"Shrink back" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one's own soul from the soul of the person sitting in the next chair. I am speaking of comparative strangers, people who are forced to stay a certain time by the eccentricities of trains, and in whose presence you grope about after common interests and shrink back into your shell on finding that you have none. Then a frost slowly settles down on me and I grow each minute more benumbed and speechless, and the babies feel the frost in the air and look vacant, and the callers go through ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... asks you but to love Him back again, and bring Him your hearts. These dark thoughts are like the frost which binds the ground in iron fetters, making all the little flowers that were beginning to push their heads into the light shrink back again. And love, when it comes, will come like the west wind and the sunshine of the Spring; and before its emancipating fingers the earth's fetters will be cast aside, and the white snowdrops and the yellow ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... almost painful shaft of delight. The voice swelled up on the night air, until, in spite of its divine sweetness, it became almost a cry of sorrow, and then ceased, leaving a thrill running through my frame that gradually seemed to shrink back to my heart, and expire there in a feeling of mingled joy and pain. Perhaps the state of my health rendered me peculiarly susceptible of strong emotions: I am afraid I wept. The darkness, however, prevented this weakness from being witnessed by Ali, who came to announce ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... prone to detect evil of which the authors, whose works they analyse, are quite unconscious. Innocence sometimes leads young writers to a freedom of expression from which experienced ones would shrink back in alarm; and the perusal of the old dramatists gives a knowledge of passions, and of sins, known only through their medium, but the skilful developement of which, subjects a female writer, and more particularly a youthful ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... subject of suspicion and distrust, and is not supposed to be possessed of those finer feelings that find men as friends. Thus, instead of identifying myself with the joys and sorrows of others, and exchanging the delicious gifts of confidential sympathy, I was compelled to shrink back and listen to the horrid words, You are a drunkard—words the very mention or thought of which has ten thousand times carried despair to my heart, and made me gasp and pant for breath. Thus it was at the very opening of life, and thus it ever has been, and thus it is to-day. I have struggled, ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... honeymoon is over. His companion joins him—the moon-faced fellow—and they come around to our box and ogle us. They talk in simpering, dudish tones, and bestow the most lackadaisical glances on different members of our party. The girls shrink back as if contamination itself had come among them. 'We are pretty hard,' says one of them, 'but ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... see you sad, My heart toward you overflows; But when again you're gay and glad, I shrink back into cold repose, I know not why I like you best, O'erclouded by a passing sorrow— Unless because it gives a zest To the ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... aloof, hold off; take no part in, have no hand in. avoid, shun; steer clear of, keep clear of; fight shy of; keep one's distance, keep at a respectful distance; keep out of the way, get out of the way; evade, elude, turn away from; set one's face against &c. (oppose) 708; deny oneself. shrink back; hang back, hold back, draw back; recoil &c. 277; retire &c. (recede) 287; flinch, blink, blench, shy, shirk, dodge, parry, make way for, give place to. beat a retreat; turn tail, turn one's back; take to one's heels; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... on th'adventure all the dangers lay, That Europe or the western world affords; Were it to combat Cerberus himself, Or scale the brazen walls of Pluto's court, When as there is so fair a prize propos'd; If I shrink back, or leave it unperform'd, Let the world canonise me for a coward: Appoint the time, and leave the rest ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... the dense shade of the trees. Oak, elm, spruce, even walnut, and other trees of a sturdy character indigenous to the temperate zone were identified. What appeared to be a clump of cypress trees, fantastic, misshapen objects that seemed to, shrink back in terror from the assaulting breakers, stood out in bold relief upon a rocky point to the south and west of the observation hill. Their gaunt, twisted trunks leaned backward from the sea; their shorn limbs, racked by gales, were raised as if in supplication ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... voices below. And his soul seemed to shrink back, as if into the recesses of the shell from which it had been peeping. His soul was tremendous, in solitude; but even the rumour of society intimidated it. His father and another were walking about the ground floor; the rough voice of his father echoed upwards in all its crudity. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... with a whizz and whistle, passing through my hat and sweeping it away all folded up. My soft hat fluttered far down the stream, before I had time to go after it, and with the help of both wind and water, was fifty yards gone in a moment. At this I had just enough mind left to shrink back very suddenly, and lurk very still and closely; for I knew what a narrow escape it had been, as I heard the bullet, hard set by the powder, sing mournfully down the chasm, like a drone banished out of ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... the prisoner, and Jenkinson, who had him in custody, he seemed to shrink back with terror. His face became pale with conscious guilt, and he would have withdrawn; but Jenkinson, who perceived his design, stopt him—'What, 'Squire,' cried he, 'are you ashamed of your two old acquaintances, Jenkinson and Baxter: but this is the way that all great men forget their friends, though ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... oppose the Pope's malignant clan, He'll do whatever Prince or Hero can; Retrieve that martial Fame by Britons lost, And prove that Faith which graceless Christians boast. O! make his Cause, ye Powers above! your Care; Let Guilt shrink back, and Innocence appear. But, now, with State Affairs I must have done, And to the Business of my Lamps must run; When Sun and Moon from you do hide their Head, Your busy Streets with artful Lights are spread, ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... visible, and all eyes were turned upon it, for now the effect of that pale light keeping it in view was indescribably weird. The eyes were suddenly turned in the direction of Rayel, and a devilish glare came in them for an instant, when the face suddenly seemed to shrink back into darkness. The ladies and some of their more gallant escorts rushed precipitately from the room. The servants hurried in with candles, but light was no sooner restored than the guests who still remained at table rose, as if by general consent, and left ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... groans, and dying strife, Fright our approaching souls away; Still we shrink back again to life, Fond of ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... girl Murmured aside! and then her sorrowing brow She lifted proudly, while a sudden fire Sprang to her lips and eyes—her trembling voice Steadied itself on her unfaltering love.— "Forgive me, BERTHO, that my woman's heart, Finding thee thus, should, for an instant, only, Shrink back from thee in awe and deep regret. My love, which has endured so much, grows strong In its endurance; and it only asks That I may never from thy side be driven. Talk not of islands in a sunny sea, Or fragrant blooms, or singing nightingales! I love them not. My father's marble floors Were colder ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... admirer whose transferred attentions were affording pleasure to another. The power of inflicting pain and disappointment on one whose superiority is envied, bestows on the object of former indifference, or even contempt, a new and powerful attraction. This is very wicked, very mean, you will say, and shrink back in horror from the supposition of any resemblance to such characters as those I have just described. Alas! your indignation may be honest, but it is without foundation. Already those earlier symptoms are constantly appearing, which, if not sternly checked, must in time grow into hopeless deformity ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... satchel from the buggy and, opening it, took out two deadly looking revolvers that made the children shrink back in alarm just ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... so unexpected and had come with such suddenness—it was rarely in these later days that the colonel was to be found here in the afternoon: he was either riding or receiving visitors—that Harry's first thought was to shrink back out of sight, or, if discovered, to make some excuse for his intrusion and retire. Then his mind changed and he stepped boldly in. This was what he had come for and this ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... hard? Does any soul, young in this life and in that to come, shrink back and say "I would rather keep in the springtime—I do not want to reach unto the things that are before if it must mean ...
— Parables of the Cross • I. Lilias Trotter
... all the infernal gods I dedicate this fateful day, and those that will follow. It is only the storm-beaten worthless wreck of a life; let it drift—on—on, down! Had I ten times more to lose, I would not shrink back now; I would offer all—all as ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... your own apartments, my sister and my sister's brats! If stay you must at Freudenthal, then stay, but leave me now,' the Graevenitz said; and though she was no longer the all-powerful Landhofmeisterin, still there was that about her which made the parasites shrink back. But they had done enough, had they not? in telling her thus roughly that the woman she had loathed and despised with all jealousy's venom during twenty years, had ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... senseless theories that militate against exertion and industry in Ireland, and occasion many to shrink back from the laudible race of honest enterprise, into filth, penury, and crime. It is this idle and envious crew, who, with a natural aversion to domestic industry, become adepts in politics, and active in those illegal combinations and outrages ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... eye of a severe and unremitting vigilance, shame and destruction must ensue. For one, the worst event of this day, though it may deject, shall not break or subdue me. The call upon us is authoritative. Let who will shrink back, I shall be found at my post. Baffled, discountenanced, subdued, discredited, as the cause of justice and humanity is, it will be only the dearer to me. Whoever, therefore, shall at any time bring before you anything ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... again some unknown power drove him to look through the keyhole. He would stand there a long time, covering his left eye with his hand as children do and peering with his right at the white wall of the corridor. But whenever a passer-by darkened his outlook, he would shrink back startled. If he had to go out to attend to his flowers, he opened the door slowly and silently and walked backward, fixing his eyes on Engelhardt's door, until he reached the steps. There he would turn quickly and hurry away, possessed by the fear that a hand ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... stand up side by side, and praise the light. But the Wither-bloom that haunts the flowers as the Yellow-eyed Whizz does the birds, soon finds them out; their song is ended, their white plumes are scattered, and they shrink back into their grave, to be side ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... purpose of this inquiry it is inevitable that some brief account should be rendered of the past relations between England and Ireland. The reader need not shrink back in alarm; it is not proposed to lead him by the reluctant nose through the whole maze and morass of Irish history. The past is of value to political realists only in that residue of it which survives, namely, ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... this charnel-house into the pure air once more. Do not shrink back—trust yourself with me this once at least." The brick walls of the factory rose a hundred yards off, in full view of the Row, and leading her along the river bank he placed her on one of the massive stone ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... to shrink back into her veil. "Yes," she said, at length, "I will." Then, fearing she had been ungracious, ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... very difficult to alter the mourning customs of our time. We may anxiously desire to do so, but the usual question will occur—"What will people say?" "What will the world say?" We involuntarily shrink back, and play the coward like our neighbours. Still, common sense, repeatedly expressed, will have its influence; and, in course of time, it cannot fail to modify the fashions of society The last act of Queen Adelaide, by which she dispensed with ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... torch from the attendant maidens, both of whom seemed to shrink back with fear, which was readily caught by Dame Gillian, although she was not probably aware of the cause. But Rose Flammock, unbidden, followed her mistress without hesitation, as Berwine conducted her through a small ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... and a rise in life before him, would willingly marry Laura if he might. I am not at all sure that, if it came to the point, she would willingly marry him at such short notice, and leave every friend she has in the world. I think she would shrink back, for she can know nothing worth mentioning of him. As to the boy, how do you know that a tour may not be a very fine thing for him? It must be better than moping at Melcombe under petticoat government; and even if Joe married Laura to-morrow, we could not prevent Mrs. ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... with songs of eve, For olden days I evermore must grieve, My own sad song forever must be still, Of empty fame my life has had its fill. Oh! heart be still, keep back your hungry cry, Our griefs we all can conquer if we try; Oh! soul shrink back into thy smallest space, For thee the heedless world will give no place. Oh! what is life when only shadows fall! Oh! what is love, when love is past recall! My laurel wreath unto the winds I fling, For worldly praise I never more ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... caused those near him to shrink back, and during the rest of the voyage he had peace from the clatter of tongues, ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... possession of a number of friends whom she would not have chosen herself, and of whose doings and belongings she was in complete ignorance. However, if she gave offence she was unconscious of it, and it came very naturally to her to shrink back into the shadow of her household gods. Ian and the baby were almost sufficient in themselves to fill her life. There was just room on the outskirts of it for a few relations and old friends, and Aunt Beatrice still held her honored place. But it was through Aunt Beatrice that ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... the wretched thousands already mentioned, but the many more thousands of dear relatives mourning their loss;—not by death, for that were tolerable—but by an everlasting destruction from the presence of all purity or excellence. Would he not shrink back from the door which he was about to enter, ashamed and aghast, and resolve in the strength of his Creator, never more to indulge a thought of a crime so disastrous ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... again to-morrow evening about sunset, and if I meet you in my snake-form, and wind myself round your body like a girdle, and kiss you three times, do not start or shrink back, or I shall again be overwhelmed by the waters of enchantment, and who knows for how ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... this I do not see why we should shrink back so bashfully from the idea of a representation of the people. We cannot fight as revolutionary an institution which we Conservatives cannot do without even in Prussia, and is recognised as legitimate in every ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... of the powerful claw and one side of the lad's clothes was literally stripped from him, though he had managed to shrink back just far enough to save himself from the needle ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... few inches he had missed his hurried aim for the moccasin. He had intended the handful of fire to land on the floor just in front of it, thus causing it to shrink back. Instead the burning particles had fallen stingingly ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... cleansed by [Pg 271] Him. But no one will desire to be cleansed by Him, who does not put his whole trust in Him, who does not recognize Him as his King and Lord. To the contempt and horror with which the Jews shrink back from the Messiah in His humiliation, would thus be opposed the faithful, humble confidence, with which the heathens draw near to the glorified Messiah. But the fact that the real contrast to the [Hebrew: wmmv] is not [Hebrew: izh], ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... noble woman," I burst forth. "How could I feel otherwise? Look up, little girl; I want to see your face. No, don't shrink back from me. There is no cause. I know the whole story without your speaking a word. You asked me to come back to help you, and ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... smiled. Give me, I cried, (enough for me) My bread, and independency! 70 So bought an annual rent or two, And lived—just as you see I do; Near fifty, and without a wife, I trust that sinking fund, my life. Can I retrench? Yes, mighty well, Shrink back to my paternal cell, A little house, with trees a-row, And, like its master, very low. There died my father, no man's debtor, And there I'll die, nor ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... sins enumerated in his first epistle to Timothy, he mentions "menstealers," which word may be translated "slavedealers." But you may say, we all despise slavedealers as much as any one can; they are never admitted into genteel or respectable society. And why not? Is it not because even you shrink back from the idea of associating with those who make their fortunes by trading in the bodies and souls of men, women, and children? whose daily work it is to break human hearts, by tearing wives from their husbands, and ...
— An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South • Angelina Emily Grimke
... trapper, when Laurence brought him the intelligence of what had happened. "Whether Injuns or wolves wrong him, Michael Moggs is not the man to let them go unpunished;" and his eyes lighted up with a fierce expression which made the young boy instinctively shrink back from him. "We have three strong traps which will catch the biggest wolf on the prairies; and if they fail, I'll lie in wait till I can shoot the savage brutes down with my rifle. We shall have to tramp it on foot, boy, with the furs on our ...
— The Trapper's Son • W.H.G. Kingston
... little as possible of the fate of these criminals. The public punishment of an assassin who failed to strike me, only instigates ten others to try if they cannot hit me better. But the noiseless disappearance of a culprit fills their cowardly souls with horror and dismay, and the ten men shrink back from the intended deed, merely because they do not know in what manner their eleventh accomplice has expiated his crime. The disappearance of prisoners, the oubliettes, are just what is needed. You must quietly remove your enemies and adversaries—it must seem as if some ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... injured, but rather, being recruited by such a process, may acquire strength; so now I, since this argument seems generally too severe and forbidding to those by whom it has not been handled, and since the multitude shrink back from it, was desirous to set forth my chain of reasoning to thee, O Memmius, in sweetly-speaking Pierian verse, and, as it were, tinge it with the ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... wretched brethren would meet death with glory—yea, more, would plunge into the very mouths of cannons and be torn into particles as minute as the atoms which compose the elements of the earth, in preference to a mean submission to the lash of tyrants, I am with streaming eyes, compelled to shrink back into nothingness before my Maker, and exclaim again, thy will be done, O Lord ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... mingled with ejaculations of childish delight, as Christina threw down her gifts of gold and silver on the table, and told in tones of girlish ecstasy of her great triumph, calling ever and anon upon her mother to vouch for the truth of her wonderful story. And then I had but time to shrink back into a corner, when a stout, broad-shouldered man, dressed like a workingman, rushed headlong down the stairs, with a large basket in his hand, to the nearest eating-house; and he soon returned bearing ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... to thine own peril. I am no bitter and morose ascetic. Beneath these robes still beats a human heart that can sympathise with human sorrows. Confide in me without fear. Dost thou not dread the fate they would force upon thee? Dost thou not shrink back? ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... personality that others might shine who had a better right. And she lost some of her own bright color, a measure of her own buoyancy. In the sixth week she saw, in her mirror, something that caused her to lean forward, to stare for one intent moment, then to shrink back, wide-eyed. A little sunburst, hair-fine but undeniable, was etched delicately about the corners of her eyes. Fifteen minutes later, she had wired New ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... that your heart will choose the right, and not shrink back from dangers," said Pueckler, kindly. "But, in the first place, tell us which way you are now going to take, that we may know whether we shall be allowed to accompany you ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... upstairs made her shrink back into her room, She had felt the horrible fascination of that sheer depth, and thought of it for days, thought of it until she dreaded to quit the tenement, lest a power distinct from will should seize and hurl ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... often in our worldly business or in our spiritual career, we start off on a very dark path. We must go. The flesh may shrink back, but there is a voice within, or a voice from above, saying, "You must go;" and we have to drink the gall, and we have to carry the cross, and we have to traverse the desert and we are pounded and flailed of misrepresentation and abuse, and we have to urge our way through ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... long as may be; and even when the paper is spread out and the pen all right, and the ink within easy reach, how they keep back from the final plunge! And after they have begun to write, how they dally with their subject; shrink back as long as possible from grappling with its difficulties; twist about and about, talking of many irrelevant matters, before they can summon up resolution to go at the real point they have got to write ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... hard black and white. The figures of Fauns and Satyrs and AEgipans danced before his eyes, the darkness of the thicket, the dance on the mountain-top, the scenes by lonely shores, in green vineyards, by rocks and desert places, passed before him: a world before which the human soul seemed to shrink back and shudder. Villiers whirled over the remaining pages; he had seen enough, but the picture on the last leaf caught his eye, as he ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... ought to have at least ten-dollar bids from now on," suggested Mr. Wood. "Won't you make it a hundred and ten?" The auctioneer looked directly at the man, who seemed to shrink back into the crowd. He shook his head, cast a sort of despairing look at the boat and ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... difficulties of the Church—her internal dissensions and apparent weakness, the alienation of so much intellect, the strong prejudice which keeps many away from her altogether, and makes many who had approached her shrink back,—all draw nourishment from this rank soil. The antagonism of hostile doctrines and the enmity of governments count for little in comparison. It is in vain to point to her apostolic tradition, the unbroken unity of her doctrine, her missionary energy, or her triumphs in the ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... and then of a sudden seemed to shrink back, and her face went whiter. "You—you have a ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... his being away," thought Roy; and he was about to shrink back to avoid being seen, but his pride forbade that, and he leaned out and amused himself by parting the thick growth of old ivy, and thinking how easily he could get down into ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... which the president had stated the motion was not satisfactory to most of the members, who preserved a silence of indecision, with the single exception of Ruth, who uttered an enthusiastic affirmative vote, as a matter of course, only to shrink back perplexedly when she found angry eyes focused on her from every side. But Cicily nonchalantly announced the motion as having been carried, without troubling to call for ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... shrink back from their unnatural and fearful breath, and we say: "Oh, this cannot be from the hand of a loving Father! This cannot be necessary ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... sacrificing the fair fame of individuals, or attempting to make vice respectable. Pleasure is our pursuit, but we are accompanied up the flowery ascent by Contemplation and Reflection, two monitors that shrink back, like sensitive plants, as the thorns press upon them through the ambrosial beds of new-blown roses. In our record of the daughters of Pleasure, we shall only notice those who are distinguished as belles of ton—stars of the first magnitude in the hemisphere of Fashion; and of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... shown in securing himself against detection, even by yourself, to whom he now reveals the secret, only in order that he may be able to deny it at any time; and suppose he were then to affirm, in all seriousness, that he has fulfilled a true human duty; you would either laugh in his face, or shrink back from him with disgust; and yet, if a man has regulated his principles of action solely with a view to his own advantage, you would have nothing whatever to object against this mode of proceeding. Or suppose some one recommends ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... Some of us shrink back from making a full surrender of life to God. And if the real reason were known it would be found to be that we are afraid of God. We fear He will put something bitter in the cup, or some rough thing in the road. And without doubt the reason we are afraid ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... to our own, our nature is so material, and our very essence so engrossed and identified with earth, that it is only when the startling realities of their existence become manifest in those visible emblems of their nature—darkness and death—that we shrink back in horror, lest our very being should suffer contact ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the shell of a tortoise, with dry corn within, and he came up rattling this, and dancing with all his might, and with such gesticulations that, though assured that he intended no injury, it was impossible not to shrink back as this savage creature ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to note that the Greek word for rite, dromenon, "thing done," is not strictly adequate. It omits a factor of prime importance; it includes too much and not enough. All "things done" are not rites. You may shrink back from a blow; that is the expression of an emotion, that is a reaction to a stimulus, but that is not a rite. You may digest your dinner; that is a thing done, and a thing of high importance, but ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... praise the graces, the virtues, and a champion utter appropriate speeches, whilst Superstition, a friar, and Ignorance, a priest, together with other malcontents, shrink back abashed ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... still a subject of speculation, doubt, and difficulty. It is only by a vast induction of facts, as in natural philosophy, that we can ever hope to arrive at the knowledge of a general law. The crown of all creation is man; therefore while we investigate so acutely all other creatures, let us not shrink back from the strange and unknown depths of our own nature which magnetism ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Arab horse will not shrink back, Though death confront him in his track, The Arab horse will not shrink back, And shall his rider's arm be slack? No!—By the God who gave us life, Our souls are ready for the strife. We need no serried lines, to show A gallant bearing to the foe. We need no trumpet to awake ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... thrown down the ladder seize the Greek to hurl him after it! A thought of Zarah flashes across the reeling brain of the young man, is it not his last?—no, a broad shield is suddenly thrust between Lycidas and his assailants, they shrink back from the sweep of a terrible sword; up the other ladder the strong and brave have pressed with irresistible force; Judas Maccabeus himself has planted his foot on the bulwarks, has driven back step by ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... while" before the High Priest will reappear. And the "faith" which takes Him at His word will, as the prophet witnesses (Hab. ii. 4), bridge that little while with a "life" which cannot die. To "shrink back," as the same seer in the same breath warns us, is to lose the smile of God in a final ruin. But that, for us, cannot be; we, in His mercy, relying upon the faithful Promiser, attain "the saving ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... strong enough to ignore its present surroundings and rise above all the obstacles connected with its material heredity. It depends upon the unfoldment of the spirit whether it shall espouse the cause of progress and truth, or yield to the pressure of its environment and shrink back into a lower grade, and lose the opportunity for ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... open room was speedily relieved by a burst of electric light, that flooded the whole apartment and brought out the captain's swaggering form and threatening features with startling distinctness. He had thrown off his hat and was relieving himself of a cloak in a furious way that caused Sweetwater to shrink back, and, as the French say, efface himself as much as possible behind a clothes-tree standing near the door. That the captain had entirely forgotten him was evident, and for the present moment that gentleman was too angry to care or even ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... of what a load he drags about with him in his ordinary ego. And should the student's preparation not have rendered him strong enough to be able to say: "I will not remain at this point, but will persistently work my way upward toward the higher ego," he will grow weak and will shrink back dismayed before the labor that lies before him. He has plunged into the psycho-spiritual world, but gives up working his way farther, and becomes a captive to that image which, as Guardian of the Threshold, now confronts ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... his hands against her elbows and kissed her, rather clumsily, owing to the gloom, between her nose and her mouth. She did not shrink back, but accepted the embrace quite insensibly. The contact of his moustache and of his lips, and his slight, pleasant masculine odour, produced no effect on ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... seduced; And yet e 'en now these folk flee from thy face, And horror follows wheresoe'er thou goest. The people shudder at the Colchian witch With fearful whispers of her magic dark. Where thou dost show thyself, there all shrink back And curse thee. May the same curse smite them all!— As for thy lord, the Colchian princess' spouse, Him, too, they hate, for his sake, and for thine. Did not his uncle drive him from his palace? Was he not banished from ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... a title. Then she would paste the pictures in. And here, when Mary Anna first began to make such books, an unexpected difficulty arose. For, when paper is wet, it swells; and then, when it dries again, though it shrinks a little, and does not shrink back quite into its original dimensions,—that is, quite to the length and breadth that it had at first. Now, when Mary Anna pasted her pictures in the pages of the book, that part of the leaf which was under ...
— Caleb in the Country • Jacob Abbott
... conclusion that "the hub of the Universe" was not up to specification. The famous Strand amazed him by its narrowness and its shortness. The buildings were dirtier than any buildings he had ever seen before, and the people cold, self-contained, units who seemed visibly to shrink back into their shells at his every attempt ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... this design. Brynhild had vowed to wed that man only who should ride over the blazing fire that was laid around her hall. They found the hall and the fire burning around it. Gunnar rode Goti, and Hogni Holknir. Gunnar turns his horse towards the fire, but it shrinks back. Sigurd said: "Why dost thou shrink back, Gunnar?" Gunnar answers: "My horse will not leap this fire," and prays Sigurd to lend him Grani. "He is at thy service," said Sigurd. Gunnar now rides again towards the fire, but Grani will not go over. They then changed forms. Sigurd rides, having in his hand the sword Gram, and ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... radiant with freshness, radiant with vigour, radiant with sunshine. I shall therefore go away without regret. I see the childishness of all the experiments to which I am subjecting the girl so as to know her a little better. My interest throws such a light upon her that she cannot, do what she will, shrink back ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... unmoved—he hanged the murderer Palatoff with his own hands. Yet in that operation someone saw him turn very pale and shrink back from his victim. Afterwards the reason was discovered. The condemned man had had the front of his rough shirt fastened with a safety-pin which had worked loose. The point had ripped a little gash in the inexperienced finger ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... in peace, and have sunk into forgetfulness without a pang.—The noble scenery in this country mixes with my passion, and refines, but does not relieve it. I was at Stirling Castle not long ago. It gave me no pleasure. The declivity seemed to me abrupt, not sublime; for in truth I did not shrink back from it with terror. The weather-beaten towers were stiff and formal: the air was damp and chill: the river winded its dull, slimy way like a snake along the marshy grounds: and the dim misty tops of Ben Leddi, and the lovely Highlands (woven fantastically of thin air) mocked ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... poor oppressors of the oppressed! The attitude of these men is really pitiable; they profess (perhaps some of them strive to do so indeed) to consult the best interests of their slaves, and yet shrink back terrified from the approach of the slightest intellectual or moral improvement which might modify their degraded and miserable existence. I do pity these deplorable servants of two masters more than any human beings I have ever seen—more ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... gone to bed; and, as Harry opened the door, the hall gaped black like the mouth of night. For a second or two the boy hesitated upon the threshold, and seemed almost to shrink back into the lighted room as though in that dark void peril awaited him. And peril ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... long summer nights. A soft golden glow flushes upward from the horizon, and, lying outspread over the firmament, gives a spectral effect to the gentler and more delicate sheen of the moon; the stars seem to shrink back into the dim infinity, as if unable to contend with the grosser effulgence of the great orbs that rule the day and the night. Unconscious whether the day is waning into the night, or the night into the morning, the rapt spectator gazes and dreams till lost in the ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... (for his R. H. was in a mighty fidget to shrink back into his beloved obscurity), the crowd dispersed, and I went, with a few others, to dine ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... accomplished and highly educated young female will not fail of its influence upon others of the same class, who wish to be Christians, and yet are so much afraid of every thing that may seem to border on religious cant, as to shrink back from the prayer-meeting, and from active personal efforts for the salvation of others. Her cheerful piety shall persuade us that "it is indeed the simplest, the easiest, the most blessed thing in the world, to give up the heart to the control of God, and by ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... another thing in my suitcase," spoke the smallest girl of all, who seemed to shrink back rather timidly into her corner, as though she feared she might be put into ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... that all this is the fruit of personal sin and folly on the part of those who have yielded to temptation. It is the fruit of personal sin and folly. And we, perhaps, in our serene respectabilities, shrink back and wonder at it. It is strange—is it not?