its epileptic jet, Reminding me I ought ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... came. We planted every one, and used to carry water for them, too—after we'd been working in the fields all day. Anton, he was a city man, and he used to get discouraged. But I could n't feel so tired that I would n't fret about these trees when there was a dry time. They were on my mind like children. Many a night after he was asleep I've got up and come out and carried water to the poor things. And now, you see, we have the good of them. My man worked ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... "urbanity." Urbanity is the state of mind adapted to a city, as rusticity is adapted to the country. In each case the perfection of the adaptation is evidenced by a certain ease of manner in the presence of the environment. There is an absence of fret and worry over what is involved in the situation. A countryman does not fret over dust or mud; he knows that they are forms of the good earth out of which he makes his living. He may grumble at the weather, but he is not surprised at it, ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... remember all the things. Don't you fret yourself. I can't take your place, but I'll see that the young gentlemen have their buttons sewed on, and plenty of good food. But I'm hoping you won't be gone long. Most likely you'll find your uncle better—I hope that, indeed I ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... Look at him, Mother, how softly he sleeps. Do you think God would let him starve, just after giving him back to us? Why, Mother, I'm as SURE of getting all the father needs as if my pocket were bursting with gold. There, now, don't fret." And, hurriedly kissing her, Hans caught up his skates and slipped from ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... boy," she said, "thou wilt make it long, howsoever short it be. And now I will give thee a rede, lest thou vex thyself sick and fret thy very heart. To-morrow go see if thou canst meet thy fate instead of abiding it. Do on thy war-gear and take thy sword and try the adventure of the wildwood; but go not over deep into it." Said he: "But how if the Lady come while I am away from ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... and tear of such an existence has wasted out the giant oaken strength of Mirabeau. A fret and fever that keeps heart and brain on fire: excess of effort, of excitement; excess of all kinds: labour incessant, almost beyond credibility! 'If I had not lived with him,' says Dumont, 'I should never have known what a man can make of one day; what things may be placed within ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... "Oh, don't fret," said her mother, good-naturedly, now that the lesson was over; "I guess you'll git along. I wouldn't mind if folks would only say, 'Oh, childern will be childern;' but they won't. They'll say, 'Land o' Goodness, who fetched them childern up?'—It's quarter past five, 'n' yer ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... found that Yosalinde was not home as yet but would be within the month. Yet he would not stay, for after long and serious converse with both Merlin and Sir Launcelot, he followed the great urge to go forward. For he felt the call now greater, more insistent. Yet did he somewhat fret since this urge, this call seemed to lead him nowhere, seemed only to ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... then; come out of the fret and the fever of life; away from the scorching heat of self, and enter the inward resting-place where the cooling airs of peace will calm, ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... not been able to sleep for hunger, and had heard what their step-mother had said to their father. Grettel wept bitterly and spoke to Hansel: "Now it's all up with us." "No, no, Grettel," said Hansel, "don't fret yourself; I'll be able to find a way to escape, no fear." And when the old people had fallen asleep he got up, slipped on his little coat, opened the back door and stole out. The moon was shining clearly, and the white pebbles ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... day long just so! Naught to know Of the trouble, toil, and fret! This is love, and this is May: Yesterday And ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... truly, get up, and not fret a bit, if you'll only help me look. Please come now to dress me, and see if you can ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... "Don't you fret!" he said soothingly. "I shall be round this way again some time; mebbe you'll find it some place when you least expect. I've known such ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... imperfection as a part of human life. But here I am drifting into an error against which I warned the reader,—of making an entity of a conception. People are patient or impatient, but not necessarily throughout. There are men and women who fuss and fume over trifles who never falter or fret when their larger purposes are blocked or deferred. Some cannot stand detail who plan wisely and with patience. Vice versa, there are meticulous folk, little people, whose petty obstacles are met with patience and cheerfulness, who revel in minute detail, but who want returns ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... same old slacker still is he, With men at war on land and sea, And our lads plunging in it; He spreads afar his old excuse. "I'd like to help, but what's the use, The Allied troops will win it. There's nothing now to make us fret, there, They'll have it ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... on my distress, Defend me from this railing viperess! For if I stay, her words' sharp vinegar Will fret me through. Lingua, I must be gone: I hear one call me more ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... companioned this heavenly night without thy preaching," she said serenely, as Eloisa, half repenting her quickness, turned back to wave her a farewell, "for the breezes are comforting after the day, and fret me not with questions. And for my loyalty"—she lingered mockingly on the word—"my loyalty will serve King Janus well enough, unless he seeketh to enforce his ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... don't want my job to turn me into an ogre. There are people who don't feel that way about me." He laughed slyly. "Don't you fret about being haled into court. Several persons besides ourselves wish to meet those two distinguished gentlemen we are after. When we get them they will have to be shipped to Chicago and various other cities. ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... can make sail in their canoes, and come here easily, instead of pulling between thirty and forty miles, which is hard work against wind and current. Still, we must not be careless and we must keep a good look-out even now. I don't want to fret your father and Mrs. Seagrave with my fears on the subject, but I tell you what I really think, and what we ought ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... the novena, Marie went into the garden, leaving me with Leonie, who was reading by the window. After a short time I began to call: "Marie! Marie!" very softly. Leonie, accustomed to hear me fret like this, took no notice, so I called louder, until Marie came back to me. I saw her come into the room quite well, but, for the first time, I failed to recognise her. I looked all round and glanced anxiously into the garden, ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... be cheerful: not cry at parting; not fret afterwards. She must look forward to meeting again, and try to be happy ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... long time, for an exceedingly long time, she kissed him. And shaken in the depths of her being by his "What am I to do?" as by a just reproach, she said contritely: "Don't torture yourself. Don't fret. If you like we'll go there—we'll look for her—we shall no doubt ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... drew rapidly together; they were leaving the lakelike expanse behind. In the silence, above the rustling of the trees, Carrington heard the first fret of 'the river against its ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... forgive; Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live. Fretless and free, Soul, clap thy pinion! Earth have dominion, Body, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... do," she said. "I'd pay that fine lady governess of yours out. It would be tit for tat with me. Couldn't you do something as would put her in a fret, Miss Ermie?" ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... long to bide: To loose good dayes, that might be better spent; To wast long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to day, to be put back to morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; 900 To have thy Princes grace, yet want her Peeres; To have thy asking, yet waite manie yeeres; To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires; To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, 905 To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne. Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... chained, while I pranced over the country like a half-broken colt, trying to attract some girl. I'd have to waste time I need for my work and spend money that draws good interest while we sleep, to tempt her with presents. I'd have to rebuild the cabin and there's not a chance in ten she would not fret the life out of me whining to go to the city to live, arrange for her here the best I could. Of all the fool, unreliable dogs that ever trod a man's tracks, you are the limit! And you never before failed me! ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... perhaps. Can I help being blind? You fret because you want to be gadding about—with a helpless man left all alone at home. Your ...
— One Day More - A Play In One Act • Joseph Conrad
... had gone out, Marion spoke to David. "Do be sensible, sir," she said, "or the mistress will fret herself to death. Make some money to pay off your debts, and then you can try to ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... that nearest come To their predestin'd gain, Pant more and more to reach their home: Delay is keenest pain To those that all but touch the wish'd for shore, Where sin, and grief that comes of sin, shall fret no more. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... sacred truth,' said Mrs Gamp, contemplating him from a little distance with anything but favour, as he continued to mutter to himself. 'It's a pity that you don't know wot you say, for you'd tire your own patience out if you did, and fret yourself into a happy releage ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... our Creator never meant us to be contented, and that we should always have something to look forward to and fret about—"It is thy vocation, Hal,"—or we sink into apathy, and become averse to the prospect of the last great change. "Well, Mr. Graham," said a once contented, but now expiring Nimrod to me, "after all you have said, give me a thousand ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... just passed Aix-la-Chapelle when I made the dreadful discovery, or I might have driven back here from there with a carriage, for it is only twenty miles off; but as it was, I could do nothing but fret till we arrived at Cologne, from which city I at once telegraphed to the station-master here, and ascertained that you were safe and sound, and fast ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... along, before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered—it LOOKS like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Feast, One Wench, one Tomb; And thou must straight To ashes come: Drink, eat, and sleep; Why fret and pine? Death can but snatch What ne'er was thine: Follow ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... rabbit in a wile-cat's claw, Ef 'twarn't for thet slow critter, 'stablished law; Onsettle thet, an' all the world goes whiz, A screw's gut loose in eyerythin' there is: Good buttresses once settled, don't you fret 300 An' stir 'em; take a bridge's word for thet! Young folks are smart, but all ain't good thet's new; I guess the gran'thers they ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... down, but when I am afflicted because of the wickedness of the people, I call to remembrance these words: "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers. Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... Mrs. X.. i," said Hannah to me, "she likes you, and would come up any day if I wrote to her (I had supped two or three times with that lady),—I would not fret about Sarah, although she is a fine woman,—you let her see you have another woman, and she will come round if she comes back." But I ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... that may ever betide thee, fret If at Hell thou art not arrived yet; But thither, I rede thee, in mind repair Full oft, and observantly wander there; Musing intense, after reading me, Of the flaming sea, Will speedily thee Convert by appalling. Frequent remembrance of the black deep Thy soul will keep, Thou erring ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... the coast that Was just describing—Yes, it was the coast— Lay at this period quiet as the sky, The sands untumbled, the blue waves untost, And all was stillness, save the sea-bird's cry, And dolphin's leap, and little billow crost By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret Against ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... all of us would be rich, and then we should feel like the rich, and want to keep what we could. But as we have to labor hard for a little joy, it's best to get the joy, as much as you can, and not fret over the work." ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... a mean, old brute, but don't you fret! I got a hunch how to make him cancel my contract in a perfectly refined an' ladylike manner. Right now I start in bantin' and dietin' in the scientific-est manner an' the way I can lose three or four hundred pounds when I set ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... in Oxford. In All Souls College, for instance, the architect has carried his chimneys half as high as all the rest of the building, and fretted them with Gothic. The eye is instantly caught by the plated candlestick-like columns, and runs with some complacency up the groining and fret-work, and alights finally and fatally on a red chimney-top. He might as well have built a Gothic aisle at an entrance to a coal wharf. We have no scruple in saying that the man who could desecrate the Gothic trefoil into an ornament for a chimney has not the slightest feeling, ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... to me, the merchant said, As over his ledger he bent his head; I'm busy to-day with tare and tret, And I have no time to fume and fret. It was something to him when over the wire A message came from a funeral pyre— A drunken conductor had wrecked a train, And his wife and ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... and the famous Bullers of Buchan, where the sea has forced its way through the solid rock, leaving an arch of triumph to commemorate the passage, and formed a huge round pot where its waters, in the time of storm, rage and fret and foam like a newly imprisoned maniac—a pot which Dr Johnson proposes to substitute for the Red Sea, in the future ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... Therefore we need fret and fume and worry and doubt no more, but just lie still and put up with privation for six months. Perhaps 3 months will "let us out." Then, if government refuses to pay the rent on your new office we ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... mere curiosity, or to answer letters either of fulsome eulogy of himself or asking for his eulogy of the MSS. or new work of the correspondent. Some letters of that kind he probably never did answer. Few had any idea of the fagging task they imposed on the distinguished victim. He would worry and fret over it trebly in anticipation, and the actual task itself was to him probably ten times as irksome as it would be to most others. Yet it would be curious to know how many letters of suggestion and encouragement he actually did write in reply to solicitations from young authors ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... to save him if it can be done, and if there's any Raffles left in me, such a simple proposition as cracking a bank and puting the stuff back where it belongs, in a safe of which I have the combination, isn't going to stand in my way. Don't fret, old man, it's as good ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... and this often occurred, I supported him; but when I knew him to be wrong, or when I caught him neglecting his duties, conniving at injustice, shirking inquiry, or evading the truth, I in no way spared him. The incident just related is an illustration of the treatment he often received at my hands. Fret, fume, stamp, storm, as he might, I cared nothing for him. His anger to me was as indifferent as his friendship. I despised both equally. Occasionally he would imagine, after there had been no storm ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... will be wrangling—for woman will fret About anything infinitesimal small: Like the Sage in our Plato, I'm 'anxious to get On the side'—on the sunnier side—'of a wall.' Let the wind of the world toss the nations like rooks, If only you'll leave me at peace with ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... not show thee through the power Of herbs and words I have, as dark as night, My self turn'd to thy Amoret, in sight, Her very figure, and the Robe she wears, With tawny Buskins, and the hook she bears Of thine own Carving, where your names are set, Wrought underneath with many a curious fret, The Prim-Rose Chaplet, taudry-lace and Ring, Thou gavest her for her singing, with each thing Else that she wears about her, let me feel The first fell ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... resin-coated bud, Skim the light tear that tips Narcissus' ray, Or round the Hollyhock's hoar fragrance play. Soon temper'd to their will through eve's low beam, And link'd in airy bands the viscous stream, They waft their nut-brown loads exulting home, That form a fret-work for the future comb; Caulk every chink where rushing winds may roar, And seal their circling ramparts to ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... I have thought till my heart is sore with thinking! No, Jack, don't fret. I don't. Thank God there are other things. There is work, a people to help, ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... And way dey kip a-talkin' of de hard tam get along— May have plaintee money, too, an' de healt' be good an' soun'— But you'll fin' dere's alway somet'ing goin' wrong— 'Course dere may be many reason w'y some feller ought to fret— But me, I'm alway singin' de only song I know— 'Tisn't long enough for music, an' so short you can't forget, But it drive away de lonesome, an' dis is how she go, "Jus' tak' your chance, an' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... Felix blurted forth his indignation and disappointment at not being included in the party. Taking him up from the ground, where he had thrown himself in his passion, the good captain tried to console him—"Come now, come, my little man, don't fret so. Don't you know we want you here. How could the dear little girls and the good old lady do without such a ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... Spanish Main," said Mr. Mizzen, in his curious sing-song, "to the wet Antipodee; but dry or wet we need not fret, for we are bold as bold can be; and on the way at Botany Bay we'll probably stay a week or two, to gather ferns as the Botanists do, and then we'll stop at the door of Spain, to ask the way to the ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... the cargo and his Jewish fellow-passengers were to be landed, Aaron was tantalized for days by the quarantine, so that he must needs fret amid the musty odors long after he had thought to tread the sacred streets of Jerusalem. But at last he found himself making straight for the Holy Land; and one magic day, the pilgrim, pallid and emaciated, gazed ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... all right—don't yo' all let dat fret yo'!" chuckled the negro. "I knows jest where's she tied. It's a few miles from heah, but in dat choo-choo boat yo' all kin ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... plays and concerts which I could scarce afford: but I thought I would have a Carnival before entering on a year of reductions. I have been trying to hurry on, and bully, Lawyers: have done a very little good with much trouble; and cannot manage to fret much though I am told there is great ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... this time the connection had been cut off, and it took quite ten minutes to get on again, and by that time I could have yelled aloud with the feverish fret of it ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... orders about various things, and I gave them to him with the same grave air that I have in my portrait. Mamma is just going to bed. We both beg that papa will be careful of his health, not go out too early, nor fret, [Footnote: The Father was strongly disposed to hypochondria.] but laugh and be merry and in good spirits. We think the Mufti H. C. [the Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo] a MUFF, but we know God to be compassionate, merciful, and loving. I kiss papa's hands a thousand ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... communion with the whole world as you do! You are always occupied in some decorous and universally respected way. When you have done your tasks for school, you take riding lessons or work with the fret-saw, and even in the long vacation on the seashore your time is taken up with rowing, sailing, and swimming; while I lie lost in idle thought on the sand, staring at the mysteriously changing expressions that flit over the countenance of the sea. And that is why your eyes are so clear. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... There's the mark of the bullet — he's got it inside of him yet Mixed up somehow with his victuals, but bless you he don't seem to fret! Gluttonous, ugly, and lazy — eats any thing he can bite; Now, let us shut up the stable, and bid the old fellow good-night: Ah! We can't breed 'em, the sort that were bred when we old 'uns were young. Yes, I was saying, these bushrangers, none of 'em ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... i' this road, Mr. Penrose. They say as th' angels are glad when bad folk turn good, and I suppose they'll fret theirsels a bit if th' bad folk keeps bad; and there's mony o' that mak' ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... when I saw him again he had courted the daughter of some rich and noble house. I was handsome enough still, but he never looked at me at the banquets. I came across him at least twenty times, but he avoided me as if I were tainted with leprosy, and I began to fret, and fell ill of a fever. The doctors said it was all over with me, so I sent him a letter in which there was nothing but these words: 'Beki is dying, and would like to see Assa once more,' and in the papyrus I put his first present—a plain ring. And what was the answer? a handful of gold! ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... necessary temporal wants are equally positive. What, then, can be more odious in the sight of God, than for those who profess to be his children to excuse their want of spirituality on the ground of their dependence upon him? And what more ungrateful, than to fret and worry themselves, lest they should come to want? We may also pray for a revival of religion in a particular place, and for the conversion of particular individuals, with strong ground of confidence, because ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... reason of what had befallen me, and threw myself on the couch. She saw that my colour was changed and said to me, 'What ails thee and why do I see thee thus changed?' 'My head irks me,' answered I; 'I am not well.' When she heard this, she was vexed and concerned for me and said to me, 'Fret not my heart, O my lord! Sit up and raise thy head and let me know what has happened to thee to-day, for thy face tells me a tale.' 'Spare me this talk,' replied I. But she wept and said, 'Meseems thou art tired of me, for I see that thou ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... his frilled shirt-fronts, his books, his flute, his fastidious ways, in which he detected—not incorrectly—a disgust for his surroundings; he was for ever complaining and grumbling at his son. "Nothing here," he used to say, "is to his taste; at table he is all in a fret, and doesn't eat; he can't bear the heat and close smell of the room; the sight of folks drunk upsets him, one daren't beat any one before him; he doesn't want to go into the government service; he's weakly, as you see, in health; fie upon him, the milksop! And all ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... a kind word, and tell him not to fret; There's many worthier than I, would make him happy yet. If I had lived—I cannot tell—I might have been his wife; But all these things have ceased to be, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... blessed their union was a great trouble to the Whytes. But when his wife began to fret over it Whyte would answer in his cheery fashion, "Never mind, missus, we shall have to ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... certain incongruities in one of the latter's odes, he gives the following Doresque illustration of his point. "If you should lead me into a superb Gothic building, with a thousand clustered pillars, each of them half a mile high, the walls all covered with fret-work, and the windows full of red and blue saints that had neither head nor tail, and I should find the Venus de Medici in person perked up in a long niche over the high altar, as naked as she was born, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... enough to see the real explanation of such cases as those mentioned near the beginning of this discussion. The mothers who fret and rebel over their maternity, she found, are likely to bear neurotic children. It is obvious (1) that mothers who fret and rebel are quite likely themselves to be neurotic in constitution, and the child ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... that tries to please, That hates to quarrel, fret, and teaze, And would not say an angry word— That child is pleasing to the Lord. We're all brothers, sisters, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... rede, my soul! The good The blossom craved was near, tho' hid. Fret not that thou must doubt, but rid Thy sky-path of obstructions strewed By winds of folly. Then, do thou The Godward impulse room allow To reach its perfect ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... fair sirs," quoth this Oswald, the old Reve, "I pray you all that you yourselves ne'er grieve, Though my reply should somewhat fret his nose; For lawful 'tis with force, force to oppose. This drunken Miller hath informed us here How that some folks beguiled a carpenter - Perhaps in scorn that I of yore was one. So, by your leave, him I'll requite anon. In his own churlish ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... silently to God to guide her girl in the right path. When she opened her eyes the tall form of Marshall Haney towered over her, so handsome, so full of quiet power that he seemed capable of anything. His face was strangely sweet as he said: "You must not fret about anything another minute. You've but to lie quiet and get strong." He put his broad, soft, warm, and muscular hand down upon her two folded ones, and added: "Let me do fer ye as I would fer me ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... a fret of speed like a racing wheel, Which else were aslumber along with the whole Of the dark, swinging rhythmic instead ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... and the green, And with those few art eminently seen That labour up the hill of heavenly truth, The better part, with Mary and with Ruth, Chosen thou hast; and they that overween, And at thy glowing virtues fret their spleen, No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth. Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light, And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful friends Passes ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... of "Poor Auntie! oh, if the watch could but be found!" while the watch's owner tossed about in wakeful distress. The more she tried to look bright in the day, the more impossible it seemed to forget her troubles in the temporary oblivion of a sound sleep. "It is really wrong of me to fret so about the loss of any thing," she would say to herself. "I seem more overwhelmed than even during the first few terrible days after mother's death. Though after all, were those first few days terrible? Just at the first when the door seems still as it were half-open, ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... perfumed the sunny air. And once again in childhood's tireless feet, She wanders on the shore where dark waves beat And moan. She bends her head, her eyes are wet With tears. Weep not, Arline! your heart may fret Itself in vain, the world will never care. Reveal not to these heartless eyes the pain That clasps your heart, but raise your head again And let your grand, young voice ring on the air! See! 'neath your feet the ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... Anne, who had never quite got over her childish habit of talking to herself. "November is usually such a disagreeable month . . . as if the year had suddenly found out that she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it. This year is growing old gracefully . . . just like a stately old lady who knows she can be charming even with gray hair and wrinkles. We've had lovely days and delicious twilights. This last fortnight has been so peaceful, and even Davy ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... it chanced, when he went along to the Universities that evening, he found he had missed his man—by only a minute or two. He was surprised and troubled; he knew how Lionel would fret. The hall-porter did not know whither Lord Rockminster had gone; that is to say, he almost certainly did know, but it was not his business to tell. Luckily, at this same moment, there was a young fellow leaving the club, and, as he was lighting his cigar, he heard Maurice's inquiries—and ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... days there was so much to do that she had no time to fret; in fact, she even found a certain pleasure in making her new home pretty, for all the time she was working she thought that her son would one day come and live there. The tapestry from her bedroom at Les Peuples was hung in ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... thumb and slightly roll it, it will gather in a soft little roll, with the touch almost of floss silk. The machine-made net is hard, stiff, and wiry, and remains perceptibly so in this test. Also, the mesh of machine-made lace is as regular as though made with a fine machine fret-saw, that of hand-made lace being of varying sizes, and often following the ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... something melted which he could shape as he chose. If you can be as brave, tender, and good as Abraham Lincoln was, I shall wish with all my heart that you may have power like Rufus Choate's and opportunity like Charles Sumner's. You mustn't fret about father. He's as pleased and satisfied as we are. You won him just as I told you you would, by yielding. It is more than a month since he brought home the books you will find on your table. They are for your first term in the law-school. Now good-night, and a happy New-Year ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... silence and the sweetness of the moonlit Hill a strange and sudden sound. It is louder than theology. It is more solemn than the professor's system. Insistent, urging everything before it—the toil of strenuous study, the fret of little trouble, and the dreams of dawning love—the call stirs on. It is the ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... jewel! Why, you don't think him such a fool, that he should go and care for a homeless baggage like that? Nikita is a sensible fellow, you see. He knows whom to love. So don't you go and fret, my jewel. We'll not take him away, and we won't marry him. No, we'll let him stay on, if you'll only oblige us with a ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... 'magine I do. I make such a racket wherever I go that when I leave, the stillness seems like a hole. But don't you fret! I'm coming up here real often—just as often as grandma will let me. 'Cause I've got not only you to visit now, but the Lilac Lady and Juiceharpie and the Home children—Oh, that's what I started to tell you about ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... DORA. Dont fret, old dear. Rudolph will teach me high-class manners. I call it quite a happy ending: ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... premised that we are never to fret, never to grumble, never to scold, and yet it being our duty in some way to make known and get rectified the faults of others, it remains to ask how; and on this head we will improvise a parable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... ever learn to be half as good and patient and unselfish as she is. I don't see how she can be so good and patient and happy when she has to lie still year after year and suffer so much, I should get cross and fret about it, for I can't bear to be sick a day. But she never thinks of her own troubles, but is so afraid she will make us care or trouble. When the pain is very bad she likes to hear music or poetry. It soothes her better than anything else. Whittier's poem on ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... to leave here.... Kiss my dear little ones for me, tell all the Negroes howdy for me.... Write as soon as you get this. Direct it to me at Dalton, as I expect this will be our post office for the present. Do my dear wife don't fret about me. Your ever ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... it, mother; don't fret,' said Grace. 'I have it—the price of—-what I can want. [What I can do without.] So let us go off to the castle without delay. Brian will meet us ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... fret between its banks until the spangled frills of the mimulus were all tattered with its spray. Often at the end of the summer it was worn quite thin and small with running, and not able to do more ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... old tree, thy lofty stem Outlin'd against the distant sky, But 'tis no gain to fret for them— For men, or trees, ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... I know that you will be inclined to cry, 'Print it in any case,' but I will entreat of your kindness, which I have so much right to trust in while entreating, not to say one such word. Be kind, and let me follow my own way silently. I have not, indeed, like a spoilt child in a fret, thrown the poem up because I would not alter it, though you have done much to spoil me. I act advisedly, and have made up my mind as to what is the wisest and best thing to do, and personally the pleasantest to myself, after ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... their sweetest smiles and give their tongues full rein In efforts to entrap the boys in admiration's chain. The fiddler tunes the strings with pick of thumb and scrape of bow, Finds one string keyed a note too high, another one too low; Then rosins up the tight-drawn hairs, the young folks in a fret Until their ears are greeted with the warning words, "All set! S'lute yer pardners! Let 'er go! Balance all an' do-ce-do! Swing yer girls an' run away! Right an' left an' gents sashay! Gents to right an' swing or cheat! On to next gal an' repeat! Balance ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... But fret as she might, and burn as she might, with impatience, love-created anger and resentment of some infamy, doubtless practiced on them both, there was nothing in the world ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... the heart; catching up with the most capricious self-will one mania after another, and tossing it away again for some new phantom; gorging the memory with facts which no one has taught them to arrange, and the reason with problems which they have no method for solving; till they fret themselves in a chronic fever of the brain, which too often urge them on to plunge, as it were, to cool the inward fire, into the ever-restless seas of doubt or of superstition. It is a sad picture. There are many who may read these pages whose hearts will ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... hitched no longer. Ha, ha, ha! If either them kids tries to ride Beelzy—Hmm. But Chiquita, now, she's little but she's great. Pa and Matt claim she's worth her weight in gold. She's likely, anyway. An' don't fret, lady. They'll all be home to breakfast, an' seein's I've got that to cook, I'll hump myself to bed and advisin' you to do the same. If not, make yourselves comfortable's you can, and ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... 'my favourite poet, the author of "Lord 'a Muzzy don't you fret. Missed we De Wet. Missed ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... fret impatiently over their own imperfections will never correct themselves of them, for correction, if it is to be of use, must proceed from a tranquil, restful mind. Cowardice, says David, is the ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... said he, in the tender singsong caressing voice old Russian peasant women employ. "Don't fret, friend—'suffer an hour, live for an age!' that's how it is, my dear fellow. And here we live, thank heaven, without offense. Among these folk, too, there are good men as well as bad," said he, and still ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... stake which is fix'd in the centre. Round and round go the cards, while I inwardly damn 5 At never once finding a visit from Pam. I lay down my stake, apparently cool, While the harpies about me all pocket the pool. I fret in my gizzard, yet, cautious and sly, I wish all my friends may be bolder than I: 10 Yet still they sit snug, not a creature will aim By losing their money to venture at fame. 'Tis in vain that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... it is better to die than to live, and better never to have been born than to live and die," answered Eric sadly. "Here, it would seem, is nothing but hate and strife, weariness and bitter envy to fret away our strength, and at last, if we come so far, sorrowful age and death, and thereafter we know not what. Little of good do we find to our hands, and much of evil; nor know I for what ill-doing these burdens are laid upon us. Yet must we needs breathe such an air as is blown about us, ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... thousand guineas out of my own pocket to see Godolphin's face when he reads my dispatch, and finds that he's got to honor bills for a hundred thousand pounds; it will be better than any comedy that ever was acted. How the pompous old owl will fret and fume! But he will have to find the money for all that. He can't begin the campaign by dishonoring bills of her majesty's general, or no one would trust us hereafter. You haven't seen ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... just as a butcher would a beef, he whispered: "Well, well, Kansas Shorty, I see you have brought a fine 'broncho' to town with you. I hope that you will be able to make a first-class road kid of him." To which coarse remarks Kansas Shorty laughingly replied: "Never fret, Nevada Bill, I have trained many a road kid into good plingers." Nevada Bill then told him where a gang of plingers had their headquarters, and as Kansas Shorty seemed to be acquainted with most of them whose monickers Nevada Bill repeated to him, he decided to pay this gang ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... You do not fret and worry yourselves as Catherine did, and abuse Mr. St. Leger for his indifference. You see plainly enough that two such very nice people, and so excellently suited to each other, must, thrown together as they were every day, end by liking each other, which, but for ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... can help a lot. If you're patient and quiet and cheerful you will get well sooner than if you fuss and fret and cry. That might cause fever and inflammation and all sorts ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells |
