"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the earth's surface by a passing comet. It will come from the unfolding of the race mind, the process being now under way. Are not the signs of mental unrest and discomfort becoming more and more apparent as the days go by? The pain is growing greater, and the race is beginning to fret and chafe, and moan. It knows not what it wants, but it knows that it feels pain and wants something to relieve that pain. The old things are beginning to totter and fall, and ideas rendered sacred by years of observance are being brushed ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... fair and brilliant. She did not permit herself to be rendered unhappy or anxious as to the possible attitude of the King and Queen towards her, —she was prepared for all contingencies, and had fully made up her mind what to say. Therefore, there was no need to fret over the position, or to be timorously concerned because she was called upon to confront those who by human law alone were made superior in rank ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... hotly. "It makes me think of what I read with him one day about that Roman emperor—what was his name?—playing while Rome was burning. But don't you fret, mother; London won't be burnt ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... coast of Maine? If so, you know how the rocky shores stretch out now and then clear into the ocean, and fret the salt waves till they are all in a foam. Old Ocean is not to be so set at defiance and have his rightful territory wrung from him, without taking his revenge after his own fashion. Far up into the land he sends his arms, and ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... beginning to look completely fagged. Do let the house go. What do you fret over it for? If Nan wants alterations, why not let Mr. Turner engage competent people to do the work? You have responsibility enough without planning ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... foolish Pope shall fret, It is a sober thing. Thou sounding trifler, cease to rave, Loudly to damn, and loudly save, And sweep with mimic thunders' swell Armies of honest souls to hell! The time on whirring wing Hath fled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... why they should ever be that, Millicent. As it is we have both sufficient for anything any man or woman could reasonably want, and neither of us need fret over it if the treasure is never found. Still, he wished us to have it, and it is properly ours, and I don't want it to go to enrich someone who has not a shadow of a right ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... expectancy: the fife of war Was then a spirit-stirring sound indeed, A black-bird's whistle in a budding grove. 760 We left the Swiss exulting in the fate Of their near neighbours; and, when shortening fast Our pilgrimage, nor distant far from home, We crossed the Brabant armies on the fret [Kk] For battle in the cause of Liberty. 765 A stripling, scarcely of the household then Of social life, I looked upon these things As from a distance; heard, and saw, and felt, Was touched, but with no intimate concern; I seemed to move along them, as a bird 770 Moves ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... perfections of its maker and preserver. We must feel that there is a Governor among the nations who will bring all his plans with respect to our human family to a glorious consummation. He who stays his mind on his ever-present, ever-energetic God, will not fret himself because of evil-doers. He that believeth shall not ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... indignant when they learned that Harry was suffering for telling the truth. They assured him that they should miss him very much at the store, but they would do the best they could—which, of course, was very pleasant to him. But they told him they could get along without him, bade him not fret, and said his salary should be paid just the same as though ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... arches, especially in the north and south aisles, some of them being plain, others profusely embellished, and in different styles, even within the same arch. Here we view almost every kind of Saxon and Norman ornaments, the chevron, the billet, the hatched, the pillet, the fret, the indented, the nebule, and the wavey, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... if it's only a couple of lines. God bless you, sir; and good-bye. It ought to be a comfort to me, and it is, to know that you will be kind to her—I hope I shall get up to London some day, and see her myself. But don't forget the letter, sir: I shan't fret so much after her when once ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... him," said Margaret, musing aloud. "He doesn't especially fret my nerves. A woman gets a good, strong nervous system—and a good, strong stomach—after she has been out a few years." She laughed. "And he thinks I'm as fine ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... so crossed as I am[?] everything conspiring to fret me! I had not been involved in matrimony a fortnight[,] before her Father—a hale and hearty man, died on purpose, I believe— for the Pleasure of plaguing me with the care of his Daughter . . . but here comes my Helpmate!—She appears in great good humour—— how happy I should be if ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... without wishing my Mistress would a little consider what a Discouragement it is to me to have my Perquisites divided between Fawners and Jobbers, which others enjoy intire to themselves. I have spoke to my Mistress, but to little Purpose; I have desired to be discharged (for indeed I fret my self to nothing) but that she answers with Silence. I beg, Sir, your Direction what to do, for I am fully resolved to follow your Counsel; who am Your Admirer and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... particular. In the first place there was never but one French maid here and she was Irish. It is true that some scandalous people come here, but there are also scandalous residents; however, there are many more divorcees, quiet, charming and unseen, who do not fret away their six months, but spend them profitably, writing, sewing, taking care of their beloved children, ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... Shall wee bee thus beguiled, sayeth this man? shulde this be suffered, saieth that man? And so muttrynge and chydyng, they came to the gate to goe oute; but they coulde not. For it was faste lockt, and Qualitees had the key away with him. Now begynne they a freshe to fret and fume: nowe they swere and stare: now they stampe and threaten: for the locking in greeued them more than all the losse and mockery before: but all auayle not. For there muste they abide, till wayes may be founde to open the gate, that they maye goe out. The maidens that shoulde haue dressed ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... some real trouble is the best medicine for a neurasthenic, for though disaster may crush him, it is more likely to act as a spur, by diverting his thoughts from his woes, and making him fight instead of fret. ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... what more might then be done, And how, by moonlight or beneath the sun, We might be happy. In a reckless mood I've talk'd of this; and dreams and many a brood Of tongue-tied fancies have my soul beset. I will not hint at fealty or the fret Of lips untrue, or anger thee therein, Or call to mind one word ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... inextricable blending. In nothing is the will so impotent as in guiding or checking the impulses of this omnipotent passion. Napoleon loved Josephine with that almost superhuman energy which characterized all the movements of his impetuous spirit. The stream did not fret and ripple over a shallow bed, but it was serene in its unfathomable depths. The world contained but two objects for Napoleon, glory and Josephine; glory first, and then, closely following the more ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... on, Constans, in spite of his philosophy, began to fret and chafe. He could put in a part of each day in the library poring over his books and digging out the ancient wisdom from the printed page by sheer force of will. But there always came a time when only physical exertion would have any effect in dispelling the mental disquietude that possessed him, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... tragi-comedy of the book; his disillusion with it; his impatient sense that the winter's work upon it was somehow bound up in Eleanor's mind with a claim on him that had begun to fret and tease; and those rebuffs, tacit or spoken, which his egotism had not shrunk from inflicting ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... You live, Sir, in these dales, a quiet life: Your years make up one peaceful family; And who would grieve and fret, if, welcome come 125 And welcome gone, they are so like each other, They cannot be remembered? Scarce a funeral Comes to this church-yard once in eighteen months; And yet, some changes must take place among you: And you, who dwell here, even among ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... tried hard to find one buyer for the four, but failed; nobody who wanted the other three had any use for Mingo. It was after nightfall when they came dragging home. "Now don't you fret one bit 'bout dat, Mawse Ben," exclaimed Sidney, with a happy heroism in her eyes that I remembered ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... yet, however stern the estrangement be, However time with laggard lapse may fret, That haunt of our fond friendship I shall hold As loved this hour as when elate I see Its draperies, dark with absence and regret, Slide softly back on memory's rings ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... circumstance, nor a set of circumstances; it's only a light, and we may keep it burning if we will. So many of us are like children, crying for the moon, instead of playing contentedly with the few toys we have. We're always hoping for something, and when it does n't come we fret and worry; when it does, why there's always something else we'd rather have. We deliberately make nearly all of our unhappiness, with our own unreasonable discontent, and nothing will ever make us happy, ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... thought, to perceive the truth of this doctrine; but this is not enough. We must elevate our hearts into a wisdom that shall make us not only perceive, but feel and love this truth. Until we can do this, we do not truly believe, though we may think we do. If we fret and murmur; if we are impatient and unfaithful; if, when we plainly see that our duty lies in one path, we yet long to follow another; if we know that we cannot leave our present position without dereliction from right, and yet ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... began to fret That they were like to lose the sett; Unto the Rump they did appeal, And said it was their turn to deal; Then dealt with Presbyterians, but The army swore that ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... "Don't fret yourself about that," said Mr. Enderby, buttoning up his coat. "We are not going to let you be lost. You just stay patiently with Mrs. Benson till you hear ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... Getting old! all the good old-fashioned people on the farms: I never shall care so much to be at the beck and call of their grandchildren, but I must mend up these old folks and do the best I can for them as long as they stay; they're good friends to me. Dear me, how it used to fret me when I was younger to hear them always talking about old Doctor Wayland and what he used to do; and here I am the old doctor myself!" And then he went down the gravel walk toward the stable with a quick, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... on pinions of silver descending, Had brought me a gem from the fret-work of heaven; And smiles, with his star-cheering voice sweetly blending, The blessings ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... she wuz angry w'en she looked an' saw 'ist them two there, An' says she knew 'at she had cooked a crock full an' to spare; She says it's awful 'scouragin' to bake and fret an' fuss, An' w'en she thinks she's got 'em in the ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... all right," said Mrs. Savor. "I see you'd be'n putting up some kind of job on her the minute she mentioned the cars. Don't you fret any, Miss Kilburn. Rebecca and me'll get along with her, you needn't ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... you're about it you'd better telephone your father that you will join him to-morrow," suggested the other. "I know what it is to fret and worry. You can fix your boat up in time to go to Sandport ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... Yair, which hills so closely bind, Scarce can the Tweed his passage find, Though much he fret, and chafe, and toil, Till ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... Why fret your soul? Because of such Upstirring of your grace, this fatherland Will not this moment crash to rack and ruin! The camp has been your school. And, look, what there You term unlawfulness, this act, this free Suppression ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... but there are other thorns in our pillows besides these, and other rough places in our beds, and we are often disturbed in our nests. When there does come a quiet time in which no outward circumstances fret us, do we seize it as coming from God, in order that, with undistracted energies, we may cast ourselves altogether into the work of growing like our Master and doing His will more fully? How many of us, dear brethren, have misused both ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... that makes us fume and fret, And the burdens that make us groan and sweat Are the ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... up, poor little soul, and don't you fret over a careless speech, that meant nothing at all. I've wished him in the Red Sea more than once, but I'm blessed if I ever do it again. Come, let's go over yonder, where we caught the young owl; Dicky may have wanted to try ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... prosperous life, With little grief, or fear, or fret: She, loved and loving long ago, Is loved ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... dog, in a terrible fright, "The old lady's pig I'm preparing to bite." This proved to be true, and his bite was severe: "Oh, oh!" cried the pig, "I must not remain here;" So over the stile he thought proper to get, And Goody no more had occasion to fret; For the pig to his sty was now easily led, And she put him a trough, and clean straw for a bed: Then fastened the door and wish'd him good night. The pig gave a grunt, as ...
— The Remarkable Adventures of an Old Woman and Her Pig - An Ancient Tale in a Modern Dress • Anonymous
... Hall," said Libbie, herself drenched in tears, "do not take on so badly; I'm sure it would grieve him sore if he were alive, and you know he is—Bible tells us so; and may be he's here watching how we go on without him, and hoping we don't fret over much." ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... may do well to lighten the ship, but not by throwing overboard the ordnance; for you can but drop them close to the ship's side, and where the water is shallow they will lie up against the side of the ship and fret it, and with the working of the sea make her ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... but you fret; We call you gentle names, and yet Your cries redouble. 'Tis hard for little babes to prize The tender love that underlies ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... that dusty road Whence he came riding down; She smelled once more the flower she wore In the breast of her simple gown. Out on the new-mown meadow she heard Two blue-jays quarrel and fret, And the warning cry of a Phoebe bird "More wet, more ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... heights as walked the old Greeks when They talked to austere gods, nor turned to men. Teach thou the order of the singing stars. Behold, in mad disorder these are set, And yet they sing in ceaseless harmonies. They spill as jewels spilt through space. They fret The souls of men who measure melodies As they would measure slimy deeps ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... an awkward hand upon Elisabeth's dark hair, and began stroking it the wrong way. "I say, I wish you wouldn't fret so; it's more than I can stand to see you so wretched. Isn't there anything that I can do to make it up ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... He got into a fret at once. Netty was not the Netty of an hour ago, or she would have coaxed him out of it. But she did not notice it now in her abstraction. She had risen at the tinkle of the bell, and seated herself in a chair. Presently a nose, ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... you gone. We had just passed Aix-la-Chapelle when I made the dreadful discovery, or I might have driven back here from there with a carriage, for it is only twenty miles off; but as it was, I could do nothing but fret till we arrived at Cologne, from which city I at once telegraphed to the station-master here, and ascertained that you were safe and sound, and fast ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... perhaps, for all of us; but more ours than yours, mademoiselle—much more! Don't fret. Indeed, you look as if you hadn't slept, and that mustn't be. You must think that, sooner or later, it was bound to come. Lady Henry will soften in time, and you will know so well how to meet her. But now we have your future to think of. Only ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to womanhood, he saw his own practical tact and talent, nothing more. She seemed the living representative of the years spent in strife for profit, power, and place; the petty cares that fret the soul, the mercenary schemes that waste a life, the worldly formalities, frivolities, and fears, that so belittle character. All these he saw in this daughter's shape; and with pathetic patience bore the daily trial of an over active, over anxious, affectionate ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... its own. Nettie's perpetual activity had hitherto saved her from this disgust and disappointment. She had been bitterly intolerant by moments of Fred's disgraceful content and satisfaction with his own indulgences, but had never paused to fret over what she could not help, nor contrast her own high youthful humour and sense of duty with the dull insensibility around her. But to-day had rapt the heroic little girl into a different atmosphere from that she had been breathing ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... were these caves. The walls and ceilings were carved with the most delicate fret-work of pink and cream and white, and a faint green light shone into them ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... by the thought of the boundlessness of infinity and of Nature's profuseness. I had not come to reflect that, taking into account her eternities, and absolute exhaustlessness, it was folly in me to fret and fume, and I therefore clung to the hope that I might employ myself in some way which, however feebly, would help mankind a little to the realisation of an ideal. But I was not the man for such a mission. I lacked altogether that concentration which binds up the scattered powers into ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... these paltry things which men call success and honor are worth forgetting, if their place be taken by those ends of living which Christ has taught us to be really great and good. We need not fret if we lose them; we need not care if we never win them. Seeking greater prizes, why should we repine if the baubles and tinsel are not had? I say to you, forget them. Go higher up. Seek wisdom and righteousness, truth and character. Lay up treasures in the heart, ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves
... battle-rage, And dying knight, and trampled warrior-crest. Stern faces, old heroic souls unblest, Eye me with scorn, as they my grief would gage, A mere child, schooled to weep upon the stage, Tricked for a part of woe and somber-drest. "Lo, who art thou," they ask, "that thou shouldst fret To find, forsooth, one single heart undone? The page thou turnest there is purple-wet With blood that gushed from Caesar overthrown! Lo, who art thou to prate of sorrow?" Yet, This little woe, it is my ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... The mother soothed it as best she could, holding it in her arms, patting it on the back, and trying all manner of devices to keep it quiet. A little boy several years old was on the seat beside her, and the instant the baby began to fret, he set up a distinct and independent howl of ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... but when I am afflicted because of the wickedness of the people, I call to remembrance these words: "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers. Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed."—Psalm ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... "'Don't you fret, sonny,' said she; 'your mammy has some common sense if she don't trampoose all over creation watching birds.' And before I understood what she was doing she had put the nest in the top of the tin pail and hung ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... had led a weary and worried life, throughout the stormy reign of the chivalric Peter, being one of those unlucky wights with whom the world is ever at variance, and who are kept in a continual fume and fret, by the wickedness of mankind. At the time of the subjugation of the province by the English, he retired hither in high dudgeon; with the bitter determination to bury himself from the world, and live here in peace and quietness for the remainder of his days. In token of this ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... somewhat thin, with long and backward-sloping horns, the kind of old workmen who by habit have got to be brothers to one another, as throughout our country-side they are called, and who, if one loses the other, refuse to work with a new comrade, and fret themselves to death. People unacquainted with the country will not believe in this affection of the ox for his yoke-fellow. They should come and see one of the poor beasts in a corner of his stable, thin, wasted, lashing with his restless ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Trenire. "I like his spirit. Well, don't fret about it any more; you shall have some others. I think, though, that we will have some other colour; they aren't very pretty, ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... to exercise and enjoy her powers of selection and rejection to the utmost. Bertie's preferences did not greatly matter; he was of the sort who can be stolidly happy with any kind of wife; he had cheerfully put up with his grandmother all his life, so was not likely to fret and fume over anything that might befall him in the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... would be taking thought for the morrow, would it not? I don't want to, while I can't do anything, it would only make me fret, and I am glad I am too stupid still to begin vexing myself over it. I suppose energy and power of considering will come when my heart does not flutter so. In the meantime, I only want to keep quiet, and I hope that's not all laziness, but some trust in Him who ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... myself, dear lad," he finished, "that runs the scale a bit. Faith, I'm that impecunious at times I'm beside myself with fret and worry." ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... grew more and more necessary every day. Early in the morning he began to fret for him; and when his pain came on he became very restless, and could not be pacified until Rico came. For, since Rico had mastered the language thoroughly, he had developed an inexhaustible fund of stories that delighted the ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... darkest despondency, and when the fatal hour sounded, he was assailed by the irresolutions of the previous day. When Mother Michel, before going out, said to him, "I leave Moumouth in your charge; you must take care of him, and make him play, so that he will not fret too much during my absence," the poor lad felt his heart fail, and his ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... Archie realized all this as he paced his room that night: no; he was very strangely moved and excited. Something, he knew not what, had again stirred the monotony of his life. He had been sick and sad for a long time; for men are like children, and fret sometimes after the unattainable, if their hearts be set upon it. And yet, though he forbore to question himself too closely that night, how much of his pain had been due to wounded ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Texas, some savage, as he recovers his nose outen his glass; 'never you fret me none about my style not bein' incisive. Thar be other plays where any gent who comes puttin' it all over me with roode an' intemp'rate remarks will find me plenty incisive; not ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... temper was not improved by the reflection that others had been permitted to enjoy what they were not allowed to see, for envy is one of the ugliest and most uncomfortable of human passions. Boys, like men and women, fret because they cannot have what others possess, either as the gift of partial Fortune, or as the reward of their own ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... promise with all my might, to do everything you want me to do. I will act just as if you were there and could see, mother, and I will always remember that it is beautiful for you to have gone away, for while you were here you had so much pain and so much illness. I won't fret, mother; no, I won't fret—I promise to be a mother to the others, and there won't ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... the real business of my life. I was no longer doomed to fret at being of no use, for the object of my existence was plain enough, namely, to give innocent recreation to my young mistress when at leisure from her more serious employments. Every day she spent some hours in study with her mother or sister; and she would fly to me for relief between her ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... room, and began a fevered toilet. It was true that she possessed nothing suitable for ballroom wear; but then the dance was to be quite informal, and she was too happy to fret herself over that fact. She put on the white muslin frock which she had worn for dinner ever since she had been with the de Vignes. It gave her a fairylike daintiness that had a charm of its own of which she was utterly unconscious. Perhaps ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... psalm, 'Fret not thyself because of evil doers.' I think he picked it out on purpose; and then he prayed that we might all lead better lives, and live in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... knows no set, But circles ever with a fixed desire, Watching Orion's armour all of gold; Watching and wearying not, till pale and cold Dawn breaks, and the first shafts of morning fret The east with ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... you fret about that. Me and my friends ain't nothing partickler to do just now. We'll wait for yer. I should like yer to know ole BILL GABB. You should 'ear that feller goin' on agin the GUELPHS when he's 'ad a little booze—it 'ud do your ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... girls were nearly crying with vexation. There was no appeal, however. Miss Frazer escorted them into their bedroom, and stood over them, giving directions, until each pair of stockings or pocket-handkerchief was disposed according to her ideas of neatness. They might chafe and fret inwardly at the delay, but outwardly they were obliged to behave with ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... chin and after sizing the lad up just as a butcher would a beef, he whispered: "Well, well, Kansas Shorty, I see you have brought a fine 'broncho' to town with you. I hope that you will be able to make a first-class road kid of him." To which coarse remarks Kansas Shorty laughingly replied: "Never fret, Nevada Bill, I have trained many a road kid into good plingers." Nevada Bill then told him where a gang of plingers had their headquarters, and as Kansas Shorty seemed to be acquainted with most of them whose monickers Nevada Bill repeated to him, he ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... 'calico's' out of the corral and Long Jim's Belezebub ain't hitched no longer. Ha, ha, ha! If either them kids tries to ride Beelzy—Hmm. But Chiquita, now, she's little but she's great. Pa and Matt claim she's worth her weight in gold. She's likely, anyway. An' don't fret, lady. They'll all be home to breakfast, an' seein's I've got that to cook, I'll hump myself to bed and advisin' you to do the same. If not, make yourselves comfortable's you can, and ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... seemeth that The ungodly fret. Go, place him in the stocks. I charge ye harm him not— But give him ale, Wine, and a scurvy song-book—Such as he Do make us triumph. Fie, fie, Cornet Dean! Well, stop his mouth, an't please ye; come, away! [Trumpets sound.] ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... fret me, or I should not allow it. But I think there should be a limit. No man is ever ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... on the portrait of old Anthony, in the drawing-room beyond. There was a fixed, rapt look in Grayson's eyes, and there was reassurance. It was as though he would say to the portrait: "It has all come out very well, you see, sir. It always works out somehow. We worry and fret, we old ones, but the young come along, and somehow or other they ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... "is not to fret ourselves while we are waiting. For there are some who in waiting do not wait, but are troubled ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... quoth he: 'my uncontrolled tide Turns not, but swells the higher by this let. Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide, And with the wind in greater fury fret: The petty streams that pay a daily debt To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls' haste Add to his flow, but ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... pleasantly, thought Henderson, as he stepped on board the train that evening. The world is truly what you make it, and Henderson was determined to make it agreeable. His philosophy was concise, and might be hung up, as a motto: Get all you can, and don't fret about what you ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... down at the Rolling Cove. He was a thin, worn man, who looked ten years beyond his forty, his face wrinkled by the constant fret and ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... strong happiness is always linked with pain; therefore hug the safe shore, and do not tempt the deeper raptures. Avoid disappointment by expecting little, and by aiming low; and above all do not fret." The Stoic said: "The only genuine good that life can yield a man is the free possession of his own soul; all other goods are lies." Each of these philosophies is in its degree a philosophy of despair in nature's boons. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... fret and failure of this day, And weariness of thought, O Mother Night, Come with soft kiss to soothe our care away And all our little tumults set to right; Most pitiful of all death's kindred fair, Riding above us through the curtained air On thy ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... her breast. I am not sure that they acknowledged even to themselves that they had always been lovers; they could not consent to anything so definite or pronounced; but they were happy in being together in the world. Esther was untouched by the fret and fury of life; she had lived in sunshine and rain among her silly sheep, and been refined instead of coarsened, while her touching patience with a ramping old mother, stung by the sense of defeat and mourning her lost activities, had given back a lovely self-possession, and habit of sweet temper. ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... "Well, don't you fret, Miss Pomeroy. We'll have to find that coat. The man who wears it has the formula. And it won't take long to run down a man who owns a giddy plaid like that. If your brother could only speak, he could ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... thy breast? Why all this fret and flurry? Dost thou not know that what is best In this too restless world is ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... these premises, that in the small body of Mr Tappertit there was locked up an ambitious and aspiring soul. As certain liquors, confined in casks too cramped in their dimensions, will ferment, and fret, and chafe in their imprisonment, so the spiritual essence or soul of Mr Tappertit would sometimes fume within that precious cask, his body, until, with great foam and froth and splutter, it would force a vent, and carry all before it. It was his custom to remark, in reference ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... don't know why I'm slandered so, If I go high,—if I go low,— There's always some one who will say, "Just see that mercury to-day!" And whether toward the top I crawl Or down toward zero I may fall, They always fret, and say that I Am far too low or far too high. Although I try with all my might, I never seem to strike it right. Now I admit it seems to me They show great inconsistency. But they imply I am to blame; Of course that makes my anger flame, And ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... will, truly, get up, and not fret a bit, if you'll only help me look. Please come now to dress me, and see if you can find what makes ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... and sweetest ones; but harmonies, complications, oratorios in words, never. (I do not speak this in any deprecatory sense. Blessed be the memory of the warm-hearted Scotchman for what he has left us, just as it is!) He likewise did not know himself, in more ways than one. Though so really fret and independent, he prided himself in his songs on being a reactionist and a Jacobite—on persistent sentimental adherency to the cause of the Stuarts—the weakest, thinnest, most faithless, brainless dynasty ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... which I was too stupid to remove for myself obligingly removed for me! No more need to fret about the coming interview with Midwinter; and plenty of time to consider my next proceedings, now that Miss Milroy and her precious swain had come together again. Would you believe it, the letter, or the man himself (I don't know which), had taken such a hold on me that, though I tried ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... "and write to John Forest to-night. And now don't fret. You're a thousand times better off than you were four days ago. For one thing, you know where he is. What's more, he's content to let bygones be bygones. My darling, you've much to be thankful for. And now go and take a hot bath, and try and get a ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... and guardians of the highest interests of mankind, fret our souls at trifles,—we, who are to be instruments in marshalling the race from slavery and folly to wisdom and freedom? Behold, in one bound, the hovels and palaces of earth shall be alike, and, floating ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... he answered. "Come and sit by me at the window and I'll tell you—I'll tell you what you must know. But see you, child, if you are going to cry or fret, you will be no help to me and ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... "Probably it's the only chance he's ever had to meditate on his misdoings. Don't you fret about him. He's just as husky as I be, and twice as hefty. It was all I could do to ketch a good holt ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... curve my banks I fret, By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... did mischief to eat more than one could digest; so I kept on taking my little bit of beef-tea a good many times a day, but I was very weak for a long time: I couldn't even hold my Bible to read it, and I began to fret about it; I was used to reading my two or three chapters a day, and I felt sort o' lost without them. One day my next neighbour brought in what she called a 'Silent Comforter,' and hung it on the wall; it had only three or four texts on a page in large letters, so that I could read it without ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... to come. I shall not mind if Monsieur has so much business on hand that he cannot leave," and her tone had a little mocking accent. "When men get older they lose their nice ways of compliment and grace. They care less for their wives. Even M. de Champlain does not fret after his, who is no doubt enjoying herself finely. She was wise not ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... does not lie awake at night and fret and fume, to think Of bank officials on a spree with what he's toiled to get. He is not driven by his woe quite to the verge of drink By wondering if his balance in ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... grow just as philosophically disappointed. If we love, we can only be sure of a brief pleasure—an April day. Love has its bitterness. "It is," says Ovid, an adept in the matter, "full of anxious fear." We fret and fume at the authority of the wise heads; we have an intense idea of our own talent. We believe calves of our own age to be as big and as valuable as full-grown bulls; we envy whilst we jest at the old. We cry, with the puffed-up hero ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the afternoon of February 1st with some hot water, which the nurse had ordered, for the master's room. Just as she was about to knock at the door Mr. Wethered was coming out of the room. Mary stopped with the tray in her hand, and at the door Mr. Wethered turned and said quite loudly: 'Now, don't fret, don't be anxious; do try and be calm. Your will is safe in my pocket, nothing can change it or alter one word of it ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... brother must neither fret nor fume. If our prince but asked me, I'd fight in the ranks for him, and carry musket or ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... gone out, Marion spoke to David. "Do be sensible, sir," she said, "or the mistress will fret herself to death. Make some money to pay off your debts, and then you can try to find ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... am vowed to celibacy, and Adeline de Courval is leman where she should be wedded dame. Methinks I fret at that thought even ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... cause of Bertie's grief. "Don't fret over it," he said at last. "It might be worse. Why, your father and mother might be thousands of miles away, like mine are. When Alice is better, you will be able to go home. And it will help your mother if she thinks you are almost as happy as if ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... the symbol of the great sun-god, or to stand for the lightning wielded by the omnipotent deity, Manu, Thor, or Zeus. The Christians saw in it a cross concealed from the eyes of their heathen enemies. The fylfot is frequently found in the Greek Church on the vestments of the clergy. The Greek fret or key pattern, with which all are familiar, is a decorative development of ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... Betty, turning to look at her, "don't you go for to fret over that. Why, if a bit of a thing like that'll trouble you, you'll have plenty to fret about at White-Ladies. Mrs Rhoda, she's on and off with you twenty times a day; and you'd best take no notice. She don't mean anything ill, my ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... tongue about Blent," he commanded imperiously. "If it were mine again, and I came to you and said, 'You're on my conscience, you fret me, you worry me. Marry me, and I shall be ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... vast merchant marine containing all the elements necessary to form a navy of unparalleled power, appears in clearest light, giving us cause for much congratulation. To effect all this, time is required. Let those who fret, look over the map of a hemisphere—let them reflect on the condition to which Southern perfidy and theft had reduced us ere the war begun, and then let them moderate their cries. It will all be done; but the programme is a tremendous one, and the future of the most glorious ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... in the glamourie They have stolen my wee brother, Housed a changeling in his swaddlings For to fret my own poor mother. Pules it in the candle light Wi' a cheek so lean and white, Chinkling up its eyne so wee Wailing shrill at her an' me. It we'll neither rock nor tend Till the Silent Silent send, Lapping in their awesome arms Him they ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... Though it goes against one's ideas of propriety to print from a copy, yet when one wants the substance of a MS., it's better to take it from a copy, when you can get it, than fret for five years till the MS. turns up. When it does so, we can print it if necessary, ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... considerably better, to-night," remarked Jan. "She'll get about now, if she does not fret too much over Alice." ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... My little lad, Feel very blue In weather sad? You mope and fret and whine and frown, To ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... clasp His cold dead form in one long, last embrace! And here I sit alone.— I drove them all away, their words but maddened me. Alone I sit, And rock, and think,—I cannot weep— And conjure up the depths, those cruel depths That chafe and fret, and roll him to and fro Like a stray log:—he, whose dear limbs should lie Peaceful and soft, in rev'rent care bestowed.— Or in the sunken boat, gulfed at his work, I see his blackened corse, even ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... contradiction to such as are positive), from the composition of his audience. His audience, comprehending so much ignorance, and, above all, so much high-spirited impatience, being, in fact, always on the fret, kept the orator always on the fret. Hence arose short sentences; hence, the impossibility of the long, voluminous sweeps of beautiful rhythmus which we find in Cicero; hence, the animated form of apostrophe ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... I describe the scenery that met my eye, as I looked out from this verdant recess! The narrow valley, with its steep and close adjoining sides draperied with vines, and arched overhead with a fret-work of interlacing boughs, nearly hidden from view by masses of leafy verdure, seemed from where I stood like an immense arbour disclosing its vista to the eye, whilst as I advanced it insensibly widened into the loveliest vale eye ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... 'Don't fret your eyelids on that score,' said the young gentleman. 'I've got to be in London to-night; and I know a 'spectable old gentleman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the change—that is, if any genelman ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... pot than any other plants, they thrive in the shade, they withstand the uncongenial conditions usually found in the house, and are among the hardiest of plants suitable for house culture. And yet how many women will fret and fume over a Lorraine begonia or some other refractory plant, not adapted at all to growing indoors, when half the amount of care spent on a few ivys would grace their windows with frames of living green, giving a setting to all their other plants which would ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... that they are married, do they always bill and coo? Do they never fret and quarrel as other couples do? Does he cherish her and love her? Does she honor and obey? Well—they do—in the ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... always turn out of my way to walk through a country churchyard; these rural resting-places are as attractive to me as a town cemetery is repugnant. I read the names upon the stones and find a deep solace in thinking that for all these the fret and the fear of life are over. There comes to me no touch of sadness; whether it be a little child or an aged man, I have the same sense of happy accomplishment; the end having come, and with it the eternal ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... arching sky, and down at the flat blue sea, and felt that there was something wanting, but could never lay my tongue to what that something was. And I became quick of temper too, for my nerves seemed all of a fret, and when my mother would ask me what ailed me, or my father would speak of my turning my hand to work, I would break into such sharp bitter answers as I have often grieved over since. Ah! a man may have more than one wife, ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Sir Roger, "it was ill-naturedly said; do not fret about it; you were not in the least to blame. I should not like you half so much—should not think nearly so well of you, if you had been willing to give up all your own people, to throw them lightly over, all of a sudden, for a comparative ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... were: how the little eyes danced and sparkled, and how eagerly they engaged to fulfill the conditions, and not to fret or look cross when summoned at nine, to leave the drawing-room and be ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... fret not; but either with calm temper see: Non-being is the term appointed for the most ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... said Laddie. "You needn't fret, mother. I'll not overheat them. I must give a concert simultaneous with this plowing performance, and I'm particular about the music, so I can't go too fast. ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... a white nigger; the supposed illegitimate daughter of Adelbert Beaucaire, and a slave woman. There is no reason why I should fret about her, is there? She is my property already by law." He laughed again, the same ugly sneering laugh of triumph, "That was why I was so particular about the wording of that bill of sale—I would rather have her than the ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... dropping on to the nearest chair, "and are you putting yourself out about that, my pretty? Why, tisn't likely that you three young ladies could support yourselves. Don't you fret about that, Miss Primrose; why, you'll get quite old with fretting, and lose all your nice looks. You go to bed, my darling—there's a Providence over us, and he'll find ways and means to ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... Zealand was only discovered by Europeans in the reign of our King Charles I., and even then the Dutch explorer who sighted its lofty coasts did not set foot upon them. The first European to step on to its shores did so only when the great American colonies were beginning to fret at the ties which bound them to England. The pioneers of New Zealand colonization, the missionaries, whalers, and flax and timber traders, did not come upon the scene until the years of Napoleon's decline and fall. Queen ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... in a perfect fret at being told the distance between the sun and moon. 'How can any one tell the distance?' cried he. 'Who surveyed it? who carried the chain? By Jupiter! they only talk this way before me to annoy me. But then there's some people ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... Though we are here, 'tis yet a vacant place, One little soul had filled so great a space. For thou didst sing thy joyousness to all, Running through every nook of house and hall. Thou wouldst not have thy mother grieve, nor let Thy father with too solemn thinking fret His head, but thou must kiss them, daughter mine, And all with that entrancing laugh of thine! Now on the house has fallen a dumb blight: Thou wilt not come with archness and delight, But every corner lodges lurking grief And all in vain the ...
— Laments • Jan Kochanowski |
