"Shrink" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... youth and beauty die. So be it, O my God, thou God of truth. Better than beauty and than youth Are saints and angels, a glad company: And Thou, O lord, our Rest and Ease, Are better far than these. Why should we shrink from our full harvest? why Prefer ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... ladies so often fill the place of the boatmen, had I been so pleasantly ferried over the water. At the same time I could not help asking her why she had shown such an objection to going the way which you had gone, along the little by-path. I had observed her shrink from it with a sort of painful uneasiness. She was not at all offended. 'If you will promise not to laugh at me,' she answered, 'I will tell you as much as I know about it; but to myself it is a mystery which I cannot explain. There is a particular spot ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... like a nightmare; it haunted his fancy with visions of guilty memory, and shapes of horrible regret. The ghosts of buried misdoings, which he had thought long-lost in the mists of recollection, started up menacingly from their forgotten graves, and made him shrink with a sense of their awful reality. Behind him, like a wilderness, lay years which the locust had eaten; the entrusted hours which had passed away, and been reckoned ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... the doom of the hypocrite is so fearful! When his cloak is removed and the wolf appears in the presence of the angels, will they not shrink from him as one of us would shrink from a viper ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... said because the delicate ever shrink from affixing a value to the time and services of others. Adrienne was afraid she might unintentionally deprive the other of a portion of her just gains. The woman understood by the timidity and undecided manner of the applicant, that she had a very unpracticed ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... view, according to the use to which it is to be fitted. The same material may be employed for wall-hangings and dress, and then the principles which have been formulated have to be varied. I do not shrink from repetitions if they make my meaning clear, remembering the Duke of Wellington's direction to his private secretary, "Never mind ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... tubs, of wood simply dove-tailed, instead of being lined with lead or copper; and in my first experiments I used them made in that way; but I soon discovered their inconvenience. If the water be not always kept at the same level, such of the dovetails as are left dry shrink, and, when more water is added, it escapes through the ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... her mournful sacrifice, the poor woman did not shrink from covering herself, even in the presence of the man she loved, with ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... man as this is sure to have been impressed by the personality of Master Ste, who, in 1870, came to him in the old Charterhouse, that hoary, venerable pile which seems to shrink into itself, as if to shut out the unpoetic and modern atmosphere of Smithfield Meat Market. B.-P. went to Charterhouse as a gown boy, nominated by the Duke of Marlborough, and owing to the ease with which his infant studies had been conducted, ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... are brave," laughed the little woman. "There is more courage in that white heart of yours than in those of all the Umpondwana. Well, sister, I also am brave, or at the least for these many moons I have set myself a task, nor will I shrink from it at the end, and that is to save you from Piet Van Vooren as once at a dearer price you saved me. Now, hearken, for myself I have no fear; as I have said, doubtless in this way or in that I shall win ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... grasp the situation although the evidence was so overwhelming. He took the letter from the desk and read it for the fourth time since receiving it, riveting his eyes long and intently upon the signature affixed. Of all the years he had known the Governor he had never known him to shrink or show cowardice in any form whatever, although he'd passed through such crises as would tend to test the mettle of any man, it matters not how brave. "Surely the situation must be terrible!" finally observed Mr. ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... how the sweet things sigh For they have a voice like ours), 'The breath of the blind girl closes The leaves of the saddening roses— We are tender, we sons of light, We shrink from this child of night; From the grasp of the blind girl free us— We yearn for the eyes that see us— We are for night too gay, In your eyes we behold the day— O buy—O ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... my beloved sister, is prostrated by her sorrows and anxieties," it began, "and I must be her amanuensis—I who would die for her, yet who shrink from this task, well knowing, though she does not, how hard it is to write to one to whom I have given perhaps such infinite pain. Indeed, I should not have had courage to write had she not required it of me, had not your most generous offer and action demanded response. ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... chain, And in thy lap wilt take me once again. How comes it that thou dost not shrink from me?— Say, dost thou know, my ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... speck of dust in the sun, and not even so much, in this solemn, mysterious, unknowable universe. I shrink back. One truth I see. Franklin was right. "The highest worship of God is service to Man." All this, however, does not prevent everlasting hope of immortality. It would be no greater miracle to be born to a future life ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... him long ago when she had thrown him over for Rudyard, and now she had betrayed him again after she had married Rudyard, and betrayed Rudyard, too; and for whom this second betrayal? His heart seemed to shrink to nothingness. This business dated far beyond yesterday. The letter furnished that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... appeal; but it sufficed. There seemed to be expressed in it the knowledge bred by immemorial experience and immemorial time: This law before which we stand was not made by us! As dogs, when they hear the crack of a far whip, will shrink, and in their whole bearing show wary quietude, so Hughs and Mrs. Hughs, confronted by the questionings of Law, made only such answers as could be dragged from them. In a voice hardly above a whisper Mrs. Hughs ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ourselves together to listen to the voice that calls, to draw nigh, and find out and know what Holiness is, or rather, find out and know Himself the Holy One. And if the first approach to Him fill us with shame and confusion, make us fear and shrink back, let us still listen to the Voice and the Call, 'Be holy, as I am holy.' 'Faithful is He which calleth, who also will do it.' All our fears and questions will be met by the Holy One who has revealed His Holiness, with this one purpose in ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... had plenty to fill our bellies and put on our backs; we had welcome wherever we went, and the groats and pennies rained into our caps. I was Clown and Jack Pudding and whatever served their turn, and the very name of Quipsome Hal drew crowds. Yea, 'twas a merry life! Ay, I feel thee wince and shrink, my lad; and so should I have shuddered when I was of thine age, and hoped to ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... serve as the nucleus of reconstruction when it can find protection and security, or whether we must wait for a new generation to grow up, remains to be tried. Their leaders are subtle reasoners, and it has been shrewdly observed of them that "they never shrink from following their logic to its consequences because the conclusion is immoral." Perhaps they will find no more difficulty in accepting the arguments we shall address to them because the conclusion is a little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... ask me not, if Truth have yet Her seal on Fancy's promise set; If even a glimpse my eyes behold Of that imagined age of gold;— Alas, not yet one gleaming trace![1] Never did youth, who loved a face As sketched by some fond pencil's skill, And made by fancy lovelier still, Shrink back with more of sad surprise, When the live model met his eyes, Than I have felt, in sorrow felt, To find a dream on which I've dwelt From boyhood's hour, thus fade and flee At ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... true man stirs one's heart like a trumpet. Therefore, this doubt I am confiding is all the more dreary. Naturally, I feel it most keenly in the company of my fellows, each one of whom seems to carry the victorious badge of manhood, as though to cry shame upon me. They make me shrink into myself, make me feel that I am but an impostor in their midst. Indeed, in that sensitiveness of mine you have the starting-point of my unmanliness. Look at that noble fellow there. He is six-foot odd in his stockings, straight, stalwart, and confident. His face is broad ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... the prospect of passing out of this world into that beyond the veil, so does many a girl shrink at the prospect of the beyond seen ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... bar. Here on this waste, and to left and to right of it, Never is lisp or the ripple of rain: Fierce is the daytime and wild is the night of it, Flame without limit and frost without wane! Trees half alive, with the sense of a curse on them, Shudder and shrink from the black heavy gale; Ghastly, with boughs like the plumes of a hearse on them: Barren of blossom and blasted ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... common roar the Morgans bounded to their feet. They were not unused to sudden onslaughts, nor was either of them a man to shrink from a fight at short quarters, if it came to that, but blank astonishment overwhelmed both. De Spain, standing slightly sidewise, his coat lapels flapped wide open, his arms akimbo, and his hands on his hips, faced the three in an attitude of readiness only. He had reckoned on ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... the trembling shepherds sore afraid? Why shrink they at the grand, the heavenly sight? "Fear not" (the angel says), nor be dismay'd, And o'er them sheds a ray of God-sent light. O matchless mercy! All-embracing love! The angel speaks and, gladly, men record:— "I bring you joyful tidings from above: This day is ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... distrusted the sweet innocence of Viola. He could not venture the hazard of seriously proposing marriage to an Italian actress; but the modest dignity of the girl, and something good and generous in his own nature, had hitherto made him shrink from any more worldly but less honourable designs. Thus the familiarity between them seemed rather that of kindness and regard than passion. He attended the theatre; he stole behind the scenes to converse with her; he filled ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Thus I am told of one individual that he wants the organ of colour; and all the culture in the world can never supply that defect, and enable him to see colour at all, or to see it as it is seen by the rest of mankind. Another wants the organ of benevolence; and his case is equally hopeless. I shrink from considering the condition of the wretch, to whom nature has supplied the organs of theft and murder in full and ample proportions. The case is ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... session in greater extent to England and Scotland, should also be extended to Ireland." But this extension of local self-government to Ireland would require, in Lord Hartington's opinion, a fundamental change in the fabric of Irish Government. "I would not shrink," he says, "from a great and bold reconstruction of the Irish Government," a reconstruction leading up gradually to some real and substantial form of Home Rule. His Lordship's words are: "I submit with some confidence to you these principles, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... not a word, nor did he shrink from the blow; but Frank thought, and his mind grew more and more ...
— The Book of One Syllable • Esther Bakewell
... wife—that in taking the mantle from her own shoulders, and wrapping it around her rival, she was doing a most amiable deed, when down in her inmost heart, where the tempter had put it, there was an unrecognized wish to see how the little dainty girl would shrink from the miserable abode, and recoil from the touch of the little, dirty hands which were sure to be laid upon her dress if the children were at home, and she waited a little impatiently to start on ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... a little upon these trivial matters because I shrink from what must follow. They were scarcely blots upon our happiness; rather they were motes in the sunshine which had no other cloud. It is true that I was always somewhat puzzled by a certain manner in Mrs. Gray, which certainly was from no unfriendliness ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... impartial; or, if either of the yokefellows had a right to complain, certainly it was not the donkey. Now, in any country where such degradation of females could be tolerated by the state of manners, a woman of delicacy would shrink from acknowledging, either for herself or her friend, that she had ever been addicted to any mode of labour not strictly domestic; because, if once owning herself a prdial servant, she would be sensible that this confession extended ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... therefrom. At those devotional gatherings there was a simple petition offered to the Giver of all good that He should guard them during the night from the crimeful visitations of wicked men who coveted that which did not belong to them, and who did not shrink from murder in order to get it. Captain Wilkins had a profound belief in the efficacy of prayer, and was therefore staggered when he realized about two o'clock one morning that a giant of coppery colour stood over him with a revolver, while his compatriots ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... Pana-ewa is drunk with the scent; The breath of it spreads through the groves. Vainly flares the old king's passion, Craving a sauce for his meat and mine. The summer has flown; winter has come: 15 Ah, that is the head of our troubles. Palsied are you and helpless am I; You shrink from a plunge in the water; Alas, poor me! ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two minds. Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother, and sometimes he looked longingly at the window. Certainly it would be pleasant to be her boy again, but, on the other hand, what times those had been in the Gardens! Was he ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... quarter strikes! Call loud Rip up all my bleeding wounds, and shrink not! Yet think 'tis I that answer, God that hears! To every wretch in chains sleep is permitted: I, I alone, am robb'd of this last refuge Of sinking nature! Hark! Again they thunder! Again they iterate ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... returned Lady Rosamond, throwing her arms around the neck of Lady Douglas, giving full vent to the feelings which almost overwhelmed her, adding, between tears and sobs: "I have always obeyed my father's wishes and will not shrink from my duty now. Gerald Bereford is worthy of a nobler wife than I dare ever hope to be. He has indeed conferred on me a distinguished honor, and I must try to make amends with all the gratitude of which ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... families in the country, and he now thought of the respect due to the unsullied reputation of a young girl—he was somewhat less reckless than ten years ago. But now there should be a change. Since he had serious intentions he need not shrink from using all means to complete the conquest of this fortress, which, moreover, was already on the point of raising ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... has already been decided upon. Optimists in the labor movement maintain that a repetition of the legal murder of 1887, that has caused shame and horror even in the ranks of the upper ten thousand, is impossible—that the authorities would shrink from such an outrage, such an awful crime. That which has happened in Colorado and Idaho warrants no ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... singular and formidable inhabitants, the unknown dangers of the approach, and the fact that we were putting ourselves legally in a false position all combined to damp my ardour. But there was something in the ice-cold reasoning of Holmes which made it impossible to shrink from any adventure which he might recommend. One knew that thus, and only thus, could a solution be found. I clasped his hand in silence, ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Lord Garnon and I discussed this, oh, two years ago at the least. Really, I'm surprised that you seem to shrink from it, now. Of course, you're Venus-born, and customs there may be different, but with ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... be through it all some thread of continuity. That fearful Count was coming to London. If it should be, and he came to London, with its teeming millions . . . There may be a solemn duty, and if it come we must not shrink from it. I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other eyes if required. And if it be wanted, then, perhaps, if I am ready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... violently, and threatened him with his fist; the priest raised his arms in prayer, just as I saw him yesterday at the festival—but not in devotion, but to seize Paaker, and wrestle with him. The struggle did not last long, for Paaker seemed to shrink up, and lost his human form, and fell at the poet's feet—not my son, but a shapeless lump of clay such as the potter uses to make ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... altogether abnormal; it is not within the type of regular legislation. That any given creed should be regarded as out of keeping, as both redundant and defective, and yet that the ecclesiastical authority should shrink from applying a remedy to its most obvious defects, proves that the system itself is bad. All healthy legislation lends itself to perpetual improvement; that the enactments of articles of belief cannot be reconsidered, is ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... words to utter. He looked helplessly at the Queen like a man who has received a blow which has dazed him for the time being. The Ambassador's knowledge startled the Queen, too, but she did not shrink before his steady scrutiny. She was the first ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... the uselessness of these ascetic lives, shrink now from their example, and fall back upon that wiser teaching, that he best does God's will who best does God's work. The world now knows that heaven is not served by man's idleness—that the "dolce far niente," though it might suit an Italian lazzaroni, ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... such compositions, both are most deeply responsible; the author who publishes, and the critic who undertakes to recommend or to censure them. But if they appear to be written with any degree of sincerity and earnestness, we naturally shrink from treating them merely as literary efforts. To interrupt the current of a reader's sympathy in such a case, by critical objections, is not merely to deprive him of a little harmless pleasure, it is to disturb him almost in a devotional exercise. The most considerate ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... and the multitude are infected; riches outweigh virtue; lovers of money take the place of lovers of honour; misers of politicians; and, in time, political privileges are confined by law to the rich, who do not shrink from violence in order ...
— The Republic • Plato
... already explained. The declaration near the end, "It has become blue," indicates that the victim now begins to feel in himself the effects of the incantation, and that as darkness comes on his spirit will shrink and gradually become less until it ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... shrouded from full vision by elaborate illusion conspicuously round in our lives—the life-giving and life-destroying elements, Sex and Death. We are compelled to occasional physiologic and economic discussion of the one, but we shrink from recognising the full extent to which it bases the whole social fabric carefully concealing its insurrections, and ignoring or misreading their lessons. The other, in certain aspects, we are compelled to face, but to do it we tipple ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... which tears express That out of gladness come Be mirrored in its tender glow, Before the beautiful tableau Ingratitude and selfishness Would shrink ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... only be redeemed by paying the costly price demanded of those who own that they have drawn a blank in the lottery of marriage. Public opinion is a grim ghost that daunts the bravest, and Sylvia knew that trials lay before her from which she would shrink and suffer, as only a woman sensitive and proud as she could shrink and suffer. Once apply this remedy and any tongue would have the power to wound, any eye to insult with pity or contempt, any stranger to criticise or condemn, and she would have no means ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... gentlemen to think well before, upon the free prairies of the West, in the summer of 1860, they dare to wince and quail before the assertion of the men of Philadelphia in 1776—before they dare to shrink from repeating the words that these ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... the transmission of any acquired modification. The orthodoxy of science, therefore, must be held as giving at any rate a provisional support to Professor Weismann, but all of them, including even Professor Weismann himself, shrink from committing themselves to the opinion that the germ-cells of any organisms remain in all cases unaffected by the events that occur to the other cells of the same organism, and until they do this they have knocked the ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... enemies alive, it was because he himself lacked a skin. In this sense his Apologia is a triumph far beyond the ephemeral charge on which it was founded; in this sense he does indeed (to use his own expression) vanquish not his accuser but his judges. Many men would shrink from recording all their cold fits and hesitations and prolonged inconsistencies: I am sure it was the breath of life to Newman to confess them, now that he had done with them for ever. His Lectures on the Present Position of English Catholics, practically preached ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... to the hard drill which they had to go through, and which occupied them from morning till night, for the colonel knew that on any day the regiment might receive orders to embark, and he wanted to get it in something like shape before setting sail. Jack did, however, shrink from the company in which he found himself. With a few exceptions the regiment was made up of wild and worthless fellows, of whom the various magistrates had been only too glad to clear their towns, and mingled with these were the sweepings of the jails, rogues and ruffians of every description. ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... him. Fleeing, we may elude him. But what if he creep into the sanctuary of our lives, with his subtle omnipresence, that we do not see in all its horror till we are disarmed; thrusting the burden of his companionship upon us to the end! However we turn he is there. However we shrink he is there. However we come or go, or sleep or wake he is before us. Till the keen sense grows dull with apathy at looking on him, and he becomes like ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... and keep my heart and lips and hands stainless,—hold them high above the dishonorable things that you abhor, and live during your absence as if your clear eyes took cognizance of every detail. Yea,—search me as you will, dear deep-blue eyes,—I shall not shrink; for the rule of my future years shall be to scorn every word, thought, and deed that I would not freely bare to the scrutiny of the man whose respect I would sooner die than forfeit. Oh, my darling, it were easier for me to front the fiercest ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... was a strong-minded woman. We do not say this to her disparagement. A strong mind is as admirable in woman as in man. It is only when woman indicates the strength of her mind by unfeminine self-assertion that we shrink from her in alarm. Miss Lillycrop's bosom friend was a warm-hearted, charitable, generous, hard-featured, square-shouldered, deep-chested, large-boned lady of middle age and quick temper. She was also in what is styled comfortable circumstances, and dwelt in a pretty suburban cottage. ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... train, it was all such fun that I chattered away to mamma as fast as possible about the stations we should pass, and the things we should see, till I saw an old gentleman opposite exchanging smiles with mamma. That made me feel shy, and shrink back into the corner silent enough; and with the silence came a sigh, and five minutes later mamma's question surprised me, in a fit of melancholy thought, about all that I had left behind me. When would Lottie and I meet again? And how should we know which was getting on best with the history? ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... be only a question of time, and a short time at that, when the laborers would be worse off than they are now. Though, at the outset, they might absorb the entire incomes of the well-to-do classes, the amount thus gained would shrink in their hands until their position would be worse than their present one. They would have pulled down the capitalists without more than a momentary benefit for themselves and with a prospect of soon sinking to a lower level than as a class ...
— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark
... of the nose will shrink away. When the specimen is dry and the nose-wire is cut off, a wax tip may be modeled on, nostrils being punched into it with a ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... your house becomes a lumber-kiln, and any wood that has not been tried as by fire will, under its influence, warp and crack and shrink; in carpenters' phrase, "it tears the finish all to pieces." The rapid shrinking of the joists and studs near the hot-air pipes is also apt to cause cracks in the plastering that would never appear if the whole frame could shrink evenly, for shrink it will more or less. The application of these ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... awakened in this woman's mind some slumbering recollection, and to have changed, for an instant, her whole demeanour. Her first hasty impulse was to bend forward as if to scan more minutely the appearance of her half-concealed companions; her next, on seeing them involuntarily shrink from her, to retreat to the back of the box, cover her face with her hands, and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... last book of yours WE think You've double damned yourself to scorn; We warned you whilst yet on the brink 485 You stood. From your black name will shrink ...
— Peter Bell the Third • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the doomed palace no one noticed them. They cast aside all restraint. It was too dangerous to wait. The excessive dose they took of the drug made the corridor shrink with dizzying speed. They rushed along its length. Alan hurled a little man aside who was in their path. Already they were larger ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... these Marquesan superstitions. On the cannibal ghost I shall return elsewhere with certainty. And it is enough, for the present purpose, to remark that the men of the Marquesas, from whatever reason, fear and shrink from the presence of ghosts. Conceive how this must tell upon the nerves in islands where the number of the dead already so far exceeds that of the living, and the dead multiply and the living dwindle at so swift a rate. Conceive how the remnant huddles about ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fellow-countrymen, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France. Why did he take this step? Fundamentally, no doubt, because he felt war to be one of the supreme experiences of life, from which, when it offered itself, he could not shrink without disloyalty to his ideal. Long before the war was anything more than a vague possibility, he had ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... who habitually, and from a strong sense of duty, live on the shady side of life. Metaphorically speaking, the sunshine may almost touch the very path on which they are treading, but they shrink from and avoid it, having a strong preference for the shade, but considering themselves martyrs while they live in it. Mrs. Cameron was one of these people. The circumstances of her life had elected plenty of sunshine for her; she had a devoted and excellent husband, an ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... of a precipice. We peer into the abyss—we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... confidence of the salaried man, and Thurston, who fought for his own interests, flung himself down on his trestle cot with all his clothes on. Neither the timber slide nor the bridge was quite finished, but because rivers in that region shrink at night when the frost checks the drainage from the feeding glaciers on the peaks above, the saw-miller had insisted on driving down his logs when there was less chance of their stranding on the shoals that cumbered the high-water channel. Thurston lay awake for some time, listening to ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... noticed. The Roman legions, hitherto victorious over every foe, are now frequently vanquished; conquered tribes uprear the standard of revolt and refuse to pay tribute; the territorial boundaries of the empire materially shrink, and its once conquered provinces pass out of its ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... head close to the ears, and cut five collars of a side, bone the hinder leg, or else five collars will not be deep enough, cut the collars an inch deeper in the belly, then on the back; for when the collars come to boiling, they will shrink more in the belly than in the back, make the collars very even when you bind them up, not big at one end, & little at the other, but fill them equally, and lay them again in a soaking in fair water; before you bind them up, let them be well watered the space ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... few months to the completion of my book. I can now afford to devote my entire time to it, but I could not do the work justice unless amid the right surroundings, and the question is, where to find them. I do not care to remain here, and yet I shrink from ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... could not entertain overtures except in concert with Russia and the other powers. Meanwhile, Pitt, conscious as he was of failing powers, retained his undaunted courage, and while he was organising a third coalition, did not shrink from a bold measure which could hardly be justified by international law. This was the seizure on October 5, 1804, of three Spanish treasure-ships on the high seas, without a previous declaration of war against ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... to shrink from all, The lowly and the high; To see but scorn on every lip, Contempt in every eye. And for a time e'en Nature's smile A bitter mockery wore, For beauty stamped each living ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... many deeds of violence done that day called up others of their kind, she saw, and did not shrink from seeing, the fate of the Dutchmen at Werowocomoco who had sought to betray Smith to Powhatan. Her father, angered at them, had had them brained upon the threshold of the house they ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... one spoke. To shrink from expression is a characteristic in which the extremes of cultivation and mediocrity meet; the reserve of delicacy in St. George and Amory would have been a reserve of false shame in Bennietod, and of an exaggerated sense of humour in Little ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... together; heaven to help, One man shall break, even on their own flood's verge, That iron bulk of battle; but thine eye That sees it now swell higher than sand or shore Haply shall see not when thine host shall shrink. ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... was so attractive, but rather the intelligence, the personality that shone through it, as the light shines through the horn panes of some homely, massive lantern. Speculative eyes of the sort that seem to search horizons and gather knowledge there, but shrink from the faces of women; a head of brown hair, short cut but untidy, an athletic, manlike form to which, bizarrely enough, a slight stoop, the stoop of a student, seemed to give distinction, and hands slender and shapely as those of ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... smiles and wavings, but she could not shrink out of sight without falling into the lilies. She neither smiled nor waved back, and turning her eyes to the more distant mountains surveyed them carefully till the two, tired of waving, moved away along the path and turned ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... importance are in agitation.' I expressed as well as I could, and indeed it was but ill, my unfeigned and deep sense of his kindness, my hesitation to form any opinion of my own competency for the office, and at the same time my general desire not to shrink from any responsibility which he might think proper to lay upon me. He said that was the right and manly view to take.... He adverted to my connection with the West Indies as likely to give satisfaction ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... that interview, to get General Grant to agree to write his personal memoirs for publication, but he wouldn't listen to the suggestion. His inborn diffidence made him shrink from voluntarily coming before the public and placing himself under criticism as an author. He had no confidence in his ability to write well; whereas we all know now that he possessed an admirable literary gift and style. He was also sure that the book would have no sale, and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... proximity to him, she was hard put to it to show some dexterity as a nurse. And all the time she was aware of Wade, with his quiet, forceful presence, hovering near. Could he not see her hands trembling? And would he not think that weakness strange? Then driftingly came the thought that she would not shrink from Wade's reading her mind. Perhaps even now he understood her better than ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... situations in which the mind is moved to do that from which in cooler moments it would shrink with disgust. It chanced that Collins had retained the scalp so singularly found at the bottom of the river, by Corporal Nixon, and this circumstance ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... And on occasion by a stretch of art Can even speak the language of the heart, Can lisp and sigh and make confused replies, With baby lips and complicated eyes, Indifferently apt to weep or wink, Primly pursue, provocatively shrink, Brazen or bashful, as the case require, Coax the faint baron, curb the bold esquire, Deride restraint, but deprecate desire, Unbridled yet unloving, loose but limp, ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... violation of their sanctity. Go to a silent exhibition of the productions of the sister Art, and be convinced that the qualities which dazzle at first sight, and kindle the admiration of the multitude, are essentially different from those by which permanent influence is secured. Let us not shrink from following up these principles as far as they will carry us, and conclude with observing—that there never has been a period, and perhaps never will be, in which vicious poetry, of some kind or other, has not excited more zealous admiration, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... McMurray, is still at Bude. She is to have a child, I understand, in the near future, and will stay in Cornwall till the confinement is over. Her husband, even were he not amid the midnight stress of his newspaper office, I should shrink from seeking. He is a Niagara of a man. Judith—I can go to her no more. And though Antoinette has wept her heart out all day long, poor soul, and Stenson has conveyed by his manner his respectful sympathy, I cannot take counsel of my own servants. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Little'un that she thinks she has met him before; in Auckland, probably. Either she is mistaken, or, the Little'un has forgotten, and is shamefaced. He blushes the colour of beet-root. His huge frame wobbles in confusion; and, awkwardly trying to shrink out of sight, as his bashful habit is, he steps backward, and plants a giant heel upon O'Gaygun's toe. That outraged individual startles the assemblage with the sudden exclamation, "Gosh!" Endeavouring to extricate himself, he lumbers against the ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... killed, for no purpose, for no cause.... Well, he had not been killed meanly. There was still time for him to live on the level of his friends. If youth has had committed to it the task of redeeming the world from the follies of the Old, Youth must not shrink from the labour, even though it may feel that ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... her living, one poor enough, by hawking small household necessities; and not unfrequently where she appeared, the housewives bought of her because her eyes, and her nose, and an undefined sense of evil in her presence, made them shrink from the danger of offending her. But the real cause of the bad impression she made was, that she was sorely troubled with what is, by huge discourtesy, called a bad conscience—being in reality a conscience doing its duty so well that it makes the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... shrink! I am not here for passion, I crave no love, only a little rest, Although I would my face lay, lover's fashion, Against the ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... nor the utility of such a measure. I trust the reader will believe that I would not have shrunk from any danger that perseverance or physical strength could have overcome; that indeed I did not shrink from the slow fate, which, as far as I could judge, would inevitably have awaited me if I had gone on; but that in the exercise of sound discretion I decided on falling back. The feeling which would have led me onwards ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... of Dr. Maverick's nature when he chose to use it, which was not nearly always, there was a steadfast kindliness, the vigor of a true and pure manhood, that made a clear atmosphere about him, in which insincerity, weakness, and selfishness seemed to flicker into pale shadows, and shrink away from the intense mental light ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... with his pious wife and child to the house of God, and offers the child, for her, to be baptized, is more of a man than before, gains reputation for some desirable qualities, excites respect for self-reliance, the quiet performance of a duty from which certain feelings might lead him to shrink, and in the increased love and esteem of others, to say no more, he ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... history may, in some respects, be likened unto an adventurous knight, who having undertaken a perilous enterprise by way of establishing his fame, feels bound, in honor and chivalry to turn back for no difficulty nor hardship, and never to shrink or quail, whatever enemy he may encounter. Under this impression, I resolutely draw my pen, and fall to with might and main at those doughty questions and subtle paradoxes which, like fiery dragons and bloody giants, beset the entrance to my history, and would fain repulse ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... rather that, as its home broke up, the soul withdrew little by little, and contracted itself like the pupil of an eye, to shrink to a pinpoint and vanish ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... In one way Rachel rather hoped it was the case; it would be something to have received so much kindness and attention, even though bought and paid for, from one of her own sex who knew all there was to know, and yet did not shrink from her. But the young woman's next words dismissed ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... understands him perfectly well. They are strange things. It must have been the finger of God. That executioner cut off Jurand's hand, tore out his tongue, and put out his eyes. That executioner is such that where men are concerned he would not shrink from inflicting any torture, even if he were ordered to pull the teeth of the victim; but, where girls are concerned, he would not lift up his hand to kill them, or to assist in torturing them. The reason for this determination is, because he too had an ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... we compare the sorrows of our earthly life with the hope of an eternal existence, though painfully felt, still they shrink as it ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... really of her kindred, I commend to you my brother: he is at ——, with Mr. Morton. If you can serve him, my mother's soul will watch over you as a guardian angel. As for me, I ask no help from any one: I go into the world and will carve out my own way. So much do I shrink from the thought of charity from others, that I do not believe I could bless you as I do now if your kindness to me did not close with the stone upon my ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... There was nothing left but open defiance, and he did not shrink from it. When he broke off, Carrington, who had listened with the veins swelling on his forehead, rose suddenly. It was evident that he had allowed his passion to ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... not say that, Aubrey! He would only be vexed to hear that you gave in, and were fickle to your undertaking. Indeed, if I were the volunteer, I should think it due to him, not to shrink as if I were ashamed of what ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will answer; Sigh, it is lost on the air; The echoes bound To a joyful sound, But shrink from voicing care. ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... canst transfigure common things, And, like the sun, make the clod burst in bloom,— Unseal the fount so mute this many a day, And help me sing of Linda! Why of her, Since she would shrink with manifest recoil, Knew she that deeds of hers were made a theme For measured verse? Why leave the garden flowers To fix the eye on one poor violet That on the solitary grove sheds fragrance? Themes are enough, that court a wide regard, And prompt a strenuous flight; and yet from ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... herself? Her scruple might die—and if it should not, she was strong enough to hold it down, to keep her foot on its breast. Was her love so weak that it should shrink ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... observations upon him rendered the ill-tempered poetaster dumb; and Edward attributed this distance of manner to a feeling of shyness which Reddy might entertain at being seen in such a place, and therefore had too much good breeding to thrust his civility on a man who seemed to shrink from it; but when he left the house he expressed his regret to his companions at the poor fellow's ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... whether we should shrink from our troubles or face them," continued Little; "but in your case I should choose the shrinking, and write to the poor, pathetic little dimpler. Poor thing! Her days of dimpling are over. If you knew that you had led her astray, your duty, I believe, would be clear; ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... not one of your blood-thirsty Rebels, you know; she has the good sense to shrink with horror from the bare mention of those heathen who, at Manassas and elsewhere, wreaked their unmanly spite on the bodies of dead heroes: still she is a bitter little Rebel, with blonde hair, superb eyelashes, and two brothers in the Confederate service,—if I may be allowed to club the statements. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... was there a sail or a smoke not of a vessel of the Philippine expedition. All the long days and nights the eye swept the horizon for companionship, finding only that of our associates in adventure, and very little of them. Even the birds seem to shrink from the heart of the watery world spread between America and Asia; and the monsters of the deep are absent. One day, about a thousand miles from California, a story spread of a porpoise at play, but the lonely creature passed astern like a bubble. Bryant ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... causes of the Reformation. But without reviewing those old scandals, a true understanding of Italian morality, and a true insight into Italian social feeling as expressed in literature, are alike impossible. Nor will the historian of this epoch shrink from his task, even though the transactions he has to record seem to savor of legend rather than of simple fact. No fiction contains matter more fantastic, no myth or allegory is more adapted to express a truth ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... Bruce shrink in fear of his life; and despite her fury she was filled with disgust that he could imagine she would have his blood on her hands. Then she divined that Bruce saw more in the gathering storm in her father's eyes than he ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... been given to man in order to enable him to disguise his thoughts? Indian politicians are no Talleyrands, but they sometimes seem to have framed their vocabulary on purpose to disguise political conceptions which most of them for various reasons shrink from defining at present with decision. We have already seen how elastic is the word Swaraj, self-government, or rather self-rule. In the mouth of the "moderates" of the Indian National Congress it means, we are assured, only a pious ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... a proper season brings, In serious mood to treat of serious things, Then shall they find, disdaining idle play, That I can be as grave and dull as they. Thus far in sport—nor let half patriots, those Who shrink from every blast of Power which blows, 490 Who, with tame cowardice familiar grown, Would hear my thoughts, but fear to speak their own; Who (lest bold truths, to do sage Prudence spite, Should burst the portals of their ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... a bashful bride's first loving speech to her husband. Then suddenly she produced from that insignificant tambourine, as though with the fingers of a powerful musician, sounds like the crashing of the clouds in thunder, making the frames of her hearers shrink within them as she sang in tones more melodious than those of the Apsharas (celestial ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... Displeasure. And how dreadful is the Condition of that Creature, who is only sensible of the Being of his Creator by what he suffers from him! He is as essentially present in Hell as in Heaven, but the Inhabitants of those accursed Places behold him only in his Wrath, and shrink within the Flames to conceal themselves from him. It is not in the Power of Imagination to conceive the fearful Effects of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of any question submitted to arbitration. Beyond these considerations came the social influences in the richest capital of the world—all favorable to England, all hostile to the United States. Apparently believing that the United States would shrink from presenting the case of the fisheries to a commission in which Great Britain had so manifest an advantage, that Government proposed (before the Commission could sit) to open negotiations looking ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... pandered to the hatred of America among the upper classes of this country during the present war. Some of us at least had been taught by what we have lately seen not to shrink from an extension of the suffrage, if the only bad consequence of that measure of justice would be a change in government from the passions of the privileged class to the passions of the people.... ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... of it. I shrink from every new man I meet. I wait nervously for the word 'coal,' feeling that I shall scream when it comes. Oh, I want a vote or something. I don't know what I want, but I hate men! Why should they think that everything they say to us is funny or clever or important? ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... pin is too tight in the flange. The bushing in the flange often expands. Some tuners oil at the ends of the pin with kerosene or wet it with alcohol, which is very good; but a better plan is to shrink the bushing with a drop of water on each side so that it will penetrate the bushing. After this is done, the piano cannot be used for a day or two, as the water first swells the bushing, making all the hammers stick; but when they are dry again, they will be found free. This may seem a ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... with so dreary a picture presented to her mental vision, she did not shrink from the enterprise, nor turn back, until all hope of making a home for her family in that remote region had fled. We recall a few instances in which, after years of toil, sorrow, and suffering—when all had been lost, the heroine of the household has been driven back by a stress of ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... He seemed to shrink from pursuing the subject, after having started it himself. "Let's be doing something to kill the time," he said. "Let's pack up and pay ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... which both to my cousin, and his men, I'll still be thankful in word, deed, and pen. Till Thursday morning there I made my stay, And then I went plain Dunstable highway. My very heart with drought methought did shrink, I went twelve miles, and no one bade me drink. Which made me call to mind, that instant time, That drunkenness was a most sinful crime. When Puddle-hill I footed down, and past A mile from thence, I found a hedge at last. There stroke we sail, our bacon, ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... rebuff. Mrs. Brainerd, however, had not tried again and had, with what stoicism she could command, resigned herself to the path God had ordered for her feet. So Mr. Brainerd's end at Woodbridge was not a brilliant one, but he did not shrink or cry aloud, and it was generally recognized that dear old Burt Brainerd was a ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... man, and therefore compelled me by other duties inspiring feelings, to bring even my Intellect to the Market. And the finale is this. I should like to attempt the Translation. If you will mention your terms, at once and irrevocably (for I am an idiot at bargaining, and shrink from the very thought), I will return an answer by the next Post, whether in my present circumstances, I can or cannot undertake it. If I do, I will do it immediately; but I must have all Goethe's works, which I cannot procure in Bristol; for to give the "Faust" without a preliminary ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... perilous nest, Most like to fall when fullest, and that jar With every heavier billow! O unrest Than balmiest deeps of quiet sweeter far! How did ye triumph now in Margaret's breast, 270 Making it readier to shrink and start Than quivering gold of the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... account given, in the First Part, of the population of Salem Village and the contiguous farms, her husband, John Procter, was introduced to our acquaintance. From what we then saw of him, we are well assured that he would not shrink from the protection and defence of his wife. He accompanied her from her arrest to her arraignment, and stood by her side, a strong, brave, and resolute guardian, trying to support her under the terrible trials of her situation, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the centre of curiosity, quizzing, and comment, Jude was not inclined to shrink from open declarations of what he had no great reason to be ashamed of; and in a little while was stimulated to say in a loud voice to the listening ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... this side has a square aperture in it. Some of the women peep anxiously through it at the sound of footsteps; others shrink away in shame. - For what offence can that lonely child, of ten or twelve years old, be shut up here? Oh! that boy? He is the son of the prisoner we saw just now; is a witness against his father; and is detained here for safe keeping, until ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... of the nebulae consist of innumerable isolated particles and may be spoken of as gas. We know that some are in a state of whirling motion. We know also that such gas left to itself will slowly as it cools condense and shrink, so as to form a central solid nucleus; and also, if it were in whirling motion, that it would send off rings from itself, and that these rings could break up into planets. In two familiar cases the ring has not yet thus aggregated into planet ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... lit again the torch of learning in Europe when the Moors came to Spain. And so religion after religion bears testimony to the possibility of human knowledge outside the physical world; we only re-proclaim the ancient truth—with this addition, which some religions now shrink from making: that what man did in the past man may do to-day; that the powers of the Spirit are not shackled, that the knowledge of the other worlds is still attainable to man. And outside that practical knowledge of other worlds it ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... it been possible. As it was not, I have pointed out those features which seemed to me objectionable,—certainly with no design so ridiculous as that of setting up myself against Harvard University, but equally certainly with no heart so craven as to shrink from denouncing what seemed to me wrong because it would be setting myself against Harvard University. Opinions must be judged by their own weight, not by the weight of the persons who utter them. The fair fame of Harvard is the possession of every son and daughter of Massachusetts, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... she loved him; for if she was not bound strongly by the prejudices of her class, all those she cared for certainly were. On the other hand, if she did not love him, then, indeed, he had reason to shrink from an interview that would be the taking away of all his hope. Who would not wrestle hard with hope and fear before facing such an alternative? Certainly not a ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... a natural panic,' said Robert, throwing back his head at the challenge. 'Men shrank and will always shrink, say what you will, from what seems to touch things dearer to them than life. But the panic is passing. The smoke is clearing away, and we see that the battle-field is falling into new lines. But the old truth remains the same. Where and when and how you will, but somewhen ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... And the blacks shrink back and are sore afraid At the furrows five that rib the glade, And the voodoo work ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... reference to the scene within the typanum? We must remember, also, that at this early time the sculptor's art was in its infancy while painting and the ceramic art had reached a considerable development. Even if all analogy did not lead the other way, an artist would shrink from trying to fill up a pediment with statues in the round. The most natural method was ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... Lacedaemonian force near Tegyra, a village dependent upon Orchomenus (B.C. 375). Pelopidas had with him only the Sacred Band and a small body of cavalry when he fell in with the Lacedaemonians, who were nearly twice as numerous. He did not, however, shrink from the conflict on this account; and when one of his men, running up to him, exclaimed, "We are fallen into the midst of the enemy," he replied, "Why so, more than they into the midst of us?" In the battle which ensued the two Spartan commanders fell at the ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... even what I dreaded more than anything else, a long illness which would make me a burden to the Community. Should it please the Good God, I am quite content to have my bodily and mental sufferings prolonged for years. I do not fear a long life; I do not shrink from the struggle. The Lord is the rock upon which I stand—"Who teacheth my hands to fight, and my fingers to war. He is my Protector and I have hoped in Him."[14] I have never asked God to let me die young, It is true I have always thought I should do so, but ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... increasingly large number of women have entered professions that prevent motherhood, and that the number of apartment-houses where children are not wanted are on the increase, all play their part. In this age of intense living, it is not to be wondered at that many shrink from the responsibility of rearing children, and the same conditions that contribute to this decadent ideal intensifies sex-hunger, and it is this dominating passion that tolerates and makes possible the most frightful crime ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... hate myself—I do everything, in short, yet cannot save myself! Yet do not," he continued, seeing me shrink, "think worse of me than I deserve: nothing of injustice, of ill-nature, of malignancy—I have nothing of these ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... me from going in, but it had no such effect. If I have candidly narrated the importunities, the indelicacies, of which my desire to possess myself of Jeffrey Aspern's papers had rendered me capable I need not shrink from confessing this last indiscretion. I think it was the worst thing I did; yet there were extenuating circumstances. I was deeply though doubtless not disinterestedly anxious for more news of the old lady, and Miss Tita had accepted from me, as it were, a rendezvous which ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... secrets. It is surely the forbidden tree of knowledge; I no sooner taste it, than I perceive myself naked, and stript of all things - yea even of my very self. I see myself, and the whole frame of nature, shrink into fleeting ideas, which, like Epicurus's atoms, dance ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... they could not hang me or kill me. Deeper humiliation than ever would be my portion when they drive me from East Lynne with abhorrence and ignominy, as a soldier is drummed out of his regiment; but I could bear that as I must bear the rest and I can shrink under the hedge and lay myself down to die. Humiliation for me? No; I will not put that in comparison with seeing and ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... although I knew that the advice and the example of M—-M—— would end in her ruin; I had insulted, in the most grievous manner, the delicacy of my mistress, and that before her very eyes, and after all this how could I ask a weak woman to do what a man, priding himself on his strength, would shrink from at tempting? I should have stood self-condemned, and have felt that it was my duty to remain the same to her, but flattering myself that I was overcoming mere prejudices, I was in fact that most degraded of slaves, he who uses his strength ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... people are able, by extraordinary industry, to earn their daily bread; but they can do little more. The weavers, as a class, appear to be feeble and faded specimens of humanity, remarkably quiet, intelligent, and well-disposed—a law-abiding people, who shrink from violence and outrage, no matter what may be their grievances. It is cruel to load them too heavily with the burdens of life, and yet I am afraid it is sometimes done, even in this county, unnecessarily and wantonly. What I have said of the Downshire and ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... and on the 15th he entered Moscow. This enormous city was deserted. General Rostopschine, its governor, had forced all the inhabitants to leave. This Rostopschine whom some have described as a hero, was a barbarian, who would shrink from nothing to achieve his aims. He had allowed the populace to strangle a number of foreign merchants, mainly the French, who were living in Moscow, on the sole grounds that they were suspected of hoping for the ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... pluck the amaranthine flower Of Faith, and round the Sufferer's temples bind Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower, And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind. ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... they said, is one of public concern, one in which every Englishman who is unwilling to be the slave of France and of Rome has a deep interest. In such a case it would be unworthy of the Estates of the Realm to shrink from the responsibility of providing for the common safety, to try to obtain for themselves the praise of tenderness and liberality, and to leave to the Sovereign the odious task of proscription. A law requiring all public functionaries, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay |
