"Coward" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went on without turning, not with the hurried step of a coward, but still as one stunned. Then, sitting quietly in the saddle, she forgot McGurk and remembered Pierre. He was happy by this time with the girl of the yellow hair; there was nothing remaining to her from him except the ominous cross which touched cold against ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... were here again, what should I do? I cannot wish him here—and yet I cannot bear his dead face. I was a coward. I ought to have borne contempt. I ought to have gone away—gone and wandered like a beggar rather than to stay to feel like a fiend. But turn where I would there was something I could not bear. Sometimes I thought he would kill me if I resisted his will. But now—his dead ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... you," said he, "let him alone, or I'll have to make you," and he gave Slodgers a quiet sort of tap on the chest that had the effect of at once stopping his advance, the bully and coward, as he seemed to me to be, retiring sulkily to the corner of the yard under the tree, accompanied by two of his select cronies, grumbling in an undertone about "somebody's" meddlesomeness in interfering with "other people's business," although he did not take any further ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... coward, what a sheep, would the Chevalier de Croustillac appear in the eyes of Blue Beard if he were so pusillanimous as to be daunted by ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... myself. He tried to prove to me that if he died the economic value of his children would suffer—what a fool he was!—and that my own value capitalised after the manner of mathematicians was very small. I listened to him carefully, and then asked if the difference between a brave man and a coward had any economic significance. He became suddenly angry and left me. Some of the ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... that Comet came home in disgrace—a coward expelled from college, not for some youthful prank, but because he was yellow. And he knew he was disgraced. He saw it in the face of the big man Devant, who looked at him in the yard where he had spent his happy puppyhood, then turned away. He knew it because of what he saw in the ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... craft; The demagogue still schemed and lied; The patriot wept, the traitor laughed; The coward to his covert hied, And ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... Ruth was afraid of what terrors the forest might hold, and of her general situation, she had seen enough of this boy to know that he was just a poor, miserable coward—he aroused no ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... one slowed down for him; but all at once it started up again more swift than the wind, he says; and he could see that the motorman was a coward about something, because he looked greatly frightened when he flew by the spot. He never saw one go so fast as this one did after it had slowed up for him. It looked like the motorman would soon be arrested for driving his car too fast. He then had the ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... house said to the Easterling: "In an evil hour hath my daughter Gudruna humbled herself, and broken the point of her maidenly pride, and lain by thy side as thy wife, when thou wilt not dare to follow thy father-in-law, and thou must be a coward," she says. ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... To where Christ's chosen with one mind Are gathered in one place. With tongues of flame He lights on each, Whose wonder-working spell Fires them in every human speech Heaven's message forth to tell. The coward brood of doubt and fear And hesitance are fled; Before the quickening Comforter They rise as from the dead. The bolted door is yawning wide, The barred gate backward flung; And forth unarmed and fearless-eyed, ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... I knew him well. He was not a scoundrel; only weak. He went to America and became successful in business. He fought with the North in the war. He was not a coward; he did his fighting ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... have told you that in my opinion the forger has a commercial education or style, that he doesn't know me nor Barker, and don't understand slang. Now, I have to add what must have occurred to you, Jim, that the forger is either a coward, or his object is not altogether mercenary: for the same ability displayed in this letter would on the signature alone—had it been on a check or draft—have drawn from your bank twenty times the amount concerned. Now, what is the actual ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... and she give and take equal liberty, which preserves a perfect peace and good understanding between both, while those that are concerned in one another's love and honour are never quiet, but always caterwauling. He differs from a jealous man as a valiant man does from a coward, that trembles at a danger which the other scorns and despises. He is of a true philosophical temper, and suffers what he knows not how to avoid with a more than stoical resolution. He is one of ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... sympathy, it shows only scorn. The scheming mother, who attempts to marry her beautiful daughter to a Prince rotten with diseases, is a stock figure on the stage and in novels. The only truly Russian personage is the young lover, weak-willed and irresolute, who lives a coward in his ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... bullerjaan, meaning "noisy"; the word has also, with less probability, been derived from the Dutch boel, and Ger. Buhle, a lover), originally a fine, swaggering fellow, as in "Bully Bottom" in A Midsummer Night's Dream, later an overbearing ruffian, especially a coward who abuses his strength by ill-treating the weak; more technically a souteneur, a man who lives on the earnings of a prostitute. The term in its early use of "fine" or "splendid" survives in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... to seize Gabe by his coat collar, and yank him suddenly forward. Then he shook him as a dog would shake a rat, while Grimsby filled the house with his howls of distress. He was a veritable coward at heart, and in Eben's hands he was as helpless as ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... remained in their places in the sea-fight the Chians suffered very severely, 7 since they displayed brilliant deeds of valour and refused to play the coward. These furnished, as was before said, a hundred ships and in each of them forty picked men of their citizens served as fighting-men; 8 and when they saw the greater number of their allies deserting them, they did not think fit to behave like the cowards ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... a single hour to quit it. They love him, because he loved the very humblest condition of humanity, where every thing good was only the more commended to his manly mind by disadvantages of social position. They love him, because he saw with just anger, how much the judgments of "silly coward man" are determined by such accidents, to the neglect or contempt of native worth. They love him for his independence. What wonder! To be brought into contact with rank and wealth—a world inviting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... directly I came in last night, and I suppose I had better dash at it at once. I would so willingly delay doing so, saying nice little things the while, did I not know that this would be mere cowardice. Whatever happens I won't be a coward, and therefore I will tell you at once that I cannot let you hope that we should be married this year. Of course you will ask me why, as you have a right to do, and of course I am bound to answer. I do not know that I can give any answer with which you will not have a right to complain. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... means national stability and national greatness; and this can be achieved, and can only be achieved, by a national army. The Condottiere system, born of sloth and luxury, has proved its rottenness. Your hired general is either a tyrant or a traitor, a bully or a coward. 'In a word the armour of others is too wide or too strait for us: it falls off us, or it weighs us down.' And in a fine illustration he compares auxiliary troops to the armour of Saul which David refused, preferring to fight Goliath with his sling ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... "Listen to me, Dr. Perrin. You are a chivalrous gentleman, and you think you are helping a man in desperate need. But I say that anyone who would permit you to tell such a tale is a contemptible coward!" ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... even now have made his bid for liberty; but he was no coward to desert his companions. He uttered a choking cry of mingled fear and defiance, and rushed in between his friends to swing a heavy blow with his fist fair upon the giant's unprotected temple. Now Milo gave ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... for posts of danger," said Troup. "I believe you to be walking over a powder-mine here. I am not in their confidence, for they know what I think of Washington, but I believe there is a cabal on foot, and that Gates may be in open rebellion any minute. But he's a coward and a bully. Treat him as such. Press your point and get your troops. He is but the tool of a faction, and I doubt if they could make him act when it came to the point. He wants to make another grand coup before striking. Look well into what ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... "Highborn and great as your magnates deem themselves, I would not, while the mountains can yield one free spot for my footstep, change my place in the world's many grades for theirs. To the brave, there is but one sort of plebeian, and that is the coward. But you, sage Rienzi," continued the Knight, in a gayer tone, "I have seen in more stirring scenes than the hall of ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the warrior. Her eyes flashed fire; Her proud lips quivered with queenly ire; Her hand to the Spirits she raised and said, And her sun browned cheeks were aflame with red: "I am pure!—I am pure as falling snow! Great Taku-Skan-Skan [51] will testify! And dares the tall coward to say me no?" But the sullen warrior made no reply. She turned to the chief with her frantic cries: "Wakawa—my Father; he lies!—he lies! Wiwaste is pure as the faun unborn; Lead me back to the feast, or Wiwaste dies!" But the warriors ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... "Coward!" cried her companion contemptuously. "The Seine seldom surrenders its prey. Rupert Gascoigne is dead—drowned, as you ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... creature, a foolish, silly, cherished, coward male. It was wild to see him rush up and down in the back yard, barking and bouncing at the wall, when there was some dog out beyond, but when the very littlest one there was got inside of the fence and only looked at Peter, Peter would retire ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... shaking his head sadly. "No," he said, his voice breaking—"no, my Father, you must not embrace me now. I may have been a brave man once. But now I am a coward. Let me tell you everything. My wounds were bad, but not desperate. The brancardiers carried me down to Verdun, at night I suppose, but I was unconscious; and so to the hospital at Vaudelaincourt. There were days and nights of blankness mixed ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... stood, swinging his terrible staff, and so fell had been the blow that he struck the stout smith that none dared to come within the measure of his cudgel, so the press crowded back, like a pack of dogs from a bear at bay. But now some coward hand from behind threw a sharp jagged stone that smote the stranger on the crown, so that he staggered back, and the red blood gushed from the cut and ran down his face and over his jerkin. Then, seeing him dazed with this vile blow, the crowd rushed ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... mean coward!" Jean stood up and looked from one to the other, and spoke through her clinched teeth. "To let dad suffer all this while! Lite, when did you say that train left for Salt Lake? We can take the taxi back down town, and save time." She was at the door when she turned toward ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... the best game of all will be neck and crop for that young scamp. A bully, a coward, a puling milksop, is all the character he beareth. He giveth himself born airs, as if every inch of the Riding belonged to him. He hath all the viciousness of Yordas, without the pluck to face it out. A little beast that hath the venom, without the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... from a state of terror to a feeling of perfect safety, and in such an unexpected manner, too, that we laughed outright, and we thought that we had been very foolish to be so frightened, and looked upon our enemy as a great coward. So we concluded that an animal who was so easily scared as that would never attack us, and therefore, getting our weapons, we followed after him, hoping to drive him from the island. The jumps that he had made were quite immense, showing clearly ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... derived from the missionaries are visible in the New World. Nowhere was any well-defined doctrine that moral turpitude was judged and punished in the next-world. No contrast is discoverable between a place of torments and a realm of joy; at the worst but a negative castigation awaited the liar, the coward, or the niggard. The typical belief of the tribes of the United States was well expressed in the reply of Esau Hajo, great medal chief and speaker for the Creek nation in the National Council, to the question, Do the red people believe in a future state of rewards and ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... principal injuries were in the head and thigh. One or two of his physicians feared that he would never walk again; the limb seemed to contract, and neuralgic pains made his life a misery. To add to his troubles, his nerves were seriously affected, and though he was no coward, depression held him at times in its fell grip, and mocked him with delusive pictures of other men's happiness. Like Bunyan's poor tempted Christian, he, too, at times espied a foul fiend coming over the field ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... old man had five sons in the patriot army at Bennington. A neighbor, just from the field, told him that one had been unfortunate. "Has he proved a coward or a traitor?" asked the father. "Worse than that," was the answer, "he has fallen, but while bravely fighting" "Ah," said the father, "then I ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... weighty reason, to hope that friends are not far distant," he said, half aloud. "There fled one coward, unwounded, in the beginning of the fight, and most probably he made good speed. Every true man on the frontier would shoulder his musket at the news; and, though no party may range so far into the woods as this, I shall perhaps encounter them in one day's march. Counsel me ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and in the darkness grasps her wrists. The enraged girl shrieks, and calls aloud for assistance. Simultaneously a blow fells Mr. Snivel to the floor. The voice of Tom Swiggs is heard, crying: "Wretch! villain!—what brings you here? (Mr. Keepum, like the coward, who fears the vengeance he has merited, makes good his escape.) Will you never cease polluting the habitations of the poor? Would to God there was justice for the poor, as well as law for the rich; then I would make thee bite the dust, like a dying viper. You should no longer banquet on ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Ye can't help it. Ye're NOT a coward, my own brave little Peg. It's yer mother in ye. She could never bear a thunder-storm without fear, and she was the bravest woman that ever lived Bad luck to me for sayin' ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... feign; Come, lightning Passion, that with foot of fire Advancest to the middle of a deed Almost before 'tis plann'd; come, glowing Hate; Come, baneful Mischief, from thy murky den Under the dripping black Tartarean cliff Which Styx's awful waters trickle down— Inspire this coward heart, this flagging arm! How say ye, maidens, do ye know these prayers? Are these words Merope's—is this voice mine? Old man, old man, thou had'st my boy in charge, And he is lost, and thou hast that to atone! Fly, find me on the instant where ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... ruffians; and, after nearly two months of vehement debates in the Convention, in which Robespierre denounced the whole body of the Girondin leaders as plotters of treason against the State, and Vergniaud in reply reviled Robespierre as a coward, the Jacobins worked up the mob to rise in their support. The Convention, which hitherto had been divided in something like equality between the two factions, yielded to the terror of a new insurrection, and on the 2d of June ordered the arrest of the Girondin leaders. A ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... quantities; nor does she inherit the smallest trifle of her husband's property. The Kerekein never sleep under the same blanket with their wives; and to be accused of doing so, is considered as great an insult as to be called a coward. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... look beyond thy brow's concealment! I see thy spirit's dark revealment! Thy inner self betrayed I see: Thy coward, ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... suppose I was old?... I tell you, Aunt Alice, it's something I can't forget ... the dirty coward," and I swore violently, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... uneasiness which had already attacked me grew stronger. Although I fought against it, calling myself an old woman and a coward, I must confess to an impulse which almost made me beg the station-master's company on my walk; but, besides being ashamed to exhibit a timidity apparently groundless, I was reluctant to draw attention to myself in any way. I would not for the world ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... They were both very excellent examples of pure British phlegm and unimaginativeness. This seemed to cast the burden upon me, for Pye was still confined to his cabin. The little man was undoubtedly shaken by the horrid events he had witnessed, and though he was confessedly a coward, I could not help feeling sorry for him. He was an abject creature now, and clung to his bunk, keeping out of the Prince's way and Barraclough's as much as possible, and pestering me with ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... nothing to the Briton," he said; "it was the boy I addressed. If it was an offence, why did he not take it up? Is he a coward that others have to fight his battles? If he is offended, why does he not challenge me to fight, as is customary in all ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... seeking to perfect certain details of light and range and elevation. Perhaps it was only a grim enjoyment which he gathered from thus holding the Mule's life in his hand for five or six minutes two or three times a week; perhaps, after all, he was that base thing, a coward, and lacked the nerve to pull a trigger—to throw a bold stake upon life's table and stand by the result. Each day he crept a little nearer, grew more daring; until he noticed a movement made by the ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... plunged all at once into the indolence, the intrigues, the busy nothingness of the Court, in which whispering favourites surrounded a foolish young prince, beguiling him into foolish amusements, alarming him with coward fears. Wise men and buffoons alike dragged him down into that paltry abyss, the one always counselling caution, the other inventing amusements. "Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die." Was it worth ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... upward, Where the starry light appears,— Where, in spite of the coward's doubting, Or your own heart's trembling fears, You shall reap in joy the harvest You have ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... "He is no coward!" thundered Anguish; startling both women with his vehemence. "I say he did not kill the Prince, but I'll stake my life he would have done so had they met this morning. There's no use trying to have ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... a clout from the Boer — to plaster anew with dirt? An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt? We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share. What is the Flag of England? ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... sinking in the waves, to see the frail bush at which the hand clutches uprooted; hard, when alone in the crowded thoroughfare of travel, to have one's last bank-note declared a counterfeit. I knew I should not be able to see her face, under the shade of this disappointment; and so, coward that I was, I turned this trouble, where I have turned so many ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he had taken for a coward, was calmly ready and was apparently quite willing to give his life—his life!—in order to save his enemy's soul. The robber had almost forgotten that he had a soul. His manhood was black and stained now by numberless deeds ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... him, in the world, but always cowards; he is as bold as a lion, but with the same deadly, causeless duplicity I have watched with so much surprise in my two cowards. 'Tis true, I saw a hint of the same nature in another man who was not a coward; but he had other things to attend to; the Master has nothing else but his devilry. Here come my visitors - and have now gone, or the first relay of them; and I hope no more may come. For mark you, sir, this is ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... science we oppose a plenum to a vacuum, in medicine we supply a deficiency of saline secretions by the common expedient of salt. Wherefore not apply our knowledge painfully gleaned from lower science to the study of these more complicated phenomena? The coward who would flee the fire of the enemy may be kept at his post by the equal dread of death from his commander. Open a double fire upon these wayward youths. Make the Barbarians enlist in the Roman legions. In short, teach Haguna and the others philosophy. There will then ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... he said, "and I should have died upon this threshold ere my Lord Rippingdale and the King's men had ever crossed it, but for you, an Enderby, who deserted me in the conflict—a coward who went over to the enemies ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... magnificent, but Esperance saw nothing. Nothing but a lacquer table on which lay a letter. This letter contained the words, "If the son of Monte-Cristo be not a coward, if he wishes to find her whom he has lost, he will go from here to a certain Malvernet, who lives at Courberrie. There he will learn what he wishes to know, and will ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... he thought. "Bang! And it's all over. Is it a wise or a stupid thing to shoot oneself? Is suicide a cowardly act? Then I suppose that I am a coward!" ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... bear upon your face, is it not the mark of a whip, with which I lashed a certain Herr Ebenstreit three years since, who prevented my eloping with my betrothed? I challenged him to fight a duel, but the coward refused me satisfaction, and then I struck him in the face, causing the blood to flow. ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... agree with you,' said Merevale. 'I know Thomson well, and I think he is the last boy to do such a thing. He is neither a fool nor a coward, to put it shortly, and he would need to have a great deal of both in ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... and thou, Destiny, whithersoever ye have appointed me to go, for I will follow, and that without delay. Should I be unwilling, I shall follow as a coward, but I must follow all the ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... by the fire, Elmer turned and glared at him as he had glared back along the road at the town of Winesburg. "Go on back to work," he screamed. "What good does it do me to talk to you?" A thought came to him and his voice dropped. "I'm a coward too, eh?" he muttered. "Do you know why I came clear out here afoot? I had to tell someone and you were the only one I could tell. I hunted out another queer one, you see. I ran away, that's what I did. ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... on these 'contraband' missionaries, teachers, and nurses, since they went their way. They have been accused of pilfering, of lying, of doing nothing, of corrupting the blacks, of going out only to speculate, and, as might have been expected, we have at last the unfailing resort of the lying coward—a dirty hint as to breaking the seventh commandment—all according to the devilish old Jesuit precept of, 'Calumniare fortiter aliquis koerebit'—'Slander boldly, something will be sure to stick.' And to such a depth of degradation—to the hinting away the characters of young ladies because ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... So he went right out, got his bag (which has been packed for some time) and took the night train East. He owes me a big bill—and more promises than he can ever pay. I've been getting sick of this kind of thing for weeks; now that he's proved the biggest kind of a coward, I've come straight to you. ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... unstrapping the two rifles. The wolf-pack was crowding around in a grinning circle. Barney caught his breath as his eyes swept the circle. Five hundred if one, dripping-jawed, red-eyed, gray creatures-of-prey, they waited, as ever, for the coward's chance to fight with great odds ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... the "coward" did. The whip was whirring in the air again; but it never fell. A jagged stone in the boy's hand struck true, and the overseer plunged with a grunt into the black furrow. In blank dismay, Zora came ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... considered himself as his patron and protector, and often gave himself great airs of superiority. For the sake of peace, Anthony often yielded a disputed point to his impetuous companion, rather than awaken his turbulent temper into active operation. Yet he was no coward—on the contrary, he possessed twice the moral courage of his restless playmate; but a deep sense of gratitude to his good uncle, for the blessed change he had effected in his situation, pervaded his heart, and influenced ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... undertaken in jest, in order to disprove the assertion made by an acquaintance that Falstaff was a coward; but, inspired by his subject, it was continued and finished in splendid earnest. As his analysis of the character of Falstaff becomes more intimate his wonder grows at the concrete human personality he apprehends. Falstaff ceases ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... not know. "The man was going to give his arm to a young lady, on which I said that he was a cook, and the man called me a coward and challenged me to fight. I own I was so surprised and indignant, that if you gentlemen had not stopped me, I should have thrown him ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of Spain. I mean to stay here in England and fight the matter out. My wife would be the first person to tell me so. I cannot imagine her speaking to me again if I were coward enough ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... was with pistols, the combatants standing back to back, at a distance of ten or twelve paces, and turning round to fire at the word of command. If both shots missed, the question was decided with cutlasses, the man who drew first blood being declared the winner. If a man were proved to be a coward he was either tied to the mast, and shot, or mutilated, and sent ashore. No cruise came to an end until the company declared themselves satisfied with the amount of plunder taken. The question, like all ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... him of "weakening." "After rising from his kneeling posture, I saw he was calm, pale, and serious—so different from his former moods in going into battle. I began teasing him in a bantering way about being a coward." "No," said he, "I am no coward, and will show I have as much nerve, if not more, than most men in the army, for all have doubts of death, but I have none. I will be killed in this battle. I feel it as plainly as I feel I am living, but I am ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... On th' wooden member such a load, That down it fell, and with it bore CROWDERO, whom it propp'd before. To him the Squire right nimbly run, And setting conquering foot upon 955 His trunk, thus spoke: What desp'rate frenzy Made thee (thou whelp of Sin!) to fancy Thyself, and all that coward rabble, T' encounter us in battle able? How durst th', I say, oppose thy curship 960 'Gainst arms, authority, and worship? And HUDIBRAS or me provoke, Though all thy limbs, were heart of oke, And th' other half of thee as good To bear out blows, as that of wood? 965 Cou'd not the whipping-post ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... would do this thing; nor yet altogether from love of her. Not that I would not do much for her sake. I almost think that I would do it entirely for her sake, if there were no other reason. But to shame myself by taking that which belongs to another, as though it were my own property! To live a coward in mine own esteem! Though I may be the laughing-stock and the butt of all those around me, I would still be a man to myself. I ought to have felt that it was sufficient when she told me that some of her thoughts must still be given to you. She ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... new name they're calling us and it's not complimentary. 'Canwanka' means coward. First we were women, then worms and now cowards, because we won't give up the aid of our fortifications and allow ourselves to be overpowered by the Sioux numbers. Do you hear anything among the cottonwoods on the ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... I shall be really obliged, if I am not taking you from your friends. I am a much greater coward than I used to be. London lamps spoil one for country roads. Tell your grandmother that I will come again to-morrow ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... good-breeding, and for the prevention of quarrelling, or unseemly and abusive conversation, any person who should call or designate any other person in the said town by the name of thief, villain, rascal, rogue (schurke), cheat, charlatan, impostor, wretch, coward, sneak, suborner, slanderer, tattler, and sundry other titles of ill-repute, which I cannot recollect now, and could not render into English were I to recall them, should, upon complaint of the person aggrieved, and upon proof ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... of being a coward, and treachery had no rightful place in his nature. He was, however, so in the habit of fighting windmills and making mountains of molehills that he could not at first glance see any sudden presentment ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... himself off I braced myself for the necessary effort of getting out of the warm sheets. Like a coward, I kept on allowing myself successive respites, vowing to ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... Our last string's dead ahead, off Peeble Beach. When you get around the point swing on the outside of Coward Rocks and ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... of your country walks you have come upon a man with his back against a hedge, tormented by a fiend in the likeness of a dog. You yourself, of course, are not a coward. You possess that cornerstone of virtue, a love for animals. If at your heels a dog sniffs and growls, you humor his mistake, you flick him off and proceed with unbroken serenity. It is scarcely an interlude to your speculation on the market. Or if ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... crime than that mere murder that shook Hamlet's reason to its foundation. He dared not think of it lest he should cry out aloud. But, patience! Only two or three hours more, and Rosalind would be there to help him to bear it.... What a coward's thought!—to help him to bear what she herself had borne ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... within five miles of Denver, Mark Shearer went around to the driver and told him to get back in the wagon, and if he stuck his head outside that wagon sheet, he would use it for a target. The driver was a born coward and quietly obeyed and remained under the wagon sheet until we were forty miles beyond Denver when Mark told him to "come to" now and try to be ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... was a slender little fellow with a freckled skin and a face full of sensitive expression. He was full of fears and fancies, too, poor little Ambrose, and amongst the children he was considered not far short of a coward; it had become a habit to say, "Ambrose is afraid," on the smallest occasions, and if they had been asked who was the bravest amongst them, they would certainly have pointed out Nancy. For Nancy did not mind the dark, Nancy would climb any tree you liked, Nancy ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... man could he have been? What were his reflections as he went about his farm-work and thought of his sister at the head of armies? Was he merely a lout or something worse—the prototype of our Conscientious Objector: a coward who disguised his cowardice ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... wilt have it,—like a coward, fled, Fled while his soldiers fought; fled first, Ventidius. Thou long'st to curse me, and I give thee leave. I know thou cam'st ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... 'Shame!' and one, 'You coward!' But the Englishman stepped forward, a fixed look in his blue eyes. He took his place without a word. I read in his drawn white face that he had made up his mind to the worst, and his courage so won ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... lonely place to spend the night in," he went on. "I'm no coward, but I wouldn't care to do it, ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... handled that shallow politician at my Lady Plausible's the other day. The same method I practise upon the crazed Tory, the bigot Whig, the sour, supercilious pedant, the petulant critic, the blustering coward, the fawning fool, the pert imp, sly sharper, and every other species of knaves and fools, with which ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the cold-blooded tone in which these men discussed the killing of the boys, but Ted only smiled, for he knew that Burk was at heart a coward, and that he did not care to rush, nor would he stand a rush should ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... dreams; he heard the pianos and violins going in every room in happy incongruity, publishing to all the prowess of the players; dirty, picturesque old Leipsic rose before him; he was walking again in the Hainstrasse, in the shadow of the quaint, tall houses. Yes, life was sweet after all; he was a coward to lose heart so soon; fame would yet be his; fame and love—the love of a noble woman that fame earns; some gracious creature, breathing sweet refinements, cradled in an ancient home, such as ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... against her will, she stood committed to carry through an undertaking for which even at the outset, she had no heart. For there was no turning back. The challenge, once uttered, could not be withdrawn. She was no coward. The idea came to her that if she blenched then she would for all time forfeit his respect ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... would have a shot without receiving one?" cried Gascoigne. "The fact is that this fellow's a confounded coward." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... has got is more disgraceful than to be balked in getting, and you must confront your enemies not merely with spirit but with disdain. Confidence indeed a blissful ignorance can impart, ay, even to a coward's breast, but disdain is the privilege of those who, like us, have been assured by reflection of their superiority to their adversary. And where the chances are the same, knowledge fortifies courage by the ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... no!sometimes if de circle be no quite just, or de beholder be de frightened coward, and not hold de sword firm and straight towards him, de Great Hunter will take his advantage, and drag him exorcist out of de circle and throttle him. Dat ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... your much hated Greek was guilty of, there is one question to ask:—in monk's cell, or in the battles for the wrong—left he the record of a coward?" ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... yep, kill me, ye proud whelp! Go 'long; do it, ye big coward! Before ye're done with life, ye'll hate yerself ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... said the second, "for he's always fearful that people should take him for a coward. He's always asking us whether we ever saw him turn his back to the enemy; and bidding us be sure, whenever he falls in battle, to tell the Vendeans how well he fought. That's what makes us all so sure that he came from the other side ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... great bluffer, while at heart he is really a coward. With a fierce hiss he rushed right at Johnny Chuck, expecting to see him turn tail and run. But Johnny stood his ground and showed all his sharp teeth. Instead of attacking Johnny, Mr. Blacksnake glided past him and sneaked away ...
— The Adventures of Johnny Chuck • Thornton W. Burgess
... in that point they are "much of a muchness." They are also both respectable for their attainments in cowardice; but with this difference, that the Cinghalese are soft, inert, passive cowards: but your Kandyan is a ferocious little bloody coward, full of mischief as a monkey, grinning with desperation, laughing like a hyena, or chattering if you vex him, and never to be trusted for a moment. The reader now understands why we described the Ceylonese man as a tiger-cat in his noblest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... "You coward," he replied, affably, "you could have done a thousand things. You could have remarked that the day was fair, or that you wondered if it would rain. And you could have asked her to stroll over to a restaurant and take a little refreshment. ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... "You coward!" he hissed. "You promised me you'd be content with what you have." Holcombe looked at him in amazement. "And now your accomplices are to have their share, too, are they?" the embezzler whispered, fiercely. "You lied to me; you ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... was clear, then, that he and Hilliard were seriously suspected by the syndicate and were being traced by their spy! What luck would the spy have? And if he succeeded in his endeavor, what would be their fortune? Merriman was no coward, but he shivered slightly as he went over in his mind the steps of their present quest, and realized how far they had failed to cover their traces, how at stage after stage they had given themselves away ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts |
