"Weakling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Drunkard and weakling as he was, Selim had his ambitions. He wished to signalise his reign by some great conquest, such as had added lustre to the rule of his father; and in consequence he laid claim to the island of Cyprus, then belonging to Venice, The Venetians, having strengthened the fortifications ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... farther than ever before, up through a twisted pass that penetrated to the other side of the Arabian Mountains. He still had that much freedom. He wanted to think things out. In bitter, frustrating reversal of all his former urges to get off the Earth, he wanted, like a desperate weakling, to be ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... the Tlahuicos, marrying among themselves, had greatly increased in numbers; and so far from remaining a weakling race, the had become, by reason of their frugal mode of living and of the wholesome, hearty labor in which they constantly were engaged, exceptionally hale and strong; the weak and crippled among them being mainly those who each year, because of such infirmities, were added to their number ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... your way through them, were I not with you. Yet this is not beyond remedy. I had sincerely hoped to prove of service when I usurped the slave's place in the boat; instead, I am an encumbrance, a weakling whom you must protect at the risk of your own lives. Fortunately it is not yet too late to leave you free; it cannot be many miles back to New Orleans, and the current would bear me swiftly downward. I have loyal friends in the town to hide the daughter of Lafreniere, should the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... yielded long ago, in having broken down into unconsciousness, to wake again, weak and enfeebled by his illness, no longer able to break through the spell that drew him towards her. He called himself, in his heart, a traitor, a coward, a weakling, a miserable wretch without strength, or faith, or honour. There were no bounds to his self-abasement, no depths to which he did not sink in his self-judgment. He recalled that morning eighteen months ago when he had come over to Sigmundskron to fight the battle of honour, he remembered ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... from the shoulder to the loin. The barbarian frenzy, which the Scandinavian minstrels call the "fury of the Berserk", was in his heart, and with a savage laugh at his own too impetuous blow, he shouted as the corpse fell to the ground: "I think the weakling had never a bone in ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... contained, but to the dismay of the majority of Englishmen. There was likely to be dire trouble also respecting the vacant throne of Spain. There had been originally three candidates for the throne of the weakling Charles, not long dead—Philip of Anjou, whose claims had the powerful support of his grandfather, the ambitious Louis; Charles, the second son of the Emperor Leopold of Austria; and Joseph, the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. But ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... stealing upon one in the woods, to observe how soon he has become aware of my neighbourhood. Lifting his head, he would sniff the air inquiringly, then, uttering a short grunt, make off as fast as he could."[196] The same writer has also sometimes noticed in a family of wild boars one, generally a weakling, who was buffeted and ill-treated by the rest. "Do what he would, nothing was right; sometimes the mother, uttering a disapproving grunt, would give him a nudge to make him move more quickly, and that would be a sign for all the rest of his relations to begin showing their contempt ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... Johnson is not the man to be cheated out of a fortune without putting up a fight. Young Mitchell himself is neither fool nor weakling. He can shoot, too. We have had no news. Therefore—a conclusion that will not have escaped your sagacity—something has gone amiss with our little expeditionary force in the Gavilan. Johnson is quite the Paladin; but he could hardly exterminate such a bunch as ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... "Ayme, poor weakling! Pray now for thyself: if thou canst save thyself sinless a brief day or two, it may be well for thee and Levin. Thy grandmother is dreadful in her joys ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... kitten's, held its life on the frailest tenure; there was doubt at first whether it could draw breath at all, and the nurse never expected it to live till the second day. At the end of a week, however, it still survived; and Alma turned to the poor weakling with a loving tenderness such as she had never shown for her first-born. To Harvey's surprise she gladly took it to her breast, but for some reason this had presently to be forbidden, and the mother shed many tears. After a fortnight ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... dramatists who say they are holding up the mirror to Irish peasant nature, but they reflect nothing but decadence. They delight in the broken lights of insanity, the ruffian who beats his wife, the weakling who is unfortunate in love and who goes and drinks himself to death, while the little decaying country towns are seized on with avidity and exhibited on the stage in every kind of decay and human futility and meanness. Well, it ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow. For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the provincials then? What befel the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess's veil ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... to the merchant, "I reckon it sarved me out right. I was purty ha'sh with the boy. He ain't naught but a weakling, after all. Marm, she does her best by us all, and we stick to her; but if Fred ain't fitten to work in the woods, or on the farm, we'll find him something to do in town—if he likes it better. ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... a weakling because I come from off-world. Realize though, that this is also my strength. I can see things that are hidden from you by long association. You know, the old business of not being able to see the forest for the trees in the way." Kerk nodded agreement ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... he prayed for would be done. Hence I do not doubt that his prayer will prove a great help in the desperately bad affair of this Diet. And you, my teacher, would do far better to imitate our father, the Doctor, also in this point. For with your miserable cares and your weakling tears you will accomplish nothing, but prepare a sad destruction for yourself and us all, who take pleasure in, and are benefited by nothing more than your welfare." (C. R. 2, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... month, and every cent of it had been levied against by my Wall Street creditors. Not until I was seventy years old would any of the money I earned be coming to me. The other hired men looked on me as a weakling, and laughed at the torn golf suit ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... warlike stock ariseth weakling chief who bends the knee, As a withered fruitless sapling springeth from a ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... each individual must be taken into account and the temperature and frequency of the bath must be determined and regulated by the necessity and idiosyncrasies of each case. The amount of bathing that a strong, full-blooded person could endure would mop out the life of a thin, bloodless weakling. ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... the man. "Dammit! Then come in!" And to this invitation he added blasphemy in Peter's own tongue that made his heart turn sour. It was the useless, raving blasphemy of a weakling. It was the man as Peter had known him of old. But a little worse. He still wore what remained of his Marconi uniform, tattered, grease-stained coat and trousers, with the ragged white and blue emblems of the steamship line by ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... ability to bend words to our use, it is from laziness, not from scruple. We desire to speak competently, but without affectation. We know that if our diction rises to this dual standard, it silently distinguishes us from the sluggard, the weakling, and the upstart. For such diction is not to be had on sudden notice, like a tailor-made suit. Nor can it, like such a suit, deceive anybody as to our true status. A man's utterance reveals what he is. It is the ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... dae mine," and Tammas gave MacLure's hand a grip that would have crushed the bones of a weakling. Drumtochty felt in such moments the brotherliness of this ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... thief I've ever known. I've read your story in the newspaper, and so has the old man who saved your rotten life. We know you for the lying braggart that you are. You made yourself out a hero when you were a weakling and a coward. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... shown by the pile of money on the table and the bunch of cancelled mortgages which the lawyer is presenting to the nobleman, who refuses to soil his elegant fingers with them. Over on the left is his weakling son, helping himself at this critical turn of his affairs, to a pinch of snuff while he gazes admiringly at his own figure in the mirror. The lady is equally indifferent; she has strung the ring on to her finger and is toying with it, while she listens to the compliments ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... the English critic, has somewhere finely said that the Master in his words to Simon Peter, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," clearly recognized that Peter was a shuffler and a weakling and a coward and it was upon just such common material that the church was founded. It was not to be an aristocratic organization. Its foundations were not laid upon skill and genius in human character, but upon the weaker and commonplace ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... one it seemed as if I had struck Youth a slap in the face. They were so earnest, these boys, they wanted so much to go. "I am sixteen but large for my age," said one; and another, "Seventeen but large and healthy." "I am as strong at least as the average boy of my size," said an evident weakling. "Not afraid of any kind of work," was what many said, while one in particular, to lure me no doubt by inexpensiveness, wrote: "I can pay my way to the Pacific coast, so that part would probably be acceptable to you." ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... at the door and waited. The cock, a fine strong bird, tried to get out of the girl's arms. He drove his strong feet into her, pecked at her hand, let out from his throat a loud "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" protested as much as he could. But the girl was no weakling either. She thrust the head of the rooster under her arm and dug her elbows ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... of its conditions, and not upon a timid and awkward ignorance. He did not leave the world because it frightened or bewildered him, but because he did not find in it the things of which he was in search. Neither, on the other hand, did he quit the life of affairs like a weakling or an inefficient person who had failed in it, and had persuaded himself that incompetence was unworldliness. Hugh became a remarkably efficient official, alert, sensible, practical, and prudent. He was marked out for promotion. He was looked upon as a man who got ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hurled upon my soul a frenzied plague, To stain my hand with these dumb victims' blood. And those mine enemies exult in safety,— Not with my will; but where a God misguides, Strong arms are thwarted and the weakling lives. Now, what remains? Heaven hates me, 'tis too clear: The Grecian host abhor me: Troy, with all This country round our camp, is my sworn foe. Shall I, across the Aegean sailing home, Leave these Atridae ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... all events keep him with them, so handsome did they find him with his soft limpid eyes and beautiful curly hair. He was growing up in a languid way, dreamy, petted, idle among his mother's skirts, like the one charming weakling ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... the court; otherwise his act would be misunderstood and he might himself be put to death, and so fail of real revenge. Do you find indications that Shakspere takes this view? 2. Hamlet is a sentimental weakling, incapable by nature of decisive action. This was the view of Goethe. Is it consistent with Hamlet's words and deeds? 3. Hamlet's scholar's habit of study and analysis has largely paralyzed his natural power of action. He must stop and weigh every action beforehand, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... show Shakspere's conviction that she was a malefactor; and Desdemona by stifling as a fitting punishment for adultery. The idea is outside of serious discussion. Barely to assume that Shakspere held Hamlet for a pitiable weakling is a sufficiently shallow interpretation of the play; but to assume that he made him die by way of condign punishment for his opinions is merely ridiculous. Once for all, there is absolutely nothing in Hamlet's creed or conduct which Shakspere was in a position ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... die for me? Pah! I kiss no carrion. A half-hundred men have died for me this day, I hope. I kiss him who lives for me and conquers, not the weakling who dies!" ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... strength and vitality. As the blood races through your body—head and brain, every little cell should be brim full of life and power. Then you feel the vim and "go" that will make you a power among your fellow men. No nervousness, no indecision, no signs of the weakling if you ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... version of what had occurred. Miko had been forcing his wooing upon Anita. George Prince was a weakling whose only good quality was a love for his sister. Some years ago he had fallen into evil ways. Been arrested, and then discharged from his position with the Federated Radium Corporation. He had taken up with evil companions in Great-New York. Mostly ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... friend; for his sake spare me; Thyself art mighty; for thine own sake leave me; Myself a weakling, do not then ensnare me; Thou look'st not like deceit; do not deceive me; My sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave thee. If ever man were mov'd with woman's moans, Be moved with my tears, ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... She was becoming conscious of her gifts of fascination, and seemed to please herself with the homage of her rustic admirers. Why was it that no one of them had the look and bearing of that young man she had seen but a moment the other evening? To think that he should have taken up with such a weakling as Susan Posey! She sighed, and not so much thought as felt how kind it would have been in Heaven to have made her such a man. But the image of the delicate blonde stood between her and all serious thought ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... restore to the Indians all the lands purchased from them." How far these representations may have deceived Tecumseh into the belief that he was dealing with a man who was tottering to the fall, is not certainly known. He determined at any rate, to make a show of force. If the Governor was a weakling who sat insecurely in his seat, and was fearful of public clamor, here was an opportunity to display that fact. As he remarked to Barron, he had not seen the Governor since he was "a very young man," sitting at the side of General Wayne. The Governor was younger in years ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... proof of the skill you possess, Defeat is the proof of your grit; A weakling can smile in his days of success, But at trouble's first sign he will quit. So the test of the heart and the test of your pluck Isn't skies that are sunny and fair, But how do you stand to the blow that is struck And how do ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... "Maynard was a man who got his marriages inextricably entangled. It was not altogether his fault: his first wife should have been more open with him. If she had not been a bigamist, he would not have been a bigamist.... He was a self-indulgent weakling of the most despicable kind; and Mr. Flowerdew has worked out ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... days in Germany the elector was always an archbishop. Our bishops now are a weakling lot. With no army to back their edicts the people smile at their proclamations, try on their shovel hats, and laugh at their gaiters. Or if they be Methodist bishops, who are only make-believe bishops, having slipped the cable that bound them to the past, we pound them familiarly on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... problem for your midnight toil,— One you can study till your hair is white And never solve and never guess aright, Although you burn to dregs your midnight oil? O Sage, I give one that will make you moil. Just take one weakling little woman's heart. Prepare your patience, furbish up your art. How now? Did I not ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... nor comrade need feel ashamed of that great body, which now reclines as appropriate an ornament of the battle-field as it once was of the dining-room. A pretty sight is a philosopher's body by its side, withered, squalid, and bearded; he was dead before the fight began, poor weakling. Who would not despise the city whose guards are such miserable creatures? Who would not suppose, seeing these pallid, hairy manikins scattered on the ground, that it had none to fight for it, and so had turned out its gaol-birds to fill the ranks? That is how the spongers differ from the rhetoricians ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... her—whispering occasional words in Italian to her mistress—sat the Italian nurse, pale too, but motionless, a woman from the Campagna, of a Roman port and dignity, who would have scorned to give the master whom she detested any excuse for dubbing her a weakling. ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... one day amongst my people, and I found two precious things: one, a lovely little fact, the other a lovely little primrose. This was a pinched, dwarfish thing, for the spring was but a baby herself, and so could not mother more than a brave-hearted weakling. The frost lay all about it under the hedge, but its rough leaves kept it just warm enough, and hardly. Now, I should never have pulled the little darling; it would have seemed a kind of small sacrilege committed on the church of nature, seeing she had ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... all she wants," Bibbs repeated, thoughtfully. "You're up against something too strong for you. If Edith were a weakling you'd have a chance this way, but she isn't. She's got a lot of your determination, father, and with what's going on inside of her she'll beat you. You can't keep her from seeing him, as long as she feels about him the way she does now. ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... "Touch me not," said she, "you do not deserve my love. You are a weakling, as all men are. You can only coo like a pigeon, but when it comes to action, then sinks your arm, and you are powerless. Ah, the woman whom you profess to love begs of you a trifling service, the performance of which is of the highest importance to her, the greatest ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... piece of down borne upon the mellow air. At such a time, in such a place, you feel yourself to be but a tiny little speck in the centre of the world of Nature. You feel as free as a savage. If you are not happy, it must be that you are a weakling boy who lacks the real boy's ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... asked, arousing from this unmanly despair which played me for a weakling. "You must be protected also. You can't go to ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... Moreover, there is little virtue in what I do, since on the whole I prefer that prospect and am willing to take the risk of being hurried from an evil world. Hearken," he added, with a change of tone and gesture. "You think me a fool and a weakling; a dreamer also, you, the clear-eyed, hard-brained stateswoman who look to the glittering gain of the moment for which you are ready to pay in blood, and guess nothing of what lies beyond. I am none of these things, except, perchance, ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... his radiant home an angel spake: "What aileth thee, O Hagar? Rise and take The lad, and stand him on his feet. I'll make Of him a nation great." Her eyes were opened; And she saw a well, from which with joyful haste She filled her flask and gave the weakling lad A draught which gave him back to health ...
— The Mountain Spring And Other Poems • Nannie R. Glass
... to be said! I have behaved as vilely as you please. I have forfeited your friendship. But I should be an even greater fiend and weakling than you think me if, in cold blood, I could let your sister run the risk of marrying me. I could not trust myself—you may think of the statement as you like—I should make her miserable. Last night I had not parted from her an hour before I was utterly and irrevocably sure of it. My habits are ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... been thoroughly out of luck before—and borne it as being part of his life's burden. He had a thick skull and a broad back—what good were they but for burdens; it was not his business to whimper or play the weakling. And fate had heaped troubles upon him: if he could bear that, then he can bear this!—till at last he would break down altogether under the burden. But his ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... that pretty Mrs. Wiley would indifferently laugh off the idea that ownership of a dog could mean returned health to her little son. Upon Frank Wiley III Miss Beaver felt no reliance could be placed; he was an uxorious weakling. Her unfounded hope rested on old Mr. Wiley alone; old Mr. Wiley whose firm mouth and implacable dark eyes made her feel that he, and he alone, held the key to the situation. That he had realized young Frank's need and had filled it, albeit in secret, gave her to believe that he would also furnish ...
— Old Mr. Wiley • Fanny Greye La Spina
... shows himself unhurt, being protected by a breastplate; the conspirators are condemned to die and are led away. Then Adriano and Irene plead for Colonna; at first Rienzi is obdurate; then he, too, turns weakling and promises pardon. He pleads for his enemies with the people; in spite of two citizens who see nothing but danger, he prevails, and the act ends with another huge chorus. There is much very Italian stuff in the music; but on the whole this scene ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... of England (1307-1327), son of the preceding; was first Prince of Wales, being born at Carnarvon; being a weakling was governed by favourites, Gaveston and the Spencers, whose influence, as foreigners and unpatriotic, offended the barons, who rose against him; in 1314 Scotland rose in arms under Bruce, and an ill-fated expedition under him ended in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... his is no fancy picture—a poor weak creature, or was he a strong, heroic soul? Many will write him down the weakling; perhaps all but those who have themselves known much of that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, and drains away the moral life-blood drop by drop. It may be that the registers of Heaven held appended ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... was performed so suddenly, so adroitly, it made the Mexican such a weakling, so like a tumbled tenpin, that the shrill jabbering hushed. Gale knew this to ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... disappointment. She had caught Harlan's wink. The man had betrayed jealousy only a few minutes ago, and he had refused personally to return the chain to Haydon. And yet he stood there now, smiling and winking at the other, evidently with the desire to ingratiate himself. Sycophant, weakling, or fool—which was he? She shuddered with disgust, deliberately turned her back to Harlan, and began to walk ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... friend; for his sake spare me: Thyself art mighty; for thine own sake leave me: Myself a weakling; do not then ensnare me: Thou look'st not like deceit; do not deceive me. My sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave thee: If ever man were moved with woman's moans, Be moved with my tears, ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... ethnographical tree that will not flourish in European atmosphere: though the same exuberance of vigour that first sent forth the mighty shoot from central Asia, has prevailed to pass through the feeble defences of the West. It is as an overgrown weakling that he exists in our quarter of the world. His eyes are without fire, his manners without the stamp of originality. He succumbs beneath the presence of the Frank,—the hated and despised, and yet the feared and the envied. The better feelings of his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... food in Cho-Sen), and the pickles ungodly hot but which one learns to like exceeding well. And there was drink, real drink, not milky slush, but white, biting stuff distilled from rice, a pint of which would kill a weakling and make a strong man mad and merry. At the walled city of Chong-ho I put Kim and the city notables under the table with the stuff—or on the table, rather, for the table was the floor where we squatted ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... gone over in his mind many times the battle with the gorilla, and his first thought was to recover the wonderful little weapon which had transformed him from a hopelessly outclassed weakling to the superior of the mighty ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... manner Joshua did not realise to the full the following promise of uniform victory, but was defeated at Ai and elsewhere. The reason was the same,—the faithlessness of the people. Unbelief and sin turn a Samson into a weakling, and make Israel flee before the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... easy-going fellow, afraid of A and bullied by him, but very gentle and brotherly to little C, the weakling. He is quite in A's power, having lost ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... of work, you are fairly accurate. I have an idea that you take pride in turning out a good piece of work. But you must learn to stand criticism and profit by it. We must all take it sometime, every one of us. A weakling goes under. A strong man or woman learns to value it, to make every bit of it count. That is what I ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... not effeminate; he was not the puerile, shiftless creature the foregoing sentences may have led you to suspect. He was simply a weakling in the strong grasp of circumstance. He could not help himself; to save his life, he could not be ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... ecclesiastic architecture) that might nevermore hope to have a real birth. She had taken from him what no one could restore, the fine silky bloom of his youth; and something worth even more, though that was a loss he was not yet ready to admit. Worst of all, she had him convinced that he was a failure, a weakling and misfit, a sort of green fool who had asked for the moon and been properly punished for his temerity. And that was a skein even fairies would find ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... With smoky burning brandons of thy fear, But as a day shining with my new joy. Thou canst not fight with me for the coming heart Of man,—fear cannot fight with joy. And I Am setting such a war of joy against thee, It shall be as man's heart became a god Murdering thy mind of weakling darkness. All the hot happiness of being wroth And seeing a stroke leave behind it wound, The pleasures of wily hunting, and a feast After long famine, and the dancing stored Within the must of berries,—these, and all Gladdenings that make thrill ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... do not swamp thee," said Darrel, with a smile that seemed to say, "Poor weakling, your trouble is only as the ripples of a tiny pool." They went on slowly, over green pastures, halting at a brook in the woods. There, again, they rested in a cool shade of ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... day was wasted. Most annoying, too, was the fact that I dared not manifest the impatience which I naturally felt. I am not remarkable as a specimen of the strong man; quite the reverse indeed, for, while I am by no means a weakling, I am no adept in the fistic art. Hence, when my guide, Hippopopolis by name, as the sun sank behind the western hills, informed me that I was again to be disappointed, the fact that he stands six feet two in his ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... get in here?" asked a corporal of a captain as he looked at a boy who seemed to be a physical weakling. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... presumed ability where there was not the slightest trace of any. It gave the idiot the same political standing as the wise man, the crackpot the same political opportunity as the man of well-grounded common sense, the weakling the same voice as the strong man. It was government by ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... the first place, a woman of her type never could have been his wife, and that, in the second place, it was not the man who was to blame, nor the woman so much, as Sharpe himself. Indeed, Bobby somehow gained the impression that the others flouted and despised Sharpe and held him as a weakling. ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... must have been a weakling, for society is only useful to the puny. The savage and the philosopher, at either extreme of the moral scale, hold ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... plots criminally against his more fortunate brother is common to both Leisewitz and Klinger, but in neither is he an intriguing villain. In 'Julius of Tarentum' Guido is really the more masterful man of the two. He despises his brother as a weakling and asserts no other claim than that of the strongest. In Klinger's play, as we have seen, everything is made to turn upon Guido's cankering doubt of his brother's seniority. One gets the impression that if the doubt could be settled by indisputable evidence in favor of Ferdinando, there would ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... of the postilion's whip told Victurnien that the fair romance of his first love was over. While peril lasted, Diane could still see her lover in the young Count; but out of danger, she despised him for the weakling that ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... history there ran stories of terrible crime, cruelties, infamies, immoralities and degradation. Following the death of Ivan the Terrible came Fedor, one of his sons, who was a weakling in the hands of the Duma of five, one of whom was Boris Godounoff. Fedor reigned but a few years, and Godounoff was elected Czar. He was ambitious, and was founder of the system of serfdom, and also of the Russian State Church, ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... yet arisen to open the door of the workman's prison-house and set the children free, this poor child had been shut up from six in the morning till six at night in the fetid atmosphere of a cotton-mill. God knows what the economic value of such a weakling's labour may have been! One would think that a South Carolina planter would have been wiser than to work his "stock" at such an age. Be this as it may, my friend had passed through this terrible apprenticeship to toil—always hungry, always ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... long to Father Benedict, so for occupation he tried to lift the heavy hammer. It was a difficult task, though he was no weakling, yet it was not hard for Adam's arm to swing and guide the burden. If only the man had understood how to govern his life as well as he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... groaned and cried: "An Oracle foretold it, but I waited for some man of might who should overcome me by his valor,—not a weakling! And now"—he lifted his hands and prayed,—"Father Poseidon, my father, look upon Odysseus, the son of Laertes of Ithaca, and grant me this revenge,—let him never see Ithaca again! Yet, if he must, may he come late, without a friend, after long wandering, ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... great character is ever possible. His enthusiasm will evaporate, his energy will be dissipated, his ambition, not being stimulated by the struggle for self-elevation, will gradually die away. If you do everything for your son and fight his battles for him, you will have a weakling on your hands ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... villages, the sinking of thousands of ships, and the killing of millions of men is no small monument to the power of the human will. Deplore as we may the sanguinary ends to which this will has been bent, it has at any rate shown itself to be no weakling. We must marvel at the grim tenacity with which it has held to its goal through ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... her, and the anguish of fear that had possessed her until deliverance had come. Lucas Errol had been her deliverer. She remembered that also, and a faint, sad smile touched her lips—Lucas Errol, king and cripple, ruler and weakling. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... the raft toward them, then, as the waters receded, the current sucked it out again. But the fisherman was strong and Larry was no weakling. They hauled until they had the raft out of reach of the rollers. Then, while there came a wilder burst of the storm, and a dash of spray from the waves, ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... friends at court. In his two legitimate sons, Adler and Max (he has a host of illegitimate ones), the family temperament is modified, though in Max, who perpetuates the race, the modification is not radical. Adler is a weakling of enormous vanity, silent and moody, and addicted to the pleasures of the table. Max, on the other hand, is a man of inexhaustible vitality, violent like his father, but possessed of a gift of speech and a tremendous voice which serve to establish his authority over the simple inhabitants of ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... camp will be molested in his turn, I promise you," laughed Harry. "I'm no weakling, so run right along, Holmesy. Even if serious trouble should arise, I have this, ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... her little foot and faced Carr valiantly. "See here, Mr. Carr Parker!" she stormed. "I'm no weakling. I'm the daughter of my father and where he goes I go. You'll take me or I'll never ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... himself into a rage. Lee seemed to understand Franklin better now. A weakling. Inherently, with a complex of inferiority, the vague consciousness of it ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings
... art no Atlas for so great a weight, And, weakling, Warwick takes his gift again; And Henry is ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... their topsails, friend and foe, Glittered—and there was noise of guns; pale smoke Lagged after, curdling on the sun-fleck'd main. And after that? What after that, my soul? Who ever saw weakling white butterflies Chasing of gallant swans, and charging them, And spitting at them long red streaks of flame? We saw the ships of England even so As in my vaunting wish that mocked itself With 'Fool, O fool, to brag at the edge of loss.' We saw the ships of England even so ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... weakling, thank you," retorted Mr. Prescott. "I'll do my share, and I recommend you to proclaim that any man who doesn't do his share doesn't eat to-night. But as for you, Sergeant Overton, I shall have a bad opinion of this outfit if they let you carry anything more than ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... Violante had been wedded, in the flower of her youth, to an Advocate of the Parlement, a man of a harsh temper and sorely set on the arraignment and punishing of unfortunate prisoners. For the rest, he was of sickly habit and a weakling, of such a sort he seemed more fit to give pain to folks outside his doors than pleasure to his wife within. The old fellow thought more of his blue bags than of his better half, though these were far otherwise shapen, being bulgy and fat and formless. But the ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... was there here to talk of honor! If she had not sunk to the streets it was through her own virtue, and none of his care! And now she was dead! and his child, but for the charity of a despised superstition, would have been left an outcast in the London streets, to wither into the old-faced weakling of ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... fashion, displaced by a race of dwarfs. In the old prints, see how the London 'prentice runs with his great key in the dawn to take down his master's shutter! In a musty play, observe the jailor at the dungeon door! Without massive keys jingling at the belt the older drama must have been a weakling. Only lovers, then, dared to laugh at locksmiths. But now locksmiths sit brooding on the past, shriveled to mean uses, ready for ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... the tunnelled buttress of the river-bank, lived under the care of experienced parents ever ready and resolute in their defence, and became as shy and furtive as the wood-mice dwelling in the hollows of the hedge beside the pond, they were not always favoured by fortune. The weakling of the family died of disease; another of the youngsters, foraging alone in the wood, was killed by a bloodthirsty weasel; while a third, diving to pick up a root of water-weed, was caught by the neck in the fork of a ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... one thing into another, in a seemingly endless procession of lives, experiencing all the peculiar sensations of the many bodies I temporarily inhabited. In some cases I was the big strong brute—either physically or mentally—taking advantage of the puny weakling. In others, I was the miserable weakling, being crushed by the over-powering strength of the bully. But whether strong or weak, either physically or mentally, I was always the moral coward and selfish creature, ready to cater to those who were stronger, and take advantage of those who were feebler ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... Brenton, Olive, just because he is a pitiful weakling who, in spite of all his good intentions, has made a consistent mess of everything he's tried to do. Because a man is weak, he isn't necessarily more lovable. Because he has an incurable disease, he isn't, of necessity, any more a subject for idolatry. No; I don't mean that to lap ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... the other: each is an organism striving for self-preservation. It is might against might. I stand alone, bound to accept society and not unwilling, since in return for the taxes I pay it protects me, a weakling, against the tyranny of another stronger than I am; but I submit to its laws because I must; I do not acknowledge their justice: I do not know justice, I only know power. And when I have paid for the policeman ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Norway, Harold found Denmark slipping away from him. Sweyn had in him the blood of the race of Canute, and was no weakling to be swept aside at a king's will. Magnus had left him the kingdom and he was bent on having it, if his good sword could win and hold it. In this he was supported by the Danes, and Harold found that the most he could do was to make descents on the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... question of the fact that military service produces moral imbecility, ferocity, and cowardice.... For permanent work the soldier is worse than useless; such efficiency as he has is the result of dehumanization and disablement. His whole training tends to make him a weakling. He has the easiest of lives; he has no freedom and no responsibility. He is politically and socially a child, with rations instead of rights, treated like a child, punished like a child, dressed prettily and washed and combed like a child, excused ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... squalled, the melancholy noises of the street, were passed unheeded by. His distracted powers rallied home; he was concentrate, his own man again, the hero of his musing mind. For, like all weak men of a vivid fancy, he was constantly framing dramas of which he was the towering lord. The weakling who never "downed" men in reality was always "downing" them in thought. His imaginary triumphs consoled him for his actual rebuffs. As he walked in a tipsy dream, he was "standing up" to somebody, hurling ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... girl," went on Hough, relentlessly. Scorn and a taunting dare and an insidious persuasion mingled with the passion of his offer. He knew how to inflame. Durade, as a gambler, was a weakling in the grasp of a giant. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... two, Borrow looked at the weakling child with the deepest interest, and said, "This chavo ought not to look like that—with such a mother as ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... from the room haughtily but in his heart he carried an odd misgiving that burned and spread like a slow fire, consuming his pride. Scott had withstood him, Scott the weakling, and in so doing had made him aware of a strength ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... the powerful sweep of the level river, and then at the distant sand bar where their charges must win the shore or be swept into the whirlpool below. Ah, that whirlpool! Many a frightened ewe and weakling lamb in years past had drifted helplessly into its swirl and been sucked down, to come up below the point a water-logged carcass. And for each stinking corpse that littered the lower bar the boss sheep owner subtracted five dollars from the sum of his hard-earned wealth. Already on the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... "bled" and blackmailed, had passed beyond the bar of human arraignment, "dying like a gentleman" even while captive in the hands of the authorities; and so did Nevins impress his uncontradicted tale of loyal service to the State on the old weakling in command, that Stevens had declared that there was no evidence on which to hold him, had ordered his release from custody on parole, unless the civil authorities desired to prosecute him for "personating an officer," and ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... forsooth!" laughed the outlaw lord. "A puny scion of a worn-out ancestry! Such a woman as the princess wants a man of brawn and muscle; no weakling of the nursery." ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Gay met Trudy he would still have pressed his attentions upon her, though they might not have taken the form of an offer of marriage. Trudy's virile, magnetic personality would have commanded this weakling's attention and admiration at any time and in any circumstances—which is the ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... his agony, prolong it here, Even here where I may feed upon it; Not send him hence beyond my reach. Aye! I'll fight with death to keep him for mine own. But, now— O, I must calm myself or miss my aim! For, like a hunter when first he sees the buck, My nerves are all unstrung. This weakling trick Of overearnestness betrays the fool In me; and yet we know it, though we profit not, The eager hand doth ever spill the cup That lifted carefully would quench our thirst. I must assume a wise placidity; ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... administration, and were received into favor, but the more violent of the loyal party remained defiant and abusive. Philip Ludwell, Beverley, Hill, Ballard and others openly denounced Jeffreys as a weakling, entirely unsuited for the important office he now occupied, and did their best to render him unpopular with the people.[844] The Lieutenant-Governor retaliated with considerable spirit, depriving some of their lucrative offices, and suspending others from the Council. Ludwell, whose conduct ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... only one member of the Council who did not belong to the Band—Councillor Weakling, a retired physician; but unfortunately he also was a respectable man. When he saw something going forwards that he did not think was right, he protested and voted against it and then—he collapsed! There was nothing of the low agitator about HIM. As ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... too timid to wish to venture out. She questioned me absently about various changes in the city, but she was chiefly concerned that she had forgotten to leave instructions about feeding half-skimmed milk to a certain weakling calf, "old Maggie's calf, you know, Clark," she explained, evidently having forgotten how long I had been away. She was further troubled because she had neglected to tell her daughter about the freshly-opened kit of mackerel in the cellar, which would spoil ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... impotent question. It is not I who had the moulding of your brother's character. It is not I who made him a forger and a weakling." ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... property rights be equal to those of the man. None of these demands, however, affected directly the most vital factors of her existence. Whether she won her point or failed to win it, she remained a dominated weakling in a society controlled ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... been done in the world save by those who have met with bitter rebuffs and severe trials at the beginning of their career. It seems as though the ruling powers imposed an ordeal on every human being, in order to single out the strong and the worthy from the cowardly and worthless. The weakling who meets with trouble uplifts his voice in complaint and ceases to struggle against obstacles; the strong man or woman remains silent and strives on indomitably until success is achieved. It is strange to see how many complaining weaklings are ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... I am a weakling's symbol of a power That spins the luminous girdle of Saturn in sure hands, And frames the awful face of God in the shifting boreal light. My soul is destiny and immortality; It flashes in the eyes of the tempest, glows along The phosphorescent billows where the hand of the Almighty Is ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... steadily, first with speechless terror, then with a cowed and sullen rage. The glare in Fletcher's eyes fascinated him, and he stood motionless on his spot of carpet as if he were held there in an invisible vise. Weakling as he was, he had been humoured too long to bear the lash submissively at last, and beneath the tumult of words that overwhelmed him he felt his anger flow like an infusion of courage in his veins. The greater share of ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... or two later, Bertha came. Sara would hardly have known her, and indeed the two seemed to have changed places,—Sara was the weakling now, Bertha the strong ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... inconsistent with a true earnestness of purpose," said Mr. Brown. "And, after all, the girl we both love is no such weakling as to accept a man simply because he asks her. She will decide between ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... had the courage for it. But morally I am a weakling—you know it. Do you remember that I once said to you if Desmond fell, I should go with him—or ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... vigorous at eighty-one, Delights in talking of her only son, My gallant father, long since dead and gone. 'Ah, but he was the lad!' She says, and sighs, and looks at me askance. How well I read the meaning of that glance - 'Poor son of such a dad; Poor weakling, dull and sad.' I could, but would not tell her bitter ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... know, there never was but one human being to whom they proved overwhelming, and he is a character in a popular work of fiction. "Miracles do not happen" broke the bruised reed of the Rev. Robert Elsmere's faith. That long-legged weakling, with his auburn hair and "boyish innocence of mood," and sweet ignorance of the wicked world, went down, it will be remembered, like a ninepin before the assaults of a sceptical squire who had studied in Germany. "A great creed, with the ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... have been the support of a small organ, but the local wiseacres were accustomed to declare that they were intended as prophecies of the evil days which should befall the church when a king should have a weakling for his heir and Wells should receive as its bishop a married man. These predictions were held to be fulfilled when Henry VIII., whose heir was Edward VI., nominated to the see Bishop Barlow. In N. ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... least fifty years old, but he looks to be scarcely forty. The younger of the sons, Emanuel, technician by calling, is a complete duplicate of David, though a little darker and more robust than the latter, who, as you know, is no weakling. The mother, Ellen by name, an American by birth, who—thanks, evidently, to David's reports of me—received me with a truly motherly welcome, must be, judging from the age of her children, about forty-five, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... Her latest birth, This weakling man, my craft shall girth With cunning strength. Him I will take, And in stern arts my scholar make. This smoking reed, in which hold The empyrean spark, shall mould Rock and hard steel to use of man: He shall be as a god ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... keep him!' I mused to myself; and sore misgivings came over me that there was slight hope of that. And then, I thought, how ever will that weakling live at Wuthering Heights? Between his father and Hareton, what playmates and instructors they'll be. Our doubts were presently decided—even earlier than I expected. I had just taken the children up-stairs, after tea was finished, and seen ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... smiled bitterly, and turned to his work of making up the morning prescriptions. It was poor and unworthy work—work which any weakling might have done as well, and this was a man of exceptional nerve and sinew. But, such as it was, it brought him his board and One pound a week—enough to help him during the summer months and let him save a few pounds towards his winter keep. But those class fees! Where were ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... few like him walked out. But that was expected by everybody, for Sam Whaley had identified himself from the day of Vodell's arrival in Millsburgh as the agitator's devoted follower and right-hand man. But this unstable, whining weakling and his fellows from the Flats carried little influence with the majority of the ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... get them legally, operating on the state lieu land basis. I want thirty-two thousand acres of desert land and the law only allows me a selection of six hundred and forty. I want to get this thirty-two thousand acres without corrupting any weakling in the employ of the state, without paying money to dummy entrymen, without designating the basis for the selection of my fifty sections, without antagonizing the land ring and without disturbing that rule of the State Land Office, can it ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... There is no God. There is nature. Up to the place where man puts on trousers it's a battle of thews and teeth. And nature never intended pants to mark the line where she changes the order of things. And the servile, weakling, groveling, charitable, cowardly philosophy of Christ—it doesn't fool me, Henry. I'm a pagan and I want the advantage of all the force, all the power, that nature gave me, to live life as a dangerous, exhilarating experience. I ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... could have increased her power or retarded her ruin. All hearts were therefore filled with hope when they saw this respectable, active, and energetic woman take her place at the side of Claudius the weakling, for she brought back the memory of the most venerated personages of the ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... collapse. The Germanophiles were still industriously at work in the most important and vital places, practising sabotage upon a scale never dreamed of before in the history of any nation. They played upon the fears of the miserable weakling who was the nominal ruler of the vast Russian Empire, and frightened him into sanctioning the most suicidal policy of devising new measures of oppression instead of making ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... things stood looking up, enveloped in his ulster with the grey cowl thrust upon his forehead, like a monk. One candle cast a grotesque shadow of him on the plastered wall. And when his chance came, though he was but a weakling, he too climbed and for some moments hugged the beam, and felt the madness of the swinging bell. Descending, he wondered long and strangely whether he ascribed too much of feeling to the men he watched. But no, that was impossible. There are emotions deeply seated in the joy of exercise, when ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... fair-sized stick-and-wattle house. He was a dapper little man, with a cleverish, weakling cast of face, and was all on the jump with the turn things had taken. He had just opened the door to us, and was eyeing us uncertainly, when the Colonel and the Chief, returning on foot from their inspection, having ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... that's not like you. You're unkind and you're harsh. Her husband is the sort of man—well, he's his own worst enemy. A weakling, a ne'er-do-well—he's spent all his money and hers too. She has a child. Do you think you can condemn her for leaving him? As a matter of fact she didn't leave him, he ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al |