—that the young, the fair, the gifted, should yield themselves to that arch-deceit which has allured and ruined men for six thousand years? Is it not the same old guilt, the same sophistry and foolishness, here in New York, that it always ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... that if she was willing, she would, I was sure, see still more than she now did; and I drew a contrast between what she once approved and now believed right. 'Yes,' she said, 'I see very differently; for when I look back and remember what I used to do, and think nothing of it, I shrink back with horror. Much more passed, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... bedside, twenty times wished and not once dared to throw himself at their feet and implore them to show mercy? They are filled with so great a certainty and the duty which they obey leaves so little room for the least doubt that pity and reason, blinded by tears, curb their revolt and shrink back before a law which all recognize and revere as the highest ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... [All shrink back horrified. REZON retires into the temple; the crowd melts away, wailing; TSARPI is among the first to go, followed by her attendants, except RUAHMAH, who crouches, with her face covered, not far ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... a moment to view this sea of vice and wretchedness she finds herself surrounded with. Turning quickly round she sees before her a man, or what there is left of a man. His tattered garments, his lean, shrunken figure, his glassy eyes, and pale, haggard face, cause her to shrink back in fright. He bows, touches his shattered hat, and says, "Be not afraid, good Madam. May I ask if you have not mistaken your way?" Mrs. Swiggs looks querulously through her spectacles and says, "Do tell me where I am?" "In the Points, good Madam. You seem confused, and I don't wonder. It's a dreadful ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... dark, with the two people sitting there. Then there came a blinding flash of lightning. Eleanor started and cowered, and the thunder rolled its deep tones over them, and under them, for the earth shook. She raised her head again, but only to shrink back the second time, when the lightning and the thunder were repeated. This time her head was not raised again, and she kept her hand covered over her eyes. Yet whenever the sound of the thunder came, Eleanor's frame answered it by a start. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... eyes met Mrs. Ansell's it flashed across her that the latter did not believe what she said, and the perception made her instantly shrink back into herself. But there was nothing in Mrs. Ansell's tone to confirm the doubt ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... in its throat, but the noise of an angered wild beast rolls up out of its very entrails—a passion of hate and defiance. And when she heard that sound, or when she saw the still more terrible silent rage of the beast, Kate Cumberland's spirit failed, and she would shrink back again to a ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... passed round to the side of the pedestal upon which the throne stood. Here they crowded close behind the youth, putting him in the foremost place, and one of them opened a door in the pedestal, for the youth to enter. I was sure I saw him shrink back, and those crowding behind pushed him in. Then, again, arose a burst of song from the multitude in white, which lasted some time. When it ceased, a new company of seven commenced its march up the centre. As they advanced, I looked up at my master: his noble countenance was full of reverence ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... was to be a great deal more than that to it. There was to be an adventure in it for him such as he had never before experienced, an adventure which was destined to take him thousands of miles from the secret tower room and which was to throw him into such dangers as would cause the bravest to shrink back in terror. ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... She did not shrink back, although that strange, unknown, grey face was very close to her. "Yes. At first he wouldn't. He refused anything. But I would.... I wanted to be. I hate you. ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... hard towards us because they are so little.... And because our feet are heavy on the things that make their lives. But at any rate they hate us now; they will have none of us—only if we could shrink back to the common size of them ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... on your job?" he inquired threateningly, as the child saw him and made some futile attempt to shrink back out ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... at intervals through the winter. They are wise little things, and swell and then shrink back in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... would always be the prettiest spot in the world, but that it was so full of associations with former days, and especially with her father and mother, that if it were all to come over again, she should shrink back from such another visit as that which she had ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... maroon who poured again with steady hand, "you are the only soul on this island who doesn't fear me. That woman above yonder, curse her, shuddered away from me as I looked at her dying. But your hand is steady. You and old Ben Hornigold are the only ones who don't shrink back, hey, Carib? Is it love or hate?" he mused, as the man made no answer. "More," he cried, again lifting the glass which he ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... his, and he whirled to his right to see one of the temple-guards in the shadows; he had been unable to successfully shield his thoughts. Tebron dropped to the ground and sent a quick, cool order to his own guards: "Kill him." The heavy, dark warriors stepped forward as the guard tried to shrink back further into the ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... Nor must he quarrel with the tribe that do: It is not safe another's crimes to know, Nor is it wise our proper worth to show: - 'My lord,' you say, 'engaged me for that worth;' - True, and preserve it ready to come forth: If questioned, fairly answer,—and that done, Shrink back, be silent, and thy father's son; For they who doubt thy talents scorn thy boast, But they who grant them will dislike thee most: Observe the prudent; they in silence sit, Display no learning, and affect no wit; They ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... followed by several of the men. He springs from terrace to terrace, up to the third. He presses forward to the spot where stand the two captive girls. His looks are wild, and his manner that of one frantic. They shrink back at his approach, mistaking his intentions. They scream ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... strange fellow, almost Shrink back from his rough virtue. That one man Should ever make another man feel awkward! And yet—He's coming—ha!—by God, the youth Looks like a man. I love his daring eye, His open gait. May be the shell is bitter; But not the kernel ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... nothing for the mouth and lips. The advantage gained by the artificial red is a thousand times more than lost by the sure destruction of that delicate charm associated with the idea of "nature's dewy lip." There can be no dew on a painted lip. And there is no man who does not shrink back with disgust from the idea of kissing a pair of painted lips. Nor let any woman deceive herself with the idea that the men do not instantly detect paint ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... moment has come. You are to make the last sacrifice of the soul. Do not shrink back, fear nothing. ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to shrink back again; then he walks to and fro; finally he remains standing in the background, near one of the ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... who had gathered there. "Una grande e pura Italia ... sensa onta." And it would be a lasting shame for Italy to keep out of the struggle that the allied nations were making, to take her "compensations" prudently and shrink back within a cowardly neutrality. ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... creatures which revolve and live and disappear with thee. But if this All, with its smallest and its greatest, with its wisdom and its power, with the wonders of its existence, and the existence of its wonders, is the work of a Being in whose presence thy soul does not shrink back, before whom thou fallest prostrate in a feeling of weakness and nothingness, and to whom thou risest again in the feeling of His love and mercy—if thou really feelest that something dwells in thee more endless and eternal than the cells of the flowers, ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... friends go?" continued the spokesman with a leer that caused the two boys to shrink back a ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... say the man was expensively dressed in a flashy way. His oily, pimple-garnished face wreathed itself in a smirk of patronising familiarity, and with the bow of a dancing master he advanced. I saw her give a quick start, bite her lip and shrink back. "Good for you, little girl," I thought. But the man was in no way ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... to avoid growing old is not to be afraid of getting along in years. To come down to "hard pan"—whence originates this unwholesome dread of ripeness and maturity? It surely is not a fear of death that makes us blanch and shrink back at the oft-recurring mile-stones in the journey of life that brings all of us nearer the goal towards which ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... Ferris and sought to lick the sufferer's face. As he did so his supersensitive nostrils were smitten by an odor which caused the collie to shrink back in visible disgust. The sickly, pungent smell of whisky on Ferris's labored breath nauseated Chum. He stood, head recoiled, looking down at Link ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... bent forward there gazing at that horrible head Saxe did not know, but by degrees he began to shrink back slowly, getting farther and farther away, till he dared to turn and run with all his might to the tent door, and creep in, fully expecting that the monster was about to spring upon him till he was inside, when he fastened the canvas door with trembling fingers, and crept ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... He was rather a good-looking man, he thought, with his closely-cropped gray hair and black moustache; but his scrutiny proceeded no further, for just then he caught sight of a familiar face and figure on the platform that made him shrink back into his corner, and wish that he, too, had a newspaper, behind ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... awful words that he makes to all your other conventional questions. But the older he grows in his ministry, and the more he comes to discover the incurable plague of his own heart, and with that the whole meaning and full weight of your overwhelming words, the more will he shrink back from having such questions addressed to him. Fools will rush in where Moses and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Peter and Paul feared to set their foot. Paul was to be satisfied if only he was let do the work of a minister all his days and then was not at the end made a castaway. And ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte |
