"Fret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forgive; Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live. Fretless and free, 5 Soul, clap thy pinion! Earth have ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... was a joke: Reproach not, though in jest, a friend For those defects he cannot mend; His lineage, calling, shape, or sense, If named with scorn, gives just offence. What use in life to make men fret, Part in worse humour than they met? Thus all society is lost, Men laugh at one another's cost: And half the company is teazed That came together to be pleased: For all buffoons have most in view To please themselves by vexing you. When jests ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... said softly. "Why do we fight and fret each other? Why do I, who adore you so, let you vex me and stir me to say what I do not mean at all. Always remember, Euan—always, always—that whatever I am unkind enough to say or do to vex you, in my secret mind ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... misfortune should befall him, I should be grieved for him. They have been settled at the manor from father to son; half the churchyard is full of them, they have all grown up here. Even a stone would fret if it were moved from such a place, let alone a man. Surely, he can't be bankrupt like other noblemen? It's well known ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... if we can concentrate all our mental forces upon it. It is the man that is unsettled because he does not know what he wants that goes to the wall. We hear persons say that business is trying on the nerves, but it is the unsettling elements of fret and worry and suspense that are nerve-exhausting and not the business. Executing one's plans may cause fatigue, enjoyment comes with rest. If there has not been any unnatural strain, the recuperative powers replace ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... withdrew to his dwelling-place with his friends about him. As for Messer Dante, he was for going to his lodging, very lonely and stern and silent, but I would not have it so. For I could guess, being, after all, no fool, how bad it might be for one of so sensitive a disposition as my friend to fret his spirit in isolation. So I persuaded him—and indeed I think in the end he was not sorry to be so persuaded—to take ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... "Fret not for thy sword, Sir Scout." she replied, "neither flatter thyself that Circe wastes her spells on all who come her way. Those only ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... cart, for fourteen pounds, to a Chinese gardener who wanted a strong cart to carry his vegetables round through the Bush. It was just before our first youngster came: I told Mary that I wanted the money in case of extra expense—and she didn't fret much at losing that cart. But the fact was, that I was going to make another try for a buggy, as a present for Mary when the child was born. I thought of getting the turn-out while she was laid up, keeping it dark from her till ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... master came in very moody; and when he had staid an hour, and you not come, he began to fret, and said, He did not expect so little complaisance from you. And he is now sat down, with great persuasion, to a game at loo.—Come, you must make your appearance, lady fair; for he is too sullen ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... co-dialogist, what are we to think of those who move in conversation by the very principle of interruption? And a variety of the nuisance there is, which I consider equally bad. Men, that do not absolutely interrupt you, are yet continually on the fret to do so, and undisguisedly on the fret all the time you are speaking. To invent a Latin word which ought to have been invented before my time, 'non interrumpunt at interrupturiunt.' You can't talk in peace for such people; and as to prosing, which I suppose you've a right ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... yet what boisterous peace! Ho! ho! It is thy fancy's finger-tip That dints the dimple now, and kinks the lip That scarce may sing in all this glad increase Of merriment! So, pray thee, do not cease To cheer me thus, for underneath the quip Of thy droll sorcery the wrangling fret Of all distress is still. No syllable Of sorrow vexeth me, no tear drops wet My teeming lids, save those that leap to tell Thee thou'st a guest that overweepeth yet ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... he was left in his prison to fret in idleness, but towards the afternoon he was called by his friend the ex-runner to ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... things in their wine? They say these waters trouble the head, and make people imagine what never came to pass. Do you make no more of killing a Bishop? are these your Whiggish tricks?—Yes, yes, I see you are in a fret. O, faith, says you, saucy Presto, I'll break your head; what, can't one report what one hears, without being made a jest and a laughing-stock? Are these your English tricks, with a murrain? And Sacheverell will be the next Bishop? He would be glad of an addition of two hundred pounds a year to ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... quietude of her own room, to the great distress of the little Anneli, who had surprised her once or twice. And the rosy-cheeked German maid guessed pretty accurately what had happened; and wondered very much at the conduct of English lovers, who allowed their sweethearts to pine and fret in solitude without sending them letters or coming to see them. But on this particular afternoon Anneli opened the door, in answer to a summons, and found outside a club commissionaire whom she had seen once or twice before; and when he gave her a letter, addressed in a handwriting ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... not sure that Martha was wrong or unreasonable in thinking that Mary should have helped her. Jesus did not say she was wrong; he only reminded Martha that she ought not to let things fret and vex her. "Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things." It was not her serving that he reproved, but the fret that she allowed to creep ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... never to wait for him: we will have supper, now you have come home, dear," said Dorothea, who, however she might fret her soul in secret as she knitted their hose and mended their shirts, never let her anxieties cast a gloom on the children; only to August she did speak a little sometimes, because he was so thoughtful and so tender of her always, and knew as well ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... if it be passed, take away At least the restlessness, the pain! Be man henceforth no more a prey To these out-dated stings again! The nobleness of grief is gone— Ah, leave us not the fret alone! ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 in a fiery fit of pique I stay at ninety for a week. ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... direction of one will. That is why we Normans have so badly beaten the French. Every mail has his place in battle. He charges when he is ordered to charge, or he is held in reserve the whole day, and the battle ended without his ever striking a blow. We may fret under inaction, we may see what we think chances of falling upon the enemy wasted, but we know that our duke is a great leader, that he has a plan for the battle and will carry it through, and that disobedience to his orders would be an offence as great as that of riding ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... souls sometimes grows to be a brazen wall. There are no venial crimes in love! If you have the very spirit of that noble sentiment, you must feel all its pangs, and we must be unceasingly careful not to fret each other by some ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... offensive to any particular society or company, at least, wherein there is any sober person, any who retaineth a sense of goodness, or is anywise concerned for God's honour: for to any such person no language can be more disgustful; nothing can more grate his ears, or fret his heart, than to hear the sovereign object of his love and esteem so mocked and slighted; to see the law of his Prince so disloyally infringed, so contemptuously trampled on; to find his best Friend and Benefactor so outrageously abused. To give him the lie were a compliment, to spit in his face ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... that had attracted me from the ship, a curious hunched affair with a violently working apparatus in front and pipes covered with snow curving up and disappearing into the top of it. A small foot-lathe stood by a bench, and on the bench itself was clamped a fret-work table and a partly completed fret-work corner bracket. I wiped my face with my sweat-rag and turned to get a good look at the owner of this variegated display. It seemed to me I was ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... for one day, every day, a year of days—years. He's twenty-five now, feeling the thews of his strength; twenty-seven, twenty-nine, still the old daily round. Did no temptation come those years to chafe a bit and fret and wonder and yearn after the great outside world? Who that knows such a life, and knows the tempter, thinks he missed those years, and their subtle opportunity? Who that knows Jesus thinks that He missed such an opportunity to hallow forever, fragantly hallow, home, ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... "My lamb! as if all the milk in the world were worth your crying about! and crying into the spilt milk, too, and making the boat all the wetter! Hush! hush! Run along, Papa and Willy—dear little boy, it really is only funny, so don't fret, not one little scrap. Kitty and I will come in about ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... said the voice, with the vim of water-fret against an obstinate stone. "Wonder what it's like in the Mandane land! I'm ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... all sad hearts who yearn for love, Thou stream of loveliness, thou well of grace, Thou dove of peace in fret and restlessness, Thou ray of light to those who, lightless, grope. Thou house of God, thou garden of sweet shades, Rest without ceasing, refuge of the sad, Bliss without mourning, flow'r that never fades, Alien to death, and shelter in the mad Whirlpool of ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... justified!" The wild Son of Nature, looking into Life and Death, into Judgment and Eternity, finds that these things are very great. This too is a characteristic trait: In a certain German Hymn (Why fret or murmur, then? the title of it), which they often sang to him, or along with him, as he much loved it, are these words, "Naked I came into the world, and naked shall I go,"—"No," said he "always with vivacity," at this passage; "not quite nakid, I shall have my uniform on:" Let us be exact, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... to be dropping back into what he had been for Maisie in the beginning—a kind, attentive, superior officer in the regiment, paying gallant attentions to a bride. They were as open in their little flirtations as the dayspring from on high. And Maisie had not appeared to fret when he went off on excursions with us; she had to lie down for so many hours on her bed every afternoon, and she had not appeared to crave for the attentions of Edward at those times. And Edward was beginning to make ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... from the comfortable security of the solid earth below, and she found the clamor of falling water that came faintly up to her vaguely reassuring. There had been an almost appalling silence where she had left her companions beneath the frozen peaks, but now one could hear the hoarse fret of a rapid on the river, and this was a familiar sound ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... 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 of ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... God's dealings," pursued Aunt Judy, "but that they are sure to be good for us, even when we like them least, and cannot understand them at all. We know so little what we ought really to like and dislike, dear No. 6, that we often fret and cry as foolishly as the two children did, who, while they were in mourning for their mother, broke their hearts over the loss of ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... their day. We read on with a good-natured pity, akin to the feeling which the gods of Epicurus might be supposed to experience when they looked down upon foolish mortals,—and when we shut the book, go out into our own world to fret, fume, and wrangle over things equally transitory ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... Marster's folks come to look arter things. But eberything war lef' to Marse Robert, an' he wouldn't do widout me. Dat chile war allers at my heels. I couldn't stir widout him, an' when he missed me, he'd fret an' cry so I had ter stay wid him; an' wen he went to school, I had ter carry him in de mornin' and bring him home in de ebenin'. An' I learned him to hunt squirrels, an' rabbits, an' ketch fish, an' set traps for birds. ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... lay motionless in the snow on the forest's edge, and Geraldine was beginning to fret at the prospect of her being too benumbed by the cold to use her rifle, when Duane touched her on the arm and drew her attention to ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... said he, "I have had a great many troubles of late, sir, but never one like this. I thought that losing money—the fruits of a lifetime of hard work—was a thing to fret over; and then, again, I've thought that money's no consequence so long as you've got your children alive and well—that THAT was everything. I know better now. I know there's things may happen to a man worse than death—worse than losing everything belonging to him, no matter what ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... you must not leave this place. You will have a little princess more beautiful than Venus herself. Let nothing fret ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... line the sea and dash back the foam of the waves, unmoved by their fury. Recently I have stood upon New England's shore, and have seen the waves of a troubled sea dash upon the granite which frowns over the ocean, have seen the spray thrown back from the cliff, and the receding wave fret like the impotent rage of baffled malice. But when the tide had ebbed, I saw that the rock was seamed and worn by the ceaseless beating of the sea, and fragments riven from the rock were ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... castrated."—Halliwell.) Giglot Ginges Glapthorne, quoted; the play of The Lady Mother identical with Glapthorne's Noble Trial Glass, patent for making Gleeke Gods dynes Goll Gondarino Gossips Grandoes Groaning cake Guarded ( trimmed) Gumd taffety that will not fret (See Nares' Glossary, s., ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... opinion, ever so many ministers of public affairs, and ever so many lawgivers of the United States, who are infidels and profligates; who see only themselves in all they do, who desire only to fret out their little hour on the political stage with a sharp eye to their own interests, without the smallest desire to secure the Republic against future disasters—who cannot, or will not, see the disastrous ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... the Alexandra Hotel, the firelight, with the summer morning coming through the Venetian blinds? Somehow there was a sense of sculpture, even without the beautiful body. Seven years have passed. She has enjoyed seven years of peace and rest; we have endured seven years of fret and worry. Life of course was never worth living, but the common stupidity of the nineteenth century renders existence for those who may see into the heart of things almost unbearable. I confess that every day man's stupidity seems to ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... in Oxford. In All Souls College, for instance, the architect has carried his chimneys half as high as all the rest of the building, and fretted them with Gothic. The eye is instantly caught by the plated candlestick-like columns, and runs with some complacency up the groining and fret-work, and alights finally and fatally on a red chimney-top. He might as well have built a Gothic aisle at an entrance to a coal wharf. We have no scruple in saying that the man who could desecrate the Gothic trefoil into an ornament for a chimney has not the slightest feeling, and never will ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... settled,' I replied, with a quick catch at my breath, for the mere mention of the subject excited me; 'but you will be a good child and not fret if I do go away. No, I shall never forget you,' as a close hug answered me; 'I love you too dearly for that; but I want you to be brave about it, dear, for I cannot be happy wasting my time and doing nothing. You ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... My little lad, Feel very blue In weather sad? You mope and fret and whine and frown, To see the torrents ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... Bullers of Buchan, where the sea has forced its way through the solid rock, leaving an arch of triumph to commemorate the passage, and formed a huge round pot where its waters, in the time of storm, rage and fret and foam like a newly imprisoned maniac—a pot which Dr Johnson proposes to substitute for the Red Sea, in ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... who lived to be eighty-five, retained to the last the fresh and cheerful temperament of a boy. John Wesley, who died when he was eighty-eight, also had a happy disposition. "I feel and grieve," he says, "but by the grace of God I fret at nothing." Goethe, who reached his eighty-third year, is another good example. Then there is Boerhaave, one of the most celebrated physicians of modern times, who held that decent mirth is the salt of life. Indeed in the case of most old people, we believe it will be found that cheerfulness is ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... know yo wor a bad gell to stay up and burn t' candles, an fret your aunt?' he said with a feeble solemnity, his look fixed on the huddled white figure against ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... CLARE. Why on earth had such a far-fetched excuse leapt to her tongue? Why could she not have said Sarah, the servant, the maid-of-all-work? Then Miss Day would have had no chance to sniff, and she, Laura, could have believed herself believed, instead of having to fret over her own stupidity.—But what she would like more than anything to know was, why the mending of the stockings at home should NOT be Sarah's work? Why must it just be Mother—her mother alone—who made herself so disagreeably conspicuous, and not merely by darning the ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... you fret. He's a little more than a yearlin', and of course he'll snuffle." And young James took a ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... 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 ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... "Don't fret. What do we care?" was Van's easy answer. "We're not really after the view. I don't give a hurrah for what we see when we get to the top; what I want is the ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... with the touch almost of floss silk. The machine-made net is hard, stiff, and wiry, and remains perceptibly so in this test. Also, the mesh of machine-made lace is as regular as though made with a fine machine fret-saw, that of hand-made lace being of varying sizes, and often following the pattern of ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... all these years; a five-day attempt at a diary; framed pictures of racing motors in full Brooklands career, and load upon load of undistinguishable wreckage of tool-boxes, rabbit-hutches, electric batteries, tin soldiers, fret-saw outfits, and ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... round, yet not at the speaker. My eyes before they could meet hers, were caught by an apparition the most beautiful I had ever yet beheld. And what—what—have I seen equal to her since? Strange, that I should love to talk of her. Strange, that I fret at myself now because I cannot set down on paper line by line, and hue by hue, that wonderful loveliness of which—. But no matter. Had I but such an imagination as Petrarch, or rather, perhaps, had I his deliberate cold self-consciousness, what volumes of similes and conceits I might ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... intimate relationship compared with intercourse here, which is, in fact, nothing more than mutual mistrust and espionage, if there only were anything to spy out or to conceal! The people toil and fret over nothing but mere trifles, and these diplomats, with their consequential hair-splitting, already seem to me more ridiculous than the Member of the Second Chamber in the consciousness of his dignity. If foreign events do not take place, and those we over-smart ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... a little foster-sister of Jan's who sickened first. She died within two days. Her burial was hasty enough, but Mrs. Lake had no time to fret about that, for a second child was ill. Like many another householder, the poor windmiller was now ready enough to look to his drains, and so forth; but it may be doubted if the general stirring up of dirty places at this moment ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... had courted the daughter of some rich and noble house. I was handsome enough still, but he never looked at me at the banquets. I came across him at least twenty times, but he avoided me as if I were tainted with leprosy, and I began to fret, and fell ill of a fever. The doctors said it was all over with me, so I sent him a letter in which there was nothing but these words: 'Beki is dying, and would like to see Assa once more,' and in the papyrus I put his first present—a plain ring. And what was the answer? a handful of gold! ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wants to be 'even' one had better cut one's nose off, and then one's face will be even all over. You little simpleton! Don't fret your young years away, for nobody will give them back to you; and the old ones will come ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... to the House called Beautiful. It's one of those fanciful saws of which the only justification is that it works. Any one can test the truth of it by taking the highway. Well, friend Davenant is taking it. He'll reach the House called Beautiful as straight as a die. Don't you fret about that. You'll owe him nothing in the long run, because he'll get all the reward he's entitled to. When's the wedding? Fixed ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... you will be inclined to cry, 'Print it in any case,' but I will entreat of your kindness, which I have so much right to trust in while entreating, not to say one such word. Be kind, and let me follow my own way silently. I have not, indeed, like a spoilt child in a fret, thrown the poem up because I would not alter it, though you have done much to spoil me. I act advisedly, and have made up my mind as to what is the wisest and best thing to do, and personally the pleasantest to myself, after a good deal of serious reflection. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... 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 the bank ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... you fret; We call you gentle names, and yet Your cries redouble. 'Tis hard for little babes to prize The tender love that underlies A ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... 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
... had not been able to sleep for hunger, and had heard what their step-mother had said to their father. Grettel wept bitterly and spoke to Hansel: "Now it's all up with us." "No, no, Grettel," said Hansel, "don't fret yourself; I'll be able to find a way to escape, no fear." And when the old people had fallen asleep he got up, slipped on his little coat, opened the back door and stole out. The moon was shining clearly, and ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... the other responded, "Oh, hell! If you'd been in this business as long as I have, and seen all the different kinds of shysters that are trying to plunder the railroads, you'd not fret about justice. The way the public has got itself worked up just at present, you can win almost any case you can get before a jury, and there are men who spend all their time hunting up cases ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... said John. "Don't fret, dear, I shall be back in five days. Those four horses can go sixty miles a day for that time, and more. They are fat as butter, and there is lots of grass along the road if I can't get forage for them. Besides, the cart will be ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... In my haste I would have done a wrong.' He sat down on the cushions and returned to his rosary. 'Surely old folk are as children,' he said pathetically. 'They desire a matter—behold, it must be done at once, or they fret and weep! Many times when I was upon the Road I have been ready to stamp with my feet at the hindrance of an ox-cart in the way, or a mere cloud of dust. It was not so when I was a man—a long time ago. None ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... at the sun. "I guess we'll be in time to stop him," he reassured her. "Don't you fret." And then, as the boat bumped against the bank, "Here, I'll ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... will put him to some school in the town, where they'll be kind to him. Only, if you would, Margaret, for my sake—old girl! come, now! there's a darling!— just be more tender with him. You see he frets so after his mother. Think how little Tom would fret if he was away from you! ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... awake, Pleasing most when most I speak; The delight of old and young, Though I speak without a tongue. Nought but one thing can confound me, Many voices joining round me; Then I fret, and rave, and gabble, Like the labourers of Babel. Now I am a dog, or cow, I can bark, or I can low; I can bleat, or I can sing, Like the warblers of the spring. Let the lovesick bard complain, And I mourn the cruel pain; Let the happy swain rejoice, And ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... I do not care, Wag as it will the world for me; When fuss and fret was all my fare, I got no ground as I could see: So when away my caring went, I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... to the remotest verge of the sea: but there a power steps in, that limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious elements, and says, "So far shalt thou go, and no farther." Who are you, that should fret and rage, and bite the chains of Nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and concerts which I could scarce afford: but I thought I would have a Carnival before entering on a year of reductions. I have been trying to hurry on, and bully, Lawyers: have done a very little good with much trouble; and cannot manage to fret much though I am told there is great ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... let a woman go the whole figger when she gits started, just as ye'd better give an ugly cuss of a horse his head up hill an' down. It takes the mischief out of 'em quicker'n anything. Let her go it, Dexter—don't ye fret." ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... prefer silence and faith. It is then that the familiar prattle of the seance-room offends us. We sought freedom, light, absolution from the trammels of personality, and we are told that the dead appear in bodies and clothes, that they toil and fret, that they inhabit houses and cities. Our plains Elysian suffer an invasion of lawyers and physicians, of merchants and moneylenders. The weariness ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... control, and the tears were very bitter which we all shed together, but the stage was fast approaching, and we must control our grief, 'Good bye, mother,' said the boys at last as they left me to take their places in the stage coach, 'Don't fret about us; we will try to do right and remember all you have said to us, and let us hope there are happier days ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... up at their sacred flame—the man whose heart distends with benevolence to all the human race—he "who can soar above this little scene of things"—can he descend to mind the paltry concerns about which the terraefilial race fret, and fume, and vex themselves! O how the glorious triumph swells my heart! I forget that I am a poor, insignificant devil, unnoticed and unknown, stalking up and down fairs and markets, when I happen to be in them, reading a page or two of mankind, and "catching ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... letters that I brought How glad you are to see me. Only one? And that one from a lady? I'm undone! That, lightly skimmed, you'll think me such a bore, And wonder why I did not bring you four. It's ever thus: a woman cannot get So many letters that she will not fret O'er one that did not come." "I'll prove you wrong," I answered gayly, "here upon the spot! This little letter, precious if not long, Is just the one, of all you might have brought, To please me. You have heard me speak, I'm sure, Of Helen Trevor: she writes here to say She's ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... he said gruffly. "Did you indeed? Well, they won't. There was no call for you to fret your little self. Still, you've done it; I'll remember that—I'll always remember that. Now you be off ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... us would be rich, and then we should feel like the rich, and want to keep what we could. But as we have to labor hard for a little joy, it's best to get the joy, as much as you can, and not fret ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... aunt 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 afterward. "'De Lawd ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... down—wherein are allowed no trumps, but only the highest cards win—so they are but of the same suit, whilst you are playing, giving your antagonist all you can, as though it is not in your power to prevent him. You seem to fret, and cry you have good put-cards; he, having two treys and an ace, will be apt to lay a wager with you that you cannot have better than he; then you binding the wager, he soon sees his mistake. But in this trick you must observe ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... rising, knock the ashes from our burnt-out pipes, and say "Good-night," and, lulled by the lapping water and the rustling trees, we fall asleep beneath the great, still stars, and dream that the world is young again - young and sweet as she used to be ere the centuries of fret and care had furrowed her fair face, ere her children's sins and follies had made old her loving heart - sweet as she was in those bygone days when, a new-made mother, she nursed us, her children, upon her own deep breast - ere ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... strife Be far away. Lay down that load of state-concern; The Dacian hosts are all o'erthrown; The Mede, that sought our overturn, Now seeks his own; A servant now, our ancient foe, The Spaniard, wears at last our chain; The Scythian half unbends his bow And quits the plain. Then fret not lest the state should ail; A private man such thoughts may spare; Enjoy the present hour's ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... play the player, And, free from censure, fret, sweat, strut, and stare; Garrick[276] abroad, what motives can engage To waste one couplet on a barren stage? Ungrateful Garrick! when these tasty days, In justice to themselves, allow'd thee praise; When, at thy bidding, Sense, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... thy generous heart, To see us strain before the coach and cart; Compell'd to run each knavish jockey's heat! Subservient to Newmarket's annual cheat! With what reluctance do we lawyers bear, To fleece their country clients twice a year! Or managed in your schools, for fops to ride, How foam, how fret beneath a load of pride! 30 Yes, we are slaves—but yet, by reason's force, Have learn'd to bear misfortune, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... have eyes just like Juliet, the little sister who died when she was about your age," declared Dan Gowdy gently. "Don't you fret, Sister, she'll be glad to have you. Now here's your ticket, and I'll talk to Steve as soon as you're on board the ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... the sergeant, uneasily, "I do not know, unless they be to warn us not to travel at night. I am your man, Master," said he in a fret, "yet never have I travelled with so great a fear: even our Lord Sandi does not move by night, though the river is his ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... young woman, had a proper hard part to play—more particular that people knew I had a sort of feeling for 'ee; and I fancied, from the way we were mentioned together, that it might injure your good name. Nobody knows the heat and fret I ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... 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 of the verdict of the court, Appears to me the very soul of law. The ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... undress her then, pet-lamb," she crooned. "You s'll have your mother in th' mornin', don't you fret, my ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... faith. To Italy belonged the prerogative of spiritual power. By this power, aroused from the torpor of ages, and speaking, as it had once spoken, to the very conscience of mankind, the gates of a glorious future would be thrown open. Conspirators might fret, and politicians scheme, but the day on which the new life of Italy would begin would be that day when the head of the Church, taking his place as chief of a federation of Italian States, should raise the banner of freedom and national ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Louie thought it odd that Henrietta should "fret so much about Evelyn's children whom she had never seen. She has always seemed to make so much more fuss over them than over her own nephews and nieces in England. Of course, it was natural that dear Evelyn herself should be distracted, but for ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... masculine clumsiness was the spear through the side of her love for Morel. Before, while she had striven against him bitterly, she had fretted after him, as if he had gone astray from her. Now she ceased to fret for his love: he was an outsider to her. This made life ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... war was over and asked us what we were fighting for. They did it cleverly, as will be told elsewhere. Yet the doughboy only swore softly and shined his rifle barrel. He could not get information straight from home. He was sore. But why fret? His best answer was the philosophic "We're here because we're here" and he went on building blockhouses and preparing to do his best to save his life in the inevitable winter campaign which began (we may say) about the time of the great world war Armistice Day, ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... been extended to us, in this land of freedom; our industry has been, and still is, liberally rewarded; and so long as we live under a free and happy government which denies us not the protection of its laws, why should we fret and vex ourselves because we have had no part in framing them, nor anything to do with their administration. When the fruits of the earth are fully afforded us, we do not wantonly refuse them, nor ungratefully repine because we have done nothing towards ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... said Betty tenderly. "I will slip by Reuben, and you must not fret. Sit here on my knee and go fast asleep until I ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... are maintained by the abundance of water, so that the neerer the end any Riuer, Bay, or Hauen is, the shallower it waxeth, (although by some accidentall barre, it is sometime found otherwise) But the farther you sayle West from Island towards the place, where this fret is thought to be, the more deepe are the seas: which giueth vs good hope of continuance of the same Sea with Mar del Sur, by some fret that lyeth betweene ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... not fret," said he softly, when, after a pause of a few minutes, he saw tears run down the blooming cheeks of Rose and Blanche, still on their knees. "Perhaps we may find General Simon in Paris," added he; "I will explain all that to you this evening at the inn. I ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... sight of a pistol, nor pick his way ever by smooth roads. He must be a man, I say, able to use a small-sword creditably, who knows one end of a horse from another, who can win well but lose better, who can follow the hounds over the roughest country and not fall sick for a trifle of mud, nor fret a week over a splashed coat—in a word, he ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... bear flower, the flower is withering before our eyes. In its place, before long, will appear the new and splendid blossom whose appearance ends and begins an epoch of evolution. That is a consummation nothing can delay. We need not fret or hurry. We have only to work on silently at the foundations. The city, it is true, seems to be rising apart from our labours. There, in the distance, are the stately buildings, there is the noise of the masons, the carpenters, the engineers. But see! the whole structure shakes ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... breath more Earth is the fairer for. Whereas did air not make This bath of blue and slake His fire, the sun would shake, A blear and blinding ball With blackness bound, and all The thick stars round him roll Flashing like flecks of coal, 100 Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt, In grimy vasty vault. So God was god of old: A mother came to mould Those limbs like ours which are What must make our daystar Much dearer to mankind; Whose glory bare would blind Or less would win man's mind. Through her we may see him 110 Made sweeter, not made dim, And ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... back, and be tactful. Be persuasive; don't fret her; tell her it's all right, the matter is in my hands, but it isn't good form to hurry so grave a matter as this. Explain to her that we have to go by precedents, and that I believe this one to be new. ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... since his trouble with Freet on the Makon there had been growing in Jim a vague distrust of his own powers. He could build the dams, yes, if "they" would leave him free to do so. If "they" would not fret and hound him until his efficiency was gone. It was the very subtlety and intangibility of "they" that made him uneasy, made him less sure of ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... love to the world, and to invite them to come in to him for life. Yea, his invitation is so large, that it offereth his mercy in the first place to the biggest sinners of every age, which augments the devil's rage the more. Wherefore, as I said before, fret he, fume he, the Lord Jesus will 'divide the spoil' with this great one; yea, he shall divide the spoil with the strong, 'because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fret, the fever, the unrest endures, But the time flies.... Oh, try, my little lad, Coming so hot and play-worn, to be glad And patient of the long hours ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... no worry, nor fever, nor fret about him; but instead, cheerfulness, patience, and unfailing perseverance. His mind, amidst all his sufferings, remained perfectly calm and serene. He went about his daily work with an apparently charmed life, as if he had the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... were altered by the Editor he would fret for a week. Once when Tom Taylor altered the good Scotch of a "field preacher" (Almanac for 1880) he declared himself "in a great rage," and swore that he would "never forgive" the delinquent. On other occasions, too, he fumed at the desecration of his "librettos;" ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... a deaf ear to the roaring of that thunderous harmony which you call the eternal silence!—you of the earth, earthy, who can hear the little trumpet of the mosquito so well that it makes you fidget and fret and fume all night, and robs you of your rest. Then the sun rises and frightens the mosquitoes away, and you think that's what the sun is for and are thankful; but why the deuce a mosquito should sting you, you can't make ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... fact as something known by others, and requiring only to be studied and learned by the child, rules out such conditions of fulfilment. It condemns the fact to be a hieroglyph: it would mean something if one only had the key. The clue being lacking, it remains an idle curiosity, to fret and obstruct the mind, a dead weight ...
— The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey
... Hatty I would stay at home, to prevent her feeling so miserable, but it would be false kindness to give in to her; she would hate herself for her selfishness, and she would not be a bit happy if she knew she had prevented my visit. I would rather see her fret before I go, and bear it as well as I can, and then I know she will cheer up soon and be looking forward ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... form, and so lovely her face, That never a hall such a galliard did grace; While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume; And the bride-maidens whispered, ''Twere better by far, To have matched our fair ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... You know when I got all that old oak carvin' out of Bideford Church, when they were restoring it (Ruskin says that any man who'll restore a church is an unmitigated sweep), and stuck it up here with glue? Well, King came in and wanted to know whether we'd done it with a fret-saw! Yah! He is ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... is a life of the night which possesses all the others have, and something of its own besides; something which gets into the bones and makes for forgetfulness of the world. It lifts a man away from the fret of life, and sets his feet on ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is all in a fret," said D'Artagnan, with whom the most manifest sign of a lively emotion was the change of ideas in a conversation. "Come, comte, how many days longer has Raoul ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... another cup of coffee; you have no thought for me—you give all your attention to that child—there, there is the whistle now! Ten to one I shall be late, and all your fault, forcing me to talk instead of allowing me to eat. Hand me my valise—there, good-by and don't fret," and, rushing away, he gave no kiss to little Johnny, whom he was never more to behold; no kiss to Althea, whom he was indeed to meet again, to meet again and soon; but a gulf between him and her, insurmountable as ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... bring thee over a silk gown, and such Brussels lace as you've never yet set eyes on. It will make a lady of you; and you're not far off being one now, to my mind, so don't fret—don't fret, ...
— The Ferryman of Brill - and other stories • William H. G. Kingston
... other advantages, Boston always soothes our nerves. It has a quieting effect upon us. The people there are better satisfied than any people we know of. Judging from a few restless spirits who get on some of the erratic platforms of that city, and who fret and fume about things in general, the world has concluded that Boston is at unrest. But you may notice that the most of the restless people who go there are imported speakers, whom Boston hires to come once a year and do for her all ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... all that sort of people; and even to wink at the imposition of aubergistes on the road, unless it be very flagrant. So sure as you enter into disputes with them, you will be put to a great deal of trouble, and fret yourself to no manner of purpose. I have travelled with oeconomists in England, who declared they would rather give away a crown than allow themselves to be cheated of a farthing. This is a good maxim, but requires a great share of resolution and self-denial to put it in practice. In one ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... from the portico of the octagon tower of Andronicus Cyrrhestes, or tower of the winds, from the summit of which rises a conical dome, surmounted by the Vane. The more minute detail may be seen by the annexed drawing. The prevailing ornament is the Grecian fret. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... his cradle 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
... affecting the rest of the body, he considered quite plausible through the analogy that quicksilver has an affinity with gold but has no effect upon iron. Furthermore, a substance than can corrode a solid body may nevertheless be unable to "fret" a different body which is considerably softer and thinner, if the "texture" does not admit the small particles.[55] Reasoning by analogy served to explain the logical plausibility. In other words, he was very open-minded. He ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... of fruit and flowers, with elegant Corinthian columns jutting out upon the church steps, and with the old conventional wave-border that is called Etruscan in our modern jargon. From the midst of florid fret and foliage lean mild faces of saints and Madonnas. Symbols of evangelists with half-human, half-animal eyes and wings, are interwoven with the leafy bowers of cupids. Grave apostles stand erect ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... We'll resume our conversation another time," and Dr. Dean took her hand and patted it pleasantly. "Don't fret yourself about Denzil; he'll be all right. And take my advice: don't marry a Bedouin chief; marry an honest, straightforward, tender-hearted Englishman who'll take care of you, not a nondescript savage ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... tender memory of the dead I hold So precious through the fret and change of years! Were I to live till Time itself grew old, The sad sea would be ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... mind as to this conclusion, it was utterly dissipated when, peering cautiously round the corner of his hiding-place, he saw Addie disappear within the old sail-loft into which Andrius had betaken himself. Of course, she had gone to join her fellow-conspirators. He began to fume and fret, cursing himself for allowing Spurge to bring him down there alone—if only they had had Gilling and Vickers with ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... are leaving the city behind us. That is how I always feel when I'm on my way home again. The ranch is home to me, you know. I was born there. I do not know what would happen to me if I was unable to return home at least once every week. It takes me away from all the fret and bother ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... about your door, What means this bustle, Betty Foy? Why are you in this mighty fret? And why on horseback have you set Him whom you love, your ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... day, hour by hour,—take note of my words,—I will predict what he will do. The cardinal being dead, he will fret; very well, that is the least silly thing he will do, particularly if he does not ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... women of the wealthier sort in the city; but there was an immensity of trouble in the agonized eye and the pitiful droop of her mouth, which I should have rejoiced to see exchanged again for the ill-groomed exterior and the old fret of the farm. Her first question ignored all reference to the things leading to my being there, "in the dead vast and middle of the night," but went past me to the core of her trouble, as her eye had gone on from me to the street, in the search ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... "Don't you fret any about that. I've brought Smith along. Smith is the only living Englishman who speaks the Megalian language. He's been explaining the situation to the high priest of the island for the last half-hour while we blew bugle calls ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... excuse for coming. He'll be none the wiser. Even if he should be here," added the man after a pause, "he is probably asleep. After a hard day's work a boy his age sleeps like a log. There'll be no waking him, so don't fret. Come! Let's steer for ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... don't want my job to turn me into an ogre. There are people who don't feel that way about me." He laughed slyly. "Don't you fret about being haled into court. Several persons besides ourselves wish to meet those two distinguished gentlemen we are after. When we get them they will have to be shipped to Chicago and various other cities. You stand a slim chance of ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... nervous, friendly way and try to comfort the sufferer by being talked to. "I thought this idle capacity was distinctive of little children and old maids. But it's just circumstances. I simply can't work, and things have to drift; it's no good to fret and struggle. And so I lie here and am as amused as a baby with a rattle, at this river and ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... said my aunt, emphatically, 'he's as like her, as she was that afternoon before she began to fret—bless my heart, he's as like her, as he can look at me out of his ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... to go, "Don't fret yourself on that account!" he said. "My wife will treat my friends exactly as she ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... her own sense of it," said Andrew, "and the Lord only knows what she's made of this. I hope she won't fret over it." ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... I am!" he thought bitterly. "What does it matter? Life is so short, one is a coward indeed to fret over it. I cannot undo what I did. I cannot, if I could. To betray him now! God! not for a kingdom, if I had the chance! Besides, she may live still; and, even were she dead, to tarnish her name to clear ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... such waiting, how it calms the heart, brings into constant touch with God, detaches from the fever and the fret which kill, opens our eyes to mark the meanings of our life's history, and makes the divine gifts infinitely more precious ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... Jack. And now all is said; I am glad you let me tell you, Jack. I can never love you like—like that, but I need you, and you will be near me, always, won't you? I need your love. Be gentle, be firm in little things. Let me come to you and fret. ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... the dumps and fret and fume and wish you were dead, just stop right there and tell yourself that you are a liar. You do not wish anything of the kind. I heard of a man once who was always threatening to commit suicide. ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... the mania for great people wishing to strut and fret their four hours and a quarter upon the stage is on the increase—at least according to our friends the constituent members of the daily press. Despite the newspaper-death of the manager of the Surrey, by which his enemies wished ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of the eclat of their proceedings; and his brother, instead of being really guided by him as to the privacy of the representation, was giving an invitation to every family who came in his way. Tom himself began to fret over the scene-painter's slow progress, and to feel the miseries of waiting. He had learned his part—all his parts, for he took every trifling one that could be united with the Butler, and began to be impatient to be acting; and every day thus unemployed was tending to increase his ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... there was so much to do that she had no time to fret; in fact, she even found a certain pleasure in making her new home pretty, for all the time she was working she thought that her son would one day come and live there. The tapestry from her bedroom at Les Peuples was hung in the ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth; With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; Turn all her mother's pains and ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... yourself into your work—and put all of yourself into your work. Having done that, be content with your effort—do not fret. If all you do yields the fruit you hope for, do not fret while that fruit is ripening. On the other hand, if your labor comes to nothing, still do not fret. A like fate has fallen upon uncounted millions before you and will come to unnumbered myriads after you. If you have done your ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... them plainly that there are some men so variously affected towards their friends, that, while they are in calamity and distress, they will compassionate and succour them, but when they are well and in prosperity will fret at and envy them. "But this," he said, "is a fault from which wise and good men are free, and never to be found but in ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... fret and turmoil The passion and fire of art In him was soothed and quicken'd By her true sister heart; How future hopes had always Been for his sake alone; And now, what strange new feeling ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... mother! Lie down! It'll be all right! You'll only fret yourself into a spell! The minister's just a good man; he won't say anything to frighten you. Father's talking with him real pleasant, and pointing the way to the ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... small borrowings will yield no more. Aye, as each year declined, With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind He mourned his fate unkind. In dust, in rain, with might and main, He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain, Fretted for news that made him fret again, Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale, And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail— In hope or fear alike for ever pale. And thus from year to year, through hope and fear, With many ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... guard's gone to get me some information about the night trains on other lines. In the meantime, don't fret about ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... in pejus; more, indeed, than I could reasonably have expected he would have done;—insomuch, that I cannot but profess some relenting thoughts (though I had formerly occasion to use him somewhat coarsely), to see an old man thus fret and torment himself to no purpose. You, too, should pity your antagonist; not as if he did deserve it, but because he needs it; and as Chremes, in Terence, of his ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... objective point. If he comes toward the upper Potomac, follow on his flank and on his inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens his. Fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is, fret him ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... had sav'd mine honour, I had been happy still: but let him take it, And let him brag how poorly I am rewarded: Let him goe conquer still weak wretched Ladies: Love has his angry Quiver too, his deadly, And when he finds scorn, armed at the strongest: I am a fool to fret thus, for a fool: An old blind fool too: I lose my health? I will not: I will not cry: I will not honour him With tears diviner than the gods he worships: I will not take the pains ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... toleration and benevolence that a diligent reader of his pages is, as it were, perforce imbued by it. Indeed, we know of few writers whom we can point to with more confidence as calculated, in antidote to the fret and chafe inseparable from existence in our day, to induce a tone of repose and resignation in ourselves, and a disposition to take charity as our watchword in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... "Don't fret over the newspaper lies, dear. Those who love you—and why shouldn't I love you still?—know the honourable gentleman that you are. Write to me if it would ease your heart and tell me just what you feel you can. Now and always you have my ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... liking for the boy that I'm going to save him if it can be done, and if there's any Raffles left in me, such a simple proposition as cracking a bank and puting the stuff back where it belongs, in a safe of which I have the combination, isn't going to stand in my way. Don't fret, old man, it's as good ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... I shall tell him so. There, don't fret, darling. It isn't worth it. I could wish it hadn't happened for your sake, but I don't care a rap for ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... be drain'd by trenches, where it infests the roots of such kinds as require drier ground: But if a drip do fret into the body of a tree by the head (which will certainly decay it) cutting first the place smooth, stop and cover it with loam and hay, or a cerecloth, till a new bark succeed. But not only the wet, which is to be diverted by ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn |
